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Protecting Mohammed (William F. Buckley,Jr.)
National Review ^ | 2-3-06 | William F. Buckley, Jr.

Posted on 02/03/2006 11:42:27 AM PST by smoothsailing

February 03, 2006, 2:05 p.m.

Protecting Mohammed

We see a big storm brewing, brought on by the Danish newspaper's publication of caricatures of Mohammed. Muslim activists every day sharpen their protests. On Thursday they assailed the office of the European Union in Gaza, and today in Indonesia they stormed the Danish Embassy. Now they are asking that the prime minister of Denmark, no less, apologize for the publication of the caricatures in Jyllands-Posten, never mind that the government has no official ties with the tortfeasor. Everybody in sight, including the paper, has regretted that feelings were hurt, but a line is crystallizing: Apologize for profaning Islam, but do not use language that conveys an apology for the laws of the land, which uphold a free press.

The Danes aren't about to schedule an auto da fe, in which the offending editor throws himself on a pyre in expiation of his sin. And the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has not tendered an official apology, though he has convened a meeting of foreign diplomats to figure out what to say that will calm the Muslims without offending liberal sensibilities.

The most striking aspect of the controversy is the leverage of the offended Muslim community. Even in the United States, even a publication as venturesome as Slate magazine describes the offending caricatures but is careful not to reproduce them. A quite natural curiosity attaches to how these twelve caricatures actually looked. One of them features Mohammed in a vaporous cloud addressing an assembly of suicide terrorists, with the caption that the heavenly kingdom has run out of virgins, so that aspirant debauchers simply have to lay off for a while. How was all that actually depicted by the cartoonist? Even the banal representation of Mohammed with a bomb replacing the turban on his head did not appear in the New York Times, the paper of record.

The offending cartoons have to be imagined. The reason for it is what turns out to be an iron glove at the disposal of the Islamic establishment. The publisher of Paris's France Soir, which did reproduce the images, fired the editor who was responsible. Massive boycotts of Danish goods are in motion. Foreign leaders and press spokesmen are objects of boycotts and even death threats. Flag burning is routine. What we have seen is an intimation of the strength of a mobilized Muslim community. And this is early on, in the great narrative of the growth of Muslim power in Europe, where national suicide is reflected in the birth rates of Italian, German, French, and British non-Muslims (to call them Christians would be wholesale co-optation). These societies seem to be willing themselves to go out of existence, as the birth rate falls below the replacement rate.

There are Europeans who are satisfied that the tradition of press liberty is asserting itself in the current challenge but who are entitled to wonder whether five, ten years from now — let alone fifty — any such frolic as that of Jyllands-Posten would in fact be tolerated. The laws asserting the freedom of the press, like most laws, depend for their fortitude on public backing. Forty-two percent of Germans, polled on the question, opposed publishing "cartoons which might hurt religious feelings." Triggering a second question: Is the publishing of iconoclastic material integral to the question at hand?

Iconoclastic expressions in America are broadly condemned as being in bad taste. However, there is certainly freedom in America to deride Christ. This is done every day on Broadway, and every other day in Hollywood. Americans do not take up arms in protest. Derisory material at the expense of Jews is permitted only if the executioner is a Jewish comedian. Care on this front is a welcome legacy of the Holocaust: No jokes are told by visitors to Buchenwald.

But is the day imminently ahead when Muslim influence expresses itself here as vigorously as it is doing in Europe? How exactly to account for the nearly universal decision of the press not to reproduce the Danish cartoons? The arrival of decorum in Slate?

The question not being ventilated with sufficient thoroughness is: What are Muslim leaders doing to dissociate their faith from the ends to which it is being taken by the terrorists?    

http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/wfb200602031405.asp   


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy; War on Terror
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To: smoothsailing

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41 posted on 02/03/2006 12:39:28 PM PST by BunnySlippers (ìÏâ¡ëfêHé`äŸ)
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To: All
Hannity is talking about this topic now on his radio show.
42 posted on 02/03/2006 12:40:02 PM PST by smoothsailing
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To: San Jacinto

No. They'll stop buying Danish ham and bacon.


43 posted on 02/03/2006 12:40:23 PM PST by isrul
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To: Deo volente
Thanks for that link, interesting.

Daniel Pipes has always said that Islamic Fundamentalism is not fundamentalism at all, that in order for it to be true fundamentalism, it would have to revert to an earlier style of worshipping, which it doesn't.

This so-called "Isamic Fundamentalism" is in actuality a new version of Islam that would be better called Wahhabism, rooted in the Saud expansionism, and funded by Saud petro dollars.

From wikipedia:

Early history of Wahhabism

Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, an Arabian cleric who had come to believe that Sunni Islam had been corrupted by innovations (bidah) such as Sufism. He discovered the works of the early Muslim thinker Ibn Taymiyya and started preaching a reformation of Islam based on Ibn Taymiyya's ideas. He was repudiated by his father and brother, who were both clerics, and expelled from his home village in Najd, in central Arabia.

(His brother later wrote a book harshly criticizing al-Wahhab: Divine Thunders Refuting the Wahhabis, or in Arabic, ÇáÕæÇÚÞ ÇáÅáåíÉ Ýí ÇáÑÏ Úáì ÇáæåÇÈíÉ.)

Al-Wahhab then moved to the Najdi town of Diriya and formed an alliance with the Saudi chieftain Muhammad bin Saud. Bin Saud made Wahhabism the official religion in the First Saudi State. Al Wahhab gave religious legitimacy to Ibn Saud's career of conquest. Ibn Taymiyya had been controversial in his time because he held that some self-declared Muslims (such as the Mongol conquerors of the Abbasid caliphate) were in fact unbelievers and that orthodox Muslims could conduct violent jihad against them. Ibn Saud believed that his campaign to restore a pristine Islam justified the conquest of the rest of Arabia.

In 1801, the Saudis attacked the Iraqi city of Kerbala and sacked the Shi'a shrine there. In 1803, Saudis conquered Mecca and Medina and sacked or demolished various shrines and mosques. The Saudis held the two cities until 1817, until they were retaken by Mohammed Ali Pasha, acting on behalf of the Ottomans. In 1818, the Ottoman forces invaded Najd, captured the Saudi capital of Diriya and the Saudi emir Abdullah bin Saud. He and his chief lieutenants were taken to Istanbul and beheaded. However, this did not destroy Wahhabism in Najd.

The House of Saud returned to power in the Second Saudi State in 1824. The state lasted until 1899, when it was overthrown by the Emir of Hayel, Mohammed Ibn Rasheed. However, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud reconquered Riyadh in 1902 and after a number of other conquests, founded the modern Saudi state, Saudi Arabia in 1932.

[edit]

Modern spread of Wahhabism

In 1924 the Wahhabi al-Saud dynasty conquered Mecca and Medina, the Muslim holy cities. This gave them control of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage, and the opportunity to preach their version of Islam to the assembled pilgrims. However, Wahhabism was a minor current within Islam until the discovery of oil in Arabia, in 1938. Vast oil revenues gave an immense impetus to the spread of Wahhabism. Saudi laypeople, government officials and clerics have donated many tens of millions of dollars to create Wahhabi-oriented religious schools, newspapers and outreach organizations.

Some Muslims believe that Saudi funding and Wahhabi proselytization have had a strong effect on world-wide Sunni Islam (they may differ as to whether this is a good thing or a bad one). Other Muslims say that while the Wahhabis have bought publicity and visibility, it is not clear that they have convinced even a sizable minority of Muslims outside Saudi Arabia to adopt Wahhabi norms.

44 posted on 02/03/2006 12:41:47 PM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: smoothsailing

In civilized nations all around the world there is freedom of the press, but no freedom of the riot.


45 posted on 02/03/2006 12:41:59 PM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: 1Old Pro
The ugly truth is that the "faith" is what motivates "terrorist actions" which, of course, are not terrorist actions in muzzie eyes, if committed against infidels. Is here anyone who really doesn't know this?
46 posted on 02/03/2006 12:43:33 PM PST by isrul
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To: Kidan
LOL....

You aren't serious?

These cartoons have been posted almost daily on FR since the holidays.

Do a search, read any of the numerous threads on this subjects you will surely find that what you seek.

Oh what the hey....here they are again...

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47 posted on 02/03/2006 12:43:57 PM PST by Stand Watch Listen
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To: smoothsailing
Someone with a nice hand for Photoshop or the GIMP really needs to splice these two images:

48 posted on 02/03/2006 12:45:34 PM PST by Norman Conquest (My old man taught me two things: Mind own business, and always cut cards.)
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To: ThePoliticalDookie
We're not knuckling under. We merely wish to be tolerant and inclusive. We mustn't let our brothers of the muzzie persuasion feel we are islamophobic, can we? (there are those who actually think like that. That's the most frightening thing of all.)
49 posted on 02/03/2006 12:47:39 PM PST by isrul
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Comment #50 Removed by Moderator

To: tomahawk
"You're a very bad man, Mr. Mohammed!"
51 posted on 02/03/2006 12:50:44 PM PST by Deo volente (The Islamists want to destroy us. We need to destroy them first.)
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To: Deo volente

The cornfield is too damn good for him.


52 posted on 02/03/2006 12:54:26 PM PST by isrul
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To: smoothsailing

One of the best articles by Bill Buckely I've read in a while.

"The question not being ventilated with sufficient thoroughness is: What are Muslim leaders doing to dissociate their faith from the ends to which it is being taken by the terrorists?"


crickets chirping...


53 posted on 02/03/2006 12:54:36 PM PST by little jeremiah
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To: Aquinasfan
I agree with you about tortfeasor.

IMHO,with Buckley,it's probably tongue-in-cheek.Perhaps a way of mocking the complainers.Buckley gets wierd with words sometimes,as if it's some joke or riddle only he knows.

Who knows.

I'd like to sit down and have a couple of brews with him,though.He has an interesting mind.

54 posted on 02/03/2006 12:56:33 PM PST by smoothsailing
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To: smoothsailing

Jews get vilified in the Muslim press almost on a daily basis. For years now. The Jews respond to this with... no response. They don't care. Why should they. They're too busy to pay attention. Too busy building successful lives and a thriving society. Envious Arabs stew in their stagnant societies, their attention focused on the Jews and the West instead of on their own problems. Their leaders like it this way.


55 posted on 02/03/2006 12:57:05 PM PST by OkieDokie1000
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To: Hatteras

I saw them on Michelle Maulkins website or a link therein.


56 posted on 02/03/2006 1:03:34 PM PST by Rusty0604
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To: Rusty0604; Hatteras; Norman Conquest
The cartoons are up at post#47.

Kudo's to FReeper Norman Conquest

57 posted on 02/03/2006 1:08:42 PM PST by smoothsailing
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To: OkieDokie1000

"Jews get vilified in the Muslim press almost on a daily basis. For years now. The Jews respond to this with... no response. They don't care. Why should they. They're too busy to pay attention. Too busy building successful lives and a thriving society. Envious Arabs stew in their stagnant societies, their attention focused on the Jews and the West instead of on their own problems. Their leaders like it this way."

I could not agree with you more on this statement. These are CARTOONS -don't they have better things to do than get all up in arms about a cartoon.


58 posted on 02/03/2006 1:15:26 PM PST by KEmom (Please send viable Republican candidates to Massachusetts!!)
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To: Truth29
I've been suggesting that people buy Lego. One can never have too many Lego.
59 posted on 02/03/2006 1:19:19 PM PST by zeugma (Muslims are varelse...)
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To: Norman Conquest

Best friends.
60 posted on 02/03/2006 2:16:53 PM PST by mc5cents
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