Hitchens defends cartoons provocation

Ex-leftist turned warmonger Christopher Hitchens writes: “… there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general…. if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance.”

Slate, 4 February 2006

Gary Younge on the Danish cartoons controversy

Anti-semitic cover“In January 2002 the New Statesman published a front page displaying a shimmering golden Star of David impaling a union flag, with the words ‘A kosher conspiracy?’ The cover was widely and rightly condemned as anti-semitic….

“A group calling itself Action Against Anti-Semitism marched into the Statesman’s offices, demanding a printed apology. One eventually followed. The then editor, Peter Wilby, later confessed that he had not appreciated ‘the historic sensitivities’ of Britain’s Jews. I do not remember talk of a clash of civilisations in which Jewish values were inconsistent with the western traditions of freedom of speech or democracy. Nor do I recall editors across Europe rushing to reprint the cover in solidarity.

“Quite why the Muslim response to 12 cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten last September should be treated differently is illuminating…. they are vilified twice: once through the cartoon, and again for exercising their democratic right to protest. The inflammatory response to their protest reminds me of the quote from Steve Biko, the South African black nationalist: ‘Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked’.”

Excellent article by Gary Younge in the Guardian, 4 February 2006

In the opinion of this Islamophobia Watch contributor the New Statesman cover was indeed anti-semitic and protests against it were justified. We have reproduced it here from Ha’aretz.

MPACUK condemns protesters

A march in which protesters chanted violent anti-Western slogans such as “7/7 is on its way” should have been banned, a leading British Muslim said.

Asghar Bukhari said the demonstration in London on Friday should have been stopped by police because the group had been advocating violence. The chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee said the protesters “did not represent British Muslims”.

More protests over cartoons of Muhammad on Saturday passed off peacefully.

Mr Bukhari told the BBC News website: “The placards and chants were disgraceful and disgusting, Muslims do not feel that way. I condemn them without reservation, these people are less representative of Muslims than the BNP are of the British people.”

BBC News, 4 February 2006

Cartoons provocation reaches New Zealand

A contact in New Zealand writes: “The cartoons have been splashed across Wellington’s Dominion Post newspaper today. On the front page is an article taking Muslims to task and calling their response ‘a test of Islamic tolerance’. The entire front page of the ‘B’ world news section is taken up with the cartoons and an article written, unusually, by a Dominion Post reporter, Hank Schouten (who usually writes defence stories), rather than the usual agency reports.”

Mad Mel on cartoons controversy

“With holy war declared openly upon the west, with death threats being issued against cartoonists and editors, with Danes, Scandinavians and other Europeans being hunted for kidnap and in fear of their lives, with blood-curdling intimidation, with mob demonstrations, calls to behead westerners and rallying cries for ‘holy war’ by Islam against Europe, the governments of Britain and America are busy prostrating themselves before this terror, apologising for ‘causing offence’ and blaming the victims of this assault; while their intelligentsia earnestly debates whether it is wrong to insult someone else’s religion, for all the world as if this were a university ethics seminar rather than a world war being waged by clerical fascism against free societies and with people in hiding and in fear of their lives for having exercised the right to protest at religious violence and intimidation.”

Melanie Phillips exercises a responsible and calming influence on the situation.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 4 February 2006 

‘We’ are quite distinct from Muslims, Telegraph asserts

“Muslims who choose to live in the West must accept that we, too, have a right to our values, and to live according to them. Muslims must accept the predominant mores of their adopted culture…. Those Muslims who cannot tolerate the openness and robustness of intellectual debate in the West have perhaps chosen to live in the wrong culture.”

Thus an editorial on the Danish cartoons controversy in the Daily Telegraph, 3 February 2006

Note the familiar use of “we”, evidently referring to the white majority community. “We” are to be distinguished from Muslims, who are presumably to be categorised as “them”. Muslims are instructed that they “must accept” the dominant non-Muslim culture, and are told that, if they refuse to do so, they should go back where they came from.

The Guardian is much more measured: “Yesterday’s acquittal of two British National party officials on race hatred charges for attacking Islam – and the triumphalist scenes as the two freed men emerged from court – are part of the context that must be weighed in asserting any right to publish cartoons that offend Muslims. So too is the political situation in Denmark itself, where the cartoons were first published, and where a large and strongly anti-immigrant party provides part of the parliamentary coalition supporting Denmark’s centre-right government. What is the message that is being sent, both in the BNP acquittal context and in the Danish context, by insisting on publishing such images? Those questions cannot be ducked – and nor can the answers.”

Editorial in Guardian, February 2006

Clinton warns of rising anti-Islamic feeling

Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

“So now what are we going to do? … Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?” he said at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha. “In Europe, most of the struggles we’ve had in the past 50 years have been to fight prejudices against Jews, to fight against anti-Semitism,” he said.

Clinton described as “appalling” the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world. “None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions … there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark … these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam,” he said.

AFP, 30 January 2006