Will Satire Prevent Violence?

Friday 20 French embassies in Muslim countries will be closed.  It is a precaution because the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has published illustrations of a naked Prophet Mohammad including a reference to the film that is causing the current unrest.  Why Friday?  After Friday prayers is the usual time to call for protests.  Tell me these events are unplanned!

Actually, the magazine takes jabs at just about everybody, including Mohammad, all the time.  It's what they do.  Needless to say the French government isn't too keen on the idea because of the current climate across the Muslim world.  Especially considering just last November the Paris offices of the publication were firebombed after a front page assault on Mohammad.

Man, I can just see the editorial staff sitting around with a couple bottles of fine French wine coming up with this.  The timing to create more chaos is perfect.  The French do require some understanding!  Or maybe it's just satirists.

In a way, however, I admire their courage. It's a delicious poke in the eye to the mobs of radical Islams who respond like Pavlovian dogs to whatever they're told to protest. This does not diminish the tragedy of the lives lost in Benghazi nor the property lost in all the other countries that have endured these outbreaks of savagery.  But it does let them know we're sick and tired of these tantrums every time they claim to have their feelings hurt.  I cannot think of one other religion in the world that reacts in this manner.  These people who kill and maim and basically  enslave their own, especially women, for infractions not even considered wrong doing in the rest of the world.  If they'd grow up and behave like civilized human beings, perhaps the poking would cease.

I hope no more are killed over the protest of French satirists, though I doubt the world will be so lucky.  We need to remember the beginning og the Serenity Prayer ~

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Accept that we cannot change the way these people act upon every preceived insult. But to go groveling for their forgiveness every time it happens solves nothing. They are never appeased.  They over react because they get world wide attention.  We over react hoping to calm them, which we can't.

That poke in the eye though, no matter how unwise, just feels darn good.