No concept of freedom!

The inflamed feelings of Muslims, and the tension that has arisen between the Islamic world and Europe over the publication of the cartoons depicting their prophet, the Prophet Muhammad, show clearly that these two worlds have irreconcilable differences.

One of these differences is the Europeans' reverence of freedom of expression and the Muslims' inability even to comprehend or accept what that freedom means!

Saudi Arabia, for example, has recalled its ambassadors from Denmark, because the Prime Minister of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has not put the stops on the publication of the cartoons, and furthermore, the King of Saudi Arabia expects that the people responsible for the publication of these caricatures be punished accordingly. What the king fails to understand is that the Prime Minister of Denmark, even should he wish to to punish these people, does not have the authority to carry it out. Denmark has a free press - an alien concept in itself in an Arab country!

Things work differently in Saudi Arabia, and also in other Islamic nations. These countries are authoritarian. The king, or political leader, can act on a whim. And whimsically they often act, too! "Off with his head!", is a familiar call in those countries. And 'off' the heads come!

Muslims will never understand the ways of democracy, or the subtleties of freedom, regardless of the dreams of President Bush! They have no basis upon which to understand these fundamental democratic concepts. Tyrants, they were! Tyrants, they are! And tyrants, they'll be!

And this brings me to another point: If any clear-thinking person should be in any doubt, after this débâcle of the publication of the cartoons, of the unsuitability of Islamic Turkey to be allowed entry into Europe, allowed accession to the democratic and secular EU, then he should have absolutely no doubt any longer! The marriage of Turkey with the EU will be a marriage that ends in disaster!

©Mark Alexander