The agony of assimilation.(AT WAR)(Danish cartoon protests)

THE cartoon war--the struggle over a Danish newspaper's caricatures of Muhammad--rages on, with lethal riots in Africa and Asia and protests in Europe and the United States.

The cause of Muslim anger is pride. Muslim tradition says different things about depicting Muhammad--some artists have shown his face, others have shown his body with a veiled face, still others refuse to show him at all. But in the modern world of Internet access and global cultural churning, mildly satiric depictions of him by outsiders appeared as an affront, a diss to every Muslim.

This feeling of wounded pride is used to gain or hold power. In countries where the worst violence ...