K James wrote:
> "mimus" <tinmimus99@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:n9a24a6txbcq.863gkwcbr4sq$.dlg@40tude.net...
> > On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:11:10 -0800, K James wrote:
> >
> > > "mimus" <tinmimus99@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1ta3ywptz8p55$..1tjvghxb6gijh$.dlg@40tude.net...
> > >>
> > >> It seems pretty clear that the Mohammed cartoon violence was deliberately
> > >> incited by a group of Danish imams who some time after those cartoons were
> > >> published traveled abroad with those cartoons (and even reportedly some
> > >> fakes as well) in order to concert that violence with others.
> > >>
> > >> Why have these imams not been arrested on charges of conspiracy to
> > >> violence?
> > >
> > > Can you provide any proof to the theory about those imams, you are talking about ?
> >
> > No, but I bet the Danish police could.
> >
> > Hell, it's been reported all over the place, and the imams involved have
> > admitted it; eg,
> >
> > >Group leaders have said they sought outside help because they found it
> > > hard to make their voices heard in Denmark.
> >
> >
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/10/D8FMFM106.html
> >
> > Note that the group involved is a minority even among Danish Muslims.
> >
> Is it true that Flemming Rose is a Jew, can any body confirm or refute that.
> Noam Chomsky claims that rose is a jew, a pro-israeli zionist with connections to
> the neocon Daniel Pipes.
>
> -----
>
> If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't
> believe in it at all.
> Noam Chomsky
>
> During the Salman Rushdie crisis, many lectured the Muslims not get too
> upset over words and like a parrot they kept repeating the old phrase:
> "Sticks and stones may break my back but words will never hurt me". Not
> true, words do hurt. This is why you have libel laws, censorships, and
> numerous other legislations in place to prevent hurtful words being
> published. One of the most eminent British Historian, David Irving, has been
> convicted for denying the holocaust back in 1989, and he faces a 10-year
> prison sentence under Austrian law. Remember, it was the words of Colin
> Powell, Bush, and Blair that incited the savage vulture like attack on the
> dead corpse of Iraq. All proves that words do matter, they can hurt people
> and it is too easy to lecture the voiceless victims to ignore hateful words.
>
> Everyone must have picked up the clear double standards by comparing the
> conviction of David Irving, with the freedom of expression given to the
> Danish and other European newspapers, to openly injure the feelings of
> billions of Muslims. They do this regularly and the printing those
> derogatory cartoons is simply the tip of the ice berg. Likewise, that
> similar freedom is given to known racist individuals like Nick Griffin, the
> leader of the rightwing racist party (British Nationalist Party), to incite
> hatred and violence against the Muslims in particular. For sure, they have
> incited many to commit acts of violence against immigrants, especially those
> with a different skin colour.
>
> So, freedom of expression allowed for racist hooligans to the broadsheet
> newspaper journalists but not for academics like David Irving. David Irving
> did not resort to offensive language like Salman Rushdie, nor did he resort
> to drawing vulgar cartoons of the Prophet of Islam to satisfy the appetite
> of the anti-Islamic brigade. Neither has he ever incited people to attack a
> particular group of people. He may have differed with the official version
> of Holocaust but he has never called for the targeting of the Jews, or has
> been known to make disparaging comments about them. His work was based on
> academic research; a genuine expression of a viewpoint; therefore it should
> have easily passed the free speech test. Other Historians are free to come
> forward and prove him to be wrong and that would have made the case for the
> pro-Holocaust camp even stronger.
>
> What is the real motive behind the vigorous censorship applied to this issue
> of holocaust? Why is it beyond the limits of free speech? Why Europe cannot
> tolerate constructive criticisms of Holocaust, which is far less than the
> insults they throw constantly at Islam and Muslims day and night. While
> Muslims do and can tolerate constructive criticisms but are not prepared to
> tolerate insults. Do you now see the contrast, who is tolerant and who is
> intolerant?
>
> The most startling hypocrisy is not the selective application of freedom of
> expression because we have all become used to this by now. We also witnessed
> the selective application of the UN resolutions for decades. The astonishing
> hypocrisy is that the real mass murderers sit comfortably in the White House
> and the Downing Street, after killing hundreds of thousands of innocent
> civilians. While those who have used freedom of expression to express their
> viewpoint face the neo-inquisition. People are tried for words, while those
> commit mass murder roam free. The phrase should read: "Cluster bombs and
> cruise missiles may only kill thousands but it is the anti-Zionist words
> that will land you in trouble in the land of 'free' speech!"
>
> Many of the commentators have already labelled the Muslims as the new Jews
> of Europe but nobody dares to mention that the Jews have become the new
> Church in Europe. In line with the notion of being God's chosen people, the
> Jews are sacred but not the Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, even the native
> Europeans and Americans are expendable for Israel. All because the blood of
> a Goy (Gentile), is not the same as a Jew, as expressed by the Jewish
> Rabbis.
>
> Now observe the connection between the Danish Cartoons and David Irving.
> Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten is a Jew, a
> pro-Israeli Zionist, a known disciple of Daniel Pipes (Julius Streicher of
> the neo-cons). Therefore, they have the free speech license to say anything
> they want. David Irving just happens to hold a viewpoint that opposed the
> Zionist camp. Hence, it seems, the real test for free-speech is where your
> opinion sits within the spectrum of Pro-Zionists to anti-Zionists. If it is
> in compliant with the pro-Zionist agenda, it has the free speech permit,
> otherwise not.
Why I Published Those Cartoons
By Flemming Rose
Sunday, February 19, 2006; B01
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake
of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet
Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not
minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply
an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides,
they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not
teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish
everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or
graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our
pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of
expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical
standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the
cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe
caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with
issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that
we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out.
The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't
intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world.
Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that
seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview
with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in
front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of
self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble
finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three
people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who
finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of
self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam
also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the
name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself
been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an
installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran,
Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not
want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months
earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had
removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime
minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive
coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship,
pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about
Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten
decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle:
Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish
cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly
did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active
members responded.
We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and
other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The
cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity,
Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in
Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the
Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not
strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact,
they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet
and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten,
portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs.
Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an
illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A
third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a
lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has
drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying
that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I
read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam
hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They
are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also
plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into
his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from
the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of
Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same
cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban
drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes
and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were,
however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly
didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I
show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I
do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer
demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public
domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And
that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society
and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the
intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a
democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi
Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in
your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own
mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of
the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we
cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive
material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries
about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches
by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that
Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the
Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain
from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law
and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make
different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about
calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick
of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an
insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights
activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime
accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are
labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian
impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War
because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease
totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a
constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression,
freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs.
Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public
dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns
and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no
Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The
radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East
about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They
no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate
Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and
photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams.
They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular
democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution
has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on
its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e.
between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule
of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is
becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but
between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate
when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on
cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose?
Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression
have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle
East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired.
Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people
have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of
threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have
been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a
climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate
narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of
the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of
Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to
the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the
Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle
East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
flemming.rose@jp.dk
Flemming Rose is the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company