That is the best proof IMHO of the fact that, in the greatest scheme of history, this is not "our" problem but an internecine Muslim fracture between enlightenment/reformation forces (which probably think the whole thing is beneath notice in the case of the cartoons and praiseworthy in the case of Rushdie) and obscurantist/stagnation forces who desire a progress-less, static world.
The flashpoint is the casrtoons today, but it could have been anything, in arts of science. A Mahometan shroud of turin-like discovery, dead scrolls things, anything really.
My point has less to do with freedom of expression, liberalism, etc. than it has to do with evolution vs stagnation. One might argue that the West has gotten itself willingly dragged into an unstated Islamic Civil War for the last decade or so.
I think many in the West, especially since 9/11, have tried to reassure ourselves that there really is a silent majority that wants "modernity," "liberalism," etc. in the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East. Indeed, I think in some ways this is the assumption many who favored the Iraq War believed. I'm not at all sure this is the case, and the nature of this conflict right now demonstrates that we are two civilizations speaking from different assumptions. Certainly, there are liberals/"modernists" in the Islamic world, but if recent election results are any indication, they are a distinct minority. I mean: who are the big shots in Iraq right now: the Iraqi Muslim brotherhood, Ayatollah Sistani, Muqtada Al-Sadr. Islamists consitute a super majority in the Iraqi parliament. Same thing in Palestine. Same thing in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood would have won a strong majority if a fully free and legitimate election were held.
Really, if you allow me to use a perhaps stretched analogy, what you have in the Middle East vis-a-vis the West is a situation a bit like you had amongst whites in the Jim Crow South during, say the first half of the 20th century, vis-a-vis blacks. There is/was, in both cases, a group of citizens who are "liberals" but they are weak and marginalized minority. What you have is really have in both situations are groups that disagree on tactics, but not on basic ideology.
