Son: "Mommy, how did this war start?"
Mother: "Well, Billy, there was a cartoon..."
Above are a few of the political cartoons and caricatures of Muhammad that were run in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten a while back. Some were a little provocative. Some were simply depictions of Muhammad. The whole thing arose from an exercise in the limits of free expression and self-censorship in the face of Islamic opposition. A worthy experiment. I also include some photos of the response from angry Islamists. Let's read together what the signs carried by these reasoned followers of Islam said, shall we? Behead those who insult Islam. Freedom go to hell. Be prepared for the real holocaust. Uh-huh. And of course their reaction to some cartoons was to burn down embassies. Um, yeah. That seems reasonable. I realize that these are people who live under totalitarian regimes who are fed hate-filled propaganda about Israel, the U.S. and the West. I also realize that these people are not well-educated and are among the poor lower classes in their societies. But know this. They are serious. Given the chance they would kill in the name of their religion. Others have. On September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington DC. On October 12, 2002 in Bali. On March 11, 2004 in Madrid. On July 7, 2005 in London. Those are just some of the biggies. There have been many others. The nutjob leader of Iran wants nukes. He cannot be allowed to succeed. These zealots do not mind dying for their religion. I say we help them out with that. The Islamofascists seem to want to pick a fight, let's give them one. If an all-out war with the West is their desire, let the bloodshed commence. They do not know who they are screwing with. (With whom they are screwing?) There are how many Muslims in the world? There are how many extremist Islamofascists? It's not anywhere near a majority, but the more reasoned of the faith do not seem to have the ability or the desire to reign in their radical element. An ultimatum needs to be issued to the heads of state of Muslim countries and the more reasoned leaders of their religion. Eliminate this problem or else. If they cannot or will not, we will do it for them. A lot of innocent Muslims will die. So sorry. I hate it for them. But this is not a problem created by us. This cancer was allowed to fester in their religion, in their countries. The first place to go should be Damascus. One well-placed nuclear explosion should do the trick. Then one of two things would happen. Either the people will realize that we mean business and will take care of the problem or they will react negatively and all turn against us. If it is the former, a lot of lives can be saved. If it is the latter, then we have full-on World War IV. Mecca, Tehran, Beirut, Islamabad and a whole lot of other places get leveled. It shouldn't be that hard to do. A few long range bombers with nuclear weapons would do the trick. In fact, start evacuating Israel now. That should be a big signal to the people in the reason that some serious shite is about to go down. Then blow the whole place to kingdom come. Everything west of India across the Arabian peninsula to the whole of north Africa. Then clean up a few other places like Indonesia and a few other African countries and we're done. Ta-da, we win. While my solution is a little extreme and not quite practical, something serious has to be done and has to be done now. The day that a mushroom cloud is seen over Tel Aviv or London or New York is too late to act.
You see, this is the difference between "us" and "them". When we are offended by something, we write letters, boycott things and maybe march in the street. When they are offended by something they roam the streets like madmen, burn buildings, kill people and vow death on everyone who is not like them. I'll give you an example. A while ago the debut of a new NBC show Book of Daniel was shown here in Nashville, the buckle of the Bible Belt. If any of you hadn't seen the show, it was about an Episcopal priest and his screwed-up life and family. One of the characters was Jesus who talked to Daniel from time to time. There was a certain segment of the population who were offended by the program's depiction of the clergy and Jesus. I guess they thought it was disrespectful to the Christian religion. Fine, whatever. I just didn't think it was a very good show. Channel 4, our local NBC affiliate, received a lot of phone calls and letters and emails from people who expressed their unhappiness. Based upon the viewer feedback they decided that the show did not meet whatever they felt were community standards for Nashville and did not air the program after that first night. The end. What is missing from the story? Did mad Christians storm the offices of Channel 4 and burn the place to the ground? Did they take to the streets in masks and advocate the decapitation of NBC executives? Did they call for the extermination of anyone who is not an offended Christian? Of course not. They wrote letters and emails and made phone calls. That's what we do in the civilized world. The network and the local affiliate have the right of free speech to air what they want and the people have the right to express their opinions. Stations in many markets continued to air the program and a few chose not to. There were also people in town who thought that Channel 4 buckled to pressure from Christian groups and were unhappy with the decision. Did they set fire to local churches? Were Christians targeted for violence? You already know the answer to that. What would have happened if the situation had been in Gaza and the show was about a Muslim cleric and Muhammad? You already know the answer to that question as well.
And another thing...
There is also a tangent to this story that is a glaring example of hypocrisy and fear. I wonder if enough people (thinking people, that is) recognize it. The cable news shows and Sunday morning talking heads programs have happily discussed it because they love talking about themselves and how important they think they are. The issue of whether or not to reprint in newspapers or air on television images of the controversial cartoons. The press likes to puff itself up by insisting that they are the arbiters of what is news and the sole responsible dispensers of information. It is this pomposity that causes them to ignore alternative media and the blogosphere. But here they are claiming that the reason they do not show the images is out of respect to Islam. They do not want to offend. I watched a bit of Reliable Sources on CNN this morning where different pundits talked about the decision of different media outlets not to show the cartoons. Then they drew a comparison of these offensive cartoons to a recent cover of Rolling Stone magazine depicting rapper Kanye West as Jesus which Christians might also find offensive. THEN THEY SHOWED THE MAGAZINE COVER! They won't show the cartoons that might offend Muslims but show the cover that might offend Christians. Geez, it's a miracle these guys have any credibility left. News reports have also mentioned that other controversial works of art like the crucifix in urine or the statue or Mary smeared with cattle dung have been shown. I don't have a problem with this. Not because I'm not a Christian, but because we have to see what someone sees as offensive in order to make a judgment of our own. It's the same reason we need to see the cartoons. How else are we supposed to realize how nutty these people are without seeing the pictures. That's why I included some of them on this website along with photos of the violent reaction of the Islamic extremists. It's all about context.
The issue of fear is probably the most dangerous of all the aspects surrounding the story. Media outlets can blather on about respecting this group or that group, but that's not the underlying reason they will not show the cartoons. They are scared to death of the consequences. These are not Christians or Republicans they run the risk of ticking off. Hell, they revel in doing that all the time. They know they won't do much more that complain. Radical Muslims will declare a fatwa or jihad or whatever the hell they do when they vow to kill everyone. So to save their asses they will back down in the face of the enemy. There are a couple of exceptions of course. Ironically there were other newspapers in Europe who reran the cartoons in the face of potential violent retribution. In the U.S., the Philadelphia Enquirer and Fox News Channel have had the balls to show the drawings. I guess when Brit Hume signs off his program by saying "Fair, balanced and unafraid", he means it. Sadly all the bravado from other media organizations falls flat when the going gets tough. The wrong message therefore gets sent: We will back down to people who blow things up. You get more of the behavior you reward. Perhaps Christian groups should blow up the offices of Rolling Stone. Bravery is easy when there is no danger. The repercussions are not only in the mass media, but certainly also include the world of art. Blowhard artists go on and on about challenging things. Potshots at popular American values, Western culture and Christianity are common. These artist claim to be brave by sticking their finger in the eye of such powerful groups and their ideas and beliefs. How brave is it when they know that nothing will happen to them outside of a little public outcry and publicity, which is what they were looking for anyway? Ask these cartoonists or Salman Rushdie about bravery. They have lived or currently live in fear of their lives for their work. The great defenders of free speech go cold when that speech is truly dangerous. Political correctness and cultural sensitivity suddenly trumps expression of provocative thought. One of these days the chattering class will come to the realization that we are in in the midst of a dangerous clash of cultures. The freedoms they enjoy are part of ours, which ironically is the one they like to criticize. The culture that they do not wish to upset would have them severely restricted at best and silenced at worst. Hey guys, how about rooting for our side for once?