Keeping Calm

Our Norwegian correspondent Zylark has written an essay about the recent Norwegian “Mohammed the Pig” cartoon crisis.


Keeping Calm
by Zylark

It’s hard to keep calm.

We have a situation now here in Norway, where one of the most Islam-apologetic newspapers, Dagbladet, has got themselves into a little bind. They published a cartoon on their front page depicting Mohammed as a pig. They attempted to construct a case for anti-Islamic sentiment in our secret service by making them responsible for a cartoon linked to at their Facebook page in a comment field.

I know Dagbladet is old media, but they must know how new media works. One is not responsible for links posted in comments. That is number one. Secondly, they got tipped to this by a character named Bhatti. The same fellow who did some shooting in the direction of the Oslo synagogue a couple of years back, and was put into “protective custody” before Obama’s visit to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, just to be sure.

Like the fools they are, Dagbladet ran with the story. Norwegian secret police are anti-Muslim, just look at this drawing of Mohammed depicted as a pig which was found in the comment field of their Facebook page! Quite. And now they are besides themselves, when the Muslims they try oh-so-hard to defend demonstrate against them. I wonder how much this has shattered their image of multicultural harmony?


Yes, there have been demonstrations. Three, in fact. Friday night a week or so ago with about a thousand cab-drivers making sure drunk Norwegians did not get home in a timely fashion after doing some haram drinking and flirting (though I am sure the mostly immigrant pirate-taxi drivers had quite a boom in business). And this Friday and Saturday they engaged in more traditional marching and displays of discontent.

Now guess who was a main force behind the organization of the demonstrations this past weekend? Indeed, the same Bhatti who tipped Dagbladet to begin with. I smell a rat of social and media manipulation, and the smell is quite foul.

The amazing thing now is that Dagbladet has started to claim freedom of press. Even though they were very, very quiet regarding the Motoons when that storm was current. In fact, then they claimed that it was an unnecessary provocation. Must not upset the Muslims by, you know, treating them as adults who can presumably handle criticism of their ideas and beliefs.

But it gets better.
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Never mind the slogans chanted and displayed during the demonstrations, which were contradictory at best. The usual jive: “Yes to freedom of expression and religion”, but “No to criticism of Islam”. After putting their behinds in the air at the front of the old University building chanting “Allah is greater” (Allahu akhbar) — which is a bit of an affront to me personally seeing as I think the Enlightenment and science is the best thing humanity has ever come up with, and there is no way that late Iron Age depictions of reality are better or greater. And they had the audacity to chant this drivel at our most symbolic building of the Enlightenment here in Norway.


How dare they! That is my shrine, my “holy” building. That represents what modern Norway is built upon. Critical thinking, reason, trial and error, and a lot of hard work. Object-oriented programming was born at the University of Oslo, and is a vital part of today’s internet and computing, Amongst some of the achievements. Not to mention what has come from universities all over the non-Muslim world, that have lead to our fantastic level of technology and understanding of the natural world.

But it did not stop there, oh no. Later they had various speakers. Amongst them was Mohyeldeen Mohammad, a Wahhabist who “warned” Norway that if we keep up pointing out the bad aspects of Islam, we might find ourselves victim of a 9/11 or 7/7 attack. It was not a threat, see, just a friendly reminder that one should not mess with Islam, or ask Muslims to behave in a civil and mutual respectful manner. Where, amongst others, criticism is part of the deal, and that without anybody getting medieval.

In short order various apologists surfaced, trying to imply that the statement was quite harmless, just one little extremist who is a lone voice amongst a sea of very friendly and Western-inclined Muslims, who have no problems with Western liberal secular society. Yet they never asked why this person was allowed to speak at this event. It is not as if the organizers were unfamiliar with his views. Indeed, they knew perfectly well what he stands for.

And yet, most of our politicians and most of our press turn a blind eye to the obvious. They invent apologetics, making cringe-worthy logical leaps (fallacies, actually) to correct the damage done to their dogmas of happy-go-lucky relativist multiculturalism. It’s disgraceful in its transparent basic dishonesty.

In short, it is very difficult to keep calm about it all.