EclectEcon

My two favourites of the now infamous Danish cartoons (reproduced here in the spirit of freedom of the press):





To see the rest of the cartoons, click here or here.

From Melanie Phillips on the furor over the Danish cartoons:

It is worth reminding ourselves at this juncture what the issue was about from the start of the affair. Gratuitous offensiveness towards My Islam or any other religion is not to be approved of. But not only is censorship of such offensiveness another matter, and violence and intimidation arising from it another matter still, this was not in any event gratuitous offence.

The offending cartoons, playing on the violence committed in the name of Islam, illustrated an article about the perils of self-censorship on the subject of this religion following the difficulties encountered by a children’s author in obtaining any illustrations for his book on the subject because the artists he approached were frightened for their lives. It was to draw attention to this disturbing state of affairs, in which people were being intimidated in the name of Islam into censoring perfectly innocent free speech, that the cartoons were published. They were therefore levelling a satirical criticism not at the Prophet but at the intimidation being practised in the name of the religion, a very different matter.

... But the Muslim world then targeted Denmark for intimidation. Danish Muslim leaders and imams fomented hatred against Denmark within the Islamic world by distributing vile pictures of the Prophet which Jyllands-Posten had never published. This outright fabrication and incitement by Danish citizens appalled Prime Minister Rasmussen, who said: ‘I am speechless that those people, whom we have given the right to live in Denmark and where they freely have chosen to stay, are now touring Arab countries and inciting antipathy towards Denmark and the Danish people’.

... And people still say there is no clash of civilisations. There is – and on this evidence, the west is losing it.

She is correct. Here's more to be concerned about:

Palestinian security forces on Thursday beefed up their presence around foreign institutions in the city and other parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as protests over a newspaper cartoon featuring the prophet Muhammad turned into threats of retaliation.

At the same time, it looks as if the U.S. State Department is sucking up to the extremists. Odd... I thought that stance was reserved for the French and the Canadians, but so far most (with some notable exceptions) French and Canadian papers seem to have come down on the side of freedom of the press.

As Jack says,

I don't know why the West doesn't go on the offensive about offensive anti-semitic cartoons that have been easy to find in many Arab publications.

For example, this one:
(for more, see this site) from which the following quotation is taken:

Blood-drinking Jews are frequently shown by Al Ahram, one of Egypt's leading dailies. On 21 April 2001, it printed a cartoon showing an Arab being put into a flatting mill by two soldiers wearing helmets with Stars of David. The Arab's blood pours out and two Jews with kippot and Stars of David on their shirts drink the blood laughingly.[shown above]

Another well-known Egyptian cartoon portrays Sharon with horns and blood dripping from his mouth.19 A Jordanian cartoonist Rasmy shows a plumber repairing a number of taps. From the American tap comes oil, from the Turkish, water and from the Israeli blood.

I'm with Rondi Adamson on this issue: Let's all go out and buy a bunch of Danish stuff. JB, my favourite drug dealer, says he's going to buy more Danish(es) every day, but I don't think that qualifies. Ms. Eclectic and BenS are opting for Danish cheeses. Instead, I think I'll start with beer. ....

[later] I just made a trip (across the street) to the gubmnt monopoly beer store and bought a bunch of different varieties of Tuborg and Faxe beer. Given how little beer I drink, I think I'm set for the next three Super Bowls.

[thanks to BenS and Jack for the links]