“The West is Best”

This video from Finnish TV is the most fatwa-worthy television report that I’ve seen so far. In it you will see interviews with three infamous Motoonists as well as clear images of the drawings that got them into trouble.

Be warned! Blasphemy lies ahead!

Ignore the confrontational style of questioning the interviewer directed at the three artists, and pay attention to their responses. Kurt Westergaard said that the confrontation with the Muslim world over the cartoons was unavoidable and necessary, and Lars Vilks summed it up by saying, “The West is best.”

Here’s the scenario: a Finnish journalist first interviewed an imam in Oulu — who refused to shake her hand, by the way — and he gave her questions to deliver to the three cartoonists. The first artist she visited was Ville Ranta, who was interviewed at Gates of Vienna back in 2007 after he got himself in a spot of bother by drawing a cartoon of Mohammed wearing a face mask.

Next came the Modoggie Man, Lars Vilks, who spoke to the journalist at his fire-damaged home in southern Sweden. The interviewer’s final visit was to Kurt Westergaard — the creator of the Turban Bomb — in Denmark. Each artist created an image especially for the occasion in reply to the imam’s questions about their lack of respect for Islam. The end of the program shows the imam’s reaction as he examines the cartoonists’ responses.

Most of this three-part video is in English. Many thanks to KGS for translating the Finnish, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling. Some of the voice-over in the later sections lacks subtitles, but the gist of the story is still clear:


Parts 2 and 3 are below the jump.
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