Is The Clash between Civilisations Here?

The Danish Embassy in Damascus has been burnt down, and the Swedish and Norwegians once obviously damaged as well by the fire.

Is this the clash between civilisation going violent? With Denmark somewhat surprisingly at the center of the conflict?

What we see is a combination of old beliefs and modern means of communication.

What seems to have initiated the fervour on the streets of Damascus was a rumour that SMS messages in Copenhagen had encouraged people to go to a certain place and start burning the Koran.

If such messages were actually sent or not I don't know. In the agitated atmosphere of these days, it certainly can not be excluded that some lunatics actually did.

But the interesting thing is of course how this information that quickly ended up in Syria, and how it was spread so widely as to cause a crowd to start attacking the Danish embassy.

And there must be serious question put concerning the behaviour of the Syrian authorities. Did they know this? Did they encourage this? Why did they not take measures to protect the building?

Irrespective of the details of this grave incident, it is obvious that substantial steps must now be taken to prevent the fire from spreading even further.

We do not want a violent clash between the civilisations played out in the streets of Damascus and Copenhagen.

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