Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that published the anti-Islam cartoons in the interests of defending “free speech”, has now published an approving article reporting attempts to get the Qur’an banned in Germany.
Category Archives: Denmark
Islamophobia masquerading as free speech
“The truth is that today racism, intolerance, xenophobia, and hatred of the other hide behind the sublime façade of free speech, the defence of ‘our’ values and protection of ‘our’ society from ‘foreign’ aggression. Let us not be deceived about this rhetoric of liberalism and free speech. The Danish cartoons have nothing to do with freedom of expression and everything to do with hatred of the other in a Europe grappling with its growing Muslim minorities, still unable to accept them.
“Muhammad, who had been depicted in medieval legends as a bloodthirsty warrior with a sword in one hand and a Quran in another, is now made to brandish bombs and guns. Little seems to have changed about Western consciousness of Islam. The collective medieval Christian memory has been recycled, purged of eschatology and incorporated into a modern secularised rhetoric that goes unquestioned today.”
Soumaya Ghannoushi at Aljazeera, 9 March 2006
Clarke criticises Danish ‘mistake’ over cartoons
The British government has accused its Danish counterparts of making “a serious mistake” in the way it handled relations with Muslim countries after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The home secretary, Charles Clarke, criticised the decision by the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to snub a request from 11 Muslim countries for a meeting after the cartoons were published in the Jyllands Posten newspaper in September. Mr Clarke told a public meeting in Willesden that Mr Rasmussen had not even responded to the request.
And why hasn’t this appeared on Dhimmi Watch? Is Robert Spencer prepared to sit idly by while British politicians sell out western civilisation to the Muslim hordes?
Postscript: This was quite unfair on Robert. Shortly after our comment was posted, he laid into Clarke: “Britain’s Home Secretary criticizes Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for not throwing freedom of speech overboard and rushing into dhimmitude.”
Stop the appeasment of Muslim fanatics, Jerusalem Post writer urges
“…. experience has proven experience has proven that all governmental attempts to appease radical Islamists have not advanced the well-being and security of Western democracies. Rather, such appeasement policies have served to weaken Western, liberal values and threaten the viability of Western societies.
“In Europe, the official reactions to the Muslim cartoon riots exposed this reality. Rather than telling the Muslims who took to the streets and called for the annihilation of Denmark and the waging of global jihad where they could shove it, Europe’s leaders bowed before these violent, intolerant people while expressing contrition and sorrow over the Islamic sensitivities that had been offended.
“In Britain the media refused to publish the pictures of Muhammad – out of sensitivity for Muslim feelings, of course. The newspaper editor who published the pictures in France was fired. In Norway, the editor who published the pictures was forced to publicly apologize to Norway’s Muslim leaders in a humiliating public ceremony. Franco Frattini, the EU’s Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security said it would be useful for the press to ‘self-regulate’ in attempting to find answers to question of ‘How are we to reconcile freedom of expression and respect for each individual’s deepest convictions?’
“And so, the European reaction to the Muslim rampages has involved slouching towards the surrender of their freedom of speech. Not only has Europe’s appeasement of radical Islam not protected its liberal values, it has undermined the democratic freedoms that form the foundations of European culture. From a security perspective, the consequence of the silencing of pubic debate on the challenge of radical Islam is that Europeans are now effectively barred from conducting a public discussion about the chief threat to their political traditions and physical survival.”
Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post, 3 March 2006
For a similar analysis, see the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty website, 2 March 2006
‘Cartoon jihad: hunting the kids’
The claim by Jens Rohde, political spokesman for the governing Danish Liberal Party, that “a daughter of one cartoonist was sought out by 12 Moslem males – they were looking to get to her. Fortunately she wasn’t at school” was repeated by right-wing US blogger Michelle Malkin, under the headline “Cartoon Jihad: Hunting the Kids”, and was widely repeated by the numerous other Islamophobes who infest the blogosphere.
The accusation was without any basis in fact, as Jens Rohde himself subsequently admitted. Even Robert Spencer has been forced to concede that the report was nonsense:
“The story about the threatening of the daughter of one of the Danish cartoonists, which I have now removed, turns out to be false. Its source, the Danish politician Jens Rohde, has misinformed the public – according to the cartoonist whose daughter is the subject of the story. In reality, 12 Muslim men did not come to the girl’s school looking for her. Instead, the whole thing was a dispute among two groups of ten- and eleven-year-old girls, and it had nothing to do with cartoon rage.”
No such retraction has been forthcoming from Malkin, however.
Anti-Muslim manifesto
Another anti-Islam stunt involving a roster of characters, “left”, right and liberal, who have featured regularly on this website. They have signed a manifesto denouncing “the new totalitarianism”. It begins: “After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.” Maryam Namazie of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, who is one of the signatories, has posted the text on her blog, accompanied by the announcement that the manifesto would be “published in Charlie Hebdo, a French leftwing newspaper”.
Maryam Namazie’s blog, 2 March 2006
In fact, the manifesto first appeared in Jyllands-Posten, the right-wing Danish paper responsible for publishing the offensive anti-Muslim cartoons. The manifesto has also been enthusiastically welcomed by the likes of Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch and Western Resistance.
In his book The Future of Political Islam Graham Fuller defines an Islamist as a person who holds the view that “Islam as a body of faith has something important to say about how politics and society should be ordered in the contemporary Muslim World and who seeks to implement this idea in some fashion”. Islamism is thus a category that includes a huge variety of ideologies and individuals, from Tariq Ramadan to Osama bin Laden.
As Soumaya Ghannoushi pointed out in an article entitled “The many faces of Islamism”, published in the Guardian last October: “Islamism, like socialism, is not a uniform entity. It is a colourful sociopolitical phenomenon with many strategies and discourses. This enormously diverse movement ranges from liberal to conservative, from modern to traditional, from moderate to radical, from democratic to theocratic, and from peaceful to violent. What these trends have in common is that they derive their source of legitimacy from Islam.”
By lumping all these trends together under the heading of “totalitarianism”, the signatories to the manifesto merely demonstrate their own ignorance and bigotry. It is all too reminiscent of Cold War propaganda that depicted all proponents of radical politics, from liberals leftwards, as “commies” who were intent on destroying democracy and imposing a totalitarian political system.
Cartoon-krieg: politics as war by other means
“Make no mistake. Jyllands-Posten is not in the business of promoting the freedom of speech. Nor are the European governments that rallied to its defense. What they claim is the license to injure the oppressed and marginalized.”
Lila Rajiva in MRZine, 28 February 2006
Protest to Telegraph over call for Qur’an ban
The Danish publisher Bookwright has circulated an appeal in response to Patrick Sookhdeo’s interview in last week’s Sunday Telegraph:
Sunday Telegraph article calls for the Qur’an to be Banned
An article by Alasdair Palmer in last week’s Sunday Telegraph (19 Feb 2006) entitled “The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state” contains the following paragraph:
“… For example, there is a book, The Noble Koran: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English, which is openly available in Muslim bookshops. It calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, and it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them. The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book. Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both.”
You will probably know that the publication referred to is the Bewley translation of the Qur’an which is rapidly being recognised as one of the most accurate and readable translations. Not only does Palmer’s interviewee advocate banning the sale of the Qur’an but describes its contents in such a way as to suggest it is nothing more than a handbook on terrorism. He falsely claims that it “calls for the killing of Jews and Christians”.
The Qur’an does not call for Jews and Christians to be killed. This claim is a malicious lie. Furthermore the interviewee urges that the Qur’an itself be made illegal. It is outrageous that the Sunday Telegraph should promote such a viewpoint, particularly in the context of recent events. We cannot permit Allah’s Book to be traduced in this way in the National Press and allow the Sunday Telegraph to promote such an abhorrent view of the Qur’an.
It is important to note that this article represents a new and more sinister development. Previously, we have had attacks on the person of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, the bearer of the revelation. This attack is on the revelation itself, and thus indicates a new and more dangerous front opened in the war on Islam. Certainly the minimum we can do is send an e-mail to the editor of the Sunday Telegraph expressing our outrage at this unprecedented open attack on the Qur’anic text.
The editor’s e-mail address is:
Sarah Sands: sarah.sands@telegraph.co.uk
Please forward this mail to as many people as possible and urge them to write to the Sunday Telegraph.
Cartoon protests: uniting against Islamophobia
“The anger following the publication of racist depictions of the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, and their republication across Europe, has continued to find expression in meetings and protests. And the right wing columnists and politicians have continued to pump out their bile. First Islamophobia, the last ‘respectable’ form of racism, was used in an attempt to scare Muslims into submission. Then, when some dared to protest against the onslaught, Muslims were once more attacked for daring to assert themselves. Trevor Kavanagh, writing in the Sun on Monday of this week, was typical. ‘The strident voice of assertive Islam is here to stay,’ he wrote. ‘Flames are being fanned to intimidate the West and its allies in the Muslim world.’ He evoked the image of ‘women walking the streets of Britain wearing Taliban-style burkas’. Italian government minister Roberto Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, wore a T-shirt with the cartoons on them. After an outcry he was forced to resign from the right wing government. But continued racism has not silenced Muslims, or those on the left who remain determined to defend them.”
Joseph Choonara looks at the discussion on how to fight back after thousands of people have protested over the publication of racist cartoons.
Cartoon furor exposes double standards
Cartoon furor exposes double standards
By Haroon Siddiqui
Toronto Star, 23 February 2006
Gary Younge, the New York-based black British columnist, has written this about the Danish cartoon controversy in The Nation magazine:
“Muslims have, in effect, been vilified twice: once through the original cartoons and then again for having the gall to protest them. Such logic recalls the words of the late South African black nationalist Steve Biko: `Not only are whites kicking us, they are telling us how to react to being kicked.'”
Confusion continues to mark the Western response to the issue. Some of this is because we are in uncharted waters. But something else is at work — double standards and insidious attempts at delegitimizing the Muslim protests.
Notorious British historian David Irving has just been sentenced in Vienna to three years for denying the Holocaust. Radical British Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al Masri has been jailed, among other things, for inciting hatred. About time.
Yet there’s silence from freedom of speech advocates who were on their pulpits just days ago.