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| Think at your own risk. |
| Friday, February 03, 2006 |
| Clash of civilizations, take 15,342... |
The Danish cartoon row is really getting out of control:
A leading Islamic cleric called for an "international day of anger" today over publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, and a Danish activist predicted that deadly violence could break out in Europe "at any minute".
As more European newspapers reprinted the cartoons, what started off as a row between Denmark's press and its Muslim population grew into a full-blown "clash of civilisations".
Anger boiled over in the Gaza Strip, where gunmen from Islamic Jihad occupied the office of the European Union. Europeans began to leave the Palestinian territories after threats from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Jihad al-Momani, the editor of the Jordanian newspaper al-Shihan, was sacked for trying to publish three of the 12 caricatures. He said that he was aiming "to show his readers "the extent of the Danish offence".
A leading hard-line Muslim cleric, Sheikh Yussef al-Qaradawi, called for the day of anger to protest against the printing of the cartoons - first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September - in other European papers.
"Let Friday be an international day of anger for God and his prophet," said the sheikh, who is the head of the International Association of Muslim Scholars. He is one of the Arab world's most popular television preachers and made a controversial visit to London in July 2004 as a guest of the mayor, Ken Livingstone.
Ahmed Akkari, a Muslim theologian from Copenhagen, said he had attended a meeting this week with the Danish intelligence service, which called the situation "very, very tense". There have already been sometimes-violent demonstrations in Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Turkey, to the Palestinian territories, Arab East Jerusalem, to Tunisia Morocco and across the Muslim world, including to our new supposedly peaceful democracy in Iraq.
A dozen Palestinian gunmen surrounded European Union offices in the Gaza Strip demanding an apology for the cartoons, one of which shows Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.
Palestinian gunmen kidnapped and later released a German from a hotel in the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.
Earlier, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened at a news conference to kidnap citizens of France, Denmark and Norway if they did not leave Nablus within 72 hours. Newspapers in Germany and Spain have also reprinted the caricatures. ...
... Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said Riyadh considered the cartoons an insult to Mohammad and all Muslims. "We hope that religious centers like the Vatican will clarify their opinion in this respect," he told the state news agency SPA.
Afghanistan said publication of the caricatures would give ammunition to those seeking to disrupt international relations.
"Any insult to the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) is an insult to more than 1 billion Muslims and an act like this must never be allowed to be repeated," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.
In Beirut, the leader of Lebanon's Shi'ite Hizbollah said the row would never had occurred if a 17-year-old death edict against British writer Salman Rushdie been carried out. (The Saudis have recalled their ambassador from Denmark...There are also protests in London today...) This thing is getting really serious, folks. There are death threats going around, in Denmark and in France, where the cartoons were reprinted, and Denmark could be looking at a major, international boycott of its products. And a Salon community blogger has also received a death threat for publishing the cartoons that started all the flap. (Michelle Malkin has also put them on her blog, and she scolds the U.S. media for not doing the same...)
Gateway Pundit and other bloggers have uncovered an astounding addition to the controversy: apparently additional, fake cartoon images are being spread around the Muslim world by an Islamist group in order to further fan the flames. (You can get an excellent roundup of related stories and analyses of this story, including the very different general reaction to parody shots at Jesus, at the Moderate Voice.)
Also, the U.S. State Department has finally weighed in, and Condi's shop seems to be taking the easy way out:
The United States blasted the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as unacceptable incitement to religious or ethnic hatred.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility," Higgins told AFP.
"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices." Actually, it looks like the House of Condi agrees with Kofi Annan:
Mr. Annan said that freedom of the press had to be exercised in a way that fully respected the religious beliefs and tenets of all religions.
This comes as Libya, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries cut diplomatic relations with Denmark over its refusal to apologise for the cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad. ... Or maybe they're just trying to spruce up the image of the Iraq occupying United States at the expense of our "friends" in Europe:
By inserting itself into a dispute that has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the United States could help its own battered image among Muslims.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."
Here's an American Muslim group urging folks to turn the cartoon flameup into a "positive learning experience..." Uh ... ok... I'm not sure what we're learning here, except that the current iterations of Islam are largely incompatible with Western notions of free speech and expression, and thus, I'd say, with the Bushian dream of Western style democracy for all. ... that said, the Muslim world does understand capitalism...
And the Europeans? They're basically saying "in your face, Muslims," proving that secularists can play hardball, too... (A Jordanian newspaper editor published the cartoons too, and was sacked.)
(Then again, the true neoconservative vision wasn't about spreading democracy to Muslims, it was about crushing and containing them, and replacing their leaders with American stooges in order to box terrorism in, away from us and away from the Israelis... but that's a whole 'nother post...)
Tags: Cartoons, Religion, Islam, Muslims, |
posted by JReid @ 11:40 AM   |
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