I am stumped! Didn't the picture STIR A REALITY that the picture intended to mean?

"Anyone who touches him touches us," Hamdan said. "Our prophet, Muhammad, has said that everyone can make mistakes, but the best is the one who expresses regret and asks for forgiveness." Also this article!

Is anyone seeing the irony of the story unfolding before us? The experience that THE picture has stirred around the world SINCE it was published, is really not very far from the meaning intended by the picture, is it?

'At the level of the subconcious it now becomes hard to reconcile' and it screams at us to see how uncannily similar is the 'abstract' (the picture, which was in one person's mind!) with the reality we are seeing (the rallies, leading to anger, the killings, the burnings, the protests, stomping on another country (by stomping their flags, the shootings .... soon the bombings ...)!!

I worry that taking any newer stand or approach at this point to defuse, calm or regress the situation would be viewed has almost hypocritical, questions its realness and loses its potency! What do we do then?

I am just stumped! Why is this happening?? What is stopping us from seeing ourselves in this new way? What is the price we are paying?

Sheila