Why Muslims are so Enraged over the Mohammed Cartoons
This is a subject which both the left which defends Muslim outrage and the right which condemns it have generally gotten wrong by missing the most important point.
When the left compares the Muslim response to that of a persecuted minority what they fail to realize is that Muslims do not see themselves as a persecuted minority whose religion is insulted. Muslims do not believe that there are other religions, only Muslims and heretics since Muslims believe that Islam is the only natural religion of mankind. Muslims do not describe non-Muslims who convert to Islam as converts but more commonly as 'reverts,' returnees to Islam.
Therefore it stands to reason that Muslims cannot comprehend the notion of 'tolerating' differences of opinion. As far as they are concerned, there are no differences. There are only examples of heretical behavior by heretical Muslims, namely us. In this worldview Islam is the only religion of mankind and the world is properly ruled by Islam and it is only a matter of time until each and every country falls under the Dar-Al-Islam, the Islamic sphere. Muslims in those countries have every right to insist on Islamic law because that in their view is the destiny of each nation of the world.
When the right demands that Muslims tolerate other people's beliefs, they fail to realize that Islam can no more co-exist with alternative beliefs than Communism could. Islam, unlike Jews or Americans, lacks ethnic or national ties. It is a fiction wholly held together by belief. What Muslims perceive as mockery or heresy becomes an attack on the entire structure that holds them together. Muslims are not outraged because they are dealing from a position of strength but a position of weakness. Islam is a brutal un-modernized medieval ideology clumsily binding together disparate peoples fighting for survival in the modern world by exploiting ignorance, bigotry and ultimately violence.
Skepticism to Islam is what antibiotics are to bacteria. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam has not survived through centuries of debate and heresy but only existed through conquest and totalitarian rule. It cannot perceive itself surviving any other way. Without Islam a thousand peoples suddenly disintegrate back to their individual identities like Mongolian raiders falling apart into warring groups. With Islam, Islamic fundamentalists dream of rebuilding a Mohammedan Empire stretching across the world. Whether or not they succeed depends on whether or not the nations they have targeted have the resolve to resist them.