More on the cartoon furor

Like many others in the Western world, I have been following the Cartoon Riots of 2006 with a combination of puzzlement and horror, and trying in vain to figure out what makes those people tick. Perhaps I will never understand it, but here and there I do manage to pick up bits and pieces of insight, some on my own, and some through the prism of another person's mind.

Yesterday morning I sent an e-mail to my young Iranian friend. I don't remember now what the subject was, but the message was typical of the sort of correspondence that has passed back and forth between us for several months now, during which she has earned my respect and affection. She is kind, decent, thoughtful, highly intelligent, well-read, and sensitive. She is obviously deeply religious, but without appearing fanatical in any way. And of course, she is a Muslim, and from what I see, I believe she represents her faith as well as I hope I do mine. I would like to think that she, rather than the mullahs and crazies such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, typifies what Iran and its people are all about. If she does, there is abundant reason for long-term optimism where the future of that country is concerned. She is the latest of a number of Muslims I have met or known over the years, all of whom have left me with favorable impressions, whether because of their dignity, or intelligence, or spiritual sensitivity, or some combination of all of these things. How, then, does one explain the contrast between the nobler side of Islam, as typified by my Iranian friend and others like her, and the ringleaders and participants in the cartoon riots, who torch buildings, take hostages, and advocate beheadings and worse, all in the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful?

I was thinking about that as I sent off my e-mail, and less than 10 minutes later, I received some sudden insight as I read this piece in Jewish World Review. It occurred to me then that of the Muslims who over the years had left me with such favorable impressions of their faith, every single one had been female. I know there are exceptions to this, of course, including the recently-elected member of the Palestinian parliament, who, having already given the world one suicide bomber, publicly announced that she wanted her 17-year-old son to sacrifice himself in yet another suicide bombing and take a few innocent Israelis with him. But still, there appear to be far more angry young men in the Islamic world than angry young women.

There are some things I am simply never going to understand, and this will be one of them. But while I ponder this mystery, there is not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could give just one thing to my Iranian friend:

Freedom.

UPDATE: Thanks, Garry, for the thoughts and the link. Angry young men. Money quote from Terrell's article:

one thing is eminently clear. The peoples in such a rage over Danish cartoonists are a deeply troubled people. They are incapable of reason or even of governing themselves. They are the enemy of civilization, whether it be Western civilization or some civilized order that might emerge in the Middle East. I hope the Europeans who have been so critical of our military action in Iraq and Afghanistan take note. The Islamofascists are as great a danger as was Hitler, who left Europe in the kind of desolate chaos that the Islamofascists adumbrate.

Barney