Chiseling Away at Mohammed

Recent controversies over Western visual depictions of Mohammed — whether favorable, unfavorable, or neutral to the prophet — have typically resulted in complete capitulation to Islamic leaders by our media and our political leaders. Political correctness reigns supreme, and we are obliged by it to engage in self-censorship rather than risk causing offense to Muslims.

This exquisite sensitivity to Mohammedan feelings is not, however, as recent as one might think. In the course of his researches, Dr. Andrew Bostom stumbled across a diplomatic incident about a statue of Mohammed that occurred in New York City more than fifty years ago, well before the onset of modern PC.

Back in 1955, New York’s judicial authorities planned to renovate a group of deteriorating statues that stood on a courthouse roof. One of these figures represented — you guessed it — Mohammed. There wasn’t much of a local Muslim population in those days, but word went out through diplomatic channels, and Muslim officials requested that the city destroy the statue rather than repair it.

The good burghers of Manhattan dutifully complied, and the statue was chiseled off its pedestal. Here’s what Dr. Bostom has to say about the incident:

NYC’s Insane Capitulation to Islam, Circa 1955 — Past as Prologue?

Past as Prologue, 55 years ago? — Elegant statue of Muhammad “quietly” removed from the roof of the Appellate Division Courthouse on Madison Square, New York City in 1955, when seven feckless appellate judges, “encouraged” by the US State Department, needlessly submitted to Islamic supremacist dictates regarding “Tawsir,” or statuary.

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Mindless, craven cultural relativism — sadly pervasive in 2010 — has led NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg to capitulate to Islamic supremacism and support the odious Ground Zero mosque project of the cultural jihadist Imam Faisal Rauf, and his coterie. The rather witless Bloomberg, of course, cynically recasts his moral and intellectual cretinism as championing bedrock American values, notably freedom of religion. However, the ultimately self-destructive Islamic correctness we are witnessing vis a vis the Ground Zero mosque, may be an endemic phenomenon amongst Manhattan elites, dating back to at least 1955.

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A res ipsa loquitur example of this tragic mindset when it comes to dealing with The Religion of Peace(r), specifically, was published on April 9, 1955 in the New York Times. Responding to demands from the Muslim consulates (via their ambassadors) of Indonesia, Egypt, and Pakistan, as well as “many letters from Mohammedans,” a statue of Muhammad (picture above) carved by Charles Albert Lopez (a Mexican sculptor working in the US for 22 years till his death in 1906), and erected in 1902, was singularly removed from the Madison Square Appellate Courthouse, where it had stood for over 50 years, alongside nine other renowned lawgivers representing other creeds and cultures. The existence of the statue was only drawn to the attention of Muslim diplomats and correspondents when newspapers published an account of required, impending repairs. As a result of the Muslim “intervention,” and with the formal “advice” of The US State Department “Near East Branch,” endorsed by the seven appellate court justices themselves, NYC authorities capitulated and refrained from re-erecting the statue of Muhammad, simply leaving the pedestal vacant.

The full New York Times account from April, 1955 is reproduced below. It is a refreshingly straightforward account unconstrained by contemporary era self-censorship when discussing Islam (including, for example, not capitalizing the word “prophet” as a non-Muslim journalist referring to Islam’s prophet).

Read the rest at Dr. Bostom’s place, including the contemporaneous NYT news article.

As a matter of interest, besides Ol’ Mo, the statues on the roof included Lycurgus, Alfred the Great (849-901), the Goddess of Justice, Louis IX of France, Zoroaster, Moses, and Confucius.

Political correctness did not descend upon us overnight. It has enveloped us gradually since World War Two, leaching away piecemeal at our vocabulary, our liberties, and our common sense. We are rapidly approaching the terminal stage of the affliction — there is a point beyond which a society cannot entertain such madness and still survive.

One assumes that back in 1955 the New York City authorities did not feel any particular political pressure to respond as they did — they were simply being tolerant and accommodating towards a quaint alien belief system. Little did they know what lay in store for their descendants a mere half-century later.