You’ve probably heard many of stories on Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist who drew the cartoon depicting Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a not so favorable light. After his cartoon was published a bounty of $100,000 was placed on his head by al-Qaida as well threats from other extremist Muslims. Since 2007 he’s had to watch his back from constant threats and even more recently from American Jihad Jane and a few other crazies.
Recently saw this article about his day to day since then and I was struck by how somewhat normal his life seems to be. He lives in rural southern Sweden with seemingly no security and a half put together safe room. He’s not trying to barricade himself, or hire loads of security. He just accepts the fact that he can’t control fate. That’s brave.
In the article it goes on to talk about Sweden’s lax regulation of immigration and how some right wing elements are wanting to change that which will push more muslims and other immigrants from coming into the country. The irony to me is that Lars is much more sympathetic to the Muslims than these seemingly polite right wing politicians, but they can’t see through that because of a cartoon and it’s depiction of their religion.
To be fair, all religions have these kind of issues. Their followers always running with scissors, defending ideals that are never as easily defined as they were written.
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