The most interesting dispatch this morning is from an official Iranian news site, Press TV, announcing Sweden’s capitulation in the Modoggie affair:
Sweden regrets prophet’s cartoon
Source: BBCSweden has made amends for the publication of a blasphemous cartoon insulting the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) in a local Swedish newspaper.
In response to Islamabad’s complaint over the cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the Embassy of Sweden in Pakistan has regretted the grave affront to the religious sentiments of over 1 billion Muslims worldwide.
Other cartoons depicting the Prophet sparked worldwide protests last year as thousands of Muslims marched in the streets in several countries in a display of anger over the blasphemous cartoons published in a Danish daily.
Notice that it credits the BBC for this story. The BBC, like all the other Western news services, simply repeated what official Pakistani media outlets reported: “The Chargé d’Affaires said the Swedish government fully shared the views of Muslim community and termed the publication as unfortunate.”
But not only is there no independent source confirming this story, the Swedish government has in fact stated that the Pakistani statement was disinformation; in other words, the government of Pakistan is lying.
In a comment on my post on the topic, here’s what Carpenter reported (translating a news article from the Swedish):
- - - - - - - - -
According to Cecilia Julin, the Swedish foreign ministry’s head of press and information, the Pakistani government’s press release contains disinformation. From Nerikes Allehanda:
Sweden’s foreign ministry claims there are several relevant false facts in the press release sent by Pakistan’s government after the meeting. For instance, it reads that Lennart Holst is sorry for the publication.
“That is incorrect,” says the foreign ministry’s head of press and information Cecilia Julin.
“Our chargé d’affaires described Swedish freedom of speech and the press, and that there’s no censorship in Sweden. He has never said that the Swedish government shares the [Muslims’] view about the protest, but he said that he was sorry if the publication had hurt Muslims”
Somehow this little news item never made it into English. Strange, huh?There’s a kind of Gresham’s Law of Information at work here, in which the debased version of a story drives the accurate one out of media circulation.
And now Sweden is being set up to apologize, in a collective effort to create the event before it even happens. A little bit of media pressure to force Mr. Reinfeldt’s hand…
And, just to remind the Swedes of what they’re up against, there are the obligatory “over 1 billion Muslims” who have taken offense. You wouldn’t want to have more than a billion Muslims mad at you, now would you, eh, Svensson? Time to give up and say you’re sorry!
The next story, from the Gulf News, asserts that religious scholars in Afghanistan have added their voices to those 2.5 septillion Muslims who have already condemned Lars Vilks:
Indignant Afghanistan slams Prophet Mohammad sketchKabul: Afghanistan on Saturday condemned the printing of a “hostile” and “blasphemous” sketch of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in a Swedish newspaper.
The sketch of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) with the body of a dog also drew condemnation from Pakistan. Muslims consider dogs to be impure and images of the Prophet are forbidden.
“This has disturbed the Islamic world and aroused the indignation of all Muslims,” religious scholars said in a statement published on The Kabul Times.
They demanded that those responsible be handed over to a court for prosecution and punishment.
Once again, we hear a call to prosecute and punish the offending journalists. After all, that’s how we do things here in Kabul — why can’t Sweden hang the bastards who did this?
And finally, here’s a tantalizing story from Earth Times; it’s the only version I can find so far on the web. Apparently other Swedish newspapers are defiantly republishing the Modoggies today in a gesture of solidarity with Nerikes Allehanda:
Leading Scandinavian dailies reprinted a caricature of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed depicted as a dog on Saturday as renewed protests began in the Muslim world. In Pakistan several demonstrations were reported in response to the caricature printed August 19 in the Swedish regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.
Back in July when this story first started, searching for “Vilks” on Google News turned up zero stories. Today, the same search results in 136 hits.
When Rage Boy finally appears and the embassies start burning, expect that number to grow considerably larger.
Previous posts on this topic:
The Swedes Narrowly Avert Their Own Motoon Crisis
Modoggie #2
The Prophet as an Obedient Retriever
That Doggone Mohammed
Swedish Muslims Will Exhibit the Modoggies
Lars Vilks Dogged by Death Threats
Modoggies Make it into the Swedish MSM, But…
Oh, No! It’s Happening Again!
Sweden Gets Sent to the Woodshed
An Ironic Rondellhund
Now We Know Who’s Behind the Modoggies
Swedish Muslims Form Anti-Free Speech Committee
Pakistan Objects to the Modoggies
The OIC is Barking Now
A New Modoggie Protest in Örebro
Swedish Flags are Burning
The Cavalry of Neo-Colonialism
8 comments:
The only thing unfortunate is that Vilks is such a mediocre artist.
Looks like a cross between Shel "Where The Sidewalk Ends" Silverstein and a dyslexic hieroglyphic ransom note.
Well, I'm not sure for what reason the Pakistani officials (probably) were lying, but can it be that they don't want symphaties for Sweden to occur in the West (i.e. Westerners not to symphatize with Sweden since its embassy in Pakistan condemns freedom of speech?) It had its effects; many bloggers noticed the Swedish apology, for instance LGF and GoV. And BBC screamed out that "Sweden 'regrets' Prophet cartoon"..
My theory might seem far-fetched, but what other reason might it be?
Probably pakistany oficials want the dust settle down as soon as possible because there has been much turmoil with extremists in Pakistan and a new motoons affaire could bring riots and demos that nobody knows how it finishes
The Swedish Prime Minister is adamant.
The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was intervued today by Inger Arenander of the 'Swedish State Public Service Radio' P1. About 30% was about the Modoggies. Here follows a very condenced version of this third.
She started with establishing the fact that there have been new protests against the publication in Swedish media of a picture of the prophet Mo as a rondell-doggie, now latest from Afghanistan.
Fredrik Reinfeldt said that he takes the protests seriously, but that he wants to stress two things: - I think that the balance must lie between just this, efforts to indicate our will to live side by side -- a try is made to use this as some sort of expressions that this would not be the case -- and at the same time of course mark the boundary line we have in Sweden that it is not the political leaders that take ANY publication decisions. With our freedom of speech, with our democracy and our way to function it is quite other persons that take those decisions.
How comes that it was long about before the government reacted?
- We have not experienced that we have loitered some days. I have been available. Last Wednesday I was in Uppsala together with most of Sweden's on-the-spot gathered mediarepresentatives. I have just visited Croatia and it was there on a press conference in Zagreb I was questioned by the TT-NewsAgency. I do not feel that I have done anything but replied to the question when the question came. There was no reason to do it without the question being asked!
- Of course there is a risk one must be aware of when entering this discussion and that is to erroneously send a signal that political Sweden has anything to do with a case like this -- when our answer is that we do not have.
It was strange to notice that Fredrik Reinfeldt four or five times gave way to wishfull thinking when he spoke about "a wish to live side by side", and to do this even in "mutual or reciprocal respect". He cannot have a very good sounding of the opinions among ordinary people of Swedish background.
Pakiwood - "...according to Pakistani sources..."
(alluding to Second Draft's film "Pallywood - '...according to Palestinian sources...'")
@ profitsbeard,
Gosh!
It is sooo tiresam with all this square jerks giving expression to their opinion of what is art or not. A muslim commenter who never have seen a centaurus on Vilks' blog the other day argued that a dog is a dog ('is a dog', no he did not say that!) and cannot be a man on the same time.
And good old 'profitsbeard' is almost on the same level.
Teddy said it was a hat,
So I put it on.
Now Dad is saying, "Where the heck's
the toilet plunger gone?"
Wise-Guys -- all of you -- go dip your nose in Duchamp's loo!
Dear Carpenter,
I think you give too much credit to the Pakistani Govt. The response frmo the Swedish Govt. was not what they expected. That is the standard European dhimmi response of "sorry sorry sorry sorry, we'll never do it again." So the Pakistani Govt. created one. I promise you that the majority of irrate, offended muslims, who have never seen the cartoons, will not read the Swedish newspapers and blogs where the true response was written. With this lie they may be able to stave of some violence but they also reinforce the opinion that we, the irrate mulslims can scare the infidel kafir into submission.
So our allies the Afghanis don't like it?
And I suspect our allies the Iraqis (Shiite, Sunni and Kurd) don't like it as well.
You think maybe there is some fundamental incompatibility between a Muslim belief system and Western life and thought?
Tell me again why one more American has to die for these folks.
Tell me why we have to take in a million Iraqi refugees when this miserable fiasco is over.
Tell me why we have to import the same death-threat-you-offended-Allah-Muslim-terrorism into our own country when we finally withdraw.
Why pick fights with them ("burning embassies" indeed) when your friends are going to invite them to invade our country by the million as refugees when the Bush war collapses.
There is a word for folks that poke savage attack dogs with sticks through a fence even though they know the gate is going to be opened in a minute: stupid.
No Islamic refugees, not now, not ever.
Tell the damned Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the damned Catholic Charities to stop importing Muslims.
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