27 January 2006 Blog Home : January 2006 : Permalink
RIYADH, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it had recalled its ambassador to Denmark, saying the government had not taken enough action over newspaper cartoons seen as mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammad. "The Saudi government recalled its ambassador for consultations in light of the Danish government's lack of attention to insulting the Prophet Mohammad by its newspapers," a government official said. "This led to an escalation of the situation and its development."
Can we finally admit that Muslims have blown out of all proportion their outrage over 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad published in a Danish newspaper last September? In the latest twist, last week both the Organization for the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council condemned a Norwegian newspaper for reprinting the drawings - a decision the publication defended as protecting freedom of expression.
The initial printing of the cartoons in Denmark led to death threats being issued against the artists, demonstrations in Kashmir, and condemnation from 11 countries. What did any of this achieve but prove the original point of the newspaper's culture editor, that artists in Europe were censoring themselves because they feared Muslim reaction? He commissioned the cartoons after hearing that Danish artists were too scared to illustrate a children's book about the prophet.
just read the whole thing - it's worth it - including this which is precisely why I'm happy to publish these cartoons:Here are a few facts we should remember. However offensive any of the 12 cartoons were, they did not incite violence against Muslims. For an example of incitement, though, one must go back a few weeks before the cartoons were published. In August, the Danish authorities withdrew for three months the broadcasting license of a Copenhagen radio station after it called for the extermination of Muslims. Those were real threats and the government protected Muslims - the same government later condemned for not punishing the newspaper that published the cartoons.
Second, the cartoon incident belongs at the very center of the kind of debate that Muslims must have in the European countries where they live - particularly after the Madrid train bombings of 2003 and the London subway bombings of 2005. While right-wing anti-immigration groups whip up Islamophobia in Denmark, Muslim communities wallow in denial over the increasing role of their own extremists.
As just one example, last August Fadi Abdullatif, the spokesman for the Danish branch of the militant Hizb-ut-Tahrir organization, was charged with calling for the killing of members of the Danish government. He distributed leaflets calling on Muslims in Denmark to go to Fallujah in Iraq and fight the Americans, and to kill their own leaders if they obstructed them. [...] Abdullatif used the Koran to justify incitement to violence! And we still wonder why people associate Islam with violence?
Update: It occurs to me that if the Religious Hatred law is passed a UK newspaper publishing those Danish cartoons or any UK website that does so could be in trouble. The two campaigns MUST be combined: i.e. as the Brussels Journal suggests concentrate on getting as many European (and especially) UK blog and media outlets to publish the cartoons ASAP and note that it could be illegal to do so once the bill becomes law. Personally as a French resident with a server hosted in California my response to any UK legal action would be modelled on the Holy Grail: "You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Bliar King, you and all your silly English lawyers. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt! ... I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
Update 2: Also see the post above and this news item about Iraqi complaints