Anti-Muslim cartoons: An ugly and calculated provocation

[IndianaGreen]

European media publish anti-Muslim cartoons: An ugly and calculated provocation

By the Editorial Board
4 February 2006

The World Socialist Web Site unequivocally condemns the publication by a series of European newspapers of defamatory cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and killer. These crude caricatures, intended to insult and incite Muslim sensibilities, are a political provocation. Their publication, initially by a right-wing Danish newspaper with historical ties to German and Italian fascism, was calculated to fuel anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment.

The decision of the right-wing Danish government to defend the newspaper that initially published the cartoons, and of newspapers in Norway, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland and Hungary, both conservative and liberal, to reprint them has nothing to do with freedom of the press or the defense of secularism. Such claims make a mockery of these democratic principles.

The promulgation of such bigoted filth is, rather, bound up with a shift by the European ruling elites to line up more squarely behind the neo-colonial interventions of US imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is no accident that it occurs in the midst of the ongoing slaughter in Iraq, new threats against the Palestinian masses, and the preparations to launch sanctions, and eventual military aggression, against Iran.

It is, moreover, a continuation and escalation of a deliberate policy in Europe, spearheaded by the political right and aided and abetted by the nominal “left” parties, to demonize the growing Muslim population, isolate it, and use it as a scapegoat for the growing social misery affecting broad layers of the working class.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/cart-f04.shtml

[geezer1]

1. Well of course

Why is it of any consequence to us what the World Socialist Website thinks? We're democrats, not socialists. We expect radical Muslims to oppose freedom of speech, and it's little surprise that the "World Socialists" also oppose freedom of speech.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Perhaps you should find out about the Nazis you are defending

before you go start knee jerking:

The events that have led up to the present confrontation make it clear that the publication of the cartoons was a political provocation. The Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, which first published twelve caricatures of Mohammad on September 30, supports the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen—a government that includes in its coalition a rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Jyllands-Posten was infamous for its affinity for Italian fascism and the German Nazi dictatorship. In 1933, it argued for the introduction of a dictatorship in Denmark.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/cart-f04.shtml

[Sarah Ibarruri]

5. Perhaps you should look at the Nazis you are defending...

Women are treated worse than cattle in Arab/Islamic nations. And now, to add insult to injury, I can insult Christianity, Judaism, any religion, but NOT Islam? Isn't that special!

[IndianaGreen]

7. Women were doing fine in Iraq and Afghanistan until...

the US toppled the Baathists in Iraq and the Marxists in Afghanistan. And the Christian Right in America will make sure that women go back to being subservient baby factories.

Do you support the Fascist newspaper Jyllands-Posten, that supported Mussolini and Hitler, and that now has purposely printed cartoons that it knew were offensive to Muslims?

[barb162]

20. Systematic Violations of Women's Rights in Afghanistan: 2001

This is from the 2001 HRW report on Afghanistan; Womens' rights were in shambles before the US invaded Afghanistan

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3/



The extreme violence and discrimination against women under the Taliban, the authorities currently ruling most of Afghanistan, follows years of deteriorating conditions for women. Successive regimes have imposed severe restrictions on women's rights, while warring factions have targeted women for gender-specific violence, such as rape and forced marriage, because they are women and/or because they belong to a certain ethnic group.

snip


Taliban decrees6 have greatly restricted women's movement, behavior, and dress, and in fact, virtually all aspects of their lives.7 In public, women are required under threat of severe punishment to wear the chadari,8 and to be accompanied by a close male relative at all times. Violations of the dress code, in particular, can result in public beatings and lashing by the Religious Police, who wield leather batons reinforced with metal studs.9 Women are not permitted to work outside the home except in the area of health care, and girls over eight years old10 are not permitted to attend school.11 According to reports on Afghanistan by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on violence against women, these decrees are generally more strictly enforced in urban areas, and are especially targeted against educated women who, before the Taliban took power, accounted for 70 percent of all teachers, about 50 percent of civil servants, and 40 percent of medical doctors in the country.12

These decrees have had a significant negative impact on women's lives. The rate of illiteracy among girls in Afghanistan is now over 90 percent.13 The restriction on women's mobility has meant that women do not enjoy satisfactory access to health care.14 As a result, an estimated forty-five women die everyday from pregnancy-related causes.15

snip

They have improved only slightly since the US invaded, but at least I think they are letting girls go to school now.

[IndianaGreen]

28. It was the US that put the religious wackos in power in Afghanistan

Under the Marxists, women were no longer under Sharia law, they could wear western clothes and attend university. It was the Marxists' push for women's equality and their closing down of the madrassas that led to the mujahedeem rebellion.

[barb162]

33. If you mean the Russians I agree with you.

Women are always better off in a secular environment, as far as any society I have ever studied

[barb162]

21. Amnesty International Report 2001 Iraq

http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webmepcountries/IRAQExtrajudicial executions

snip
In October dozens of women accused of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process in Baghdad and other cities. Men suspected of procurement were also beheaded. The killings were reportedly carried out in the presence of representatives of the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi Women's General Union. Members of Feda'iyye Saddam, a militia created in 1994 by 'Uday Saddam Hussain, used swords to execute the victims in front of their homes. Some victims were reportedly killed for political reasons.
Dr Najat Mohammad Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in October after being accused of prostitution. However, she was reportedly arrested before the introduction of the policy to behead prostitutes and was said to have been critical of corruption within the health services.
In October several women were beheaded in Mosul in northern Iraq. They included Fatima 'Abdallah 'Abd al-Rahman, Shadya Shaker Mahmoud and Iman Qassem Ahmad.
snip

[yurbud]

48. hmmm...they violate human rights and kill their own people...

so we should invade and kill them instead?

We'll teach them damn Muslims non-violence when we nuke Iran won't we?

[Colorado Blue]

27. Respectfully, the fact that J-P was rightist in the 30s doesn't

make it so today.

I did some research on this paper and it hardly retains the same point of view that it did 70 years ago.

There are articles in Wikipedia if you're interested.

Meanwhile, I find it alarming that artists and writers can be threatened with death - or actually murdered, like Theo Van Gogh - for "blasphemy".

[IndianaGreen]

30. Read the story, they support a rightwing government

The Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, which first published twelve caricatures of Mohammad on September 30, supports the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen—a government that includes in its coalition a rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party.

<snip>

In October, Prime Minister Rasmussen refused to meet with the ambassadors of eleven predominantly Muslim countries who had requested a meeting to discuss their objections to the cartoons. Setting the tone for the ensuing developments, Rasmussen declared that the cartoons were a legitimate exercise in press freedom, and implied that there was nothing to discuss.

The affront was stepped up when a Norwegian magazine published the drawings in January. Denmark continued to ignore protests by Danish Muslim groups and other Muslim organizations until the end of January, when Saudi Arabia and Syria recalled their ambassadors from Denmark and the Saudi regime initiated a consumer boycott of Danish goods.

Only when the boycott spread and the Danish company Arla Foods, the second largest dairy producer in Europe, announced that its Middle Eastern sales had completely dried up, did the Danish government and Jyllands-Posten issue statements of regret, while defending the decision to publish the cartoons.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/cart-f04.shtml

[barb162]

34. So it has in its coalition an anti-immigrant group.

We don't know how big this "bloc" is in the coalition (it can be 3 people)and even so, all countries have the right to restrict or open up immigration as they see fit. Do you not agree that every country has this right. Denmark may consider itself overcrowded and wants no more immigration...I don't know.

"...Rasmussen declared that the cartoons were a legitimate exercise in press freedom..."
I agree that the cartoons were/ are a free press issue and many European papers republished them precisely on that basis. Rasmussen has explained a few times that the Danish government does NOT control the press. I wonder how many times he has to say this. I also wonder how many times that newspaper is supposed to apologize?

By the way, did you read anything along the lines that the Muslim religious leaders who went to the Mideast took extra inflammatory cartoons with them?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,,1704102,00.html
snip
The editor received a number of angry letters but little else until, in mid-October, three of the artists were sent death threats. The threats were widely reported in Denmark and prompted anti-Muslim comments on chatshows. A week later there was a demonstration involving 5,000 people in Copenhagen and diplomats from Islamic nations complained to the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. His initial reaction was that it was inappropriate for the government to get involved in an issue of press freedom. A group of ultra-conservative imams went to Saudi Arabia and Egypt with a dossier of the cartoons. According to Jyllands-Posten, they also took three unrelated images which showed Muhammad with the face of a pig, a dog sodomising a praying Muslim and Muhammad as a paedophile - it is not clear who drew these or where they came from.snip

[barb162]

35. Well, exactly. There's a violent /extremist element

among the Muslims and people don't seem to want to deal with it. Theo Van Gogh, Rushdie for the "Satanic Verses" had the fatwa put on him, etc. What's with the beheadings of innocent reporters? I say lay the cards out on the table about this extremist element....

And if people want to discuss extremist elements in other religions, that's fine too.

[Nederland]

41. Absolutely

The world would be doing just fine if it were just ruled by Marxists. I'm mean, just look at how wonderful life was under Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. :eyes:

[Wordie]

8. That's a horrible stereotype you're promulgating there. Do you even

know any Muslims? And, I'm just curious...would you defend someone's right to call a black person the "N" word, since you apparently believe that any bigoted thing can be overlooked in favor of "free speech"?

[barb162]

23. Would you agree that women don't have basic human rights

under sharia and in most Mideast countries other than Israel? Would you agree women have equal rights in Denmark?

[geezer1]

11. Infamous?

No one ever heard of the Jyllands-Posten before this present controversy. It's a local Danish paper. Before you go publishing World Socialist Website articles verbatim, perhaps you should do your own research.

[barb162]

22. I am wondering where you are going with this. Even if the

paper was pro-fascist in the 20s and 30s that is about 80 years ago. There were many fascist movements in almost all European countries ( and S. and N. America, etc) in the 20s and 30s, covered in a great book called "Varieties of Fascism." Germany, the king of the Nazi countries, has laws that specifically don't let nazi like parties even run for office now.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. Denmark is a free country with freedom of the press

Now, because Islamic fundamentalists demand that everyone refrain from discussing their religion in anything but the most admiring light, Danish freedom of the press should become a thing of the past? Oh please. No one has the right to remove another's freedom of the press. This has gone too far and it's beyond ridiculous.

While I'm at it, I'd like to mention once again the plight of women in Arab/Islamic countries. Women in these countries suffer in a way seldom seen in other countries. Why aren't we discussing this? Or are women inconsequential but Mohammed of incredible importance?

[IndianaGreen]

4. The cartoons are offensive to all Muslims, not just the radicals

but go ahead, continue on this path and you will soon find out that these cartoons would have done more harm to Western interests than the entire Al-Qaeda operation.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. Treating women and female children like crap should be offensive to you.

But evidently not. You're concerned about other, more lofty beliefs.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[barb162]

25. The cartoons are offensive, but how many times

do we ALL see things in the media that's deeply offensive to us. Would you agree that discriminatory and obnoxious cartoons are shown in state owned and private newspapers of countries in the Mideast and that is not at all uncommon? There's a real double standard working here.

I remember that I found cartoons about Clinton and the blue dress episode incredibly offensive since there was so much hypocrisy with the pugs doing exactly the same thing. How many of the guys in Washington don't have a person on the side? I didn't riot and start destroying property, burning buildings, etc. I wrote the newspapers, to congress, etc.

Indiana, I don't know where you are going with this. What is the problem with peaceful demonstrations? Or even economic boycott? When Iran starts publishing its anti- holocaust cartoons, should people react in kind like the zealots have been doing this past week?

You are correct that these cartoons will harm western interests but they are probably going to be hurting Muslim interests a lot more. Who in the West will want to invest in Islamic countries? One of the Muslim council speakers mentioned that the rioters are substantiating all the worst stereotypes the west has about Muslims. If I can find that reference I will forward it.

[Erika]

10. There were many Muslim women shown demonstrating

against the depiction of their Prophet in cartoons.

The Danes used very poor judgment and are now paying for it thru boycotts.

Since you talk about freedom of the press, why was the U.S. Christian right effective today through the American Family Assoc. to get NBC to drop a controversial segment on Will & Grace? The AFA thought the episode, even though not even written, was irreverent to Christ.

I suggest we have our own freedom of press issues to deal with.

[geezer1]

12. Denmark has its own press laws

How far do we have to go to please Muslim sensibilities? Do we have to give up freedom of the press? I don't like offending other people's beliefs, but a lot of people sacrificed to give us freedom of speech.

[IndianaGreen]

14. Let's see you defend Iran's publication of Holocaust denying cartoons

If you believe in this blanket freedom to offend that you speak of, you must also defend Iran using cartoons to deny the Holocaust, or...

you could accept the idea that with freedom comes responsibilities, and one of those responsibilities is to avoid offending a segment of the population.

Heck, even the Pope condemned the cartoons!

[Erika]

15. Did the Christian Right do right in killing an episode on a

popular TV show because they feared it would be irreverent to Christ? NBC buckled.

[Colorado Blue]

29. No, they didn't. But they didn't burn buildings or threaten

the show's producers with death either.

Civil society depends upon non-violent, non-coercive means of solving problems and it sure as hell doesn't accept the idea that members who subscribe to any one religion can threaten, terrorize or coerce everybody else on the planet.

As for NBC, I think they're weenies.

[IndianaGreen]

16. Western governments disagree with your logic

Western statements

Western government statements have been remarkably uniform:

Sean McCormack, State Department spokesman in Washington: "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images or any other religious belief. But it is important that we also support the rights of individuals to express their freely held views."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: "The right of freedom of speech in all societies and all cultures has to be exercised responsibly and does not extend to an obligation to insult."

The French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy: "Freedom of expression confers rights, it is true - it also imposes the duty of responsibility on those who are speaking out."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4686536.stm

[IndianaGreen]

13. Whipping the fires of Islamophobia is more important

than dealing with our own version of the Taliban.

To those Christians that find themselves caught up in defending a rightwing paper's provocation of their local Muslims, I will remind them of the words of Saint Paul:

It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.

Romans 14:20-22

If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.

Romans 14:14

[Sarah Ibarruri]

17. Accusing folks of being right wing

I never thought I'd be accused of being right wing for daring to point out the gross human rights violations committed by Arab/Islamic societies against women and little girls, gays, and all others who don't fit into the male Arab Muslim ideal. I have noticed a trend in the past few years and I'll mention it here:

1) Arab Muslims have purchased huge, expensive websites to ensure that Arab Islamic society is actually good to women, they just see them as "different."
2) Some western libs have taken it upon themselves to turn a blind eye to the savage treatment of women and little girls in Arab Islam.

Libs fought hard and long to get rights for women in this country. It's amazing to me that they should now defend a system whose very foundation consists of humiliating, mistreating, publicly punishing, torturing, and murdering women, and denying them rights.

No. I will not ignore this. It's a matter of life and death for these women.

[Colorado Blue]

31. It should be mentioned that FMG is now appearing in Europe

and in America, as well as in East Asia, where it had previously been unheard of.

The fact that a woman is mutilated in an upscale London clinic instead of the Sudanese bush, doesn't make it any less appalling.

And I don't want my nieces to get up one day and discover that their hair is considered offensive or that they're considered unclean or in any way inferior.

People who haven't had contact with things like this, with the sort of shame and self-disgust that can be engendered within women, have no idea how terrible it really is.

[barb162]

26. But who is rioting in the streets here?

Do you want to talk about intolerance of the free press and all that it means

[barb162]

24. See my posts elsewhere in this thread.

What I have noticed is that the more fundamentalist Muslim a country becomes, the less rights the women have. The more secular the Muslim country is , the more rights the women have, ie., Turkey. If someone can disprove what I am writing here, please do so. Women under the Taliban were probably the worst off in any Muslim country and they were probably way better off in Iraq under Hussein.Burqas at least weren't the dress du jour under Saddam Hussein.

[Skittles]

42. I am sick of all religious nuts

and man they are EVERYWHERE

[cap]

18. the story is a little more complex than this

Salman Rushdie (a Muslim) had a fatwa ordering faithful Muslims to kill him because he wrote the "Satanic Verses" which portrayed Mohammed in a pornographic manner and dishonored a variety of Muslim holy men. Many Muslims are outraged by these cartoons; but not all Muslims follow the strictures of the faith that closely.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

19. Everything is complex, however...

Here's a website where you can research the torture, dehumanization, mistreatment, and murder of women and little girls in Arab/Islamic countries. I'm sure there are some very nice Arab/Islam men residing in these very countries where women and little girls suffer intense humiliation, imprisonment and capital punishment for things men are allowed to do openly (but women are not). Their countries are not a testament to that, however.

http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway/womenchildabuse/

[PBass]

36. Sorry, this has to do with offensive cartoons how?

Look, I do not defend the way that women are treated in Islamic culture.

That is a totally irrelevant topic.

However, the way Islam deals with females seems to be an excuse in your mind, for newspapers printing what is essentially "hate speech" (the cartoon with Mohammed drawn with a bomb). The cartoons have nothing to do with the issues you are angry about (female genital mutilation etc).

Please, do keep fighting on behalf of the things you believe in, but don't become a "sloppy thinker".

I can't believe so many people on DU seem to condone the fanning of the flames of hatred. THAT'S NOT THE WAY TO ACHIEVE JUSTICE.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

37. It's completely related to it.

They violate human rights and dehumanize females, then turn around and become incensed when their religion is ridiculed. It's like the Mafia becoming upset when someone does a caricature of them. Absurd and beyond.

[Colorado Blue]

32. Rushie's Japanese translator WAS killed.

Theo Van Gogh, who produced a film, written by a Muslim woman, which showed the treatment of Muslim women through HER eyes, was beaten to death in the street - in Holland.

Thank heavens not all Muslims feel this way. I just wish we'd hear more from the moderates, the forward-thinkers among them. I know they're there because I know some people like that personally - ordinary people, like my husband's boss, musicians I worked with when I was a dancer, friends in the textile business. But they aren't powerful leaders and they don't run around with guns.

As far as the Holocaust cartoons being commissioned in Iran? So what else is new. The President of Iran has advocated that Israel should be wiped from the map and so, of course, do other armed extremist groups. He has also blamed this cartoon flap on a Zionist plot.

Like I said - what else is new?

The most incredible bigotry against, especially, Jews, is exhibited all the time throughout the Middle East. But then, other minorities suffer as well: Berber, Assyrians, Zoroastrians, Kurds, Christians, Copts, animists, even minority or opposing Muslim sects. The Bahai are outlawed altogether in some areas.

There's nothing right-wing about wanting to defend the weak, the minorities, women, and the freedom and diversity we enjoy.

[Clara T]

38. Alot of folks aren't paying attention and are getting neo-conned again

Beware the art of provocation.

Flemming Rose the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten is an admirer of Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory.

The inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations”. This is standard practice.

These patterns keep repeating but to an ill-informed nation with a short attention span and little knowledge of history that is asleep at the wheel of consumption these obvious connections will go unnoticed.

[Karenina]

39. Thanx, Clara T!

NO ONE seems interested in the weird coinkydink that the violence was touched off in SYRIA (where NOTHING goes down that the authorities don't know about, guess that's why the embassy had been EVACUATED days prior) after the Mullahs had taken their paste-ups to SAUDI ARABIA...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

43. No one has the right to censor another's press

No one should be afforded special rights. We seem to be giving Arab/Muslims special rights for no apparent reason except: "well.... because."

[Karenina]

47. Ahhhh, yes!

"Special rights." Now WHERE have I heard THAT before???

[Sarah Ibarruri]

44. accidental double post

accidental double post

[Nederland]

40. Question

Who gets to decide what is offensive to whom and what is "worthy" of publishing?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

45. The Arab/Muslims should, apparently.

(According to the opinions of some).

[Clara T]

46. An editorial by neo-con Bush supporter Daniel Pipes

Cartoons and Islamic Imperialism

By DANIEL PIPES
February 7, 2006

The key issue at stake in the battle over the 12 Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.

More specifically, will Westerners accede to a double standard by which Muslims are free to insult Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, while Muhammad, Islam, and Muslims enjoy immunity from insults? Muslims routinely publish cartoons far more offensive than the Danish ones. Are they entitled to dish it out while being insulated from similar indignities?

<snip>

The deeper issue here, however, is not Muslim hypocrisy but Islamic supremacism. The Danish editor who published the cartoons, Flemming Rose, explained that if Muslims insist "that I, as a non-Muslim, should submit to their taboos ... they're asking for my submission."

http://www.nysun.com/article/27151