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Friday, November 21, 2008

Why Flemming Rose Published Those Cartoons

Speaking about Jyllands-Posten and why they published the famous Mohammad cartoons, Flemming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, wrote:
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.

As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.

The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
The whole article is well worth reading: Why I Published Those Cartoons. You can write to him here: flemming.rose@jp.dk.

2 comments:

  1. Glad you posted this-- there has been so much disinformation about the whole "Cartoon Crisis"-- due in large part to political correctness on the part of the media (and also a lot of hypocracy--fear was also a factor: When fear cows the media).

    And the media parroted the spin of the Imams-- leading us to believe, for example, that Islam absolutely forbids making any picture of Mohammed. Its amazing how many people were led to believe this-- when, in fact, Moslems having been making pictures of Mohammed for years: "Forbidden" Images of Mohammed - Merely a Big Hoax?.

    There has been so many more falsehoods in the media coverage. For example, when Jyllands-Posten first posted the cartoons, there was almost no fuss made. But-- more amazingly-- shortly thereafter-- an Egyptian paper printed them-- and again, hardly any reaction!

    It was only when some radical Danish Imams made a "tour" of some middle-eastern countries & incited the masses that the violence began. (More informations & useful links: What you didn't know about the ''Mohammed cartoons'')

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  2. Widespread Muslim riots helps keep criticism of Islam at a minimum.

    But at some point, it will turn against them.

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