Posted on 02/19/2006 6:06:23 AM PST by Dark Skies
Who would've though that a group of Danish cartoonists would strike the most crippling blow to the Islamist political jihad in Europe to date? Even more crippling than the murder of Theo van Gogh, the implications of which, for the most part, did not expand past Holland's borders, the explosion of Islamic rage surrounding these cartoons has forced the Islamists' hand far earlier than would've been prudent and many - not all - Europeans are starting to wonder whether Islam has any place in Western civilization.
In Van Gogh's case, the murder of this one man turned a nation of enlightened, open-minded, multicultural tolerance on its ear. Dutch artist Chris Ripke protested the murder by painting a mural of an angel and the date of Van Gogh's murder with the words Gij zult niet doden - thou shalt not kill. Apparently unaware of the concept of irony, a local imam complained to police that the mural was racist and offensive to Muslims. Amazingly, the police had the mural sandblasted.
During the proceeding two weeks after Van Gogh's death, more than twenty mosques were vandalized or set on fire. Legislators were placed under 'round-the-clock protection, and government buildings in the Hague resembled armed camps. The deputy Prime Minister, who had once called Pim Fortuyn dangerous because of harsh attacks on Islam, openly declared war on radical Islam. The Dutch Parliament now debates how to deal with the problem, with some on the right calling for the deportation of radical Muslim clerics and shutting down the mosques they operate out of, as well as closing the borders to non-Western immigrants. Earlier this month, plans were revealed for a test aimed at curbing Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands .
Again I can't help but stress that this is mostly due to the death of one man. If only the deaths of over 3,000 people could drive America to similar actions. Alas. But as dramatic as these turns of events have been, this is just the Netherlands .
The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have had widespread implications, and for the first time, at least to those of us not paying attention, which is, alas again, the vast majority of people, an emerging Clash of Civilizations has become evident.
To begin, it should be noted that it is not exactly established Islamic law that depictions of the prophet are forbidden. There is an extensive collection of Muslim depictions of Muhammad, none of which resulted in economic sanctions, protests, death threats, or burning of buildings.
Second, the furor over these cartoons is largely based on lies. The story behind these cartoons arose when Danish writer Kare Bluitgen began searching for someone to illustrate his children's book about the life of Muhammad. It soon became clear, however, that nobody wanted the job, and the fate of Van Gogh was certainly not far from the minds of those who turned him down. Bluitgen's trouble prompted several Danish newspapers, including the best-selling Jyllands-Posten (Jutland Post), to begin a debate: how far should Denmark go in self-censorship, and is freedom of _expression more important than catering to religious sensitivities? The results of that debate are now known, but what is not known is how the story was presented to the Muslim world in the first place.
Once it became clear that Denmark 's Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was not going to cowtow to the Islamic world and prosecute these papers for a non-crime, a group of fundamentalist Danish imams took matters into their own hands. As if the depictions of Muhammad, though in essence true to Islamic tradition, were not offensive enough, these imams took three other mysteriously unsourced drawings as on a tour of the Middle East . These new cartoons showed Muhammad with the face of a pig, a dog sodomizing a praying Muslim, and Muhammad as a pedophile. Jan Lund, editor of the Jyllands-Posten, called this pure disinformation. "We never published them," he said.
Pressure from the Muslim world soon forced both the Prime Minister and the paper's editor to cave; apologizing for offending the Islamic sensitivities they had not long before claimed the right to offend. This is where the story really takes flight. Disgusted by Rasmussen and Lund 's cowardice, several European newspapers decided it was time to take up the cause. Claiming the right to caricature God , France Soir republished the cartoons. The paper's editor was subsequently fired the next day. Germany 's Die Welt pasted the turban-bomb Muhammad cartoon on its front page, saying the Islamic world was guilty of hypocrisy. Other newspapers in Italy , Spain and Switzerland followed suit.
Violently suppressing freedom of speech, not to mention freedom of religion, is a tradition that dates back to Muhammad himself. Before Theo van Gogh, there was Salman Rushdie, as well as many other less-publicized incidents involving the likes of Irshad Manji, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, and others. In Islamic Spain, often hailed for supposedly representing the Golden Age of enlightened Islamic tolerance and peaceful co-existence with other faiths, a martyrdom movement arose in which Christians openly challenged Islamic law regarding criticism of Islam and the prophet.
In 850 a priest named Perfectus was stopped by a group of Muslims and, seeing he was a priest, asked him to explain his Catholic faith and to give his opinions about Islam. Perfectus turned them down, fearing he would only provoke them, but when they promised to protect him he acceded. The Muslims were angered by Perfectus' harsh criticism of Islam, who proclaimed Muhammad to be one of the false prophets foretold by Christ and cited his moral depravity. A few days later the Muslims violated their vow to protect him and turned him over to the magistrate, testifying that they had blasphemed the prophet. Perfectus was later beheaded before a group of Muslims who had gathered for the feast breaking the Ramadan fast.
In 851 a monk, Isaac, approached a Cordoban qâdi (Islamic judge) and asked him about the finer points of Islam. The judge had barely had the chance to elaborate on the life of Muhammad when Isaac went on a virulent tirade against Islam, claiming Muhammad to be a false prophet who was burning in hell for deceiving the Arabs. Taken aback, the judge slapped Isaac and had him brought before the emir, Abd-ar-Rahmân II. The qâdi sentenced the monk to death; Isaac was beheaded and his headless body hung upside down for public viewing. Rahmân then proclaimed an edict threatening future violators with the same punishment. However, over the next four days, seven more Christians followed Isaac's example. Two days after Isaac's death, a Christian soldier named Sanctius was beheaded. Within two days of Sanctius' execution six more Christians presented themselves before Islamic authorities and proclaimed, "We abide by the same confession, O judge that our most holy brothers Isaac and Sanctius professed. Now hand down the sentence, multiply your cruelty, be kindled with complete fury in vengeance for your prophet. We confess Christ to be truly God and your prophet to be a precursor of antichrist and an author of a profane doctrine." In addition to beheading the violators, Rahmân ordered the arrest of the entire clerical leadership.
Of course, those of us aware of Muhammad's own life are aware of the examples of Abu Afak, Asma bint Marwan, and Kab b. al-Ashraf, among others, who spoke out against Muhammad or Islam and paid for it with their lives. Apologists are quick to point out that Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan, found in Sirar Rasul Allah, are based on faulty chains of narration (isnad), but the story of Kab b. al-Ashraf is told in Bukhari as well as Sirat Rasul Allah. This of course is the root of the cartoon jihad; Muhammad's example is divine.
The rage surrounding these cartoons, from the protests featuring signs calling for a real Holocaust, massacring or beheading anyone who speaks out against Islam, and the downfall of Europe, to the more violent acts of Muslims in the Palestinian territories, where EU buildings in Gaza have been stormed and a German citizen was kidnapped from a Nablus hotel, as well as in Jakarta, Indonesia, another Mecca of moderate Islam, where jihadists attacked the Danish embassy, has shocked the non-Muslim world, where blasphemous depictions of Christian icons and doctrine are commonplace in art museums and theatres. With perfect timing and irony, an artist at a New York City art show depicted Jesus Christ up-side-down with the face of Osama bin Laden. And Christians no doubt will remember "artist" Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary, which featured clumps of elephant dung, as well as the famed Piss Christ, a crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's blood and urine. Amazingly, though CNN had no problem showing The Holy Virgin Mary, they stuck their head in the sand with regards to the Muhammad cartoons.
And of course newspapers like the Washington Post, who have no trouble publishing cartoons depicting American soldiers as quadruple-amputees to make political points, and talk about the chill wind of intimidation when the Joint Chiefs write a letter of protest, will no doubt, out of "respect" for the Islamic faith, refrain from printing the Muhammad cartoons.
Far more effective than an overt act of violence orchestrated by Al Qaeda, which, despite widely-available scriptural and historical evidence to the contrary, are still easily dismissed to the masses as a tiny minority of extremists, this incident has exposed how deeply entrenched the "radical", fundamentalist mentality is with the average Muslim. From Denmark to Holland to Britain to the Middle East to Indonesia , Muslim disregard for civilized notions of freedom of _expression is the rule, not the exception. Non-Muslims, as they should, find this highly offensive. We can't help but wonder: If only Muslims would show half this much rage when some "misunderstanders" of Islam highjack their peaceful religion and saw a man's head off, shouting Allahu Akbar!
Then maybe people would actually take them seriously when they get angry at this 'blasphemy'. Right now they're blowing all their capital on hypocrisy and people are seeing them for who they really are. I am ecstatic that it is happening now, when Muslims are not present in greater numbers in these communities. For this we owe these Danish cartoonists a debt of gratitude.
Amen.
If you can't debate them, behead them. How civilized.
All this stuff going on today over a cartoon is rediculous. They are so thin skinned that they resort to criminal violence over a cartoon and liberals want to negotiate. You can't negotiate with them.
I wonder how the Warner Brothers cartooners avoided their wrath when they made the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the arab who always threatened Bugs with "Hassan Chop"?
A very good article and , I thank you for in lighting we who do not know such history of these maniacs and murders.
Since it seems that mostly Muslims are being killed by their own kind, we only need to have ~300,000 more cartoons published. This is the most effective weapon devised to date from Europe.
Uh, make that 30,000,000 more cartoons.
It's an excuse. The cartoons were not the cause. The cartoons were a convenient peg on which the lefti-fascist-mainstream media could peg the riots, the threats and the killings.
If that were the case, why weren't more of the MSM publishing the cartoons?
I think this nails it!
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