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-- Jihad on Denmark - freedom of expression rears its ugly head once again...
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Originally posted by Fir3start3r There's an inherit religious hypocracy within the MSM that have no problems printing/showing blasphemous Christian stories but when it comes to Muslims, it scares the shit out of them and then claim the liberal line of "tolerance" and "understanding"...

I saw the 60 minutes piece on Denmark and the cartoons, and was intrigued when the reporter asked Abu Laban which of the cartoons he found most offensive. Of what kind of value does CBS think Mr Laban's answer is to the US public, when CBS itself don't show its viewers the cartoons?

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Originally posted by occrider Well wait you missed my point. Slate did have the Abu Ghraib pics but withheld them until the Aussie media published them. So apparentely they did have qualms publishing them.

I don't know if I'd call Slate MSM (Main Stream Media) though; it's more a major blog than anything else.
I'm specifically referencing major television news and the major print media and their hypocrisy.

As to why Slate sat on it is a good question though.
Slate is made up of a lot of guys/gals that do work for MSM sources though so that might have been a factor? Dunno...

Even '60 Minutes' blames the Danes!?!?

>>Video<<

^^^ Yes, along with the NYTimes. But don't forget that we're a bunch of wacko communists (high taxes, developed well-fare system, free medicare etc.) of course we'd be the ones to brew the newest neo-fascist fad - drawing cartoons. I saw "Goodnight and good luck" the other day. Apparently journalistic standards have dropped on CBS since then. Hell, if "The Insider" is even remotely accurate, I'll say that standards have been dropping drastically in just a few years.

But even if us Danes are vile and ruthless, fortunately there are islands of tolerance, respect, and liberty from which we can hopefully learn to behave:

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Court issues fatwa on cartoonists AN Islamic court in India has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, condemning to death the 12 artists who drew the controversial images of the prophet Mohammed. The decree was issued on behalf of the Idar-e-Sharia Darul Kaza Islamic court in northern Uttar Pradesh state by its religious head in the state capital, Lucknow. "Death is the only penalty for the cartoonists who had drawn sacrilegious cartoons of the prophet," Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan, the religious head of the court, said overnight. The court's ruling is binding on Muslims, but can be challenged under Indian law. Mr Irfan said it was clearly written in the Muslim holy book, the Koran, that anyone who insulted the prophet deserved to be punished. He said the fatwa was applicable wherever Muslims live. Advertisement: Jaffaryab Zilany, a member of the authoritative national body of Muslim clerics, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, said however that although the fatwa was legitimate under Islamic law, it had no legal binding in India. The sentence comes days after a minister in the state government, Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi, offered a reward of $US11.5 million ($15.6 million) for the beheading of any of the cartoonists. The cartoons, drawn by 12 artists, were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September and later reprinted in other mainly European dailies. They have sparked protests worldwide, some of them deadly. On Saturday, a cleric in Pakistan offered a $US1-million ($1.35 million) reward and a car for the death of any of the cartoonists responsible for the drawings, one of which portrayed the prophet with a bomb in his turban. Muslims consider any depiction of the prophet to be blasphemous. Muslims make up about 130 million of mainly Hindu India's billion-plus population. While there have been large demonstrations against the cartoons in India, they have been mainly peaceful.

A good thing that we pour foreign aid into India. How on Earth would they be able to afford drumming up bounty hunters without us.

In other news: Apparently self-censorship is on the move in Sweden:

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Another Swedish Site Shutdown One that I missed. On Monday Swedish Internet provider Spray shutdown the website of feminist publisher Alida for publishing those sinister Mohammad pictures. As a private company, this is, of course, their right (they claim that S�po was in no way involved), but one cannot help thinking that such actions bode ill for the already stifled debate climate in Sweden.

What do you say St_Andrew? Do you think you'll beat the Brits to the goal of Sharia? I'm rooting for you!

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Originally posted by trancaholic What do you say St_Andrew? Do you think you'll beat the Brits to the goal of Sharia? I'm rooting for you!

The day Sweden introduce sharia laws as our laws, I will be the first one seeking refugee in Demark Hopefully that day will never happen though, but there are indeed some worrysome developments going on. This site was officially closed for the reason that it was used for commercial reasons and Spray's contract did not allow this for their free service, I guess the reason why it came to their attention though is the fact that they published the pictures.

The mentality in Sweden is starting to piss me off more and more though, after Sverigedemokraterna published the cartoons people were not pissed because it might have offended the Muslims, they were pissed because they thought it would jeopardize our national security, which is incredibly stupid and pretty much means we already gave in to the extremists. So I'm thinking of a way that could potentially change the debate in Sweden now, but it is hard to come up with anything. I'm gonna try to talk about this with some of the more influential people (more influential than me anyway) in the political party I'm a member of though.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/rids/20060207/i/r4241336910.jpg?x=243&y=345&sig=X6rUsEUR1ou8jdFXoLiaSg--

I didn't know Muslims could breathe fire. I want super protesting powers too.

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Originally posted by trancaholic A really interesting piece written by Flemming Rose (the editor who commisioned the drawings in the first place) over at Washington Post about the motivations behind and fallout of the publication act:

Nice article, it was an interesting read tranceaholic. Has those cartoons really opened up a debate about the integration of islam into society to the degree that the article implies?

^^^ I'd say so. All the facts listed by Rose in the end of the article are correct. My personal experience is that regular Danes have started to become aware of the existence of Islamists as a subset of Muslims and have started debating the fundamental values of our society and how these values relate to the world of tomorrow. Muslims not belonging to Islamist factions, on the other hand, have started to come out full force. Just this morning I read a letter to the editor in Jyllands-posten, from an angry Muslim that pointed out a lot of the basic regulations of Islam that had been violated by Abu Laban, and how Laban should be ashamed of telling others how to be good Muslims.
But don't take it from me - here's a blog by a Danish Muslim girl, who's discussing her view on integration, the press, Danes, and Muslims:
http://profeta.dk/blog/?

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Originally posted by Fir3start3r Even '60 Minutes' blames the Danes!?!? >>Video<<

Unbelievable how they can distort an issue so greatly. And they make it seem like the cartoons that were published were all so horrible when in reality many of them were in good taste...


Guess now you Europeans can see how news media distorts reality when it comes to ... Arab conflict

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Originally posted by Yoepus Unbelievable how they can distort an issue so greatly. And they make it seem like the cartoons that were published were all so horrible when in reality many of them were in good taste... Guess now you Europeans can see how news media distorts reality when it comes to ... Arab conflict

seriously you would think the media would back...the media!

Our PM just gave an interview to the second largest paper in Denmark (after Jyllands-posten), and it is probably the harshest and most direct comments I've seen from him. He lashed out at industry, media, and the cultural elite, for selling short a fundamental value - freedom of speech - for the sake of cheap points in the domestic debate on immigration laws and/or petty income from the Middle East. The money quote:

"For instance, I would never accept that it should not be possible to discuss sharia critically. The fact that someone say it is sacred must not result in that it cannot be discussed. There's a lot of talk about offense, but one has to ask oneself what is more offensive - some drawings or two boys in the gallows in Iran or women being stoned or hands being chopped off? One should keep ones proportions reasonable."
What's your answer to that question?
"I know exactly what my personal preferences are. It is clear that I'm more offended by seeing two teenagers hanging from a gallow in Iran, and I want to be able to state that opinion."

I love him! It sure took a lot of time for him to go balistic on this issue (he's done it before on the Theo van Gogh one), but I guess real politics had to be taken care of first.

In other news, Annan just joined Clinton on my WTF?-list:

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The offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were first published in a European country which has recently acquired a significant Muslim population and is not yet sure how to adjust to it. And some of the strongest reactions - perhaps especially the more violent ones - have been seen in Muslim countries where many people feel themselves the victims of excessive Western influence or interference.

Source
Notice that it is Denmark who needs to "adjust" to Muslims choosing to live in Denmark. Also notice how Muslims countries are the ones being subjected to "interference" here. Calls for the extradition of cartoonists and curbing of civil liberties by foreign Muslim leaders, on the other hand, are seemingly not much of an issue.

mate whats the current "feeling" just walking the streets of Denmark for example when I lived in England when I would walk around I could feel a sorta semi rift between the whites and muslims how about in Denmark any thing doing?

Sounds like the protests have gone down a bit around the world but its only a matter of time for something to happen I sadly believe....

This worlds a crazy, screwed up place. Thank God I was born in America.(If i was Canadian I would have said Canada, If Danish Denmark, etc. if Sudanese I would just cry)

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Originally posted by InterMilan31 mate whats the current "feeling" just walking the streets of Denmark for example when I lived in England when I would walk around I could feel a sorta semi rift between the whites and muslims how about in Denmark any thing doing?

It seems to be calmer in Denmark than in the rest of the world right now. The only bad domestic news I've gotten the last couple of weeks was the smashin of windows at some pizzarias owned by Muslims - whether the incidents were motivated by the Mohammad case or not is not known. When I walk the street I'm rarely in a position to judge whether the people around me are Muslim or not, but I haven't noticed any increase in hostile looks from people of Arab or Persian origin.
Domestically Danes seem to have moved towards a political consensus the last month. The Danish People's Party, which is well-known for its anti-immigrant policies, has been quite vocal on the need to distinguish between extremists and ordinary peaceful Muslims - even to the point of saying that the latter group should be welcomed in the Danish society and be helped as much as we can. The Liberal Center party, which traditionally has advocated a very humanist stance on immigration, has also changed rhetorics. They previously refused to even talk to the Danish People's party, aimed at easing immigration policies, and seemed to believe that all problems were essentially due to a lack of dialogue, but has lately come out with statements urging people to recognize that the Muslim community contains radical elements that should be considered every bit as hurtful to integration as the nazis, and in support of strict dealings with the Travelling Imams. Heck the two parties even ganged up to push forth a piece of legislation recently, so things are looking bright on the political scene in Denmark as of now.
When I talk to other Danes, I get the feeling that a lot of them fears that Denmark has lost all respect and sympathy in the outside world over this. Sure, they've heard about the Buy Danish campaign, the unequivocal support of the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, and the small "Support Denmark" demonstration in DC, but compared to the general condemnation of Jyllands-posten and Denmark in the foreign media and by foreign (western) political leaders, a lot of Danes see a bleak future for Denmark internationally.

good info...it definitly seems to me that alot of that worrying stuff about population ecomomies in europe will falter if they dont improve immigration is biting some countries in the ass...mostly England where they have immigrants attack them...some of the policies are a joke(UK one i know the most) which practically lets anyone in the country

What I find more unusual, is how Vatican is keeping mum all this time. I bet if Pope John Paul was there, he would have taken some stance on this issue, or atleast speak something about it.

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Originally posted by Purple What I find more unusual, is how Vatican is keeping mum all this time. I bet if Pope John Paul was there, he would have taken some stance on this issue, or atleast speak something about it.

The Vatican has spoken out - they're against the drawings (like everyone else), but has since then (through some underling to the Pope) also asked Muslim countries to consider how Christians are treated in these countries and whether Muslims should practice what they preach.

this issue seems to me has blown over a bit but pretty shocking to me as I thought it would lead to other things....or is just that the media is on to other stories?

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Originally posted by InterMilan31 this issue seems to me has blown over a bit but pretty shocking to me as I thought it would lead to other things....or is just that the media is on to other stories?

Hmm. Forgive me for not sourcing these, but I can't take time to do that right now. Off the top of my head, this is from within the last week:
- Some 50000 people protested in Karachi, and 20000 in Turkey (Istanbul I think it was).
- In meetings between the EU and Arab countries, Arab countries pressed for the EU to introduce strict blasphemy laws.
- Muslims protested a play, written by Voltaire, in a French village, because it offended their sensitivities. Security had to be raised to a ridiculous level.
- The British interior minister has publicly criticised the Danish PM for not meeting with the Muslim ambassadors (apparently without taking time to actually get to know the specifics of the case), and Jack Straw's office issued a statement saying that those views harmonised with their own. In a debate related to the issuement of a joint EU statement on the affair, it became clear that the EU is torn on the issue, with Spain and the UK wanting to appease Muslims, and other countries, spearheaded by the Netherlands, want to send a clear signal that religious sensitivities are not protected by law in the EU.
- Egypt's tourist industry is hit hard by a drastic drop in Scandinavian tourists, and they're whining about it. Supposedly Europeans in general are reluctant to book a trip to Egypt as well. Turkey's tourist industry suffers a similar fate.
- An editor of a news paper in Yemen has been put on trial, with several prosecutors seemingly outbidding each other in a chaotic race to be most radical. The editor has been charged with causing trauma to some of the plaintiffs, besides insulting the prophet. The prosecutors demands range from having the paper shut down and all property confiscated, to that the editor be executed.
- There has been a pro-Denmark/free speech rally in NYC, and supposedly there will be one in San Francisco this weekend.
- In Nigeria battles between Muslims and Christians continue to escalate, with more than 150 dead so far.
- Salman Rushdie and a bunch of other intellectuals have released a manifesto which urges non-theocrats to fight Islamism.
- Denmark has re-opened its diplomatic missions in Syria and Indonesia.

So, in short, I don't think the issue has died, and that everyone gets along. It's probably just that the MSM finds the issues of ports, Iran, Cheney-shootings etc. more explosive.

In Denmark, things have hardly calmed down. Seemingly we're divided into three groups: Those which see the Cartoon Crisis as a wake up call (by far the largest), those who sees all of this as the fault of the government and a Denmark drawn too far to the right (the cultural elite), and finally those who just wish all of this would go away, which is the people who's "tired" of hearing of cartoons and freedom of speech (the second largest portion). If the rest of Europe is divided in similar proportions, then I predict that the next time your MSM will devote pages to the issue will be in the coming elections, as social democratic governments will then fall all over Europe, and we might see an EU with a far less lenient attitude to Muslim sensibilities. Normally, easily swayed voters have a short memory, but in this instance, I think the shift to the right will be with us for quite some time.

So an update from Sweden, things are getting interesting here now again, previously our foreign minister denied that she knew anything about the closedown of the Sverigedemokrater's website that contained the cartoons. However after an investigation it came up that she actually did. Now this might not have been so fun if our PM previously hadn't heavily criticized the person that knew about this at the state department (non politican). It will definitely be interesting to see if this criticism will now be diverted to our foreign minister (our PM have earlier defended this minister to no end despite all her stupid things she has done). And the investigation goes on, hopefully more fun things will emerge (like our PM knowing about it, which wouldn't suprise me)

^^^ Is she the one that Persson wants to take over from him when he retires?

Besides internal strife between government, industry, opposition, and the PC elite, the debate in Denmark has mainly turned to the UN this last week. A very recent UN report criticizes Denmark for instigating Islamphobia through its policies, and yesterday the following ad appeared from the UN:

It says "Racism can take many forms". And that is a Lego brick for those who do not know how these look. The ad has drawn very hard criticism - even from the most progressive of Danes, such as the head of our institute on human rights (a long time advocate of dialogue, respect, and mild appeasement).
Some Danes, including quite a few politicians, have started questioning the UN's authority, and the recent failures of the UN (Rwanda, Sudan, oil-for-food, nepotism, etc.) have all become topics of interest again. The Christians in Denmark have also asked why the UN doesn't release reports on the rights of Christians in Muslim countries.
I'm pretty sure that this questioning of the UN will blow over, though, but next time Bush calls the UN a "debating society" he will find less Danes disagreeing with him. As I read in a commentary recently "No-one is digging ditches between the left and the right in Denmark. Those ditches were dug years ago. What's happening today is that more and more on the left are jumping the ditch to the right."

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Originally posted by trancaholic ^^^ Is she the one that Persson wants to take over from him when he retires?

Never mind, she just resigned, I understand. The Danish media reports it as though it was over the Tsunami effort.

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Originally posted by trancaholic ^^^ Is she the one that Persson wants to take over from him when he retires?

Don't think so, she was the successor to Anna Lindh, but she hasn't done much good at all (if anything?). Actually the social democrates have quite a big problem there, cause they don't really have anyone who can take over after Persson, and he has said this is his last election (this fall).

Anyhow, she resigned today, which is the fucking best thing that happend to this country in a long time

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Originally posted by trancaholic Never mind, she just resigned, I understand. The Danish media reports it as though it was over the Tsunami effort.

Woops, didn't see that one. Yeah, partly, and partly for this. In her motivation for why she resigned she said it was for this though, but I guess it was for both, and as far as I understand it the investigation about how the Tsunami effort was done will soon come with its conclusions so I guess she expected A LOT more criticism so she figured it was just easier to resign now.

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Originally posted by St_Andrew Anyhow, she resigned today, which is the fucking best thing that happend to this country in a long time

Man, I wish Australian politicians had that degree of accountability.

This was in the paper yesterday. I don't think you'll agree with it's contention, trancaholic (to be honest, I'm not sure I do either), but it's still when of the better op-eds I've read on the subject:

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Contesting what is sacred The conflict between Islamic and Western values need not become a war of civilisations, writes Karen Armstrong. The CRISIS occasioned by the Danish cartoons, which depicted the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, has become a microcosm of the wider conflict between Islam and the Western world. It also represents a clash between two competing conceptions of the sacred. The sacred, of course, does not necessarily imply an external deity. The sacred symbolises that which is inviolable, non-negotiable, and so central to our identity that, when it is injured in any way, it seems to vitiate the deepest self. For the Muslim protesters, the figure of the prophet is sacred in this way; for the supporters of the cartoons, free speech is the sacred value. Freedom of expression is both a product and a prerequisite of modernity. In the pre-modern world, social order was regarded as more important than freedom of thought. It was not feasible to encourage people to have original ideas or to criticise established institutions in the hope of improving them, because agrarian-based society lacked the resources to implement many new notions. But independent thinking became essential to the modern economy; society could only become fully productive if inventors and scientists were able to pursue their ideas without the supervision of a controlling hierarchy. Our right to free speech and free thought has been hard won, and Western civilisation could not function without it. It has become a sacred value, symbolising the inviolable sovereignty of the individual. Nevertheless, we should not be surprised and affronted if people challenge it. Culture is always contested. Today all over the world religious conservatives and secularists feel deeply threatened by one another; they all fear the destruction of sacred, fundamental values. As a result, the modernisation process has been punctuated by such conflicts as the Scopes trial of 1925, when Christian fundamentalists in the US tried to ban the teaching of evolution in state schools, and the Salman Rushdie affair, when Muslims felt mortally wounded by Rushdie's portrayal of their prophet. These conflicts both began with what was perceived as an aggressive assault on religion by the proponents of free speech. But they ended by making the religious contenders more extreme. In other traditions too, the militant piety that we call "fundamentalism" has developed in a similarly symbiotic relationship with a liberalism or secularism that is experienced as hostile and invasive. The cartoon crisis is simply the latest of these disputes, and as such could be seen as part of the bumpy process whereby societies at different stages of modernisation gradually learn to accommodate one another. But in the present political climate, we can ill afford this increase in tension. On both sides, the conflict has been fuelled and exploited by radicals, who do not represent the majority. At the meeting of the Alliance of Civilisations, a UN initiative with the mandate of drawing up a list of practical guidelines for member states to prevent the acceleration of hatred and misunderstanding, we were given the result of a recent poll of Muslim youth. This showed that 97 per cent of the young people surveyed deplored the violence and rhetoric of the Muslim protesters, even though they had been offended by the cartoons. A delegate reported that while most Danish people defended free speech, they were distressed that the cartoons had so heedlessly trampled on Muslim sensibilities. On both sides, the radicals have tried to eliminate the middle ground, and this is extremely dangerous. The Muslims who damaged embassies and brandished placards vowing to execute the cartoonists have fulfilled the stereotypical view of "Islam" in the West: a religion seen as violent, fanatical, self-destructive and atavistically opposed to freedom. At the same time, those who aggressively support the repeated publication of the cartoons embody the view many Muslims have of "the West": as arrogant, disdainful of religion, chronically Islamophobic, and guilty of double standards - proudly boasting of its tolerance, but not applying it to anything Islamic. When the dust has settled after the crisis, these negative stereotypes will be more entrenched, to the detriment of a final reconciliation. Many have been alarmed by the increase of the Muslim population in Europe, which seems inimical to Western values. They are naturally defensive and apprehensive; the cartoons can be seen as an expression of this anxiety and as a blow for freedom. But they also revealed the darker side of the culture they purported to defend, and have a grim precedent. Historically, Europe has found it extremely difficult to tolerate minorities. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an indispensable member of our alliance group, spoke from personal experience of the abiding pain felt by people who see their traditions consistently scorned and ridiculed by an imperialist power. When people hurt in this way, he said, it only takes a little thing to push them over the edge. When Islam was a major world power and Muslims were confident, they could take insults about their religion in their stride. But today, fearful of the hostility in Europe and bombarded with images from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, many experienced the gratuitous vilification of their prophet by the Danish cartoonists as the last straw. Hatred of the West is a relatively recent prejudice in the Islamic world. A hundred years ago, every single leading Muslim intellectual, with the exception of the proto-fundamentalist al-Afghani, saw Western modernity as deeply congenial and, even though they hated European colonialism, many wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France. Relations soured not because of an inherent "clash of civilisations", but because of Western foreign policy, which continues to fuel the crisis. How do we move forward? Washington's threatening posture towards Iran can only lead to an increase in hostility between Islam and the West, and we must expect more conflicts like the cartoon crisis. Instead of allowing extremists on both sides to set the agenda, we should learn to see these disputes in historical perspective, recalling that in the past, aggressive cultural chauvinism proved to be dangerously counterproductive. The emotions engendered by these crises are a gift to those, in both the Western and the Islamic worlds, who, for their own nefarious reasons, want the tension to escalate; we should not allow ourselves to play into their hands. Karen Armstrong is author of 19 books on religion. Her latest is The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opini...l?page=fullpage

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