Alienated Danish Muslims Sought Help from Arabs (DANISH MUSLIM STARTED THE WHOLE THING!)

Spiegel ^ | 2/7/06

[areafiftyone]

Twelve drawings of Muhammad printed in a major Danish newspaper have turned millions of Muslims against Denmark. And one man's mission has transformed the caricatures into the stuff of international diplomacy. The Arab world, though, isn't being given the full story.

It was just twelve simple drawing published in a Danish newspaper. But they have triggered an international relations crisis for Copenhagen -- and potentially the rest of Europe. The drawings depicted the prophet Muhammed, a major no-no for Muslims. The result has been protests and boycotts in the Arab world, and soul searching in Denmark and Europe.

The explosiveness of the tensions between Danes and the Arab World this week drew ugly comparisons to a conflict of civilizations and raised uncomfortable memories of the fatwa issued against author Salman Rushdie in the 1980s over his novel "The Satanic Verses," which Muslim groups claim disparaged their religion's central figure, Muhammad. But Denmark's crisis has been simmering for months.

Islam forbids the depiction of the religion's founder Muhammad, and Muslims in Denmark grew outraged after the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, a major Danish daily, published a series of 12 political cartoons in September that depicted the prophet in various disparaging contexts. When they responded -- through letters to the editor and complaints within the community -- they felt ignored.

One group of Danish Muslims, led by a young imam named Ahmed Akkari, grew so frustrated by the inability of Muslims to get their message across in Denmark that they compiled a dossier of racist and culturally insensitive images circulating in the country and took them on an road show in the Arab World to raise awareness of the discrimination they faced. 

"

[Ronin]

Akkari said he wanted to draw attention to the racist climate in order to prevent a repeat of the Theo Van Gogh drama in the Netherlands.

Opps....

Gee... Not quite the reaction he expected, eh?

Yeah, sure. I really believe that.

[Malesherbes]

Google for "Davids Medienkritik" to see an expose of Der Spiegel's habit of printing anti-American articles in German and then cleaning them up in English translation. Whatever the subject, Spiegel's views are always suspect.

[Theo]

One group of Danish Muslims, led by a young imam named Ahmed Akkari, grew so frustrated by the inability of Muslims to get their message across in Denmark that they compiled a dossier of racist and culturally insensitive images

If there were any pictures of Mo in the dossier, then they are guilty of reproducing images of Mo -- a damnable offense. They are guilty of that which they condemn. Hypocrites.

[VOA]

bump for publicity