I am no longer eating Danishes.

In addition to establishing a ban on eating these breakfast treats, I am no longer enjoying the radio telephone, which was half-invented by a Dane. The great dane that I never owned, I am going to set free and then put a bounty of 19 jelly beans on his head.

Any children who I have will no longer be allowed to play with Legos, for they are the building blocks of racism and hatred. The Emperor’s New Clothes will be condemned as a tale of hedonism and idleness, and The Ugly Duckling will never be muttered in my home in order to give a young girl hope that one day, she might outgrow her mousy hair and buck teeth.

I no longer believe in Bohr’s model, electrons do not move in orbits around the nucleus and I revoke his Nobel Peace Prize. On top of that, I will stop listening to Metallica (I listened to them religiously in the first place), because Lars Ulrich is from Denmark, so he is obviously putting anti-Muslim beats in his drumming. Finally, I vow to never watch Lord of the Rings again, because Viggo Mortensen is Danish, and as much as I am helplessly in love with Aragorn, I must draw the line at his intense hate for my faith.

All to make me sleep better at night and show that I am a patriot of my faith? Terrorist, rag head, camel jockey, towel head, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, radical — yeah, it’s not really anything new. I’ve heard it all once, twice, a thousand times.

I am a Muslim, a Palestinian, a veteran of eight long years of Islamic school, and all of the above were and are offended by the content of the cartoons published in the Danish Newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. If anything though, more than I am offended, I am very highly amused.

The protests, the burning of embassies? Don’t you think this cartoonist is getting a little too much attention? What is all this trying to prove? Our outrage? Yes, I’m angry too, but burning down a building doesn’t do much of a good job to prove anyone wrong. The cartoonists knew exactly what they were walking into. If anything, I find it completely laughable this newspaper basically gave permission to run something so obscene, so offensive and so hurtful, all in order to cause an uproar.

And we all played into it because here I am writing about it, and here are people burning buildings over it. Am I sick of assumptions and outright attacks on my faith? Yes. I know this is about so much more than a cartoon; it is about the idea behind the cartoon. Islam in Europe, and in the Western World in general, where is it going? Every moment there is some form of attack on my faith or the way I choose to live my life.

Is the world over? There are still stupid people, and this is the way I see it: The only way to battle stupidity and ignorance is to set an example. No, don’t start a boycott of all goods Danish or try to kill people. The fact of the matter is, if you believe someone is wrong, why waste your time trying to make yourself a self-righteous martyr and give someone who succeeded in stirring the pot a little more of the lime light.

I am upset over the way the Middle Eastern world reacted to the cartoon. But the way I see it is, they are two different cultures, so while I see that as wasted energy, they see that as defending their beliefs. The Muslim world is being placed in the crossfire.

The cartoonist insulted Prophet Muhammad, insulted our faith, our pride and my way of life all in the name of “freedom of speech.” It hurts, but I chose to be a Muslim, and I choose to deal with the criticisms because I have faith in the informed and knowledgeable.

I am going to eat a Danish now.