| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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In FrontPage today, my take on the great Qur'an cartoon controversy. News links in the original.
Last September, Danish author Kåre Bluitgen was set to publish a book on the Muslim prophet Muhammad, but there was just one catch: he couldn’t find an illustrator. Artistic representations of the human form are forbidden in Islam, and pictures of Muhammad are especially taboo — so three artists turned down Bluitgen’s offer to illustrate the book for fear that they would pay with their lives for doing so. Frants Iver Gundelach, president of the Danish Writers Union, decried this as a threat to free speech — and the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, responded. They approached forty artists asking for depictions of Muhammad and received in response twelve cartoons of the Prophet — several playing on the violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam around the world today.Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,” he fumed. “Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology!” Jyllands-Posten refused. Editor-in-chief Carsten Juste refused: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures. Religion shouldn’t set any barriers on that sort of expression. This doesn’t mean that we wish to insult any Muslims.” Cultural editor Flemming Rose concurred: “Religious feelings,” he observed, “cannot demand special treatment in a secular society. In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”
Certainly Christians have had to learn this lesson: in the United Kingdom, the secretary of an organization called Christians Against Ridicule complained in 2003 that “over the last seven days alone we have witnessed the ridicule of the Nativity in a new advert for Mr Kipling cakes, the ridicule of the Lord’s Prayer on Harry Hill’s TV Burp, the ridicule of a proud Christian family on ITV’s Holiday Nightmare and the opening of a blasphemous play at London’s Old Vic Theatre — Stephen Berkoff’s Messiah….Rarely a day goes by today without underhand and insidious mockery of the Christian faith.” Christians Against Ridicule, however, issued no death threats at that point or any other; some Muslims in Denmark after the cartoons were published were not quite so sanguine. Jyllands-Posten had to hire security guards to protect its staff as threats came in by phone and email.Muslim anger was not limited to threat-issuing thugs. In late October ambassadors to Denmark from eleven Muslim countries asked Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for a meeting about what they called the “smear campaign” against Muslims in the Danish press. Rasmussen declined: “This is a matter of principle. I won’t meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so.” He added: “I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press.” The matter, he said, was beyond his authority: “As prime minister I have no tool whatsoever to take actions against the media and I don’t want that kind of tool.”
As far as one of the ambassadors, Egypt’s, was concerned, that was the wrong answer. Egyptian officials withdrew from a dialogue they had been conducting with their Danish counterparts about human rights and discrimination. Egyptian Embassy Councillor Mohab Nasr Mostafa Mahdy added: “The Egyptian ambassador in Denmark has said that the case no longer rests with the embassy. It is now being treated at an international level. As far as I have been informed by my government, the cartoon case has already been placed on the agenda for the Islamic Conference Organization’s extraordinary summit in the beginning of December.”
Meanwhile, in Denmark in early November thousands of Muslims marched in demonstrations against the cartoons. Two of the cartoonists, fearing for their lives, went into hiding. The Pakistani Jamaaat-e-Islami party offered five thousand kroner to anyone who killed one of the cartoonists. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), with a membership of 56 Muslim nations, protested to the Danish government. Last week business establishments closed to protest the cartoons — in Kashmir. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, was reportedly “anguished” by the cartoons, and asked India’s Prime Minister to complain to the Danish government. And last Saturday the most respected authority in the Sunni Muslim world, Mohammad Sayed Tantawi, Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, declared that the cartoons had “trespassed all limits of objective criticism into insults and contempt of the religious beliefs of more than one billion Muslims around the world, including thousands in Denmark. Al-Azhar intends to protest these anti-Prophet cartoons with the UN’s concerned committees and human rights groups around the world.”
The UN was happy to take the case. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, wrote to the OIC: “I understand your attitude to the images that appeared in the newspaper. I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable.” She announced that investigations for racism and “Islamophobia” would commence forthwith.While solicitous of Muslim belief, Arbour did not seem concerned about the beliefs of the Danes. Yet Jyllands-Posten had well articulated its position as founded upon core principles of the Western world: “We must quietly point out here that the drawings illustrated an article on the self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world. Our right to say, write, photograph and draw what we want to within the framework of the law exists and must endure — unconditionally!” Juste added: “If we apologize, we go against the freedom of speech that generations before us have struggled to win.”
That freedom is imperiled internationally more today than it has been in recent memory. As it grows into an international cause célèbre, the cartoon controversy indicates the gulf between the Islamic world and the post-Christian West in matters of freedom of speech and expression. And it may yet turn out that as the West continues to pay homage to its idols of tolerance, multiculturalism, and pluralism, it will give up those hard-won freedoms voluntarily.
Posted by Robert at December 21, 2005 5:03 AM
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.....Cultural editor Flemming Rose concurred: “Religious feelings,” he observed, “cannot demand special treatment in a secular society. In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”......
That is so true and India could learn a thing or two about what it truly means to be a Secular nation.
The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad is a terrorist is sheep's clothing and it truly disgusts me that he should expect the PM of India to protest against this, but what's worse is that the PM of India probably will just to keep the muslim votebank alive. Truly disgusting.
Anyhow, good for Denmark, glad to know they have "Cahones of Steel".
Great Article Mr. Spencer.
-Cheers
Ayo Gorkhali
Posted by: Gorkhali![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 21, 2005 5:16 AM
Easy soluton for offended Muslims=F*ckoff back to the ME which is only a sewer as Islam dominates there(Israel aside).
Posted by: Zathras at December 21, 2005 5:22 AM
All I gotta say are these old wise words:
F 'em if they can't take a joke
at December 21, 2005 6:05 AM
clothing and it truly disgusts me that he should expect the PM of India to protest against this, but what's worse is that the PM of India probably will just to keep the muslim votebank alive. Truly disgusting.
Gorkhali, politicians are the same eveywhere when they chose to be sell out for a vote...
Posted by: Lulu at December 21, 2005 7:27 AM
"The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, wrote to the OIC: “I understand your attitude to the images that appeared in the newspaper. I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable.” She announced that investigations for racism and “Islamophobia” would commence forthwith."
-- from the article above
This statement alone should trigger demands, by members of the American Congress and the press, for the demission of Louise Arbour. And if she remains, and remains as the "UN High Commissioner for Human Rights" who has no understanding or sympathy for the right of free expression even within the heart of the advanced Western world (how she would hate that phrase, smacking of all that she cannot stand -- "the advanced Western world"), then the Americans should stop all contributions to that nauseating organization, the United Nations. It is worthless. It is worse than worthless. It is a permanent menace. Not least becaue of its having been thoroughly infiltarted, from top to bottom, by the members, Muslim and non-Muslim, of an Islamintern International. That should be the focus of attention in all discussions of the U.N.
Begin with Edward Mortimer, illegitimate Edward. Google "Posted by Hugh" and "Jihad Watch" and "Edward Mortimer" for more on the head of the Office of Communications and self-described "Senior Adviser" to Kofi Annan (and his chief speech-writer), the man who hailed the arrival of Khomeini extravagantly -- "to quote Charles James Fox, bliss was it in that dawn to be alive" etc. -- in the pages of the London press, and whose sinister views on Israel can also be found by the same googling. And he's just the tip, but not the tip-top, of the U.N.'s iceberg.
at December 21, 2005 7:48 AM
These death threats will never end. This is the biggest insult one can offer to this rabid crowd hell-bent on destroying everything we hold dear. Whodathunkit...patriotic cartoonists!
Kudos to the Danish leaders who had the gusto to explain to the ever-so-demanding and quick-to kill Muslims that we have a little thing in the free world called FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
They take offense to this!? Well what about what we take offense to, things like curtailing freedom of speech for the delicate sensibilities of hostile minorities?
Where are the crowds in Muslim countries protesting in the thousands for free speech? Oh yea..such crowds do not exist because religious police (for f*cks sake, religious police!) suppress any and all threats.
As for the UN leader, what a sickening display. Maybe she should go over to Saudi Arabia and see how much she is tolerated over there.
The only reasonable solution to this problem is deportation. They are using our freedoms to their own advantage and it must be stopped.
Posted by: ChinCheck at December 21, 2005 9:09 AM
I was so impressed by all this, and yet rather concerned that the cartoons would disappear, that I posted them on my own blog (hardly used) awhile back. I included a few of the various news stories as filler.
IMHO, these cartoons are a treasure these artists have given the world. They should never be lost, forgotten, or politically hammered into oblivion.
Posted by: Mr Jones at December 21, 2005 9:25 AM
Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims..”
It's nice to see that for once the Muslims are not allowed to manipulate democracy.
In the UK the Muslims are always manipulating the existing tolerant structures in their favour.
Posted by: rocky at December 21, 2005 9:42 AM
Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims..”
It's nice to see that for once the Muslims are not allowed to manipulate democracy.
In the UK the Muslims are always manipulating the existing tolerant structures in their favour.
Posted by: rocky at December 21, 2005 9:43 AM
Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims..”
The converse is also true.
Posted by: Chatillon at December 21, 2005 10:06 AM
I think what upset the Moslems was not so much the drawings as it was the affront of seeing an actual challenge to their absolute supremacy in a major media outlet.
These drawings were critical of Mohammed and, therefore, of Islam. I do not remember EVER seeing or hearing of Islam being criticized at its fundament in a mass communications forum. No movie, no major newspaper, no TV show, no right wing radio program, no nothing nowhere no how.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
Indeed, I believe that kowtowing to Moslems is itself obscene.
It is so difficult for me to watch O'Reilly and Russert and Oprah and the gang with their pants bunch around their ankles, bent over a desk, peering back at the camera with microphone jabbed to face, contorting logic and skeleton alike to interview important Moslem leaders on the air.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at December 21, 2005 11:44 AM
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
This is the A bomb of this war. They can't take
a joke, or mockery. Keep it coming!
at December 21, 2005 12:58 PM
Robert:
"Artistic representations of the human form are forbidden in Islam, and pictures of Muhammad are especially taboo..."
Could you please clear up whether this is an absolute edict, or is it open to interpretation.
APF:
"These drawings were critical of Mohammed..."
One was quite benign and would have met Kåre Bluitgen's needs.
Two (numbers 6 & 12) were submitted in protest, as those artists felt the newspaper was engaging in a PR stunt, for which they apparently had reason to believe.
Here are the drawings:
http://www.newspaperindex.com/blog/2005/12/10/un-to-investigate-jyllands-posten-racism/#comments
Here's my take:
Had Jyllands-Posten printed just drawing number one, then any resultant Muslim tantrums, protestations and demonstrations would have been the clear result of Muslim religious beliefs. And the newspaper could have demonstrated to its readers that Muslim beliefs, be they absolute or general, are for Muslims, and that non-Muslims are not beholden to those beliefs. But the paper chose, instead, to publish drawings that were clearly intended to insult.
I believe the paper took the low road and handed Muslims, and their sympathizers, another 'victim' card.
It has escalated now. And that is fine, for it does show how silly the Muslim world is. But had the situation gotten this ridiculous over just picture number one, it would have been a clearer demonstration of their true nature.
at December 21, 2005 1:04 PM
There is more to the story...
Europe Criticises Copenhagen over Cartoons
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/589
at December 21, 2005 1:49 PM
Mr Jones,
thank You so much for posting all twelve cartoons on your blog. They are wonderful, although some are more clever than others. I agree that these are symbolically very important, and I am surprised and impressed by Europeans saying something other than, "hey mr mohammed, would you like some vaseline before our entire continent bends over?"
And now I see why PM Rasmussen was nominated for anti-dhimmi of the year.
Go ahead Euros, fight for your civilization!!
at December 21, 2005 1:50 PM
A few years ago the University of Alabama at Birmingham spent several thousand dollars (coolected from mandatory student fews and state tax dollars) to purchase Andrei Serrano's "Piss Christ". This was a photo of a picture of Christ submerged in the "artist's" HIV-positive urine and blood. Anyone who opposed their money being spent for this was denounced by the University administration as bigots. Of course, no one threatened violence against the university.
I wonder if someone were to create a "Piss Quran" if the politically correct administration would be so bold in the face of Muslim student's reactions.
Posted by: Provoslavni at December 21, 2005 2:01 PM
"collected from mandatory student fees" ... sorry about the typo.
Posted by: Provoslavni at December 21, 2005 2:03 PM
SOCK IT TO 'EM YOU GREAT DANES!
Posted by: Morgane at December 21, 2005 2:04 PM
Mr. Jones, by the way, who has posted those cartoons, is one of the winners of the MESA Nostra contest. It was a three-way tie. "Interested" is another winner, and an announcement has been sent to her C/o The Spaniards, her favorite pub. The third winner, from Holland, is still being contacted; when last seen he was at a corner table in the Print Room at "D'Vieff Vlieghen," a restaurant in Amsterdam.
Posted by: Hugh at December 21, 2005 3:49 PM
So far, cartoon four is my favourite, partly because it needs no words, closely followed by cartoon eleven.
I don't speak (or read) Danish. Cartoon six has a translation below it, but some of the others haven't.
Can anyone please supply translations for cartoons eight and nine?
Posted by: Aardvark at December 21, 2005 5:39 PM
This is nauseating and I feel like I am dealing with "children" > haven't the Muslims grown up?
Instead they go crying to the UN > mommy, mommy, they called me "bad" names.
The world gets more screwed up each year, the sad part is that it will eventually lead to WWIII.
Posted by: learjet0450 at December 21, 2005 8:59 PM
Hugh,
Will you post the MESA NOSTRA contest winners and the answer, please. I'm dying to know which legendary MIddle East Studies guru concocted that pastiche of senseless gibberish.
at December 21, 2005 11:44 PM
http://www.chick.com/reading/comics/0117/theprophetindex.asp?wpc=0117/theprophetindex.asp&wpp=b
The link above will take you to a series of drawings of the so called phrophet Muhammed
that was done way back in 1988. Of course the Mussies dont like to point to this author as it shows how much of a lie thier religion is
at December 22, 2005 12:52 AM
"Will you post the MESA NOSTRA contest winners and the answer, please. I'm dying to know which legendary MIddle East Studies guru concocted that pastiche of senseless gibberish."
-- from a posting above
It may have been a pastiche, but not "senseless gibberish." Every bit of it makes a certain kind of sense before wandering off. The example was offered because a close reader will see that in fact it constantly deviates into, or out of, sense (it hardly matters which; it has us, or we have it, coming and going).
The author's name will be posted.
Posted by: Hugh at December 22, 2005 10:14 AM
",,,Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,” he fumed.
I would like to suggest a new term for the only type of democracy that muslims would ever find acceptable during this transition period before democracy is ultimately made redundant following the establishment of universal peace and justice under the benevolent theocracy of the mullahs, i.e., dhimmiocracy. Under dhimmiocracy non-muslims (the dhimmi) are still allowed to vote and largely govern themselves, but muslims, no matter how small a minority they are, expect to have an automatic right of veto over any political decisions that are made that they don't like. And if the dhimmi do not immediately bend to the muslims' will on these matters, then the muslims are absolutely entitled to resort to any means necessary (intimidation of any kind may be employed, but lethal violence is preferred, since this pleases Allah the most) to force them to comply.
As an example of dhimmiocracy in action in the UK, consider why it is that Sir Iqubal (was there ever a more ironic title bestowed than that?) Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Great Britain is so anxious for there to be a public inquiry into the July London bombings, when you might think that this would serve only to be a further embarrassment to his religion. It is, of course, because he expects, with the help of the legions of "useful idiot" dhimmiwits in the British media, to use it to establish that the cause of the bombings was not actually anything to do with the anti-democratic nature of Islam and with the propensity to violence of its followers. Rather, it was only the wickedness of the dhimmi government, and of those dhimmi who supported it, in flouting the wishes of the "British" muslim colony (oops, should that be "community"?) that Britain should not try to impose an unIslamic democracy in Iraq, which gave those poor, "disenfranchised" (dhimmiocraticspeak for "denied their God given right of veto"), but heroic, martyrs no alternative but to administer to the recalcitrant dhimmi a punishment from God. Given how far down the road of dhimmiocracy we have already gone, I have little doubt that he would succeed in this aim. I also expect that, only a few more years down the line, we could well have London streets or even tube stations renamed after these splendid exemplars of the Religion of Peace.
at December 22, 2005 3:32 PM
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