Even if this nonsense was true, I don't see how it changes anything.

Using propaganda as free speech? (whatever that means) - how dare they!!!!

Well, its odd, I've been living here in Århus (thats Aarhus for you Jules) for quite some time, reading Jyllandsposten since '92, and do you know... I've never heard any one call Flemming Rose a Jewish extremist supporter of Israel... care to share with us where you got that from?

...and what your point is?

...and talking of Israel and cartoons. Guess what I just read.

I think the Muslims could learn a thing or two from the Jews... but then again, I'm probably a Jewish extremist supporter of Israel as well.

It was used as hate propaganda is my point. Rose is a racist. This cartoon was about hate.

I strongly disagree, but again I don't see how it changes anything.

That would still be no excuse for the reaction we have seen, in fact the reaction has done a lot more to facilitate hate than the cartoons could have ever hoped. I am also puzzled: do you think all the cartoons could be charachterized as "hate propaganda"? What about the several cartoons ridiculing the very paper that was publishing them - where they hate propaganda against the newspaper then?

If you wan't to come here with your, in my opinion ridicoulous allegations, then the least you can do is back them up with some arguments.

What is it that you find ridiculous? A simple search will find the truth about Rose. This isn't about the paper, I wanted to know who was behind the cartoon. That is what my research came up with.

First of all: Rose wasn't behind the cartoons. They were drawn by 12 independent artists, and Rose had nothing to do with their decisions on what to draw.

Secondly: Rose is not the editor in chief of the newspaper, so he didn't have the final say on the publishing. That was the decision of the managing board, after some deliberation, but I guess they are "jewish extremist supporters" too?

Thirdly: if it is so easy to find "the truth" about Rose using a simple search, why don't you post some links to your sources? I will look forward to get a closer look at them.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=10253
http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/6/1374/105/
http://www.rense.com/general69/satanic.htm

This is the evidence to back up your argument?!!

So... never mind the debate surrounding free speech (which was taking place BEFORE the cartoons were published). Never mind the actual social debate regarding integration in Denmark. Never mind the domestic political climate. Never mind the actual context of the drawings. Never mind the fact that Rose was not the editor who held the decision to publish the images. Never mind that the whole board of trustee's of the newspaper gave their consent. Never mind that Jyllandsposten is Denmarks largest publication and could hardly conceal a zionist agenda without the rest of the newspapers in Denmark (most of whom are very left wing) noticing and commenting upon this.
And never mind the fact that the cartoons made no impact until they were used by the Muslim Brotherhood to create a backlash. Never mind the death threats, gang rapes, murders, thwarted terrorist attacks and riots all carried out, repeatedly, by Muslims in Northern Europe in the last twelve months.

Never mind all this 'cause its really all about an evil neocon-zionist-nazi-masonist conspiracy designed to make Muslims look bad...



edited for spelling

Hahahahahaha.... this is your proof? Oh my god.

These articles are classic examples of the "guilt by association" argument.... I see very little evidence in these articles, other than that Rose supposedly interviewed some supposed neo-con (because he opposes militant islam - who doesn't?) - and that makes him a zionist conspirator? please....

The arcticle in the first link is also pretty innocent - Pipes makes it pretty clear he isn't opposed to muslims in general, just the militant islamists, and that he is optimistic that the muslim world will become more moderate. How can that be considered extreme?

The last article is especially funny.. it mentions Rose's meeting with this Pipes fellow in the first two paragraphs, and then goes on a long rant about the supposed jewish media conspiracy in Europe. If you consider this evidence, then I think you need to get a reality check. Don't even get me started on the second article.

So being pro-Israel and a supporter of Daniel Pipes automatically makes a person a racist? My goodness that is an extremely racist statement in itself.

As for a list of sources could you possible find any that are more racist?

Islamic Cleric Offer $1 Million Reward for Death of Cartoonist

Ah, yes, this just does wonders for their cause, clearly demonstrating how far off base the cartoons were.

When, oh when, is the Muslim community going to rise up and denounce such things? Again, either the majority of Middle Eastern Muslims feel terrorism really is justified, validating the cartoons and the stereotypes (not to mention causing real concern about how Islamic countries can ever join the civilized world), or they are silent on the issue, in essence condoning it. The opportunity for them to correct the misperception has never been better....yet the same tired responses are all I see. It is getting harder and harder to not draw the conclusion that the former is true....Middle Eastern Muslims really do support terrorism.

I absolutly do not agree with what the Muslims have done in reaction to this cartoon. But there is a side to Rose that is not in the mainstream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pipes

Daniel Pipes qoute--"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." (National Review, 11/19/90)
Pipes told an audience at Portland State University that "Arab people live in some of the worse conditions in the world, without freedom to travel or modern media." He blamed those conditions on the Arabs’ "political obsession with Israel" (instead of their own societies); "The Palestinians are a miserable people, and they deserve to be" but Pipes denies ever saying this.

International Herald Tribune is pretty neutral media source.

"The International Herald Tribune, which reported on the offensive cartoons on January 1, noted that even the liberalism of Rose had its limits when it came to criticism of Zionist leaders and their crimes. Rose also has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons behind the "war on terror."
Rose told the international paper owned by The New York Times that "he would not publish a cartoon of Israel's Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as 'racist."

How about the The Miami Herald

"A religious taboo was violated, and those involved knew full well what they were doing. The incident fell all too neatly into the hands of those who would exacerbate tensions between Europe and the Muslim world."

Or Newsweek International

Qoute taken from Rose-- 'It Would be Unfortunate if People in Saudi Arabia or Some Parts of the World Influenced What We Speak About in Denmark ... It's a Fact of Globalization, and We Must Consider it'

"The Danish paper set out to offend and provoke outrage in the Muslim community," a Muslim in Britain wrote to the BBC. "Muslims are able to distinguish between those who wish to debate and those who wish to insult. Trying to camouflage insults under the guise of debate or free speech fools nobody."

So what? Ann Coulter goes out to insult every time she writes an article. Free speech means free speech, even the right to be insulting, boorish and unfair.

Rose is sympathetically connected with Pipes who is a radical Zionist, Islamic critic and neocon, therefore what? You've begged off on the radical response of the Islamists, so what kind of objection are you legitimizing as being appropriate to the crime of deliberate religious insensitivity?

I think printing the cartoons was good, even if it was meant to be provocative. It forces the issue of free speech and cultural imposition into the open. I imagine some thoughtful Sufi somewhere is wondering whether Allah would even care.

By the way, I am no admirer of Pipes or apologist for Israel but I think everyone is helped or can be when deep prejudices are exposed. And make no mistake, beliefs that are imposed outside the sphere of the believers, particularly by extra legal means, is blatant bigotry and arrogantly imperialistic. Perhaps an analogy to what we are doing in Iraq and Israel is doing in the West Bank would be in order.

bluegrassml

Do you actually even bother to read other people's posts?

All the points you've raised with regards to Rose's comments and the intention of Jyllandsposten to provoke were already answered in the very first pages of this debate.

As for the rest of your post.... SO WHAT? It is neither illegal nor suspicious to be a supporter of the so called 'neo con agenda'. It certainly doesn't make any one a racist.

...even if there really was a 'clear tie' between Rose and the neo-cons it makes no difference to anything at all. Rose was never more than a minor part in the whole performance:

What we've seen in the past few years here in Northern Europe has been described by many, not least by Muslims, especially prominent British Muslims, as a post 9/11 'anti Muslim backlash'. Jyllandsposten's Mohammed cartoons are thus described as being a part of this 'anti Muslim backlash'.

This notion of an 'anti Muslim backlash' is especially supported by the socialist, or left side of the political spectrum so media outlets which argue from that political position are apt to speak of the 'anti Muslim backlash' as if it were a proven fact rather than merely a theory.

The trouble is, however, there is little evidence of any such 'anti Muslim backlash' but plenty of evidence showing violence by Muslims, against Europeans. I, for my part (as I've mentioned already in this thread) have never seen an anti Muslim demonstration. I've never even seen anti Muslim grafitti nor seen people handing out flyers against Muslims (though I've seen all these done against Israel, many times). I've never heard of any one attacking some one just because they were Muslims, though once I did see a drunk assault a woman and pull her Muslim headscarf off... he was then duly held down by the locals until the police arrived.

I have seen a local political party participate in the local elections here in Århus whose entire platform was to deny the local Muslims the right to build a 'Grand Mosque' in Århus, but I also noted that this party failed to get a single seat on Århus City Council.

The real meat behind the claims of an 'anti Muslim backlash' in Denmark though, come from the recent rise to power of the current government. This is a two party coalition government with the Liberal Conservatives holding the premiership. The other government party is the Conservative party.
This government is a minority government and thus, in order to govern Denmark it is obliged to deal with some of the opposition parties. Due to the nature of the political spectrum this means the government of Denmark often relies on the Danish People's Party in order to have a majority in parliment. The Danish People's Party is a nationalist party and so we have the basis for the many accusations of a 'right wing anti immigratant government'.

There may be merit in accusations that the Danish People's Party is anti immigration, I'll certainly not deny that, but nor will I deny that such accusations are deliberatly unfounded for it is in the interest of the other opposition parties to undermine the Danish People's Party and they do so most vigorously.

The remaining opposition parties are all socialist of one degree or another. Along with various immigrant organisations they have in recent years been very vocal against Denmark's new immigration laws and have frequently pronounced them to be 'racist'.

The argument is that Denmark has closed its borders to prevent more Muslims from entering. This argument is wide spread, quite popular (its repeated frequently on the BBC) and totally false.

The truth is that the current government has not closed Denmarks borders. In fact 3,000 more people were granted resident status in Denmark in the last year than under the previous socialist government.

What has changed is who is allowed into Denmark. Previously virtually any one could enter, get a passport and then apply to have their entire family's brought to Denmark as well. This law enabled thousands of people, mainly from the Middle East, including many Islamic extremists to come to Denmark, settle down on welfare and refuse to integrate. This mass of humanity congregated into several Islamic 'ghetto's' around the nation and over the course of the last two decades has become the number one social problem, not just in Denmark, but in all Europe.

Up until very recently, Denmark, like Holland, was considered an open minded, liberal nation where differences between people were easily accepted. Women were safe to walk home at night, crime was a very small problem.

Not so any more. As the numbers of immigrants moving into inner city ghetto's rose, so too did the the social problems and crime statistics. By itself this was never thought to have been much of a problem... after all the Danes could see the same thing happening in American, French and British city's and people then still believed in the idea of 'multi-culture'.

Gradually however, that changed until today the Danes face a Muslim counter culture, whose very existance is apparently a taboo for Danish politicians to even mention without being accused of 'racism', or 'Islamophobia' and which refuses, utterly to integrate. Since 11 September 2001, Denmark has seen so many examples of Muslims, acting and voicing their open hostility to this nation that many Danes have been forced to ask just why do we tolerate these people? Why do we have to put up with the social violence, honour killings and gang rapes?

The Danes watched Madrid, Beslan, Moscow, London and each time Islamic terrorists carried out a terrorist action they saw how jubilant so many Muslims in Denmark were.

I think the final straw for many Danes came just over a year ago with the murder of the Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh. Terrorism we could accept as the actions of criminals, so also the sex crimes, murders and honour killings that happen so frequently these days, but when Van Gogh was murdered there was no getting around the fact that the vast majority of those Muslims to speak out in Denmark, expressed satisfaction.

There were many other incidents, small and large as well, plenty of things said by Muslim clerics regarding Danes and Danish culture, but essentially it was the cold hard fact that if any one in Northern Europe were to say, write, film or draw anything which offended the Muslims, they'd be killed for it.

In the mean time a Danish author of childrens books had written a perfectly innocent book about Islam and he couldn't find any one willing to illustrate it for fear of reprisals. This story actually made the national news because of the connection with Theo Van Gogh and it was for this reason that Jyllandsposten took the initiative to provoke the Muslims, the Danish politicians and all Danish society. It was made perfectly clear at the time why the drawings had been printed.

The drawings were meant to force Danish society to tackle the issue as to what we are allowed to say and express. Our laws say we have freedom of expression, but this means nothing if you will be murdered for expressing your opinions. Self censorship through mortal fear is just as real as any state enforced censorship.

The climate of fear that emanted from the Muslim minority was so strong and powerful in the wake of Van Gogh's murder that some one had to stand up and say something. In this explosive atmosphere it was only a question of time before something bad happened.

Flemming Rose had the idea to print images of how various Danish artists saw Muhammed. Just how they interpreted Muhammed would totally open to the personal perspective of the individual artists. He put the idea to his boss, Carsten Juste and Juste liked the idea, but considered it a risky one so he brought the idea to the board of trustee's of the newspaper and they debated it.

Eventually an invitation was extended to a society of cartoonists but so many of these were in fear of the consequences that of the 40 members only 12 sent back a drawing.
If you actually consider the drawings you can see that they represent several conflicting opinions, some of whom do not even show Mohammed and at least two are directly antagonistic to Jyllandsposten for their provocation. Today there is a bounty on the heads of all the artists, regardless of what they actually drew.
In fact it is no longer considered safe for ANY Dane to venture into most of the Islamic world right now... as all Danes are now considered guilty by virtue of being Danish in the eyes of so many Muslims.

When the pictures were printed, it caused a fuss in Denmarks Muslim community, but the reality was the vast majority of Danish Muslims didn't really care. They saw it as a snub in their direction, but they understood that such is the culture of democracy and they were not actually being treated any different than any other social, political or religous group.
In the end only a hard core of about 3-4,000 even bothered to stage a demonstration, and the provocation looked to have failed. There was little abrupt anger and thus no cause for a national debate. The incident past almost unnoticed by the rest of the world.

However. There are Islamic extremists in Denmark. Most of the imam's here are foreigners who have little or no connection to Danish society and several are known to have direct connections with al qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

These extremists came together under the auspices of the Islamic Faith Society which is an independent unbrella organisation which claims to speak on behalf of Denmark's Muslims but which in fact has a membership of less than a few thousand. This group took the matter to the governments and Islamic organisations of the Middle East and thus began the flag burning riots which have left several Danish embassies in ruins and the diplomatic and charity work of decades destroyed. It has also seen the deaths of quite a few pople and a global Islamic boycott in place against all of Denmark.

Denmark however does not have a large export to the Islamic world. In fact the Islamic world is less than 2½% of the Danish export market and the Danish economy is still in growth despite the boycott. Some Danes have lost their jobs but most of the job losses have happened in the Middle East where Muslims employed by Danish companies there are all facing unemployment. Ironically, whilst all this was happening, whilst the Danish flag was being burned in Gaza and Danes were fleeing for their lives for this great insult to 'the prophet', the Palestinians were in Copenhagen, begging Denmark for yet more money to keep their terrorist government afloat.


Finally, the provocation paid off then. With the extremist backlash taking place all across the Muslim world came the domestic Danish debate that Jyllandsposten had been aiming for. The Danish government was forced to take a stand to protect the freedom of expression which Danish laws guarantee.

The Danish Muslims were forced to stand for what they believed in. Democratic freedom or submission to Islam. Some stood up for Democracy. Many more stood up for Islam. The majority remained silent as usual, either indifferent, confused or annoyed to be so pressured.

At the moment the debates in Denmark, and all across Europe, are taking place. I don't know what the end results will be, but so far it looks like a major shift to the right in Danish politics.

Also in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany people have begun to speak out and the politicians have been forced to take note. All across Europe people are now scared to say or do anything which might bring Muslim wrath down upon them. Even in Britain, that jewel of 'multiculture', the people there must confront this issue and its many implications and, once and for all draw a line in the sand as to what they stand for.

America must also decide what it stands for. This may be a bigger problem here in Europe than over there right now, but the world is shrinking smaller every day and you'll all have to face this dilemma as well, sooner or later.

The irony is, you already did once before, but so many of you seem to have forgotten about it...

Link.


edited to change a line which could be misunderstood.

I'd like to have edited this into the last post but the time limit is exceeded so I hope I'll be forgiven for a double posting:

Here is Flemming Rose's own justification and explanations regarding why he printed the Mohammed cartoons. I think it makes his position, very clear:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6021702499.html

I know this thread is getting very long in the tooth, but I would be very interested in hearing the comments regarding Rose's statements from those opposed to the publishing of those cartoons. It seemed a very well worded article, and I think might address some of the concerns expressed. As I had been saying, he also indicates the cartoon offers an excellent starting point for a discussion of the role of terrorism within Islam, which, as he says, is one that needs to take place internally there first. He also states that the purpose of the cartoon both to include Islam within the European community by essentially satirizing them just as they would any other group, and also to make a point that Islam doesn't deserve special consideration regarding self-censorship. These all seem very valid points, but I would very much like to hear the views of those with initially differing views. Perhaps (hopefully) these statements might indicate a common ground we would all agree on?

No, no, and no.

The reaction to these cartoons is just more evidence of that type of people we're up against in the war against terrorism and radical Islam.

These people are crazy by western standards. They are irrational, delusional, and prone to extreme violence.

They seemingly cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be negotiated with. They do not respect our concepts of freedom, tolerance, liberty, and justice for all.

It is a mistake to project our western Judea-Christian ethics to these fanatics. And, it's a mistake not to recognize them for what they are and bury our heads in the sand in spite of their declared Jihad in a misguided case of the projection of the Judea-Christian ethic of "do unto others...". It astounds me when I hear otherwise rational people actually calling for us to APPEASE these people via self-censorship, pacifism, or any other such non-confrontational cowardice.

These crazies need to be confronted and stopped. We need to work together not only to prevent their violence from spreading but to undermine and eventually destroy the belief system that forms the intellectual and emotional underpinnings of the Jihadist movement.

In fact, if our hollywood citizens want to truly help our country to survive, they should stop barking up the wrong tree of Bush bashing and use their formidable powers of propaganda to attack, undermine, and discredit radical Islam.

That is our enemy. And the enemy doesn't distinguish between western (and American) liberals and conservatives. They see us as the same infidel that should be destroyed if we don't bow down to their radical vision of the world.

I guess the question here is, who are you talking about? Islamicis fundamentalists, or just Islam? The former you are more or less correct about. The latter you are not.

The problem is that many seem unable or unwilling to draw a distinction between the two.




"Support Bush Jr.! He's the lesser of two evils!"

This is a silly point, of course. The idea that because there is an enemy out there, it is no longer wise or honourable for people to point out the obvious failings in their own government. Because there is an enemy out there, ANY ACTION THE ADMINISTRATION TAKES, no matter how corrupt, incompetent or destructive, even on issues that have nothing to do with the war on terror should be beyond criticism.


Though, Lordhelmet, as I recall Radical Islam was an enemy of the US for longer than 6 years. Are you equally upset at the Republicans for DARING to criticise Clinton as opposed to using their 'formidable powers of propaganda to attack, undermine, and discredit radical Islam'?