Between the Guns and the Prayers

"Hammo, Hamas, Hamat..."
guns "between" prayers

I know, that's not funny. But then, neither are the cartoons that started this:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=12146

So why is there so much uproar? I know history is littered with individual protests that became "causes celebres" - Rosa Parks springs to mind, for some reason - but this protest does not appear to have grown out of righteous anger against a perceived injustice. Eureferendum blogger reckons it is organised by a few key individuals, linking to an article ( Telegraph) in today's Telegraph (http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/).

In itself, such co-ordination is interesting but not life-changing; I think your average Joe Public in Europe is not going to get sucked into a hard pro- or anti- stance based on the protests, or the reasons given for them. However, in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, part of my hawkish stance was based on a feeling that conflict between the "liberal" West and hard-line Islam was inevitable, and supporting a democracy in an Islamic country would provide a buffer - reducing the friction where the tectonic plates meet. Reading Amber Pawlik's article, Islam On Trial (see link below), I am not so sure. Ms Pawlik points out that just over 50% of the Koran (based on a sampling of the verses) covers the slaying of infidels... I think we need to "democratise" - albeit more successfully - several more countries in the region - fast!

http://www.amberpawlik.com/IslamonTrial.html