Silly Little Country

The Copenhagen Cartoons

I was interested to see our major news outlets finally report on the nonsensical brouhaha underway regarding the 12 Copenhagen cartoons (see the graphic - open separately to see somewhat enlarged). The versions of the story they report (for lack of time?) make several key elements of the story invisible.
First, that the cartoons were published in Jyllands-Posten four months ago. I have heard phrases like "cartoons published in newspapers in Denmark, Norway, France Germany,...". This is correct, but leaves out the fact that it is only this week that most of these newspapers took action, presumably as a response to the infantile and dangerous outburst in the Muslim world last week. For much of these four months, Denmark has stood alone defending some pretty basic Western values, facing major Dhimmi-like pronouncements from prominent Europeans, our Canadian star Louise Arbour, and, lately, Bill Clinton (sinking him deeply in my estimation).
Why the sudden change? Well, until pretty recently, the childish outbursts were primarily in Denmark itself, and Muslim communities in Europe, featuring the usual round of riots, pointless destruction, and of course, death threats.
After three months, the Danish imams realized they were not getting anywhere, so headed off on a tour of the Middle East, whipping up anger by displaying the fifteen offending cartoons. Yes, no longer twelve - they decided to add three of their own, perhaps because the originals were not offensive enough. One of the new ones features Mohammed with a pig's face! (And we know how offensive piglet dolls in British workplaces are now.) Needless to say, this tour serves the purposes of all the usual suspects (Middle Eastern governments, religious leaders, Hamas, Hezbollah, ...), and they have chosen to react in the usual manner, an extension of what I described above (adding on raiding embassies, firing guns off, behaving generically like enraged and thoughtless teenage males).
This is when our local media discovered the story, and they present it without important details. And without pointing out some of the idiocies - for example, the Muslim request for an apology from governments! The most stirring, intelligent, and consistent response of the Danish premier through all these months has been that he has no right to interfere with what a Danish newspaper chooses to publish, however much it may offend someone, and he has steadfastly refused even to discuss this with the various interest groups who have tried to lobby him. It is a very unfortunate observation from this event that such a simple idea is alien to much of the Muslim world.
There is a wonderful irony here - the cartoons are said to be offensive because they embody terrible Western stereotypes of Islam; well, stereotypes come from somewhere, and most of them are being confirmed very handily right now.
Which is not to say there are no exceptions; I have several friends who are clear exceptions. And my sister cites some examples here; regrettably, Damian Penny reports this morning that the Jordanian editor discovered the rewards of good sense in Jordanian society.
Interested readers can get a more detailed picture at other blogs; my recommendation is The Brussels Journal. In his post today he cites Sarko swimming against some of the tide:

He said that the reactions of extremist Muslims towards the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published the original cartoons, and towards Denmark are shocking. Mr Sarkozy praised the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for his determination and defense of freedom of expression. “Freedom of expression is not an issue for negotiation and I see no reason to give one religion a special treatment,” Mr Sarkozy said.

:shocking". Right on.

Another good source is the Viking Observer.

And also, Abiola Lapite's cool reason at work, and The Religious Policeman's witty take.

(Note: CTV has a debate on as I write - the Muslim representative mischaracterizes the history in Denmark, has a very confused notion of rights, thinks nobody should be offended by anything, and uses a typically disingenuous analogy, talking about slurs against ethnic groups. Islam in not an ethnic group - one chooses to say one believes all the nonsense, as Christians choose to believe their nonsense.)

UPDATE: Erik Svane reminds me of this as well from The Religious Policeman.

UPDATE #2: Perspective from The Big Pharaoh.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:19 AM