Racist cartoons: Why Muslims have a right to be angry

Like most western leftists I have been perplexed by the face the Muslim world often presents to the world. The fatwa threatening death against S.Rushdie and many muslim women who oppose the mysogymist treatment of women in the middle east, the recent case in Afghanistan where a christian convert was threatened by death under Sharia law.

I support the just struggle of most people under threat of the depredations of imperialism, today so represented by the US New World Order. The thirst for oil in the west has unleashed a holocaust on most peoples of the middle east and the racist and repressive actions of the Israel allie and western guard-dog to the subject Palestinian people has rubbed their faces in it.

But the damn fools keep undermining my support.

It is little recognised in the western world why so many people of color adhere to the muslim faith despite the arab traders who transported so many slaves to west african ports to be transported by European and American ships to a life of penury in the colonies.

Basically it was because the tenets of Mohammed did not have a racist base like most of Christianity. Despite the warrior expansion of crusading muslims they spared "the people of the book" christians and jews and allowed them to continue their faith. There is also a peaceful live and let live spirit among many muslims, so represented by the spiritualist Sufi sect.

It must be recognised that in the muslim world just as in the christian world that fundamentalist beliefs are not the usual interpretations of their holy books. The KKK or born-again Rapture are just as foreign to christianity as many of the fatwas of muslim fundamentalists issued by some obscure Iman.

As an atheist I defend neither and oppose both. And I am sure most muslims and christians, however mistaken I feel they are, also do the same.