Posted on 02/15/2006 9:01:45 PM PST by USMMA_83
THE disgraceful racist cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed originally published by a sensation-seeking Danish newspaper have produced an international firestorm of hysteria and racism.
Mobs of enraged Muslims have rioted from Morocco to Indonesia and burned Danish and Norwegian embassies. Editors of other European newspapers that ran the offensive cartoons piously insist they did so to defend the sacred right of free speech.
This writer detests any form of censorship, including so-called ‘hate laws’ that are really modern forms of heresy and blasphemy statutes. But free speech, as the great American jurist Felix Frankfurter said, does not include the right to scream ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theatre.
And that’s just what the European newspapers did. They were trying to boost circulation and pander to anti-immigrant right-wingers by attacking Islam.
Nor is it a coincidence these grave insults occurred in Denmark. Its current rightwing government has been close to President George Bush, sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has adopted an unfriendly policy towards Denmark’s small Muslim community and the ummahh. While the Danish government had no direct responsibility for the cartoons, it helped foster a climate of hostility to Muslims.
This whole ugly business is really about anti-Islamism — the modern version of 1930s anti-Semitism. Today, promoting hatred and scorn for Islam and Muslims has become the only socially and legally acceptable modern prejudice in western society.
Just questioning the Jewish holocaust in Germany or Austria results in a jail sentence. Doing the same in Canada gets you thrown in prison or expelled. In the West, it’s totally a taboo to say homosexuality is wrong, or women are less intelligent than men. But it’s OK to slander Islam.
The Danish paper that ran the racist cartoons ‘to defend free speech’ refused in 2003 to run satirical cartoons of Christ, saying ‘it would provoke an outrage.’ So much for claims of defending free speech.
America’s four leading evangelical Protestant leaders, reverends Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, and Marvin Olasky preached a ‘crusade’ against Iraq. Graham branded Islam ‘an evil and wicked religion.’ They called the prophet ‘a terrorist.’ Among American evangelical Christians, 87 per cent supported invading Iraq and hoped to convert Iraq’s Muslims to Christianity.
Italian propagandist Oriana Fallaci churns out best-sellers calling Islam a dirty, backwards creed of violent thugs. In Paris, a Jewish newspaper editor, who should know about promoting hate against minorities, ran the Danish cartoons in his newspaper.
In liberal Holland, it’s cool to despise Muslims. In America, pseudo-historians and professional hate-mongers wage jihad in the US press against all things Islamic.
One Danish cartoon of Prophet Mohammed shows him with a long, hooked nose, thick lips, a sinister, malevolent glare on his ugly, semitic face and a curved dagger in his hand. Change the caption ‘Prophet Mohammed’ to ‘Jew swine’ and you have the exact double of Nazi anti-Semitic hate cartoons of the 1930s.
That’s what this is all about. Modern anti-Semitism, reborn. What Europeans are saying through these cartoons is, ‘we hate Muslims. We want all Muslims out of Europe.’ In the 1930s, Europeans held the same sentiments for Jews.
There can be no doubt all Muslims and Islam have been gravely offended. But having said this, too many Muslims have been reacting hysterically by rioting and burning embassies. The Prophet Mohammed and Islam don’t need rioters and arsonists to defend them.
In an act of pure childishness, Iran’s largest newspaper says it will solicit and run cartoons of the Jewish holocaust, proving there is no sickness as contagious as stupidity. This is no way for adults to behave.
Muslims suffered 150 years of the most brutal European imperialism and exploitation. Millions of Muslims were slaughtered by European and Russian colonialists, though we never hear about this green holocaust. Europe’s 20 million Muslims are third-class citizens. Muslims have every right to anger.
But where were all these angry Muslims when Serbs were massacring 250,000 Bosnians, gang-raping thousands of Bosnian Muslim girls and women, and blowing up mosques? Why have there been almost no protests over Russia’s horrifying genocide in Chechnya? Over, outside Pakistan, protests against India’s brutalities in Kashmir. Or the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Australia’s annexation of East Timor?—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2006
The whole point of freedom of speech is to offend the priests and suchlike, in whatever society one lives in.
Screw 'em if they can't take a joke.
Margolis is one of Buchanan's Paleokluxers.
What race are Muslims?
Muslims, on the other hand, were merely fostering a spirit of friendship and peace when they took down the WTC and 3,000 innocents and when, in response to cartoons--whatever one may think of them--they bombed and burned and killed.
Its okay to make fun of everyone else except us.
Clearly Eric is an imbicil.
"In the West, it’s totally a taboo to say homosexuality is wrong, or women are less intelligent than men. But it’s OK to slander Islam."
I don't agree with his analogies. In the West if a person or group is "slandered," they don't protest by burning, maiming and killing.
lol
I would say freep this poll at the link, but I have no idea wtf it means.
"Q. The fate of the
India-Pakistan ODI series will not be decided until the
one-dayer at Karachi. Do you agree?
Yes
No
"
I believe it's about cricket, but I think I need to buy a vowel at this point....
Bingo, Islam is not a race. Thank you for that. It just cheese me off when I hear people say things like that. However, I guess you could almost term it a freudian slip in that it shows how most people closely associate muslums with arabs or middle easterners.
Nam Vet
I would like to see a cartoon of "Mo" on the front of the Titanic. Seems like his followers are sinking to new lows so maybe they will go down with the ship!
Eric gets excused prayer mat duty this week for that.
Muslims are found throughout the world, and can be of any race.
But which group amongst us tends to equate minorities or non/western groups (of any kind) with racial minorities?
(Can you say PC, boys and girls? I knew you could!)
Right. The word "racist" used to have a narrowly defined meaning: the belief that one race is inherently superior to another. Now the word is thrown around so much that it has completely lost any real meaning. It's become some vague, nebulous concept that we invoke when something happens involving whites/Europeans and non-whites. If the non-whites are offended/made to feel uncomfortable/inconvenienced/whatever, we don't know exactly how and we probably couldn't explain it, but we know that "racism" has occurred.
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