Yesterday, Tarek Zohdy and Hua Wen wrote that Muslims have every right to be offended in response to the Danish cartoons (“Cartoon editorial was irresponsible, prejudiced” and “Muslim outrage appropriate,” Feb. 8, p.4). First of all, let me say that I respect the religion of Islam and its followers. However, I don’t think a rational person can find anything acceptable about the violence that many Muslims in the Middle East have responded with.

Mr. Zohdy, of course these cartoons were meant to upset some people. Isn’t that the point of a political cartoon? Last time I checked, though, burning flags and torching embassies after reading such a cartoon were not considered appropriate. The point of a political cartoon is to harmlessly satirize and make a point. Zohdy equates these political cartoons to “a firebombing of the Vatican to Catholics or a nuke hitting Washington D.C. to us Americans.” Wrong. The only thing that a political cartoon can be equated to is another political cartoon — not the destruction of buildings containing thousands of people. That is ludicrous.

Mr. Wen says that depicting the prophet Muhammad is blasphemy. Maybe for Muslims, but for people who do not worship the religion, Muhammad is not recognized as a holy prophet. According to Zohdy, “Anti-Israel sentiment in the Middle East is not colored with derogatory cartoons of the prophets Moses or David.” I’m not sure if that is true, but what I am certain of is that the president of Iran openly denies the existence of a Holocaust. Furthermore, both World Trade Center attacks, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the London subway incidents this past summer and many more instances all target Western institutions, ideologies and religions. Don’t get me wrong — I am not attempting to correlate certain governments with terrorist organizations. But the anti-Western/Christian/Israeli sentiment is far from harmless.

Let’s be serious, folks. These cartoons were meant to make a statement about the Islamic fundamentalists whose goal is to terrorize Westerners, not the Muslim world in general. A picture of Muhammad with a bomb as his turban is obviously a satire of fanatics who commit heinous acts in the name of God. Targeting embassies and inciting violence in reaction to these political cartoons is simply reinforcing this barbaric image. Retaliation to this degree is in no way appropriate.

Chris Aiola COM/CAS ’07