It wouldn't surprise me if the Nazis' had been the victors in WWII and where ruling the world today, it may have become an insult to denigrate Mein Kampf.

Posted by: Mackie at May 22, 2008 9:58 AM

It wouldn't surprise me if the Nazis' had been the victors in WWII and where ruling the world today, it may have become an insult to denigrate Mein Kampf.

Posted by: Mackie at May 22, 2008 9:58 AM

CAIRO — A popular Japanese cartoon is sparking off outcries in the Muslim world where some fear it could fuel a backlash not seen since European papers carried cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and a Dutch lawmaker released a controversial film earlier this year."

Great! Let the "backlash" happen! Stop kowtowing to the Barbarians! Let 'em show themselves again in all their barbarity and insanity as with the Mo'Toons! Bring on the "backlash!"

Posted by: darcy at May 22, 2008 9:59 AM

Where are the samurai? What about bushido?

At this point, I'll even take a couple of elderly ninjas.

Yakusa?

Somebody in Japan better step up to the plate and take a stand.

"This evil character derives its subversive ideas from this book, the Holy Quran..."

No! It can't be! Everyone who hasn't read the Qur'an knows that the Holy Qur'an is full of sweetness and light.

Posted by: tanstaafl at May 22, 2008 10:28 AM

A popular Japanese cartoon is sparking off outcries in the Muslim world

. . .not of Dio Brando's anti-Arab pedestrian scenes [1:05 min. w/subtitles] but because of a singlular scene involving a koran?

Typical.

Posted by: justamomof4 at May 22, 2008 11:03 AM

If they can see that why don't they see the rest so clearly? Suspend your own culture 'cause it offends Islam. Get on with it.

So many dhimmis and not enough adult supervision.

Posted by: Sounder at May 22, 2008 11:39 AM

Welcome to the club, Cartoonist-san. Now the Japanese flag will be burned alongside the Danish, Israeli and Dutch flags, not to speak of the all-time favorite US flag. Mohammad (Peace-Be-Upon-Him and Boy-Does-He-Need-It) will be soooo happy.

Posted by: Hedgehog at May 22, 2008 12:01 PM

Its time we published our own cartoons depicting the atrocities committed by Islam. These spineless cowards, stand up and publish the truth. If they do not like it then that is there problem, they need to deal with the fact Islam is a violent, bigoted, full of hate ideology that has completely and totally failed to bring peace. However, it has succeeded in killing, murder, rape, threats, destruction, kidnapping non Muslims.

Posted by: savsiv at May 22, 2008 12:07 PM

As an Egyptian Internet cafe owner in Cairo, Yassin, believes the objective of the Japanese producers is to say, ‘‘This evil character derives its subversive ideas from this book, the Holy Quran...this indicates the deep-rooted rancor against Islam and the misconceptions about Quran meanings.’’ ‘‘This is unjustifiable,’’ he said.

I start to think that deep down he simply knows the bad thought about the Quran is in fact true. He refuses it by accusing the japanes comics character of bad intentions.

Posted by: FreeSpeech at May 22, 2008 12:57 PM

This makes no sense at all.

Muslims consult the koran on murdering little girls and other innocents every day. So some cartoon guy does the same thing, and it's bad?

What little I know about Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, is that it has demonic possession as one of its primary themes. The author clearly knew what he was doing having his bad guy character consult the koran.

But now everyone is afraid of peaceful muslims killing them, so they're backing down. Too bad, but understandable considering how violent those peaceful muslims can be.

Posted by: Tapper at May 22, 2008 2:04 PM

Alas, another example of another culture where Muslims can not get along. Muslims appear to universally not be able to get along with others.

So what if the cartoon says some Muslims get their evil ideas from the Koran. It's true. Christians are portayed as villains all the time in movies. Consider how Roman Catholics were depicted in the Elizabeth movies. You saw complaints but not blood thirsty frothing at the mouth.

Eventually, there will be a multi-cultural global movement against Islamic supremacism.

Posted by: James Martel at May 22, 2008 2:26 PM

"Muslims will be forced to adopt a position toward their civilization, from arguing their worship through boycotting their products to responding in the same manner if necessary"

So the muslims will now draw ficticious cartoons that insult Japanese culture? Or will they riot and kill? Hmm...

Posted by: Kelana at May 22, 2008 2:45 PM

Never in my life have I EVER seen such a group of thin-skinned bunch of losers!

The Japanese use a cartoon to depict the truth about the KKKoran, and the zombies collectively get their panties in a twist - again!

Methinks it's WAAYYY beyond time for the cartoonists/sketch artists among us to get busy.

Posted by: boneshack at May 22, 2008 4:09 PM

What the hell happened to that famous Japanese bushido spirit??

Posted by: Madame Vengier at May 22, 2008 4:51 PM

Nothing hurts them more than the truth.

Posted by: Dumbo at May 22, 2008 10:54 PM

From the article:

"Other {Muslim} reactions included website postings citing their offense as the suggested correlation between the villain and his reading of the holy book, as well as the underlying message suggesting that children who read the Quran will become villains".

And this, the Muslims want us to think, is libellous? Insulting? Untrue?

Well then, here's the reality check. We'll hop on over to jihadwatch, shall we? One of the latest stories there concerns a native British citizen who - having recently converted to Islam - attempted to detonate a bomb in a restaurant; not the first or only such Muslim convert to plan, attempt or in fact carry out acts of violence, either. Thanks to jihadwatch I have compiled a whole bunch of such stories, from different countries (UK, USA, Europe, Philippines) featuring converts from wildly differing ethno-cultural backgrounds, all of which I keep in a file labelled 'the dangerous convert'.

Mr Spencer headlined the latest such story: 'Convert to Islam sets off Nail Bomb in UK Restaurant'. Here's the link:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021137.php#comments

One must assume that a modern western convert to Islam will have read, or been told, SOMETHING of the contents of the Qur'an.

Perhaps someone could send Hirohiko Araki a copy of the 'PIG to Islam and the Crusades', or 'The Truth About Muhammad', together with a copy of 'Persepolis', and a link to Bosch Fawstin's site in order that he may be introduced to PIGMAN.

Japanese translation of 'The Truth About Muhammad', needed ASAP.

Anybody reading here who knows Japanese well enough to volunteer their services?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 22, 2008 11:49 PM

From the article: "With that in mind he went to the library and found a book, which turned out to be the Quran and inserted it. No one realized the mistake as no one could read or speak Arabic, the official said."

Hey Japan, ban the Quran.

That'll solve that problem.

Posted by: Liberal Guy at May 23, 2008 12:40 AM

*~@):~{>

Funny how simple computer symbols make a world-notorious cartoon.

Even typography is anti-Islam.

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 23, 2008 12:43 AM

Not my beloved Japan!!! Here I was thinking they were the last bastion of common sense and self-preservation in this sorry world. And now the brain-eating virus of grovelling dhimmitude has reached their shores, even though it is a nation with almost no immigrants (they make up about 1 percent of the population, I believe) and only a microscopic proportion of those immigrants are Muslim.

Japan is a far from perfect country, but is still a model for the world in more ways than one. We all know about the much lower rates of crime. Another thing that also distinguishes Japan from the West is that there are no Muslim ghettos in Tokyo or Osaka, no Muslim "no-go" areas, no mega-mosques with loudspeakers (thank God, as Japanese cities are noisy enough as it is), no women walking around in face-covering black bags, no Muslim "honour killings", dogs are much loved, pork is eaten with gusto, and alcohol is happily purchased and consumed everywhere. All as it should be. The small number of Muslim residents, whether they are immigrants, students, or foreign workers, enjoy exactly the same rights and privileges of all other residents, no more nor less. Anything about Japan that they don't like or that offends their religion or their notions of decency, they are expected to put up with...if they can't do that, they know the way to the airport. This is understood by all. The typical Japanese attitude is extremely politically incorrect. The Japanese tolerate immigrants and foreign workers or all types, but they don't love them or even necessarily "like" them, and certainly don't see them as cultural equals, let alone superiors. They expect newcomers to adapt to Japanese ways as much as possible, which they know are superior, and they have little sympathy for those who can't or won't do it. Foreigners in Japan often complain about this attitude, believing that they somehow have the right to be loved by the Japanese, not just tolerated, and they decry the typical Japanese reticence, arrogance, and occasional downright unfriendliness as "xenophobia." But that's not what it is at all; what it is, is intelligence.

Posted by: angloirishslav at May 23, 2008 1:27 AM

Devoted Muslims like those attempting to silence the Japanese in this case, are not merely fighting defamation. These Muslims are seeking to kill freedom of speech and establish bit by bit the domination worldwide of a totalitarian, Islamic law ethos and mentality. They are trying to turn the globe into a theocratic dictatorship of Muslims over non-Muslims. But these ongoing efforts to intimidate into silence all non-Muslim criticism/lampooning of Islam may be building up a kind of pressure in the non-Muslim world, a pressure that might blow off the lid Islamic authorities are so often trying to clamp down with threats of violence or of lawsuits. If the jihadists and supremacist Muslims, and the too numerous Muslim sympathizers with Islamic law keep trying to bully the the non-Muslim world into submission, an explosion of conflict may become increasingly unavoidable.

Posted by: traeh at May 23, 2008 4:46 AM

But that's not what it is at all; what it is, is intelligence.
Posted by: angloirishslav

I don't know that the Japanese are 'more intelligent', but they certainly have learned how to focus and apply the intelligence they have, which is intelligent in itself. Japan has come a long way since WW2.

From same post above: Anything about Japan that they don't like or that offends their religion or their notions of decency, they are expected to put up with...if they can't do that, they know the way to the airport. This is understood by all.

That's understood now, but if the muslim population gets big enough those understandings will be challenged. Islam does not go anywhere to be dominated. It must eventually become dominant.
Japan needs to intellectually see the future of this and curb it before it gets out of hand.

Posted by: duh_swami at May 23, 2008 10:11 AM

I should qualify my post by mentioning that Japan has experienced at least one jihad attack; back in the early 90s the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was stabbed to death, in Tokyo. The killer was a Muslim foreign resident. So Japan obviously has let some of the bad elements in, to its detriment. And in recent decades it certainly has had its problems with home-grown violence and terrorism too. The point I was making is that Japan's overall strict control and limitations on immigration, while often resented by outsiders, has been good for Japan and the Japanese. It has ensured stability by keeping Japan ethnically, culturally, and linguistically homogenous, which, like it or not, is the most reliable recipe for social harmony yet devised.

Posted by: angloirishslav at May 23, 2008 10:21 PM

Hey let the Taliban boycott those popular ToYOta flatbes trucks they like so much.

Maybe we can motivate these "people" to start produccing their own stuff so they won't have to boycott "kiffer" products any longer..

SCREW ISLAM!!

I'm a GERMAN - ***PLEASE*** moslems ***PLEASE*** boycott ALL German products. Even better - PUH-LEEEZZZEE boycott my country altogether and STOP coming there!!

PLEASE boycott German welfare and medical payments!!!

MAKE MY DAY, mophomet-spawn!!

Just take Germany OFF your calendar!!

WE HATE mahomet and we think he's a child rapist. In fact we think he was Hitler's role model. And everybody knows what Hitler did for us.

We think YOUR fake "prophet" mahomet is a carvan raider and an INSULT to Humanity.

We think mahomet is an agent of SATAN if not the EVIL ONE himself!

BOYCOTT GERMANY!!!!!!!!!!!

DO IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at May 23, 2008 11:35 PM

angloirishslav

My GF is Japanese.. she despises moslems. She's here with me in the US and she's heard stories of Middle easterners involved in some sort of telephone card scheme to rip off local Japanese.

Thanks to my frequently offered explanations of islamic "culture" she has a very good understanding of why and how they operate and thus the story she heard from back home fit right in now that she understands the islamic "mindset".

Posted by: Ummah Gummah at May 23, 2008 11:42 PM

angloirishslav -
Japan isn't ENTIRELY homogenous. Not do I find their pursuit of homogeneity entirely admirable. (Just as I do not admire the singleminded ruthlessness of the Han Chinese imperial drive to destroy and erase everything non-Han, including the ancient language, culture and land of the emphatically NON-Han Tibetans).

Look up the Ainu: who are, by the way, the indigenous, or Aboriginal, inhabitants of Japan. Their language - now almost extinct - is completely different from Japanese; their culture is, or was, also distinct,

They have been treated with contempt and injustice; with plain, old-fashioned racism, despite being not immigrants but indigenes.

You will also, if you examine Japanese history and geography carefully, discover that the people of the southern islands in the Japanese group -Okinawan and Ryukyun - speak a different dialect from those who live in the central, dominant islands, have a somewhat different appearance, and have been, historically, exploited and looked down upon.

I am not entirely convinced by the idea that 'social harmony' flows necessarily from 'ethnic, cultural and linguistic homogeneity'. It is possible for a society to speak one language and arise from the same set of ancestors, yet be horrifyingly unstable and violent, if the CULTURE that everyone 'shares', is in fact...violent. If you don't believe me, read the Icelandic sagas. Everybody came from a few closely related families; everyone spoke Icelandic; but in the pre-Christian era they tore each other to pieces incessantly.

Arab and Arabised Muslim societies are another excellent example. Generations of assiduous inbreeding by first-cousin marriage (= genetic/ethnic homogeneity to the nth degree), total dominance of Arab culture and language totalised/ sacralised by the Islamic religion, singlemindedly ruthless suppression of any diverse elements (e.g. repression of Berbers, Jews, Copts, Maronites, Assyrians, to the point where within 'Arab' territory all of these irritating 'Others' have been either obliterated or reduced to tiny remnants)...yet nevertheless a history of incessant, and extreme INstability and DISharmony, shocking levels of family violence, strife between warring clans, gangs, villages, dynasties.

Does anyone believe that if the jihadis got their wish - if the entire planet became one featureless ummah governed by the monochrome, monolithic 'unity' of sharia under a single Muslim despot, all languages but Arabic extinct, all religions but Islam erased, that there would be 'social harmony'?

You might find it interesting, angloirishslav, on the topic of social harmony - shall we call it 'peace'? - and how it has been understood biblically, in contrast to the way it was understood by the greco-pagan world, to read two books - Franz Rosenzweig's "The Star of Redemption" and David Bentley Hart, "The Beauty of the Infinite: the Aesthetics of Christian Truth". Look very carefully at what Hart says about Dionysius and Apollo - and his contention that the biblical 'Way' subscribes to NEITHER.

Islam merely takes to its logical extreme, indeed Islam is the pure reductio ad absurdum, of a very, very common impulse - that which takes it for granted that everything which is Not-Self must necessarily be Enemy, and must be completely destroyed or excluded or consumed, if the Self is to survive. It is the view that social peace can only be found in the absolute simplicity of monody or unison; the less difference there is, the better. (The blank mass of white-robed hajjis circling widdershins round the Kaaba).

For that reason I hesitate to envy the supposedly superior homogeneity and cultural confidence of Japan - which, in the 20th century, lent themselves to a sacralised imperialism as violent and conscienceless as that of the Umma; and which also, in the 16th-17th century, were responsible for the cruel deaths of many thousands of Japanese who had chosen to convert to the 'foreign' religion of Christianity.

PS - to Ummah Gummah - I assume you've told your Japanese friend up to scratch on the Muslim attitude toward polytheists, and in particular, Islam's appalling track record, past and present, of murder and mayhem against Buddhists?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 24, 2008 12:20 AM

Oops. Slip of the keys. In final sentence, read not 'told' but 'brought'.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 24, 2008 12:23 AM

Somewhere some nation needs to skip the groveling appeasement stage and simply resist from the start. Once on the road to dhimmitude it is much more difficult to turn it around and fight back, to develop an effective bulwark against Islam and 'creeping sharia'.

Instead of fussing and fighting about appropriate responses to Muslim intolerance, a better tactic is to declare our intentions to expel from the West-- and the East-- Muslims who cannot bear our ways. There seem to be quite a few of these. On the basis of their reflexive violence and violent "preaching" we must muster the wherewithal to send them back to their beloved, contiguous ummaville.

Cowardice is contagious. So is clear-sighted courage.

Posted by: lycaste at May 24, 2008 4:01 PM

to dumbledoresarmy:

Point taken about Japan's imperfections; I'm well-aware of their historical mistreatment of the indigenous Ainu minority; I've traveled in Hokkaido and met and talked with ethnic Ainu people and they were, at one time anyway, as ethnically, culturally, and linguistically distinct from the Japanese as one could be, even though most if not all of them now speak Japanese and are, in spite of lingering discrimination and prejudice, mostly assimilated. Whether they are truly the "first people" there is debatable; there may well have been others there before them, who were either driven out, killed off, and/or just absorbed into their culture, like the people of the British Isles who preceded the Celts. The history of most island nations is a series of one invasion after another. Japan is made up of islands so all the human groups there most likely got there from the mainland. The fact is, though, that the people we now call ethnic Japanese arrived at and conquered these islands long ago. Nothing can be done about that now. Yes, there are different regional dialects of Japanese, but to my knowledge they can all understand each other. About 99 percent of the population is at least functionally literate, and they all read and write the same language. And yes, Japan's cultural homogeneity has in the past given birth to some truly ugly mutations. My point is that at the present point in time it is a strength. What we may see as Japan's unsufferable arrogance, they see as cultural confidence, something the West could use a good helping of. Which is why I'm hoping this bit of grovelling dhimmitude on the part of Japan is just a "show" (something they have always been very good at) with no real change in attitude. Anyone who, like me, has had direct experience with Japanese nodding and smiling, bowing and scraping, but ultimately refusing to budge a fraction of an inch, will know what I mean. It's their way, bless 'em.

Posted by: angloirishslav at May 25, 2008 2:14 AM

"Which is why I'm hoping this bit of grovelling dhimmitude on the part of Japan is just a "show" (something they have always been very good at) with no real change in attitude. Anyone who, like me, has had direct experience with Japanese nodding and smiling, bowing and scraping, but ultimately refusing to budge a fraction of an inch, will know what I mean. It's their way, bless 'em."

You know what? You are right. I remember reading something about this--both from an socialogical point of view and from non-Japanese with direct experience: The Japanese are masters of "two-facedness" (I mean this not in a nasty way). The face they CHOOSE to show you is not always a reflection of what they are thinking in their minds at that same moment. And it's true, they will smile and nod, and then not budge all the while.

I agree totally with what you said: this perceived "arrogance" will save them.

Let's hope and pray it will, that is.

I have an avid interest in Japan, by the way. I'm going there for my second trip in 4 days (on Friday). :)

Posted by: Madame Vengier at May 25, 2008 10:56 PM

"I should qualify my post by mentioning that Japan has experienced at least one jihad attack; back in the early 90s the Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was stabbed to death, in Tokyo. The killer was a Muslim foreign resident"

WOW, I had no idea!! But I'm glad to hear that book is in Japanese.

Posted by: Madame Vengier at May 25, 2008 11:07 PM

"she's heard stories of Middle easterners involved in some sort of telephone card scheme to rip off local Japanese."

I have heard about this also.

Un-related to that, one of my favorite Japanese movies is a sweet little jem called 'Tokyo Eyes' and there's a scene that figures into the movie involving a middle eastern immigrant. He hangs around on the corner peddling his scheister phone cards and smacking around his Japanese girlfriend. Later when he treats the main character (a Japanese) in a rude manner, he gets his just desserts. You would never see such an un-PC scene like that in an American movie. The Muslims would be screaming racism.

Posted by: Madame Vengier at May 25, 2008 11:14 PM

Re. the murder of the Japanese translator, see this link to an original news report:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-translator.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

A more recent article (published in 2006) says that the case was, as of that time, still unsolved:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/religion/article.asp?parentid=40041

It is mentioned that the estimated number of Muslims, both native-born and immigrant, in Japan is about 300,000. Consider that the population of Japan is about 125 million. They need to keep the ratio that way if they know what's good for them.

The original article mentions that most of the muslims in Tokyo are Pakistani or Bangladeshi immigrants or foreign workers. Chances are that the killer came from their community and was well-protected by them. He's probably long gone from the country and is out spreading jihad and misery now elsewhere. BTW, when I lived in Tokyo I found the Pakistani/Bangladeshi men there(never saw any women from those communities) an odious lot: rude, surly, aggressive, and disrespectful of women. No wonder the Japanese detest them. There's nothing to like.

Posted by: angloirishslav at May 27, 2008 11:04 PM