Monday, February 06, 2006

Cartoon comments from Arab News

There Are 101 Ways to Skin a Cat

The link above suggests ways in which offended Muslim nations should retaliate against Europe:

"I recommend that we utilize a gradual and escalating approach to boycotting Western goods and services. Starting with luxury items and easily replaceable products as a first step that can be quickly and, relatively painlessly implemented.

We may then move on to more complicated items that require finding alternative sources and working with them to produce goods that match our specifications.

Finally we move on to products that we will need to build our own factories to produce.

This serves several purposes: One, it allows our businessmen to find alternatives to Western products in an organized way. Remember, it is not an easy task to rearrange trading patterns that have been in place for decades, if not centuries.

Second, it allows our economies to realign and adjust to the changed trading environment with a minimum of difficulty.

Third, it allows our non-Western trading partners to adjust their production to fulfill our needs."

Hmm. Sounds like the writer is encouraging the Arab countries to learn how to make stuff themselves instead of just buying it with oil money. Presumably, this will lead to a bigger middle class, which most people think is a preliminary step to having more liberal and democratic countries.

If that is the result - the West should publish more cartoons as soon as possible...

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