What about the fact that Muslim protesters are burning the Christian cross on the Danish flag?

Yesterday, some 600 Muslims staged a noisy rally in Makati "angrily" protesting, as has become fashionable throughout the Islamic world, against cartoons originally published in an obscure Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, last September – or almost five months ago.

The cartoons, strangely enough, would have gone unnoticed if nobody raised a fuss about them (were they four, five, or six?), but Imams begun spreading the "word" and, fueled by war-scare type television reports (notably by CNN, BBC, then the Arab networks like Al Jezeera), the controversy grew and grew.

In any event, yesterday’s rally – since we are a predominantly Christian (even Catholic country) – did not spin out of control as it does in Muslim-dominated countries. The riot police looked on complacently, even when the hyped-up protesters burned several Danish flags (probably manufactured in China like everything else these days), and furiously chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great!), hurling obscenities against Denmark, and raising placards threatening "Behead those who insult Islam!"

I guess it must be a cultural trait that Muslims sound so enthusiastic about beheading people – a curious propensity, if I might observe, for those who profess to be a religion of "peace." ("The all-compassionate, and all-merciful," as they say).

Betcha most, if not all of yesterday’s Muslim protesters never saw those offensive cartoons, but what we’ve heard is that, aside from violating the precept that the Prophet Muhammad must never be depicted, one of the Danish cartoons had portrayed Muhammad with a bomb for his headgear. This was regarded, in addition, as equating Islam with "terrorism."

If many of the suicide-bombers and cellphone bombers in this world happen, by strange coincidence to be Muslims, by golly, this is no reason (don’t you agree?) for "profiling" them as potential terrorists. (We used to have, of course, Catholic terrorists like the now-almost-defunct Irish Republican Army, or IRA, in Northern Ireland, or the Basque ETA terrorists from Euskadi/Vizcaya, Spain).

There’s no doubt it is not a good idea, in fact it’s not nice, to ridicule others’ religious beliefs, but for heaven’s sake, the cartoonist who drew those offensive cartoons (others being brandished were apparently "fakes" inserted by agitators to inflame more Muslims) was expressing his own view – as a cartoonist. The wave of fury which is escalating, it seems, as the weeks go by, has already gotten more than a dozen people killed from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Police for instance, were forced to shoot into a crowd trying to attack, for Pete’s sake, Norwegian peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan – so a British army unit had to be dispatched to "rescue" their fellow NATO unit, the besieged Norwegians!

Why was Islamic fury levelled against the Norwegians, too? Because another small newspaper in Norway, when the Danish daily had come under attack, had reprinted one of the cartoons in "sympathy" and to stress that newspapers in free countries are entitled to freedom of speech.

And so the cartoons have multiplied in the Western media, instead of having been ignored, as they might have been if the Jyllands-Posten were left alone. Newspapers, I have no illusions about it as a newspaper Publisher, usually end up being used the next day to wrap fish in the wet market, or to line garbage bins, if the homeowners are not using plastic. Instead, some of the cartoons were reprinted in Die Welt (The World) which belongs to the powerful Axel Springer Empire in Germany; in Paris in France Soir, a small daily which immediately doubled its circulation (but the offending editor got sacked); in such heavier-hitters as the left-leaning Monde (The World) and Liberation as well as in other Western dailies.

In sum, a jihad is now being waged by angry Muslims against not only Denmark, but Sweden, Norway – and, by gosh, even Christians (as they did in Lebanon, where a shaky truce – after a bloody civil war had raged for 15 years – just barely holds between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Christians, Druses and other factions). Imagine that: over-reaction to those obscure Danish cartoons might even re-ignite a civil war in Lebanon, and raze Beirut once again. Isn't this the height of absurdity?

Muslim leaders have been demanding that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the Danish government apologize for the cartoons and the "insult" to the Prophet. But they’re trying to bully, I’ll have to say, the wrong man. The 53-year old Rasmussen, who was elected in 2001, is a toughie.

His centre-right coalition, Financial Times correspondent Paivi Munter reports from Copenhagen, built its program on two platforms: a tax freeze and strict restriction on immigration. In a tiny kingdom of 5.8 million Danes, the ethnic population already feels uneasy about 200,000 Muslim immigrants living and working in their midst – now the Genie of resentment has been released from its bottle.

Rasmussen’s ratings remain above 50 percent, way above any opposition leader. He knows he’s got the backing of the Danish people. And the Danes, for all their peculiarities, are a tough people: during World War II, while other Nazi-occupied countries collaborated (hence the derogatory term, "Quislings"), the Danes stubbornly protected their country’s Jewish minority and smuggled many Jews out of their country to enable them to escape being herded into Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps like the hell-holes of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Klooga and Bergen-Belsen.

I’m not overly fond of the Danes, who tend to be cold fish, even though I’m a devotee of their greatest storyteller, Hans Christian Andersen (who looks like Danny Kaye), and their fun park Tivoli, which was the inspiration for Disneyland.

In my younger days, we used to bang those beer steins, or quafe aquavit "Aalborg" by the bottle, and belt out Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen with gusto. And we know that the Danes, like their fellow Norsemen, the Norwegians and Swedes, before they became dour Lutheran Christians, were lusty Vikings, the terror and scourge of Christian Europe, the defilers of monasteries, and the looters and pillagers who ranged from England, to Normandy, to Paris – and even through Russia. (The name Russia, came from the Rus, a tribe of Viking invaders).

But all that aside, why on earth should Rasmussen and the Danish nation "apologize" to the Muslim world for what one of their cartoonists of one of their small newspapers did? Can you imagine our Emperadora, GMA, apologizing to the world for a cartoon in the Philippine STAR or, horrors, the Philippine Daily Inquirer? Surely, not.

Even Senate President Franklin Drilon, who wants to oust GMA, would not be silly enough to demand this.

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I think it’s time everybody lightened up.

Those Muslim protesters and demonstrators have had their say. Let’s cool off, and forget the whole issue. The Prophet is too great to have been mortally insulted by a mere cartoon, or even six cartoons. Burning down Embassies, Danish flags, and other forms of violence are, in themselves, an insult to the Islamic faith which, as they say, proclaims "peace." End this funny jihad. Peace be upon all of us!

If Christians wished to make a point of it, the Muslim protesters who’re burning Danish flags are insulting Jesus Christ and Christianity even more directly. If you’ll notice, the white cross on the Danish flag is our Christian symbol. It was adopted by the Danes, tradition says, when the flag with a white cross on a red background fell from heaven during a battle between the Danes and the Estonians (from the Baltic) almost eight centuries ago. This was regarded, legend has it, as a sign from God – and it inspired the Danish warriors to victory.

Indeed, Danish news media have begun to refer to the Islamic attacks on their flag, and the burning of the "cross" as a blasphemy, too, and a sacrilege on that sacred Christian symbol. (Come to think of it, every Nordic flag, including those of Sweden and Norway, bear the Cross). Are we Filipino Christians, Catholics, indeed, getting resentful or climbing on our high horse against our Moros burning the Cross on the Danish flag? We don’t even notice it.

Anyway if you want to know, Lutheran and other Protestant Christians, and Catholics, used to wage war against each other in the old days. The population of Germany was even reduced by one half by the bitter wars between Catholics and Protestants. Which just goes to show that wars of religion are bloody – and, in the end, essentially stupid.

Oh well. Denmark has become one of the most secular countries in Europe, the very opposite of "religious." There’s a statistic which says that only 3 percent of Danes attend church once a week.

By all means, angry Muslims can boycott Danish butter, and other Danish products, even Lego if they wish. Surely, they don’t drink Heineken or any Danish beer, anyway. But enough of those violent demonstrations. All over a bunch of cartoons.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . I was talking to a Senator the other night. His name is withheld owing to what he said. I asked him why Senate President Drilon was so het up about getting GMA to "resign" when it’s already clear La Presidenta won’t resign. "I guess," our solon replied, with a grin on his face, "that Frank must push GMA to resign – before the deadline of July." Why July? I stupidly inquired. The Senator’s smile grew even broader. "By July," he explained, "Franklin will no longer be in line to become President – as he could become if Noli de Castro is also put aside – because he’ll no longer be Senate President." This remark may be unfair to Drilon, but it bears some consideration. Under the "gentleman’s agreement" entered into between Frank and Senator Manny Villar – Drilon is expected to give way to Villar next July, so Manny in turn can become Senate President. In this case, will it be Villar who’ll be agitating for GMA to "quit"? I put this question to Manny directly yesterday. He shrugged and said, "I’ve no intention of doing so." The question stands: Will Villar ever get to be Senate President – or are there any gentlemen left in the Senate? I know it sounds like silly conundrum, but when have we ever been wise in politics? . . . The Thai Constitutional Court is considering a petition accusing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of violating a conflict of interest that regulates Cabinet members’ relationships with private companies. Twenty-eight senators have filed a resolution accusing Thaksin of deception in allegedly transferring "ownership" of his multi-billion baht Shin Corp to his children and other close relatives before he assumed the prime ministership in 2001. The charge was triggered by the fact that his "family" recently sold its 49 percent stake in Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings, the Singapore Government’s investment company (run, by the way, by the wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong) for a "tax-free" profit to the Shinawatra family of US$1.8 billion. Gee whiz: Thailand’s biggest mobile phone operator, a satellite company and a TV channel being sold to the Singapore Government – in a deal benefiting Thaksin’s family. Doesn’t this sound like one of our own Filipino "dynasty" deals? Both Thailand’s and Singapore’s "ruling" families seem to be involved, di ba? Welcome to the Club – our fallible human race – I’d say. We can no longer beat ourselves on the breast and exclaim, in mea culpa: "only in the Philippines!" It’s obviously, not only in the Philippines.