Some Danish newspaper decides to let its cartoonists draw a few editorial cartoons about Mohammed as part of a special section, and suddenly the entire Muslim world is in an uproar. And it’s not because most of them aren’t funny (and weren’t meant to be) or even that they were (yet some don’t make any sense). It’s that it’s about Mohammed.
To Muslims, Mohammed is holy, and treating him any way other than reverently is blasphemy. And if your government is run by Muslims, blasphemy typically gets you the death penalty. We Americans really can’t relate all that well; we live in a country with a separation of church and state, so we can’t execute people for blasphemy.
I don’t know that I’d even say the editorial cartoons were blasphemous (except maybe that one with the bomb in the turban); they’re nothing compared to the editorial cartoons I’ve seen about Jesus. But in the U.S. we're free to do that sort of thing. Heck, Jesus is even a regular on South Park.
Trouble is, since in the U.S. it’s not a life-and-death matter (it’s more of an afterlife matter) most of us don’t really know what blasphemy is anymore. That’s why Christian stores actually sell Christian fish decals that are depicted having shark fins, or even eating Darwin fish. (And if you’re not sure why that’s blasphemous, stop and think about it for a minute.)
Most of the uproar is supposedly about blasphemy, but I think most of the problem is this: You’ve got a country where the people aren’t allowed freedom of speech, and the one time they’re allowed to say something publicly is in opposition to some non-religious westerners who don’t really understand what blasphemy is. This is the one time they’re allowed any freedom, so naturally they’re gonna go overboard with it… and burn some things, kill some people, and riot. That’s how oppressed people behave.
Compare this reaction to American Muslims, who may be likewise offended, but they’re behaving themselves.
Deep down, the oppressed Muslims would really rather burn and kill the despots who rule their lives. But they gotta take what they can when they can get it, and misdirect some anger before it eats them alive.
As someone who lives in a free country, I hear my God blasphemed all the time. Most of the time I don’t get bent out of shape about it because the blasphemers usually don’t know what they’re saying. There’s no point in chastising the ignorant. I’ll argue with those who do know what they’re saying, but I won’t kill them and set their houses on fire, because that’s not my place. God can defend himself much better than I can; and what’s better, he’ll be a lot more merciful than I would. Vengeance is his.