| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Europe | |
| The Reality of Cartoon Violence | |
| 2006-02-05 | |
[S]elf-censorship is at stake here: the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the murder of Mr Rushdie's Japanese translator and his Norwegian editor, the murder of Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands in 2004, the insistence on anonymity of all translators of the Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and so on. Bill Clinton, the former US president, and German Muslim leaders have also likened the cartoons to historical anti-Semitism. But this is cant. The worst threats and most unruly demonstrations did not object to any demeaning "message" in the cartoons. They objected to the sacrilege of depicting Mohammed at all. This is not a demand for respect or fair treatment. It is a demand that non-Muslims live by Muslim religious rules. In recent decades, Denmark has been a haven for hardcore pornography, Nazi broadcasting and movies flogging the dead horse of European Christianity. One did not notice global leaders rushing to condemn the Danes. Are the Mohammed drawings so much worse than these? Or is it that they have been met with a credible threat of violence? The question ought to embarrass those western artists and intellectuals who style themselves "subversives". The subversion for which they pat themselves on the back is revealed as mere bullying - choosing targets who reliably turn the other cheek. The same goes for many politicians. Last week, as Palestinians threatened to kill any Norwegian found in Gaza, members of Norway's governing coalition threatened their own consumer boycott - against Israel. Eighty per cent of Danes oppose an apology over the Mohammed cartoons. A delegation of Danish Muslims who toured the Muslim world last December to drum up outrage over the caricatures is now being accused of disloyalty. That only hints at the tensions. Forty-five per cent of second-generation immigrant youth are unemployed and Denmark now has some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe. The situation is a tinderbox and the country no longer has any safe or simple choices. It owes its Muslim citizens respect and a chance at a better life. But it also has genuinely dangerous enemies who will view any efforts in that direction as a sign of pusillanimity and fear. | |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #8 I do not see any signs about baby milk factories... |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2006-02-05 22:33 |
| #7 Thankyou anon5089 that is very very helpful. So, it is the Muslim Brotherhood. Jostling for power among terror groups, campaigning for anti-blasphemy law. It makes perfect sense. It would play into their hands if people in Western nations got angry themselves and burned a Koran providing further provocation. Then the Islamist nutters would be released, people would die and the anti-blasphemy law would be passed. So we must show restraint and strength. Tell them to get stuffed we like freedom of speech, but not do anything to give them any excuses. Perhaps this is why the State Department grovelled? And Jack Straw? Nah, Jack Straw is just a pussy. |
| Posted by: anon1 2006-02-05 12:44 |
| #6 Anon1, this is almost as spontaneous as the al aqsa "intifada"; see my posts on it (shameless autopromotion, to wax my fragile ego) : Islam/Muhammad Cartoons : a manipulation of the Muslim Brotherhood Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-02-05 12:09 |
| #5 Guys I've got a feeling in me waters that this is a deadset Qaida plot: it is totally organised. They could have picked on any affront, the cartoons are innocuous and printed last October. Old news. It all broke out in the same week. This is planned and I don't like it. On the surface it looks like a propaganda gift to us, even lefties like freedom of speech it is a chance for us to get united against a common enemy. But the opposition is smart and they are trying to do the same thing I think. Qaida have been unpopular lately with the street. May be planning big attack and trying to remove potential sympathy is my guess but I don't like the level of sophistication I am seeing. Maybe not Qaida, maybe planning to attack Israel now Hamas in power? don't know but feel bad about it. |
| Posted by: anon1 2006-02-05 11:52 |
| #4 Nah, hook them up with Code Pink, Barbara. That would be the ultimate blind date from hell! ;) |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2006-02-05 10:40 |
| #3 And the giant puppets. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-02-05 09:08 |
| #2 Anyone else notice how all the signs are (a) in ENGLISH and (b) apparently lettered by the same person? "Spontaneous," my ass. ROPMA, too. Hook these clowns up with their spiritual brethern moveon et al., and the only way to tell the difference between them will be the clothing. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-02-05 09:05 |
| #1 Slightly tangental, but . . . notice where all the "outrage" is coming from? Radicalized Moslems in the West, and from the repressive Syrian, Saudi, Palestinian, and Iranian thougocracies. Haven't heard word one about riots in Baghdad or Kabul--the two Moslem Middle eastern countries with freely elected governments, formerly two of the worst thugocracies. (If there were riots in Baghdad, you can bet the MSM would be trumpeting it as more proof of failure, quagmire, and so on.) Wonder what that tells us? |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-02-05 08:46 |