Why the Rant and Damage over Cartoons?

Islam in some places teaches that representations drawn/painted by man are insults to God, who alone creates all things. Man sins when he draws cartoons that depict reality and when he does representational art in any guise. This prejudice is what I at first thought lay behind the riots over Danish publication of cartoons that showed Mohammed on the pages of a newspaper in December.

But I was wrong. A number of Arab world leaders just met in February and conceived a plan to raise the hackles of Muslims and Islamists for a higher purpose, politically. All the talk about democracy around the Arab world lately, appealing to the masses to vote and direct the future of their governments has threatened tyrants and oily fatcats who saw an opportunity in the publication of the cartoons to rile up the very masses who might be freed. The ploy seems to be working at this time. The commoners are killing each other to declare their hatred for folks who draw and those who publish. The irony that violence responds to an artist's expression saddens those who love the arts while it enrages those who think only God should make a tree or show a human.

The winners may be totalitarians who cleverly got the masses riled up enough to demonstrate and kill each other over freedom to express an opinion or create an image.