Mad Muslims
"The people who insult Muhammad are hostages of the Zionists."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran (1)
"The Danish editor behind the publication of the caricatures said Wednesday that he's trying to co-ordinate with an Iranian paper soliticiting cartoons on the Holocaust.....'we would run the cartoons on the same day'." (2)
As sure as night follows day, the publication of cartoons ridiculing Muhammad in Denmark would inevitably be followed by attempts to blame it on the Jews, which would then spur efforts to seek revenge against the Jews by all concerned.
One of the difficulties of writing political satire (e.g. the Glazerbeam) is that some actual events in the world are so outrageous and absurd that one cannot ridicule them by exaggeration. The quotes above are good examples.
It is ironic that Denmark should be scene of this bizarre travesty, since Denmark was one of the few places in Nazi-occupied Europe in which the local population saved the Jews. A very liberal democracy, Denmark has admitted about 200,000 Muslims since World War II. Until now, the country has avoided international controversy. In the wake of the cartoons, Danish embassies were burned by angry mobs in Beirut and Damascus. Despite violent protests across the Muslim world, the Prime Minister of Denmark has courageously refused to apologize for the offending cartoons.
Why didn't angry Muslims get even by simply publishing nasty cartoons featuring Jesus or Jewish religious figures? The trouble is that Islam considers Jesus a prophet (although not divine, nor even in the same league as Muhammad) and accepts Jewish Biblical figures such as Abraham (Ibrahim) and Moses (Musa) as worthy precursors of Islam. They could ridicule post-Biblical Jews such as Matisyahu, Rabbi Akiva, or Maimonides but cartoons of these men would not be instantly recognizable by the average Muslim reader. Arab and Iranian media do often print caricatures of modern Israelis such as Dayan and Sharon, but they lack the iconic stature among Jews that Muhammad commands among Muslims.
Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad, even the most respectful, so the cartoons drive Muslims bananas. The violence that has been used against Europeans for this is nothing less than an attempt to impose Sharia (Islamic Law) on the entire world, by whatever means necessary. When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses some years ago, which also satirized Muhammad, the government of Iran offered a prize for killing him. Although he managed to avoid death by spending years in hiding, and the fatwa (edict) to kill him has been cancelled, the Muslim threats seem to have achieved their purpose: how many writers that you know are working on books that ridicule Muhammad?
Maybe you wonder if Christians and Jews would react the same way if their icons were trashed. It is instructive to review three actual incidents of this type:
1. The Brooklyn Art Museum displayed a portrait of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant manure in 1998. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Catholic, cut city funding for the Museum, but there was no violence. (Yes, there were noisy demonstrations, but the Brooklyn Art Museum still stands.)
2. The National Endowment for Arts (NEA) sponsored an exhibit including a photo of a crucifix in a glass of (alleged) urine. In response to Congressional protests, and a changed national political climate, the NEA would probably not exhibit that photo now. But there was no violence, and the NEA still gets federal funding.
3. In a 1978 skit NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) joked that if Superman had landed in Germany, instead of fighting for "The American Way" he would have rounded-up the Jews of Europe single-handedly. Maybe some Jews turned off their TV sets, but there were no protests at the ghastly joke, and SNL is still on the air. (And a Jew still produces it.)
People were offended by all three of these incidents, but none led to violence. The Muslims are different; the rise of militant Islam since the 1978 Iranian Revolution has been responsible for nearly every major conflict in the world since then, including most terrorist attacks. If we cannot persuade the Muslims to cherish freedom for themselves, at least we must resist their attempts to limit ours.
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(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 12, 2006, page 6A.
(2) Same paper, Feb. 6, page 3A.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran (1)
"The Danish editor behind the publication of the caricatures said Wednesday that he's trying to co-ordinate with an Iranian paper soliticiting cartoons on the Holocaust.....'we would run the cartoons on the same day'." (2)
As sure as night follows day, the publication of cartoons ridiculing Muhammad in Denmark would inevitably be followed by attempts to blame it on the Jews, which would then spur efforts to seek revenge against the Jews by all concerned.
One of the difficulties of writing political satire (e.g. the Glazerbeam) is that some actual events in the world are so outrageous and absurd that one cannot ridicule them by exaggeration. The quotes above are good examples.
It is ironic that Denmark should be scene of this bizarre travesty, since Denmark was one of the few places in Nazi-occupied Europe in which the local population saved the Jews. A very liberal democracy, Denmark has admitted about 200,000 Muslims since World War II. Until now, the country has avoided international controversy. In the wake of the cartoons, Danish embassies were burned by angry mobs in Beirut and Damascus. Despite violent protests across the Muslim world, the Prime Minister of Denmark has courageously refused to apologize for the offending cartoons.
Why didn't angry Muslims get even by simply publishing nasty cartoons featuring Jesus or Jewish religious figures? The trouble is that Islam considers Jesus a prophet (although not divine, nor even in the same league as Muhammad) and accepts Jewish Biblical figures such as Abraham (Ibrahim) and Moses (Musa) as worthy precursors of Islam. They could ridicule post-Biblical Jews such as Matisyahu, Rabbi Akiva, or Maimonides but cartoons of these men would not be instantly recognizable by the average Muslim reader. Arab and Iranian media do often print caricatures of modern Israelis such as Dayan and Sharon, but they lack the iconic stature among Jews that Muhammad commands among Muslims.
Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad, even the most respectful, so the cartoons drive Muslims bananas. The violence that has been used against Europeans for this is nothing less than an attempt to impose Sharia (Islamic Law) on the entire world, by whatever means necessary. When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses some years ago, which also satirized Muhammad, the government of Iran offered a prize for killing him. Although he managed to avoid death by spending years in hiding, and the fatwa (edict) to kill him has been cancelled, the Muslim threats seem to have achieved their purpose: how many writers that you know are working on books that ridicule Muhammad?
Maybe you wonder if Christians and Jews would react the same way if their icons were trashed. It is instructive to review three actual incidents of this type:
1. The Brooklyn Art Museum displayed a portrait of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant manure in 1998. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Catholic, cut city funding for the Museum, but there was no violence. (Yes, there were noisy demonstrations, but the Brooklyn Art Museum still stands.)
2. The National Endowment for Arts (NEA) sponsored an exhibit including a photo of a crucifix in a glass of (alleged) urine. In response to Congressional protests, and a changed national political climate, the NEA would probably not exhibit that photo now. But there was no violence, and the NEA still gets federal funding.
3. In a 1978 skit NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) joked that if Superman had landed in Germany, instead of fighting for "The American Way" he would have rounded-up the Jews of Europe single-handedly. Maybe some Jews turned off their TV sets, but there were no protests at the ghastly joke, and SNL is still on the air. (And a Jew still produces it.)
People were offended by all three of these incidents, but none led to violence. The Muslims are different; the rise of militant Islam since the 1978 Iranian Revolution has been responsible for nearly every major conflict in the world since then, including most terrorist attacks. If we cannot persuade the Muslims to cherish freedom for themselves, at least we must resist their attempts to limit ours.
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(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 12, 2006, page 6A.
(2) Same paper, Feb. 6, page 3A.
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 10:03 AM
1 Comments:
Yes, it is very imtersting that the mesasage of all of these cartoons was that Mohammed or Islam is violent; and Mulsims showed their objections to this by being violent.
Muslims proved that the cartoons were accutrate.
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