Danish embassy invaded - Part II

[BlackCat]

If you browsers suddently emits a loud noise, then it's just me that are blown up. I live 50 m from a major railwaystation that for the last couple of hours has been closed because of a suspicious box.

It's a little longer than usual when some idiot has forgotten something at a public place, but are probably false alarm yet again.

At least it's a peaceful sunday evening, not rushhour - if so the bastard forgetting it would risk facing a lynch mob - it has closed down what would be 3/4 of commuting capacity on rail

[VetLegion]

To bump this thread...

Watch this page for upcoming results of the Holocaust contest:

http://www.irancartoon.com/

[lord of the mark]

danish Imams "respect for religion"

http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2002-3/denmark.htm

'On 5 April (2002) Palestinian imam Ahmad Abu Laban called on his congregation at Friday prayers to offer their lives in a jihad for the Palestinian cause. Outside the mosque buses were waiting to take the congregants to a demonstration at Parliament Square, where they held up signs equating Judaism with Nazism, brandished a gun and burned the Israeli flag. A few days earlier, at a similar demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy, a father held up his small son who was dressed as a suicide bomber. Another imam, Fatih Alev, accused Danish Jews of continuing “Sharon’s dirty game.”'

[germanos]

Re: danish Imams "respect for religion"

Originally posted by lord of the mark
“Sharon’s dirty game.”'

Good to see they have at least some sense in them

[BlackCat]

This nice guy called Hirsi Ali and a local politician, Naser Khader, for "rats in the hole". Really a role model for kultural cooperation.

He even looks trustworthy :

[Nostromo]

Is this the official Danish cartoon thread? If so, poor title. I've been searching for it for a couple of days...

I don't know if this been posted before...

A carnival of stupidity

Neal Ascherson

6 - 2 - 2006

The affair of the Danish cartoons is both a scandal and a storm signal. It is scandalous, as a horrific carnival of stupidity, hypocrisy and manipulated outrage celebrated with equal enthusiasm in the Muslim world and in "liberal" Europe. It is a storm signal of worse to come. Five people in three countries have already died in the last two furious days of riotous confrontation. But even if the tumult soon peaks and begins to subside, the world has been left a more dangerous place.

Millions of peaceful Muslims, small farmers in Sumatra or Bengali waiters in European cities, are now inclined to listen more respectfully to those who tell them that the west and its leaders intend to exterminate Islam by slander and humiliation as preludes to war. Millions of Europeans, reading posters like those carried by demonstrators in London on 3 February ("UK, you must pray – 7/7 is on its way", with calls for the killing of British editors and broadcasters) are reluctantly wondering if any compromise is possible between democracy and the religious dogmatism of a minority. The city authorities of Rotterdam are about to decree that only Dutch may be spoken in their streets. This week, rather fewer Dutch people will see this for the imbecile provocation that it is.

A slow-burning fuse

The most curious thing about the affair is why the fuse burned so slowly. It was on 30 September 2005, more than four months ago, that Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen published the cartoons of Mohammed (heavily unfunny, but extremely rude). The newspaper was barging into an already running story, about the reluctance of Danish illustrators to contribute to a life of Mohammed for children. Jyllands-Posten is a rightwing paper, in tune with the present Danish government in its resentment of Muslim immigrants, and it meant to make trouble. There followed some small demonstrations, and several death threats to the cartoonists.

None the less, the trouble could have been contained. The fatal element was the insistence of the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, on posturing as a friend of liberty who knew how to stand up to repressive aliens. He brushed the protests from Danish Muslims aside. He then refused to receive the ambassadors of Islamic nations, who were demanding the prosecution of the newspaper. They reported back to their own publics on "Danish intransigence".

By now, it was late October. The cartoons, accompanied by lurid stories of "persecution" were already trickling into the Islamic media bloodstream all over the world, carried by emails and a variety of websites. Late last year, a delegation of Danish imams, variously described as "extremist" or "conservative", left for Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with a portfolio of "blasphemous" Danish cartoons, including some pornographic images which nobody in Denmark could remember seeing.

More diplomatic protests were ignored in Copenhagen. But in Saudi Arabia, a campaign to boycott Danish goods broke out in late January, and the Saudi ambassador to Denmark was recalled on 26 January. Too late, Jyllands-Posten published its regrets for any offence the cartoons had given and Rasmussen agreed to speak to Muslim ambassadors, begging for calm. All over the Islamic world, taking the Saudi lead, anti-Danish outrage spilled into the streets. It was then that France-Soir and Die Welt in Germany, alleging that the Danes were surrendering to threats, published the cartoons, followed by papers in Norway, Spain, Italy and Ireland. The target of Muslim anger now became Europe itself.

Was this a genuine moral contest between free expression in democratic societies and Islamic intolerance? "Freedom Go To Hell" read one of the London posters, and "Butcher Those Who Mock Islam". These were intolerable slogans, especially in Britain where – astonishingly – not one single newspaper has so far republished the cartoons. But motives are not that clear. On both sides, and not just among the Muslim public, ambitious agitators are trying to ventriloquise and appropriate stacked-up feelings of insecurity and threat, as much as to make a stand on principle.

The road from tolerance

Freedom of expression has to be fought for and defended, in every European generation. But freedom should not be defended by a "'neocon" doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. Anyone who can read knows that portrayals of the prophet, even without insult, are profoundly upsetting to pious Muslims who are not necessarily at all "extreme" or "Jihadist". What Jyllands-Posten did was to publish something it knew would provoke Muslims (though it had no idea how much) in order to flaunt its own "liberal" credentials. That was unforgivable.

In the same way, rights – like the freedom of the press – inherently offer us the right to decide when to use them. The grounds for that decision include common sense and prudence. I may have the right to throw away a cigarette near a pile of leaky petrol drums, but I will probably choose not to do so, and will be held criminally responsible for a conflagration. Publishing insulting cartoons of Mohammed at a moment haunted by suicide-bombings, fanatical murder and American-led war or threats of war in Muslim countries was an act of that kind.

Back in the noisy 1960s, Herbert Marcuse used to preach about "repressive tolerance". Something has gone wrong with the concept of tolerance in both Denmark and the Netherlands , where it has become not so much repressive as aggressive. Both these small nations have become used to being regarded as decent, liberal places, their democracies deeply rooted, their record of respect for human rights and individual liberty admired by the rest of the world. Everyone remembers how the Danes once saved their Jews from the Nazis, and how open Holland has been to life-experimenters and counter-cultures. In both nations, the idea that they are tolerant has been adopted as part of their identity.

And yet this has now become an obstacle. The arrival of fresh waves of immigration, especially from north Africa and Asia, seems more threatening to the national culture than it would in their bigger European neighbours. Sharing an open society with others suddenly turned out to be problematic.

At a recent conference in Copenhagen, I heard a Danish professor say that "Denmark has difficulty in accepting difference, or that other ways of being Danish can exist. This country has done well by sticking to a mono-ethnic model, and finds it hard to change". Mandana Zarrehparvar, from the Danish Institute of Human Rights, is part-Iranian. She said: "Integration in Denmark has failed. There are no mosques, no Muslim graveyards, no Muslim councils. Denmark fancies itself a monocultural society, which it is not".

The notion of multiculturalism, so popular in Britain, is rapidly losing ground in both these countries. The strangers, it's now said, must assimilate or leave before they swamp their hosts. But in both countries it's argued, paradoxically, that anti-immigrant policies are actually a defence of tolerance. Islam is presented as inherently intolerant, and therefore incompatible with Dutch or Danish values.

In short, both these ancient societies are struggling through a crisis of identity. And to assert that identity, marshalled round its supposed core value of tolerance, it has seemed necessary to show intolerance to others who are different. But is this anxiety really about Islam, its dislike of criticism or resistance to Enlightenment liberalism? Or is it, at root, no more than the hostility of a tightly-knit community to strangers who have arrived to share the family home? Jyllands-Posten suggests that its main concern has been for freedom and democracy. I doubt that. It has certainly damaged both of them.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/cartoons_3242.jsp

Surely, there are mosques in Denmark, right? What the lady says is bs?

[VetLegion]

Don't know about mosques, but this probably answers your question:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4276963.stm

The new laws had an almost immediate effect. Some 13,000 family reunification permits were granted in 2001, but this had fallen to fewer than 5,000 in 2003.

One effect of the new laws is that Copenhagen-based Danes with foreign spouses have been moving to the southern Swedish citizen of Malmoe at a rate of about 60 couples a month, continuing to work in the Danish capital by commuting across the Oeresund Bridge, which has since been nicknamed "the love bridge".

Sweden's Social-Democrat government has castigated the Danish government, accusing it of undermining Scandinavian solidarity, and the Danish laws have also been attacked by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner.

The leader of the Danish People's Party, Pia Kjaersgaard, responded to Swedish criticism by saying: "If they want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmoe into a Scandinavian Beirut, with clan wars, honour killings and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Oeresund Bridge."

Denmark's share of asylum applications in the three Scandinavian countries fell from 31% in 2000 to 9% in 2003, while Sweden's rose from 41% to 60% and Norway's from 28% to 31%.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Pekka
There's also one aspect I'd like to talk about with you guys. First off, I think this issues HAS NOW become an important press test. Offensive or not, no press will, or most press, not run a story because it might be offensive. Or then they shouldn't be called press anyway.

I claim, that most of the press that are taking a stand in 'we're not going to publish those pictures' are nothing but sell outs. They are nto doing it because they respect Islam, they are doing it because they are AFRAID of it. That's right. Otherwise they would have no reason to make a statement at all, don't feel like running those cartoons is your thing, then fine, don't. But now, many are scrawling and saying well we respect this and that.. you don't, don't kill us and ****.

That's my opinion. Nothing but bunch of sissies, self-censorshipping themselves to no credibility zone. Press is supposed to have cojones. Some news are unpopular and it's not uncommon for journalist ot get killed over it.

It's not that it's offensive and was pointless. It's that they are NOW on their knees, begging for suicide bombers not to target them or some lame excuses. The correct response is to ignore this all if you don't care about this.

Ala CNN, Finnish media, who all took a quick stance saying we find them extremely distasteful adn we'd never do that. Even the yellow media said this, the tabloids. And their crap is offensive every day, and usually also factually incorrect. Bunch of hypocrite sissies. This doesn't mean they will be sensitive when it comes to other issues, this means they will be self-censorshipping themselves because they are afraid. Ironically enough, this was the underlining question the JP had when they decided to publish this competition How RIGHT they were. Now it's not pointless anymore, it's important. This is not about being offensive, about hurting feelings. This is about being afraid of extremists who threaten to kill people if you do thing A or thing B.

http://publicfiguresbeware.blogspot....s-country.html

This post and the one after it were excellent, and I agree completely.

[Az]

http://www.boomka.org/

[Pekka]

VetLegion, no that post says nothing. What you've taken is a controversial opinion, turned it into official stand of Denmark, totally neglect the problems in those said areas (which are problematic areas). If she's saying, that the thug element of the society, that is quite prevalent at times these days, is supposed to be taken care of and spend money on that adn give into demands, forget it, make barrier and let them off each other.

If she's talking about the whole segment of immigrants as a whole, then it's not so cool statement. But even so to an extend I agree, nto that strongly though. If we have a segment of any group, immigrants, people who make over 50k, people with bad hair, I don't care who it is, but if they have their own .. way of dealing things, what I mean is their own way of resolving things, an entity they rather listen to and respect, than the current model of the society offers... and they can't do anythign with it, if they can't put an end to thug element in their own society, maybe even don't try to stop it, you know..... forget about it. The whole society deserves what's coming for them, self-destruction.

The integration in Denmark has failed they say, but that's a two way street. If you expect Denmark to do the work, it will never work. Denmark has already opened their borders and given them a place, now it's time to take that place. If there are no mosques, well that would be a problem, if that's true. I don't know if that's true, seems hard to believe though.

[Az]

Why is "no mosques" a problem? if they want a mosque, let them collect the money, and build one. It's not the obligation of a normal state. ( unlike ours. )

[Pekka]

But there is little doubt in my mind that the politician who said that is saying stupid things. That's what you expect from Joe to say. Not politician. And that statement might be even racist. It's a problem and part of the problem creating stranded youth, where you have your old system in a modern society, that has their own system of solving things in the community, and then again you have the laws of the country. You can say, well, we're not in x country, we're in Denmark. Some step you become stranded from your own community, because you don't follow those rules. Then again in the bigger community, you are still stranded because you are an immigrant and the immigration has failed, so you're in between a rock and a hard place.

But I see that as a problem of structure in the sub-community, and it holds back the integration.

[Donegeal]

So what is the body count up on this? 12?

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Az
Why is "no mosques" a problem? if they want a mosque, let them collect the money, and build one. It's not the obligation of a normal state. ( unlike ours. )

I agree, a State shouldn't help build mosques, nor even churches or synagogues. But is it true that there are no mosques in Denmark? And if so, why?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Az

http://www.boomka.org/

what