Pre-emptive capitulation: Good dhimmi! "'Jihad' jitters at Met," by Isabel Vincent for the New York Post, January 10:
Is the Met afraid of Mohammed?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011, The Post has learned.
The museum said the controversial images -- objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder -- were "under review."
Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.
"This is typical of the Met -- trying to avoid any controversy," said a source with inside knowledge of the museum.
The Met currently has about 60 items from its 60,000-piece Islamic collection on temporary display in a corner of its vast second-floor Great Hall while larger galleries are renovated. But its three ancient renderings of Mohammed are not among them.
"We have a very small space at the moment in which to display the whole sweep of Islamic art," said spokeswoman Egle Zygas. "They didn't fit the theme of the current installation."
But it's not certain Mohammed will go on display when the Met finishes its $50 million renovation in 2011. [...]
Islamic art expert Kishwar Rizvi said the Met -- which has one of the world's best Islamic collections -- has nothing to fear from Mohammed.
"Museums shouldn't shy away from showing this in a historical context," said Rizvi, historian of Islamic Art at Yale University.
Or any context at all. What ever happened to the notion of art testing boundaries? It apparently folds like a tent at the possibility of actual risk.
makes about as much sense as cultures that are afraid of photography, as you might capture their souls, mana, or mojo in the picture.
Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.
Outcry? You mean as in, mass death threats and rioting?
But seriously, is there anyone reading this who can honestly say that they would prefer they show paintings of Muhammad and then have some crazy f^&*ing Muslim so through the Museum destroying millions of dollars worth of precious art? The problem is having Muslims in the West in the first place. Once they are here you either do what they want or you are in a perpetual state of war, on total alert day and night trying to prevent anything and everything that you hold dear from being instantly destroyed by them. Islam out of the West now.
Great. Art held hostage. Shitcan the Muhammedan trash--I can't imagine anyone wanting to look at it, anyway.
Courage in the art world is a posture, a style -- sort of like very long or very short hair, or very revealing or very concealing clothes.
They affect it when there is money or social standing to be gained.
They put on their brave revolutionary suit when the occasion calls for it -- or when they stand to get a few extra bucks for striking a defiant pose.
The bonds between wealth, high fashion, prostitution and art are famously universal, extensively documented and widely acknowledged -- even by the participants themselves.
The people over at the Met are no better than the rest. If anything they are a bit more precious and annoying about it.
Don't expect them to so much as mutter a word under their breath on behalf of freedom or western civilization.
The custodians of our cultural traditions have long since forgotten what it is they are supposed to be guarding.
It's mostly just hookers and johns and fashion models now.
Here! Here! Abscedere! Ditto.
I'll add that we have more passion, defiance and love in a single Bosch Fawstin than in the entire staff of the Met.
And I've been a culture vulture since I was a kid.
It's all down to values and priorities. And the people at the Met have shown us theirs.
The bad news ... this is just the most recent expression of an erosion that has been going on for decades.
Their delay is prudent, if for the wrong reasons. Of course, they should display these priceless rarities (ah, why are they so rare...?).
The delay required is to determine security measures so that the items are not "defaced".
However, in the meantime, they could have a display of the other collection drawings of moh. that have already been "defaced", explaining the practice and history of "defacing".
Then, if they decide to comply with sharia law instead of American Law, they can schedule a public ritual "defacing" of the remaining 3 offenders.
Next month the Museum will consider destroying its collection of Buddha statues in order to comply with anti-idolatry provisions of sharia law. A generous donation and endowment from an anonymous donor will fund the expansion of the Museum's islanic collection into the vacated space.
Chalk up a win for the bad guys (i.e., Muslims).
"the whole sweep of Islamic art"?
What sweep is that? Sassanian rhytons, that have nothing to do with Islam? The kind of ceramic bowls that have inscriptions in Arabic, but that clearly are made by Christians or Jews, as one can see from the motifs -- as was apparent, for example, in the exhibit of Middle Eastern ceramics on display a few years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago?
What is this broad "sweep of Islamic art"? Aside from some bowls with Arabic inscription, and calligraphy distinctly inferior to the calligraphic art of China, and architecture (with the squinch borrowed from Byzantium), what is this vast "sweep of Islamic art" that can be captured and studied in a volume or two, by Ettinghausen, or Grabar, or both?
In the Museum of the World's Art, "Islamic art" merits not much more than a small corridor, the corridor whose glassed exhibits you glance at as you walk from the many rooms housing the varied art of one great and venerable tradition (say, that of East Asia) to the many room s housing another (say, that of Europe).
It is the paucity of "Islamic" art -- let's not count as "Islamic art" that produced by non-Muslims before Islam arrived, or by non-Muslims who continued to work in countries where Islam came to dominate, and Muslims to rule -- that is so striking. And we all know why. I'm sure that Philippe de Montebello, former Director, knows why, and sure that the new Director, a former Curator of Tapestry also knows. But they obviously won't or can't speak out about this.
But the rest of us can. We can point out what "Islamic art" is, and what the future domination of Western Europe by Muslims -- through demographic conquest -- would mean for the art that exists, and the art that -- who knows? -- might still be produced -- in the Western world. Think of the future of the Louvre, the Prado, the National Gallery, the Uffizi, the Rijksmuseum, the Alte Pinakothek, if Western Europe were someday, through deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest, were to be dominated by Islam, ruled by Muslims.
Think.
The works would be marginalized, hidden, or actually destroyed. They would be in conflict with Islamic tenets regarding pictorial representation.
Is the Met afraid of Mohammed?
No, but they're terrified of Moslems.
*** 92:8 ***
Maybe they can do show around paintings that depict abstract fear, that'd be innovative.
Fine post, Hugh. Your assessment of Islamic art is pretty much going to be my approach when dealing with medieval Islam in my Western Civilization course this semester. I won't do it quite as directly as you did but I will manage to convey what you did nonetheless. Got to lead young skulls full of mush to the truth in baby steps, otherwise you can lose them very easily. Yes indeed, it's a shame youth is wasted on the young but gotta' start somehow to correct all the errors of youthful thinking, particularly bad these days what with all the PC/MC nonsense young folks have imbibed from the time they were little tots.
Why, did you know that the Founding Fathers of America were just slave-owning hypocrites out to protect their financial interests, that America is hated throughout the world because it deserves to be and that the Islamic world has the right to be angry with the West? Israel is pretty nasty too, never mind of course that Israeli-Arabs enjoy more freedoms than do Arabs in any Arab country. Why, just a few years ago I was told by a student that there's a good reason why Saudi Arabia doesn't permit any religion in its country other than Islam because it's part of their culture. Imagine that, eh? Yep, lots of work to do and it's almost always an uphill battle. Love the challenge though and, besides, I have a powerful friend at my side------the truth.
Art history departments all over the country -- at least in those where the much-missed james-becks have not been completely replaced by the postcolonial hegemonic discourse boys and girls of the MESA Nostra type, the ones smuggled or shoehorned or schemerhorned in by collaborators and admirers when the innocent faculty members in other fields (such as the art of Western Europe) are not paying sufficient attention, or have no real idea of what is happening -- might do well to offer, as part of their pro-seminars (especially for those studying to be curators), but also for undergraduates, the fateful and timely subject of "Islam, the Islamic presence, and the state and fate of Western art."
Didn't the Met feature that atrocious exhibit of sensible modern 'art' that was nothing but a crucifix inside of a jar of urine?
Sometimes, it's as if people go out of there way to show the world that they wouldn't know good art from a bad tooth.
Other times, it's obvious that they're only interested in living the longest under the thumb that may well inevitably crush them completely.
Bravo, you cowards.
Perhaps when they re-open the Islamic wing, they will include a room of recent photographs -- tentatively titled "contemporary Islam" -- featuring images of the 9-11 attack, the London, Madrid, and Bombay bombings, burned-out churches and Christian schools, and the victims of assorted beheadings, bombings, honor-killings, and acid attacks.
Or perhaps they won't.
Errata Sheet:
For "schemerhorned"
Read "schermerhorned"
For god's sake, even the art history department's magazine has "Schermerhorn" in the title. I shouldn't be making such a mistake.
If, say my religion forbids ME to have pictures of Satan or Jesus does it mean that anyone OUTSIDE of my religion has to have the same prohibition?
I don't think so.
The Muslims try to expand their power OUTSIDE of their religion. Unfortunately, their intimidation is working all too often.
Please, you must not ever put it back up on the wall here..It offends us christians we cannot look at this kind of filth...LOL On a more serious note, Why would a place of fine art place a portrait of a child molester on display anyway? Offends the muslims, Ha, its the other way around. But if it seriously offends them, I would do it all the more.
you cannot expect these art/museum people to have any courage to stand up for Western freedoms since they are the ones who look down on those who go out and fight for our freedom.
My sister in law and Brother have been Baha'i now for over 35 years.
After some two months of soul searching, I sent her an email outlining my view of islam and the future that I see for it. That future being the death of islam.
They are both extremely religious and dedicated to their faith. I was interested to hear what they had to say. (They live in Norway...)
What I got was a..."please don't endanger my family with your criticisms of islam as we live with a bunch of them and some are crazy and might kill us for associating with you".
So...fear of islam is so intense that she doesn't want to associate herself or her family members with me anymore.
I have yet to hear from my Brother, but I kinda get the feeling I'm persona non grata as of now.
So be it. The line must be drawn, and apparently I am one of the few to have the balls to do so. If sticking by my values and views costs me the relationship with my Brother and his wife and all the nieces and nephews as well, that's the price I'll pay. I will not be silent in the face of such evil for that is how evil flourishes. Good men, remaining silent.
I will miss them all, but I would miss speaking Truth even more. I must be true to myself and to my country.
islam must die and I will continue to do my best to kill it.
islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.
The museum said the controversial images -- objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder -- were "under review."
.......................
Never mind that this was work created by Muslims themselves. Of course, this art was created by those Muslims who came to Islam under the sword, in places very different from the Arabian peninsula. These were places with a rich pre-Islamic tradition of figurative art—Anatolia (Turkey), Persia, and India.
Many Muslims would consider their picture-making brethren "insufficiently Islamic" as a result.
You can see some images of the "Prophet" Mohammed here:
http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
Included here is a version of Mohammed's "Night Flight" on Buraq, and his "Call to Prophecy", which are at the Met.
Ironically—or perhaps not so ironically—most of this work, with the exception of some pieces in Istanbul—have been preserved here in the West—by Britain, and France, and the United States.
more:
Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.
.......................
"Outcry"—by which they mean destruction and violence.
Speaking of those brave cartoonists, here is my "Heroes Against Jihad" featuring Kurt Westergaard, who just survived attempted ax murder by a 'devout Muslim' over the holidays:
http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr144/gravenimageartist/?action=view¤t=JWHKW.jpg&newest=1
The scumbag "artist' called it "Piss Christ".
The closest thing to "islamic art" are the random patterns of blood spatter caused by one of their adherents doing whatever comes naturally.
If New York is concerned about islamic sensibilities, they are going to really enjoy the criminal trials of muslim operatives the government has decided to hold there.
Don't understand the Muslims? There are many Pictures of Muhammad of the 15th century.
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011..."
Good! ...I would no more want to see images of Muhammad (prison be upon him) presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art than I would care to see renderings of Charles Manson put on display.
Images of Muhammad deserve a spot somewhere in a prison archive ....or, Muhammad might feel more at home pictured alongside these boys:
http://yousob.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/most-wanted-in-pictures-part-a.jpg
"...the full sweep of Islamic art."
So, *not* the full sweep of Islamic art, then.
OT but GOOD NEWS
Firstly, the planned march in Wooten Bassett by choudary and his cronies is now cancelled.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Islamist-Group-Islam4UK-Cancels-Plans-To-Hold-March-Through-Town-Of-Wootton-Bassett/Article/201001215518530?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15518530_Islamist_Group_Islam4UK_Cancels_Plans_To_Hold_March_Through_Town_Of_Wootton_Bassett
Secondly, the UK has declared that islam4uk be banned.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/10/uk.islamist.ban/
happy dance!!
"But if it seriously offends them, I would do it all the more."
I like your attitude, alwaysknew; it fits nicely with my own.
I have an idea! Hang the pictures of Mohammad but glue the sole of a shoe over his face!
No one responded to my comment. Isn't it wrong to blame the museum for being a dhimmi when in reality they are merely protecting the valuable treasures housed in their museum for all of us? If you owned a prized piece of art, something worth as much as your entire house, and you knew that your kids were going to have a party at your house, would you leave that piece of art just sitting out in the open? Obviously not. And that wouldn't be bigoted against kids, it would just be common sense. Because the West has allowed Muslims into the West, out of an insane belief in multiculturalism, we now have to face the reality of that, we can't just go on pretending that everything is the way it used to be. If you draw a cartoon of Muhammad you are going to be attacked by an ax wielding freak. If you put pictures of Muhammad up in your multi-million dollar museum you are putting your entire museum at risk from insane Muslims who would stop at nothing to wreak their vengeance against you. Are you willing to just accept a certain number of losses of great pieces of art, sort of like the way the front rows of men in trench warfare just got mowed down, the Muslims will not destroy the entire Museum all at once, but they will get what they can. Or are you ready to be strip searched on your way into the Museum like is done in airports? Muslims will get what they want from people who don't want their property or lives destroyed by insane Muslim lunatics. There is no point in berating people who merely are not willing to put something such as the Museum of Art at risk. The problem is Muslims in the West, not people trying to protect their lives and precious artifacts from attack.
That's right...now I remember. Just as I also remember the exhibit that featured images of St. Mary smeared with elephant dung.
Do you remember where you were when news of the riots broke out in the streets? It was like watching the Lakers win the NBA title, yes?
*wakes up, rubs eyes*
In the spirit of fairness and equality, perhaps I ought to defecate in my own container, seal the lid (thank God!), and entitle the exhibit "Simply Islam." However, I hardly think I'd merit the same "free speech" protection that these folks are currently enjoying (re: exploiting shamelessly).
Better not burp the lid on that baby, though...the truth will out. :)
You simultaneously ask whether or not we as a society are willing to risk the attrition of a few pieces of precious art, as well as lamenting the notion that the problem is not people attempting to protect their lives and possessions from attack.
With due respect, how is the one not connected to the other where the Moslem is concerned?
"seal the lid"
Hardly, that is the problem with Islam the stench and the mess are out in the open and spreading all over the world at all times. If the lid on Islam was sealed we wouldn't have the problems we have. At the very least, as a first order matter of survival for the West, all further expansion of Islam in the West must be stopped, what has occurred must be reversed, and to whatever extent possible, the lid must be sealed on Islam in those countries where it is simply at this point impossible to remove. Islam must be contained like the crap in your work of art, in the lands that it has historic control, all further expansion of Islam must be stopped or the world will forever regret it and will fall into a dark ages from which it will never come out.
Yes, I agreed with your first post, ThinkThrice. I suppose I really don't want the Met to be risking all their art treasures in order to stand up to Islam.
Apart from stopping Islamic immigration to the West, maybe the best solution is the one taken a while back by that magazine that publicly admitted the only reason they were not printing the Muhammad cartoons was the death threats the magazine's employees were getting from Muslims. The public admission probably more than made up for the damage caused by giving in to the threats. If everyone in the media admitted when they were shutting up in fear of Muslims, then their shutting up wouldn't be as harmful, and the media, having admitted the problem, might eventually find ways to solve it and to stop shutting up.
The real problem comes when instead of admitting that they are self-censoring out of fear of Muslims, you hear BS such as the Met saying the Muhammad paintings are "under review." That's the worst possible outcome. The Met not only self-censors in this case, but they censor the fact that they are self-censoring. Then totalitarian Islam has really won. Not only do they obey the killers, but they pretend there are no killers.
"gravenimage" above made the excellent observation that the news article reporting all this used a cowardly euphemism when it said the Met was seeking to avoid an "outcry" similar to the response to the Muhammad cartoons.
A mere "outcry" was all that happened in response to the Muhammad cartoons?! Really? Riots that killed people -- a mere outcry? Death threats and death fatwas and large bounties put on the heads of the cartoonists, and an evil Muslim breaking into a cartoonist's house with an axe -- eall that is just an "outcry"???!! Suicidal euphemism. In many cases Islam has people stifling what they really think and know. Anyone feel as if the air is slowly going out of the room? That more and more, we have no mouths, and we must scream? (Harlan Ellison)
Perhaps we all know the fairy tales where the land has been snowy and icy for a hundred years, due to the rule of an evil figure, a witch or the like. But has there ever been a fairy tale about a land where it has become hard to breathe, because of the rule of an evil figure whose magic pulls much of the oxygen out of the air...so that it becomes very hard to speak...to say what you will...
To clarify a vague sentence above:
Not only does the Met obey the killers; the Met pretends there are no killers. Then totalitarian Islam has really won.
"objected to by conservative Muslims "
Ah!Those rascal "conservative" Muslims,at it again!
Here's an alternative for all art museums in the West: Display absolutely nothing about Islamic art. Nothing at all. Complete absence. What a statement this would make. Of course, art museums are not the repository of courage, now are they, but one can at least imagine such an occurrence nonetheless. It would be very powerful by its very negation.
You must have missed Hugh's post, and anyway, you should know, there really isn't such a thing as "Islamic art". That is an oxymoron, sort of like Liberal Tolerance perhaps. In the way that you suggest however, they should run a whole exhibition titled Islamic Art, and use the same huge rooms that are usually used for special exhibitions, but the presence of just a few pathetic pieces in all that space would quickly bring home the reality of the matter to even the most dense liberal anxiously attending the exhibit with uncontrollable anticipation to see all of the wondrous works that such a great religion as Islam would have inspired. And if the museum was not politically correct they could in the very last room show pictures of all of the death and destruction that Islam has caused including of course the destruction of the giant Buddhist statutes as just one example of many.
No, I didn't miss Hugh's post. In fact I responded to it in my 12:55 P.M. post above. To be fair, there were some Islamic contributions to art, though not nearly as much as traditional textbooks maintain. And my point about exhibiting none of this I would reiterate. Show nothing. Nothing would make for a very powerful statement, though almost no museum curator would have the knowledge or guts to do it.
The next demand will be any representational art, which is also dicourage in Islam. Bye Bye most paintings and statues. When such demands are asceded to, they only escalate. You would be left with a barren museum, apart from some non-descript pottery and jewelry.
I must, with respect, disagree.
I believe your focus is too narrow and presumes the presence of hostile mohammedans as something that uninvolved innocents must simply deal with -- as though they had dropped out of the sky.
The "root cause" as people are fond of saying, is the abdication of western values and the abdication of the right of self defense by the western elites, of which the upper staff of the Met are very much members or to which the upper staff of the Met are servants.
This is the problem that lies behind the problem you cite.
And it long antedates the arrival of the savage mohammedans.
I will give you an example.
The met has ROOMS of marble statues (or good copies) from the height of Athenian culture, very much the root of western heroic art and western heroic ideals and the western conception of the individual.
They have been collecting dust in the basement for decades. Why? Such works are philosophically out of style.
Another example:
Above the door of the Met are blocks of uncut shapeless stone where there is supposed to be statuary. Look up and have a gander the next time you go there.
Why blocks of uncut shapeless stone rather than statuary? Glad you asked. Because the figures called for by the original design were not politically correct! -- and this decision was made long before the term "politically correct" had entered our vocabulary.
In my view the angry destructive mohammedans in the centers of western culture are the symptom. It is people like those who run and finance the Met who are the actual problem.
Speaking of art.
Guess where *I* was last week?
With two of my children - one who is studying visual arts, the other bidding fair also to become an artist (and both are independent-minded enough, to not get sucked into any nonsense, I think) - I was in Australia's national capital, viewing and enjoying the 'Masterpieces from Paris' - Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, and others.
http://nga.gov.au/Exhibition/MASTERPIECESfromPARIS/
http://nga.gov.au/exhibition/masterpiecesfromparis/Default.cfm?MNUID=2
So far, sixty thousand Australians have been through the exhibition.
I have no idea how many more will have done so by the time it closes in April. But perhaps, among the many children being taken to see these paintings, there will be those who will be inspired to perceive and communicate beauty.
Whatever happens: I have now stood in front of the actual 'Starry Night' painting (which I have loved ever since I first saw it reproduced in an art book when I was about eight) and seen pure and perfect beauty glowing at me from the wall, alive and shining as if Van Gogh had painted it in light.
Following the logic of this argument, why not remove all medieval art(much of which is anti-Semitic)lest it offend Jewish sensibilities, or why not go the whole hog and shut down the entire art collection-lest it offend "somebody's" sensibilities(be they atheists or Islamists)!!!
Winston Churchill once aptly described an appeaser as someone who hopes the crocodile will eat him/her last- today's intellectual leaders seem more worried about being seen as "Islamophobic" then defending jealously guarded traditions of free expression(pace the Danish "blasphemous" cartoons)!!!
Terry
Hugh is spot on. I recently got dragged to a spanking brand new islamic art gallery in the middle east, where I currently live, by visiting family who are very pro-islam and who gushed over the few items in the ?museum. I do not recall seeing one item of 'islamic art'. Plenty on pots, pans, plates,vases, gold, carpets etc., etc., from places such as Greece, Spain, India and elsewhere where items were probably pilfered from, but definitely not islamic art. Oh I forgot there were a couple of old korans but that is not islamic art in my view and the whole trip was soooooooo boring. I so wanted to point this out to the 'family' but decided not to as holidays are not for family rows!!! I'll doso another time.
Alaskan Infidel I'm truly sorry about your famuly in Norway. As for the MET, at least they weren't going to put a Koran in a buckett of urine. Someone help me, where was the museum several years ago that had a cross in a glass of urine? What artistic hypocracy.
I have reconsidered my stance on Islamic art.
I think it should be deported. Send it all back to its various Islamic homes, and let Muslims deal with it, as they may.
It's a liability, rather than an asset, to any museum which holds and displays real art. Kinda like the "religion" of Islam is a liability to genuine civilization.
Deporting Islamic "art", would offer no excuse (and all that's ever needed is an exuse), for rioting and destruction of legitimate works of art.
"I must, with respect, disagree.
I believe your focus is too narrow and presumes the presence of hostile mohammedans as something that uninvolved innocents must simply deal with -- as though they had dropped out of the sky."
You are overthinking this. Sure, the root causes have to be addressed, and the Muslims ultimately need to be removed from the West, but unless and until that happens anyone who wants to preserve anything of value MUST first and foremost protect their things of value from the Muslims. How the Muslims got here is not the concern of any person or entity wishing to protect their possessions or institutions from the ravages of the Muslims. They may even have played a role in bringing the Muslims here as you suggest but that is ultimately irrelevant in the first stage of protecting from the Muslims. The second stage, avoiding the need to protect from the Muslims in the future, is what you seem to be talking about. But as in any disaster situation, a flood, a fire, riots, the first stage is simply damage control, protecting or saving what can be saved, and then, after that, concerns about prevention or analysis of how the problem arose in the first place.
Let me try to say it a different way.
I don't believe that we should be surrendering the values of western civ. Period.
Not to moral relativists, not to progressives, not to communists, and not to mohammedans.
I might not mind the idea of hiding works of art that are forbidden by mohammedan standards as a temporary tactic for say ... a week or two, or a few months, or something along those lines.
But when would those works be coming back out again?
In May? June? ... I think not.
In this context, hiding the works that the mohammedans disapprove of is the beginning of a general and permanent capitulation to mohammedan standards.
I would also think differently about this if the west were the weaker party ... simply doing the best we could to preserve our values under adverse conditions where we had no chance of winning.
But that is not the case. We are by far the stronger party. The mohammedans walk around in our great cities at our pleasure and to the extent that we permit.
They have no power to win this fight, but we have the power to lose.
It doesn't matter to the mohammedans how or how quickly they obtain obedience and conformity to their laws.
Neither should it matter to us.
We should not appease, please or submit. We should not even pretend that their absurd standards deserve any consideration.
And we should respond to any threats with extreme prejudice.
========
And yes ... if that means a full body search of people entering the met, fine.
Maybe some of the smug unconscious liberals toddling around Manhatten island will start to notice that they have a problem that didn't end on 9/11.
I can't help but this this is counter-intuitive... I understand that Muslims pose a serious threat to our security but this sort of action just adds fuel to the fire and creates a mindset that it is "okay" to segregate and treat Muslims unfairly. I've worked with people that are of middle-eastern descent; they all have had a collective conscience that not all muslims are the same. It's just right now, the muslim in extremist sects are being used to represent the muslim religion as a whole. The Met-Art Museum should serve as an example to this debacle and stand up for what is right. Moreover, what would muslims get out of blowing up a museum? Wouldn't they be destroying their own art too?
-Maurizio Maranghi
"But when would those works be coming back out again?"
Not until the number of Muslims in the West is low enough and weeded out enough to be sure that the threat to the museum is gone. Sure, even a hundred years after removing the Muslims one crazy Muslim could pretend to be a Christian, come to America, and blow himself up in the museum destroying millions of dollars worth of art. But as time goes by more ways will need to be devised to screen people which isn't intrusive to citizens of the West but can still catch Muslims sneaking in to make attacks.
"I would also think differently about this if the west were the weaker party ... simply doing the best we could to preserve our values under adverse conditions where we had no chance of winning.
But that is not the case. We are by far the stronger party. The mohammedans walk around in our great cities at our pleasure and to the extent that we permit."
I think you are kidding yourself here. We are the weaker party, we are openly allowing our sworn mortal enemy free access to our land, a Trojan horse right out in the wide open light of day. Our submission to dhimmitude also reveals itself in our willingness to submit to outrageous security checks and screenings when the solution is merely excluding Muslims from the West. Theoretically we are the stronger party in this war, to the extent that one deals in the reality of weapons or intelligence, but that is not the world we are living in any more. We are living in a world created by liberals where traditional notions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, religion or atheism, you name it, is all turned upside down, twisted this way and that, changed beyond recognition to anyone still trying to analyze situations based upon traditional concepts of knowledge. At this point emoting as for all intents and purposes replaced any normal sense of intelligent analysis of the problems that the West faces particularly in the form of Islam. Given this reality we are absolutely the weaker party. And generally, the West, in a post-Christian age is weakened even more, there is nothing concrete enough for secular atheists to be willing to fight and die for. Our civilization has really already died in that sense, and at this point it is just a matter of reflexively swatting at flies buzzing around the dying corpse.
I wish to express to Alaskan my sympathy with the possible loss of communication with family in Norway.
They sound really scared.
Is this a precursor to what we may face here in America at some point in time? Too scared to talk freely? Too scared to show anything but support?
I pray not.
Islamic art was created only to give future Muslims something else to destroy...
Thanks for your concern... The family members I care about are spread all over the world and islam is a force in almost every country they reside in.
Such is life. I have to be true to what I see as right. Lines must be drawn and this is one of them.
"Piss Christ is a controversial photograph by American photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects."
islam is a lie and
Truth is killing it.
The most glaring part of your post, AlaskanInfidel, was '...we live with a bunch of them and some are crazy and might kill us...'
How telling.
My sympathies to you, if you've lost a brother. But my respect for choosing to be faithful to truth.
I saw hijabed women at the Met recently - looking at pieces in the sculpture garden. I didn't know whether to consider them hypocrites or feel sorry for them.
I took pictures of them anyway.