Please see a number of postings on our News Section that emphasize how important we feel it is to exercise sensitivity to Other's feelings. However, essentializing idenities ("all Muslims are offended," or, "all Europeans could not care less when others feel offended") is not helpful. Let us also listen to "other" voices from within the "Muslim" camp.

Dutch MP backs Muhammad cartoons
The Somali-born Dutch MP who describes herself as a "dissident of Islam" has backed the Danish newspaper that first printed the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali said it was "correct to publish the cartoons" in Jyllands Posten and "right to republish them".

Her film-maker colleague Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist in a case that shocked the Netherlands.

Ms Hirsi Ali, speaking in Berlin, said that "today the open society is challenged by Islamism".

She added: "Within Islam exists a hardline Islamist movement that rejects democratic freedoms and wants to destroy them."

Ms Hirsi Ali criticised European leaders for not standing by Denmark and urged politicians to stop appeasing fundamentalists.

She also said that although the Prophet Muhammad did a lot of good things, his decree that homosexuals and apostates should be killed was incompatible with democracy...
Please read the entire article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4698528.stm