NOT FUNNY

'Yes, there is the right to caricature God,' says French newspaper France Soir
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the violent protests: "I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that because there have been caricatures in the West, extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right."

Cartoon row highlights deep divisions

A great deal of the Islamic literature about Muhammad is hagiographic - that is, unstinting in its praise.
It elevates the founder of Islam to a unique level of perfection and infallibility.
Despite the Koranic emphasis on the fundamentally human nature of Mohammed, the hagiographic tradition continues to dominate perceptions of the Prophet.
The row over the Danish cartoons would probably have remained a local dispute between some Muslims and a Danish newspaper had it not been for three factors:
* the rise of violent political Islam
* America's war on terror
* modern transnational media.

[America's war on terror is still largely perceived in the Arab world as a war on Islam - a perception reinforced by the fact that it is happening exclusively in Muslim countries, namely Iraq and Afghanistan.]