Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy 3 years on

[Kris]

In September of 2005 these cartoons were published.



They led to,

• Over 100 deaths.
• The setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
• Various death threats against those brave enough to defend free speech throughout Europe.
• The humiliating collapse of free speech in the United States as every mainstream news agency refused to show the cartoons and buckled to the pressure of Muslims on the streets of the United Kingdom holding "Freedom go to hell," signs.
• The weakening and public humiliation of the liberal faction (and individual conservatives like George Bush) who defended said Muslims in their campaign against free speech.
• The silence of mainstream "moderate" Islam in regards to the utter savagery of the rioters.

Pictures of the protests

[Kris]

as an added bonus, my favorite article on the entire intifada against free speech.

Slate
---

Stand up for Denmark!Why are we not defending our ally?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at 12:29 PM ET

Put the case that we knew of a highly paranoid religious cult organization with a secretive leader. Now put the case that this cult, if criticized in the press, would take immediate revenge by kidnapping a child. Put the case that, if the secretive leader were also to be lampooned, two further children would be killed at random. Would the press be guilty of "self-censorship" if it declined to publish anything that would inflame the said cult? Well, yes it would be guilty, but very few people would insist on the full exertion of the First Amendment right. However, the consequences for the cult and its leader would be severe as well. All civilized people would regard it as hateful and dangerous, and steps would be taken to circumscribe its influence, and to ensure that no precedent was set.

The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.

You wish to say that it was instead a small newspaper in Copenhagen that lit the trail? What abject masochism and nonsense. It was the arrogant Danish mullahs who patiently hawked those cartoons around the world (yes, don't worry, they are allowed to exhibit them as much as they like) until they finally provoked a vicious response against the economy and society of their host country. For good measure, they included a cartoon that had never been published in Denmark or anywhere else. It showed the Prophet Mohammed as a pig, and may or may not have been sent to a Danish mullah by an anonymous ill-wisher. The hypocrisy here is shameful, nauseating, unpardonable. The original proscription against any portrayal of the prophet—not that this appears to be absolute—was superficially praiseworthy because it was intended as a safeguard against idolatry and the worship of images. But now see how this principle is negated. A rumor of a cartoon in a faraway country is enough to turn the very name Mohammed into a fetish-object and an excuse for barbaric conduct. As I write this, the death toll is well over 30 and—guess what?—a mullah in Pakistan has offered $1 million and a car as a bribe for the murder of "the cartoonist." This incitement will go unpunished and most probably unrebuked.

Could things become any more sordid and cynical? By all means. In a mindless attempt at a tu quoque, various Islamist groups and regimes have dug deep into their sense of wit and irony and proposed a trade-off. You make fun of "our" prophet and we will deny "your" Holocaust. Even if there were any equivalence, and Jewish mobs were now engaged in trashing Muslim shops and embassies, it would feel degrading even to engage with such a low and cheap stunt. I suppose that one should be grateful that the Shoah is only to be denied rather than, as in some Islamist propaganda, enthusiastically affirmed and set out as a model for emulation. But only a moral cretin thinks that anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews. The memory of the Third Reich is very vivid in Europe precisely because a racist German regime also succeeded in slaughtering millions of non-Jews, including countless Germans, under the demented pretext of extirpating a nonexistent Jewish conspiracy. As it happens, I am one of the few people to have publicly defended David Irving's right to publish, and I think it outrageous that he is in prison in Austria for expressing his opinions. But my attachment to free speech is at least absolute and consistent. Those who incite murder and arson, or who silkily justify it, are incapable of rising above the childish glee that culminates in the assertion that two wrongs make a right.

[Kris]

(continued)

The silky ones may be more of a problem in the long term than the flagrantly vicious and crazy ones. Within a short while—this is a warning—the shady term "Islamophobia" is going to be smuggled through our customs. Anyone accused of it will be politely but firmly instructed to shut up, and to forfeit the constitutional right to criticize religion. By definition, anyone accused in this way will also be implicitly guilty. Thus the "soft" censorship will triumph, not from any merit in its argument, but from its association with the "hard" censorship that we have seen being imposed over the past weeks. A report ($$) in the New York Times of Feb. 13 was as carefully neutral as could be but nonetheless conveyed the sense of menace. "American Muslim leaders," we were told, are more canny. They have "managed to build effective organizations and achieve greater integration, acceptance and economic success than their brethren in Europe have. They portray the cartoons as a part of a wave of global Islamophobia and have encouraged Muslim groups in Europe to use the same term." In other words, they are leveraging worldwide Islamic violence to drop a discreet message into the American discourse.

You may have noticed the recurrence of the term "One point two billion Muslims." A few years ago, I became used to the charge that in defending Salman Rushdie, say, I had "offended a billion Muslims." Evidently, the number has gone up since I first heard this ridiculous complaint. But observe the implied threat. There is not just safety in numbers, but danger in numbers. How many Danes or Jews or freethinkers are there? You can see what the "spokesmen" are insinuating by this tactic of mass psychology and mobbishness.

And not without immediate success, either. The preposterous person of Karen Hughes is quoted in the same New York Times article, under her risible title of "Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy." She tittered outside the store she was happily giving away: "The voices of Muslim Americans have more credibility in the Muslim world frankly than my voice as a government official, because they can speak the language of their faith and can share their experience of practicing their faith freely in the West, and they can help explain why the cartoons are so offensive." Well, let's concede that almost any voice in any world has more credibility on any subject than this braying Bush-crony ignoramus, but is the State Department now saying that we shall be represented in the Muslim world only by Muslims? I think we need a debate on that, and also a vote. Meanwhile, not a dollar of Wahhabi money should be allowed to be spent on opening madrasahs in this country, or in distributing fundamentalist revisions of the Quran in our prison system. Not until, at the very least, churches and synagogues and free-thought libraries are permitted in every country whose ambassador has bullied the Danes. If we have to accept this sickly babble about "respect," we must at least demand that it is fully reciprocal.

And there remains the question of Denmark: a small democracy, which resisted Hitler bravely and protected its Jews as well as itself. Denmark is a fellow member of NATO and a country that sends its soldiers to help in the defense and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. And what is its reward from Washington? Not a word of solidarity, but instead some creepy words of apology to those who have attacked its freedom, its trade, its citizens, and its embassies. For shame. Surely here is a case that can be taken up by those who worry that America is too casual and arrogant with its allies. I feel terrible that I have taken so long to get around to this, but I wonder if anyone might feel like joining me in gathering outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, in a quiet and composed manner, to affirm some elementary friendship. Those who like the idea might contact me at christopher.hitchens@yahoo.com, and those who live in other cities with Danish consulates might wish to initiate a stand for decency on their own account.

[Lucius]

Thank-you, Kris,

There's this too.

But the thing about photography is that each picture is framed. If you see a close up of five guys holding signs, bear in mind that if the photographer took the picture from 50 feet back, it might still only be five guys. Certainly, one of them is the same guy in many instances.

You can google Rage Boy for some of the parodies.

[Cadell]

Excellent post. I am flumixed as to why these Muslim immigrants who incite violence are not deported.

[NullZone]

Originally Posted by Cadell

Excellent post. I am flumixed as to why these Muslim immigrants who incite violence are not deported.

From what I've read the ones really causing problems are born and raised in the west. Their parents assimilated despite in some cases really terrible treated and now a generation or two down the line the kids are reacting against what they see as issues. There simply isn't anywhere to deport them to.

[Nick]

Pericles, can you put this thread in "The Arena"?

[naylor182]

South Park did a good satirical twist on this. I don't think these cartoons went too far in relation to freedom of expression. Surely by killing people in the wake of these cartoons, these Muslims have just proven the cartoonist right - particularly in relation to the one with Muhammad with a bomb as a brain.

[Toltec]

Thing is both sides are doing the same thing. Hurling insults at each other, then complaining at being insulted. Hypocritical.

In politics, little boys sling mud at one another. This is life. Sadly they seem badly adapted.

Still for those of us well adapted. Glad both sides exist, their squabbles make the world a less dull place for us in the audience.

[laura]

Originally Posted by Toltec

Thing is both sides are doing the same thing. Hurling insults at each other, then complaining at being insulted. Hypocritical.

In politics, little boys sling mud at one another. This is life. Sadly they seem badly adapted.

Still for those of us well adapted. Glad both sides exist, their squabbles make the world a less dull place for us in the audience.

for a minute there i thought you were talking about the presidential election campaign ... then i remembered those damn cartoons!