Posted on 02/08/2006 5:02:48 AM PST by Tolik
What if the world went up in a mushroom cloud over a cartoon - or because of a photograph of some reveler dressed up like a pig?
Well, of course, that would be absurd, a comedy, a Clouseauean flick about a bumbling inspector, right? No, that would be a documentary about the end of civilization circa 2006 - unless we come to our senses.
The cartoon implosion now rocking the Muslim world - featuring embassy burnings, threats of 9-11 sequels and the Arab street equivalent of the Terrible Twos - is based on equal parts fake photographs and a default riot mode looking for an excuse. Extreme propaganda on one side and a lack of fortitude on the other have brought us near the brink of extinction through a global act of accidental self-mockery.
The world isn't mad over cartoons; the world IS a cartoon.
The dozen Danish drawings everyone by now has heard about - but not necessarily seen thanks to our own media's sanctimonious sensitivity to insanity - were mild by modern satirical standards. In brief, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September published 12 cartoons that depicted Muhammad in various poses. The worst of them showed the Prophet wearing a bomb-turban.
Naturally, the Muslim world has gone insane.
And unnaturally, much of the Western world has retreated into fetal repose. Only in Europe did a few newspapers republish the allegedly offensive cartoons, while most American papers have genuflected to the altar of multiculturalism.
One after another, editors have explained their decision not to run the images for fear of offending American Muslims. Never mind that the same papers, notably The Boston Globe, felt no such compunction in the past when they defended "Piss Christ," a photograph of crucifix submerged in urine. Or the Virgin Mary covered in feces.
Meanwhile, querulous Americans still reliant on traditional media are left in the kind of darkness admired by Islamic states. How are they to debate and make a judgment about the cartoons without seeing them?
They can go to the blogosphere, that's how.
The Internet is now the only place Americans can view the cartoons and, as a bonus, learn that much of the outrage now seething through the Middle East was stoked not by the cartoons in question, but by three bogus photographs circulated by the (peace-loving) Islamic Society of Denmark. A spokesman for the group said they circulated the photos to demonstrate Denmark's Islamophobia.
Except that the photographs weren't published in Denmark or elsewhere on terra firma. One of them, allegedly depicting Muhammad dressed like a pig, is in fact a photo of Frenchman Jacques Barrot as he participated in last August's annual French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise. And that's no joke.
The pig photograph, lifted from an MSNBC story, is posted at neanderNews.com, where other blogs (Gateway Pundit and Counter Terrorism Blog) also are credited with reporting the photoscam. The other photos (origins unknown), including one of a man dressed in Arab garb being mounted by a dog, are the sort of images bored college students Photoshop in dorm rooms late at night.
Whether Islamophobia inspired any of these images is a question for documentarians to explore. Meanwhile, fear for our future is an appropriate response to mass insanity. But potentially more dangerous than short-fused fanatics is our own cowardice in declining to treat this madness as anything but inexcusably barbaric.
Instead, we kneel in apology for our own hard-won principles. Newspapers especially deserve contempt for their spineless refusal to deal honestly with this controversy. Instead of publishing the cartoons and explaining why free expression is central to the West's survival, editors with few exceptions have swaddled themselves in the blankie of "sensitivity."
Kudos and curtseys to Philadelphia Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett, who published one of the cartoons along with a story about the controversy. For her trouble, she has been visited by Muslim protesters who promise to return if the paper doesn't apologize. Bennett deserves not just congratulations, but solidarity from other newspapers that have a fresh opportunity to prove their mettle.
Incensed Iranians are preparing to lob a few cartoon bombs of their own with a Holocaust cartoon competition. Fine. All comers are welcome to the free-speech fray. Far better that we wage the war of ideas with words and images than with bombs and bullets.
That's the beauty of free expression, in honor of which - and as an opportunity to teach - American newspapers surely will print the Iranian cartoons. Won't they?
Kathleen Parker is a popular syndicated columnist and director of the School of Written Expression at the Buckley School of Public Speaking and Persuasion in Camden, South Carolina.
Liberals in the media like to celebrate their "courage." Courage is when they attack Chrisitans, their social enemmies and Republicans, their political enemies. They call it "cutting edge." But don't expect them to attack Muslim practices of atrosity and oppression because they are really not that cutting edge nor courageous.
The organizers intention all along.
Those who side with them, whether they know it or not or not, are helping them implement aspects of sharia so the true nature of the mohammad and his deeds stay in the dark.
This is how islam and sharia works.. the power structure is base on fear, intimidation, and ignorance.
It's the way the "nomenclatura" of the islamic world wield power over their slaves and keep them under their control.
I do not intend to be a slave to evil cult of islam ever again.
Profound insight bump!
LOL ... I can't tell you how pleased I am that you are!
Islamic imperialism, which is fundamental and intrinsic to Islam, has become aggressive because the Islamic world has become more powerful and the Western world is in disarray.
Part of Western disarray includes the assumption that Islam must be accorded extraordinary respect and that Muslims must not be offended in any way, because Westerners are afraid of Muslims and of offending them and because Islam is still somewhat foreign and mysterious to Westerners and so is the Muslims' fanatical devotion to it.
Muslims know this, and this intensifies their imperialistic aggression.
Westerners are afraid even to acknowledge that this is true. Muslims know this also.
The world is experiencing a clash of civilizations, a clash of the Islamic World with the Western World. Many Western Leftists refuse to acknowledge this also.
Much of the Western disarray is due to denial and hubris. These are particularly endemic in the Leftist enclaves of the West and among Western Leftists. They cannot take meaningful action to approach any solution to the problem because they are so blinded and confused by hubris and denial.
The first step toward a solution to a problem is acknowledging that a problem exists. Westerners have done this.
The second step is defining the problem. Westerners have not been able to do this.
Muslims have the advantage of clarity. They know exactly what problems they face and what their plan of attack is.
That is very well stated.
Thanks!
Thanks, Tol. I think that a big part of the problem is that Westerners in general are afraid to acknowledge that they are afraid of Islam and of Muslims. A large percentage of the world's population is Muslim. Muslims, even "moderate Muslims", tend to be fanatically devoted to Islam. Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization and is threatened by it, and Muslims (just how many Muslims is unknown) openly threaten to destroy Western Civilization and Western nations. Muslim fanaticism is baffling and frightening to Westerners, and everywhere Islam spreads, violence follows it; Westerners are reluctant to admit this. And Westerners don't know how to approach such a huge and difficult problem. It's a big one! We've got a tiger by the tail.
I don't care who has dibs on what, as long as Ahmeggonouddahere in Iran is Wile E. Coyote...
the infowarrior
Gone?
Try "is insane".
Please ping me.
Clarification: ping me for all your articles. (They sound very articulate.)
The rage is already subsiding. The Iranian mullahs are probably looking at the results of this trumped up rage and wondering why only a few thousand outraged moslems showed up and the rest of the 1.2 billion moslems are looking around kind of perplexed and embarrassed.
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