It's Okay, It's All Our Fault

Die Welt has a thorough review of events regarding the cartoon figures of Mohammed currently in the news. Check these quotes out for starters:

January 17, 2006

Writing in Sydsvenskan, Swedish commentator Tor Billgren does not understand why the Norwegian newspaper Magazinet has reprinted the controversial cartoons. Billgren sees this as a provocation as, ... "This is the same strategy employed by the Red Army Faction in West Germany in the 1970s. The object of its terrorist attacks was to escalate the confrontation between the police and the authorities so that 'the true face of fascism' would be revealed and the nation's proletarians would rise up and revolt. In the same way, fundamental Christians are trying to provoke Islam into showing its 'true face' in order to strengthen people's opposition to Islam."

December: ... the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 56 Muslim states, lodged a formal complaint against Denmark with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Late January: Gilles Kepel, a professor at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris and a specialist in the Muslim world, says in an interview in the French Liberation that "the notion of blasphemy remains an extremely sensitive one in a Muslim world that lives with the feeling of being under siege and that Islam is a religion under threat – even though many preachers and imams go around asserting that it is going to conquer the world. ..

People who sought protection in Denmark are being treated in a manner reminiscent of Apartheid. The debate focuses on the cartoons, yet the reaction of the Arab world would hardly have been as strong if the Danish government didn't hold Muslims and Islam in such contempt.

In the German tageszeitung, Reinhard Wolff describes the publication of the cartoons as an act of "calculated provocation". "Over the past few years Denmark has gained a reputation as a country with policies overtly hostile to foreigners.

Feb 1 - In YJyllands-Posten yesterday a fatwa was pronounced against Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq and the Jyllands-Posten offices in Arhus and Copenhagen had to be evacuated after a bomb threat. In the commentary columns of today's edition, the paper goes on the offensive again. The newspaper points out that both it and the Danish government had extended a hand to the Muslim world, and that now it was up to the Islamic organisations and governments to calm people down.

France Soir outdoes the other French newspapers by publishing the cartoons. The Nouvel Obs announces that the editor in chief of France Soir, Jacques Lefranc, has been fired. The French-Egyptian owner of the paper, Raymond Lakah, apologised last night "to the Muslim community and all those who were insulted by the publication."

Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, claims in an interview with the Czech newspaper Lidove noviny that Danish Muslims travelled to the Middle East with the express purpose of stirring up the Mohammed cartoon dispute. "They deliberately spread lies about the way Muslims are treated in Denmark and about my paper there. Among other things, they used two Mohammed cartoons which have never appeared in a Danish paper.

On the European side there's a right-wing bloc which has made it their business to spread an image of Muslims as undermining freedom of expression and wanting to change Western society. It will take clever and sensible people on both sides to put an end to the insults and overreactions."

The Swiss daily Le Temps runs a drawing by Chappatte on its front page in which the caricaturist depicts himself saying, 'I did not draw him' while holding up a sheet of paper with the words 'Muhammad with a giant schnoz'.

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Geyer calls for the Mohammed caricatures to be published in as many European media as possible: "Only Europe-wide solidarity can show: religious fundamentalists who do not respect the difference between satire and blasphemy have a problem not only with Denmark, but with the entire Western world."

Would we have published the Mohammed cartoons if we had known what the repercussions would be? asks Jyllands-Posten editor-in-chief Carsten Juste in the lead article. "Today, the answer would by 'no'.

As of now, American media remains all but silent and even our State Department is taking an appeasement line. If the lesson learned from this becomes - threaten, beat and burn and you will win out, what is it Christians are supposed to do the next time they feel maligned?

Comments

[Bullgator]

Somewhere in the textbook used for Journalism 101, it must say that criticism of non-Christian religions is not to be tolerated, regardless of how illiberal their tenets may be, while criticism of Christianity is required at every opportunity.

Yet another example of liberal hypocrisy that usually goes unchallenged.

[Gotmilk?]

EXTRA EXTRA..Read all about it.

http://www.hwforums.com/2113/messages/6869.html

[Abdul]

People are only 'free' to insult Islam. Westerners wouldn't dare say those things against gays or somebody's mother if sitting next to them. I think this article says it all:

http://www.azam.com/mohammed-cartoon.html

[splashtc]

Of course it was done to provoke the extremists. Note the heat taken off Israel ,redirected to other countries and the growing support against extremists from those countries. It will come in handy when dealing with Iran. (It also throws Brokeback out of the headlines TG!)

[mustymark]

Insulting to Islam? People get "insulted" every hour of every day. Islam is asking for it! By highlighting their murderous intentions the cartoonists make it painfully clear that lurking beneath the surface of most muslims is the desire to KILL anyone who does not believe the way they do. The ONLY reason the cartoons were NOT run in the U.S. is because people are afraid of being murdered for free expression.

Gay people are attacked by non-gays for their lifestyle, Gay people don't have an agenda to turn everyone gay or have a written document outlining how everyone who is NOT gay should be murdered. Isalm does. Gay people just want to live their lives without begin attacked by axes and they want to be understood.

Islam has an agenda to murder every man woman and child who is NOT a muslim. It's their religious doctrine! There is NOTHING peaceful about Islam.

If Christians get upset, the stage a boycott, not don suicide bombs and murder people, EVEN though their religious doctrine is close to being a murderous as Islam, Christians have turned away from violence as the answer to everything. Islam has exposed itself to the world for exactly what it is; a murderous religion bent on the death of all non-believers, and their patent refusal to integrate peacefully into countries in which they migrate and accept secular law, even when secular law is in opposition to their religious beliefs! THEY BELIEVE that they have the right to come into another country and ignore that country's laws and instead wish to impose THEIR religious laws on others. France is a good example. In some areas of France the pussy french have allowed immigrant Muslims to set up sharia courts. IN those areas NON MUSLIMS french women risk attack IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY for going about unveiled. In Norway, 65 percent of all the rapes perpetrated on Non-muslim women are perpetrated BY MUSLIMS men who contend that it is their right to rape women who are unveiled because the women have tempted them beyond their ability to withstand. IN Australia Muslim men have raped and attacke the "whore" Australian women on the beaches, again, it is their right. Do some research!
Canada recently skirted disaster when the FINALLY rejected Muslims appeals to institute Sharia law OVER that of Canadian law!

It is simply incredible that non-muslims are not speaking out about this..WHY aren't they? Are they afraid of being murdered in their beds? Probably. Islam is ruling by fear, people who treasure free speach and expression are keeping their mouths shut for fear of meeting a sneaky death on a dark sidewalk by an "insulted" muslim like that of Van Gogh a few years past.

Islam insults me, it offends me. I guess now I have the right to go about murdering each Muslim I see or threatening to commit all manner of crimes in the name of my religion?

Islam is showing its true colors and agenda, the rest of the world is paying attention. Provoke the extremists? You'd be hard pressed to find ten of 15 Christians to turn out in a demonstration because Kawane was depicted as the black Christ. UNLIKE Muslims, American Christians have fought hard for the freedom of speech and religion, something we treasure and have and will fight for. Muslims have spent all their time bombing the hell out of anyone who insults them instead of building sucessful thriving economies and free countries.

Let's see what happens if American Muslims try throwing acid in the face of unveiled non-muslim American women or raping them. Just the thought of what will happen if they even think of trying that crap here is pleasureable.

Muslims need to cast off violence as a response to everything, they need to accept secular rule in the countries to which the migrate, or stay in their religious states. If Muslims stop spending all their time trying to figure out how to eliminate Irael, and the west, they might just be able to eliminate starvation in their religious states and build thriving economies. AND Muslims who do not agree with the murderous doctrine need to speak out against it.

[Abdul]

"If Christians get upset, the stage a boycott, not don suicide bombs and murder people"

Errr... you never bothered to read the news or a history book? When Christians get upset, the obliterate the enemy. What was done to the Incas, Aztecs or American Indians? Christians slaughtered 6 million Jews just half a century ago and killed and raped several hundred thousand Bosnians and Kosovans barely ten years ago. For years, the Christian IRA - with funding from American Irish people - have been terrorising the British population and killed and maimed numerous innocent people.

Of course, the IRA are not referred to as 'Christian fundamentalists'; it's only Muslims who are referred to as 'fundamentalists' by the neocon media.

http://www.azam.com/mohammed-cartoon.html

[Brian]

Muslims can give it out but they can't take it. It's that simple. Maybe if they would cut out some of the inbreeding over there for a few generations their stupid heads would straighten out a bit.On a lighter note, it's nice to see someone elses flag getting burned for a change.