Plucky Danes and the cartoons that won’t go away
Bookworm on Feb 13 2008 at 8:57 am | Filed under: Denmark, Europe, Islam, Media matters, Muslim violence
I don’t need to remind any of you of the Cartoon jihad rampage that Islamists went on a couple of years ago when a Danish paper dared to print cartoons of Muhammad, most innocuous, but some a little edgy. Actually, they weren’t edgy enough because, as you may also recall, everyone ignored them until a Danish imam took it upon himself to add in some truly obscene Muhammad cartoons, blame them on the Danes, and start the riots. (Apparently it isn’t blasphemy when Danish imam’s do this kind of thing, as long as they’re out to destroy the infidel. All’s fair in, not love, because they have no love, but war, war, war.)
Anyway, the whole thing is in the news because it turns out that, while two years may have passed, Islamists have long memories (witness their continued and active outrage over their expulsion from Spain more than 500 years ago). Some of them, to express that outrage, got together and decided to assassinate Kurt Westergaard, the artists behind the most satirically accurate cartoon — the one depicting Muhammad with a bomb in lieu of a turban. (It would have been just as good if it had pictured any generic Islamist, but it does make a greater point about the religion in this form). Here, see for yourself:
A funny thing is happening in Denmark in the wake of the news that police broke up the assassination ring — European newspapers are being brave:
Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.
The cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim world two years ago.
The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a “terror-related assassination” of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing.
Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: “We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend,” in comments reported by The Associated Press. (Emphasis mine.)
Newspapers in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands also republished the drawing Wednesday as part of their coverage of Tuesday’s arrests.
Perhaps this new bravery is because Europeans have begun to realize in the intervening two years since the last cartoon kerfuffle that radical Muslims don’t go away if you simply yield to their ever increasing demands::
CNN’s Paula Newton said the arrests reinforced growing fears in Europe that radical Islam was trying to suppress free speech.
“More and more Europeans feel that Islam is a threat to their way of life,” Newton said. A recent Gallup poll for the World Economic Forum showed a majority of Europeans believed relations between the West and the Muslim world were worsening. According to the poll this sentiment was strongest held among Danish.
Islamists are blackmailers. In the beginning, as the object of blackmail, it always seems easier to give in, whether the threat is humiliation or, as here, violence. However, that’s a deal with the Devil because the nature of a blackmailer is that he never goes away. He wants more and more and more and he increases his demands until you’re almost sucked dry or are actually dead. Its the rare blackmailer whose greed isn’t such that he can resist the temptation to kill the goose that is laying his golden eggs. For the Islamists there’s actually no downside to killing us Western geese. Whether we’re reduced to total subservience or totally destroyed, they get what they want.
Both Michelle Malkin and the Captain are sponsoring blogbursts to publish the above cartoon, especially since American newspapers, unlike their increasingly threatened European counterparts, are being very coy about the cartoons. It’s a great idea. Remember, as much as they’d like to kill us all, they can’t if we show a solidarity that utterly defeats their arms. Per Ben Franklin: “We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” So, go to it!
Check below the fold for a partial list of bloggers taking a stand:
The Trading Post
DocWeasel (warning: NSFW)
Deaconblue
Pirate’s Cove
Flap
Sharinlite
My Inner Scream
Ladies Logic
Squid Shark
No Burqua
Savage Republican
YACRWB
Musing Minds
Common Folk Using Common Sense
Exurban League
Fewmets
Nine Sixteenths
PapaRay
Voice of Liberty
Ron’s Bloviating
Obiter Dictum
Five By Five
Thus Spake Ortner, The Sniper
The World According To Carl
Outside the Beltway
Neocon news
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12 Responses to “Plucky Danes and the cartoons that won’t go away”
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Solidarity…
Danish newspapers have demonstrated solidarity with Kurt Westergaard and Jyllands-Posten today. After the arrests of conspirators determined to assassinate the editorial cartoonist, the other newspapers in Denmark today have reprinted the cartoon that …
My Hat’s Off to Denmark…
Their newspaper editors seem to be made of far finer material than the rest of the media combined—Well, other than these fine gentlemen, that is.
That being said, I reckon this means it’s time to issue an Islamic Rage Boy Watch for the coming mon…
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Hurrah For The Danes!…
Their media will not be intimidated by the threats of Muslims. Denmarks three main newspapers will take the provocative step today of reprinting a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb instead of a turban after the arrest yesterday……
My Yiddish isn’t that good (being blonde Irish/German and all) but somehow “kerfuffle” doesn’t seem to me to be the right word to describe the Embassy bombings and murders that followed in the Middle East after that Imam deliberately stirred the devil’s cauldron.
I don’t agree that the Islamists are Blackmailers, either. There the motive is mere profit. I think the “Flying Imams” and the taxi drivers at the Mpls airport (who wouldn’t carry liquor or dogs), or the checkout clerks at Target (who wouldn’t check out shrink-wrapped pork, when wearing loves), the Islamist are testing their limits: how far can they push before we push back. Can they get female only beaches? Can they wear face-concealing garb for Driver’s license/passport photos? Can they get public funding for a Muslim school (they did in NYC)? Can they get Sharia courts for civil offenses?
Europe is just beginning to wake up to this testing. As Book has written before, Ghandi (and MLK) prevailed because of the basic decency of the Western (England/USA) world. Will that same decency allow Islamists to defeat us???
Ellie,
That’s the problem with the written, as opposed to spoken, word. I meant “kerfuffle” to sound ironic, since it implies a little nothing, which is all the upset about the cartoons ought to have been. You’re right, though. Instead of a little nothing, there was complete, violent, deathly insanity.
I think the Danes and many others are getting brave because they see the triumph of the surge.
The American Army’s success in Iraq is emboldening others in their dealings with radical Islam.
Now that last is a nicely optimistic look at a domino effect. The irony is that, if the surge really worked this way, and Islamism is forced into retreat after only 5 years, everyone on the Left will going around saying “See? We told you so — Islamism was never really a threat!” And, of course, if it doesn’t go away, they’ll say “See? We told you so — Bush turned the world into a dangerous place.”
Solidarity Against Islam…
The Captain and Michell Malkin have kicked off call for bloggers to deminstrate solidarity with the Danish Newspapers who have demonstrated solidarity with Kurth Westergaad and Jyllands-Posten today.
First, lets get up to date on the story as I have…
The irony is that, if the surge really worked this way, and Islamism is forced into retreat after only 5 years, everyone on the Left will going around saying “See? We told you so — Islamism was never really a threat!” And, of course, if it doesn’t go away, they’ll say “See? We told you so — Bush turned the world into a dangerous place.”
This is why warfare, the study and practice of warfare, is so important and vital to humanity’s destiny and ultimate potential.
Without warfare to solve the disagreements on she said he said, humanity will continue to waste resources fighting each other. There will be no agreement to cooperate because all factions believe they can win, that they can beat the other guy’s view of the universe via competition, sabotage, cheating, or whatever.
It is only warfare, the ability to beat an opponent with nothing held back or held in reserve, that decides for all time the issues of who is right.
Even in America where argument holds play, the “who is right” question is answered by “the Founding Fathers”. Without that agreement, without that obvious sense of truth and foundation, America would go down in flames as factions arise over the bones of this country. Notably, the Left and the Democrats say what they say precisely because America is experiencing factionalism, the desire to break out into Balkanized factions that fight endless wars with each other.
Nothing is guaranteed in life, and the same is true for warfare. Which is why it is the study and practice of warfare that is important, not the waging of warfare, even though waging warfare is about the best way you can practice and study warfare.
So long as people and groups agree on a common world view, disagreements can be solved peacefully as it is true in America. But we already know that there are groups in America with fundamental worldviews that are mutually exclusive with the US Constitution. Meaning for the Socialists to triumph, they must destroy or radically alter the Bill of Rights. The EU is just one example of what the ultimate end can look like.
When people don’t agree on a common world view, when the propaganda line is, “See? We told you so — Islamism was never really a threat!” And, of course, if it doesn’t go away, they’ll say “See? We told you so — Bush turned the world into a dangerous place”, then the only way to resolve the conflict is through warfare. And the only nation that was ever even capable of matching America’s skill at warfare was the Roman Republic.
To elaborate, succeding at war can resolve the propaganda about “you failed”. Conducting a successful war against the originators of the propaganda is also an option, since if you beat the propagandists, then obviously the propagandists were wrong to say that you were weak and feckless.
We show Sammenhold today with free speech…
Two years ago, the cartoon riots over the Mohammed cartoons published in Denmark took place. Michelle Malkin brings up the subject this week again, rightly stressing that this is something to show solidarity (or, as in Danish, sammenhold) with for th…..