Yet another cartoon offense

" Muslims outraged by new cartoon of Prophet in Hell"

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The drawing appears in Studi Cattolici, a monthly magazine with links to the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group, Opus Dei. It shows the poets Virgil and Dante on the edge of a circle of flame looking down on Mohammed.

"Isn't that man there, split in two from head to navel, Mohammed?" Dante asks Virgil.

"Yes and he is cut in two because he has divided society," Virgil replies. "While that woman there, with the burning coals, represents the politics of Italy towards Islam."

"Why all the fuss over a cartoon which only represents that which has already been written centuries ago by Dante Alighieri?"

Dante placed Mohammed in Hell in Canto 28 of The Divine Comedy. His work inspired a painting by William Blake, depicting Mohammed with his entrails hanging out, and a fresco in Bologna Cathedral showing him being tortured by a devil.

A spokesman for the Union of Italian Muslim Communities called it "odious and racist". He said: "The rage was just calmed and here, with an absurd and criminal logic, they go and stir things up."

Funny, I don't think I use absurd and criminal logic. But just like them, I
would be the last to realize it.