As German journalist Henryk Broder put it after the 2006 riots over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad: “Objectively speaking, the cartoon controversy was a tempest in a teacup. But subjectively it was a show of strength and, in the context of the ‘clash of civilizations,’ a dress rehearsal for the real thing. The Muslims demonstrated how quickly and effectively they can mobilize the masses, and the free West showed that it has nothing to counter the offensive — nothing but fear, cowardice and an overriding concern about the balance of trade. Now the Islamists know that they are dealing with a paper tiger whose roar is nothing but a tape recording.”- - - - - - - - -
In 2008, three years after the cartoons were first published, the matter is still very much alive in the minds of many Muslims. More than 200 lawmakers shouted “Death to the enemies of Islam” during an angry demonstration outside the Afghan parliament, protesting the reprinting of the cartoons in Denmark and the release of the Islam-critical film Fitna by the Dutch politician Wilders. At the same time, Danish aid is helping schools to re-open in Afghanistan, even though critics say the curriculum is based on fundamentalist Islam. A campaign to boycott Danish and Dutch products was launched in Jordan. The campaign will include ads in newspapers and on radio and television that urge consumers to avoid buying named goods. The organisation, “The Messenger of Allah Unites Us,” have produced t-shirts, bumper stickers and posters with the campaign logo “Live without it.”
“[Danish] Muslim organizations intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights,” Muslim leader Mohammed Khalid Samha told IslamOnline, the large English language website founded by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, after a Danish court rejected a suit by seven Muslim groups. “We were quite sure that the Danish judiciary would not be fair to Muslims,” said Samha. Meanwhile, two Tunisian men were arrested and charged with plotting the murder of Jyllands-Posten cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
As Bruce Bawer, author of the book While Europe Slept, puts it in the essay Courage and Cowardice in Scandinavia from June 2008, following a bomb in Pakistan targeting Denmark:When a car bomb exploded outside Denmark’s embassy in Islamabad on June 2, killing eight, it was easy to guess who had done it and why. Sure enough, some days later al-Qaeda took credit and confirmed its motive: the now-infamous Muhammed cartoons. Originally published in the Jyllands-Posten daily on September 30, 2005, they were reprinted by a raft of Danish dailies last February 13 in a show of solidarity with turban-bomb cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the target of three would-be assassins who had been arrested the day before. Presumably this rather surprising action — the Danish media, generally speaking, have given Jyllands-Posten a rough time for the past three years for upsetting the Muslims — was the immediate cause for the bombing.
Read the rest at The Brussels Journal.
16 comments:
Greetings fellow (mostly European) anti-Jihadists:
(And apologies to Baron and Dymphna for going off-topic on this thread, at least so soon):
I probably should have put this on the Obama thread a few postings below, but since that is a few days old, I thought I would post here:
In reading about the reaction to Palin in Europe, predictably, most of it is extremely negative, given that most of the European media is Socialist/Marxist. The exceptions seem to be the Telegraph/Daily Mail in the UK.
Is there any mainland European media that gives her favorable reviews? I was wondering this in regards to the following:
a) Jyllands Posten -- Denmark actually seems to have a media with politically incorrect guts.
b) Eastern European media -- I don't think we have any Poles, Czechs or Hungarians who regularly post here, but at least some of their media might think well of her.
And what is the reaction you are getting from European conservatives on her?
Thanks for indulging me.
Zerosumgame, who is Palin?
Well, all you Americans can just as well cancel your elections. Our MSM have decided a long time ago that your president is one B. Hussein Something. Period. No nedd for further ado.
/irony
Honestly, 90% of the coverage over here is about your Obamessiah. You'll just have to elect him. Why? - Because he's black and possibly a Muslim, that's why. Nothing about his (eventual) politics or anything else substantial.
The 10% coverage of Mrs. Palin is in "Jyllands-Posten" But they mostly tend to make fun of you Americans who think that her family's life is important, like her daughters pregnancy, her husband's drinking etc.. - and with some reason, methinks.
kepiblanc--
It's good to hear from you.
Not to get defensive about Palin or her family, but her husband's "drinking" was an episode more than 20 years ago.
It is fascinating to watch the left scramble to find any possible dirt on Palin. They are reduced to phantasms like that one.
I ran across a blog yesterday that is devoted to listing (and refuting) the smears against this woman, of which there are many -- including incest between father and daughter just for starters.
The level to which they've sunk matches what I've read about American campaigns in the mid-19th century. Real scurrilous stuff.
Did you see her Viking picture? It was the first image put out there. We found it so funny -- at least in the context of our blog -- that we posted it:
Tolling for the Viking Vote
Oh, wait a minute... you did see it; you're one of the first commenters!
I love her political incorrectness. It's a lesson Americans badly need. For example, in the picture she's wearing that fur around her neck. What a p.c. no-no!
Here's the site which keeps a list of smears and responses:
Palin Rumors.
You may not be able to get into his site via that link. I had to go to a cached version of the site using this search string: chas martin explorations
And here are some great "facts" from one of the many parody sites springing up around the rightwing American blogosphere:
+Sarah Palin begins every day with a moment of silence for the political enemies buried in her yard.
+Sarah Palin always beats the point spread.
+Sarah Palin once bit the head off a live Osprey snatched from the air as it tried to fly off with a fish she caught.
+Sarah Palin uses French Canadians as bait to catch giant king salmon.
+When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.
+Sarah Palin plays Whack-a-Mole with her forehead, and always gets a perfect score.
+Sarah Palin knows who was on the grassy knoll.
+Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.
____________
What I like about all the humor sites is that no one who plans to vote for Palin appears concerned with the junk spewing out from the far left hate machines. Instead, they simply play reductio ad absurdum with the material and up the ante.
I have wondered at this reaction, and I think it has happened because of the character of Palin herself. She's not "Mrs. Sensitive" so the smears roll off her back and land on the floor with a thud.
Interesting mix: a woman who is feminine yet is also called "the Barracuda". Palin plays, but she plays to win...
I guarantee you this: if McCain wins this election, Americans will love Palin but Europeans will disdain her for being so damnably...American. That is, "simplicity" will translate to "simple-minded", "straight-forward" will seem "rude"...and so on.
zerosumgame--
Being OT on this is OK. You should have seen the massive derailment of my post on Chicago.
It also works to put up a comment on a old post. Thanks to Conservative Swede, who created the page for us, GoV comments always shows the latest additions, no matter how old the post is.
Thank you for posting. Also today, the leader of Afrikan Youth in Norway (yes, we have a state-sponsored organization for Africans in Norway), the Norwegian-Nigerian Sam Chimaobi Ahamba says that Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe is a hero, and that the Western media focus on him stems from Western (meaning white racist) anger at an African freedom fighter. "Yes, people get beat up and women get raped, but this happens in all countries, not just in Zimbabwe. But only Zimbabwe gets this incredible media focus," says Ahamba.
"I don't agree with the idea that just because I support Mugabe, I have to defend the fact that he has killed a lot of people." No, he supports Mr. Mugabe "from a pan-African principle. He is a leader who really tries to liberate The people from European powers. there must be enough freedom of speech in this country for me to have such a viewpoint," Ahamba says.
Dymphna,
If you look at your Chicago post, I did add a comment which I hope is Back On Topic. ( I imagine that from your point of view trying to keep bloggers in line is a bit like herding cats. )
Now, then... BOT:
Kudos to Fjordman for bringing to our attention the fact that "cartoon rage" never really ended, just as the French "carbecues" never stopped, either.
Damn, damn, and thrice damn! ( If I may use such an archaic expression, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. ) When the Hell will people in the West wake up and understand that we are dealing with FANATICAL, INSTITUTIONALIZED THUGGERY? No amount of bootlicking by the West is going to make the Musalmans like us; it only makes them even MORE aggressive.
Indeed, Fjordman wrote: "At the same time, Danish aid is helping schools to reopen in Afghanistan, even though critics say the curriculum is based on fundamentalist Islam." Just so! When Westerners give aid to Muslim countries, such as Indonesia after the Tsunami or Pakistan after the earthquake, we think that the Muslims will like us because we are generous in helping them ( how often have you heard such twaddle repeated by the news media? ) Based on everything I have read about Islam so far, the Mussulmen think we are giving them aid because Allah has clouded the minds of the stupid, unclean, kuffar infidel dogs and made them pay the JIZYA to the UMMAH, even though the "sons of apes and pigs" have not yet been conquered by JIHAD.
We are, in effect, paying the greasy bastards to murder us!
From Tocqueville and Publilius Syrus--
The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as one conceives the idea of escape from it. Patience provoked often turns to fury.
Who knows what surprises we have ahead in Europe?
Dymphna, I actually "stole" that photo from you....he....
Dymphna,
Thanks for the tip on the latest posting mechanism by CS.
I will try to thus stay more on topic with threads in the future.
+Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.
Now, that is downright mean.
I know for a fact she's going to sautee it first in onions and garlic.
:-)
Zerosumgame,
you asked about the Northern and Eastern European press but, if you want to know about Southwestern European press, I'll tell you:
She is a ultra-conservative and a threath to the good of mankind, in other words, Obama.
Here, Le Pen is a far-right-ultra-conservative, Sarah Palin is only a ultra-conservative and McCain is a conservative.
Here, when people hear Conservative as in McCain, when it is used in relation to the United States, the media paints it as if we were talking of a fascist or a nazi. Nowadays in Europe Sarah is evil and Obama is good. Like the Orcs and the Elfs in Lord of the Rings.
"When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered."
To be Portuguese is very difficult and sofucating. I cannot imagine how bad it must be to be French...
I do not want to generalize, because I do not watch it in the extensive way, but what I have read in the Czech press, it seems that coverage of Palin goes from fair informing about her opinions and her carreer to impolite attacks
Some say that McCains choice has been clever, some say that it's been crazy.
Of course, if there are controversies, press informs about it, but I think that is quite natural....
Again I would not like to mislead anybody, but I think there are not any mainstream media, who can be considered as openly supportive of her....
So much for the press in Czech Republic....
You know Iraq and Afghanistan are about 100% Muslim or close to it, and when all is said and done, and our dead are buried, these people are still going to hate us: the infidels. They say, "No good deed goes unpunished." Well, I'm sure in the near future, the fruits of our labour will start smelling rotten. People in these countries are forbidden to practice any religion other than Islam, and if they do, they live in fear, until some Muslim decides to ax them.
I'm all for doing the right thing, loving thy neighbor and all, but I think casting our pearls before swine, is sooner or later going to cause us to squeal.
In 30-50 years Eurabia itself will be considered a powerful muslim confederate,... who will then remember that there used to be a France, Denmark or an England.
Ayotollahs & mullahs will have shrines in Eurabia, just like there are in Iraq. An "Allah Raj" if you will...a reverse to the British/French/Dutch/Portugese/Spanish/German empires. The saving grace for the minority kuffar will be that the global language will still be English.
During the British Empire when a gentleman soldier fell in a foreign country, a little bit of England was created where he was buried.
Flowers, popies little gardens were there, roses imported from England, and sweet williams (pun intented)too, even grown & looked after by the locals....but there are no little Englands abroad (or at home) any more...it's just life and ....progression.
I hear that in Europe it can be quite cold at the moment.... remember a burka is from head to toe ...it will keep you warm.
remember a burka is from head to toe ...it will keep you warm.
abrahim's brother must know, he's wearing one over his panties.
Following your suggestion I have checked the leading two Hungarian papers: one is leftist the other for the right.
Not a word on the US election.
General speaking both the right and left strongly anti-American and pro Russian. Anybody who hated the Russians either emigrated during the revolution of '56 or got incarcerated or hanged. Teenagers under 18 were kept until reached adulthood then hanged.
This sums it up Hungary.
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