Progressive Democrat Issue 65: MORE THOUGHTS ON THE DANISH CARTOONS

Last issue I discussed my views on the Danish cartoons and the reaction throughout the world. I got two interesting comments from readers. There has also been a great deal of comment in the media as well. Here is a sampling of some of these comments with my reactions.

First off, there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in Muslim nations over the Danish cartoons. From BBC:

Contradiction in Arab cartoon views

Blatantly anti-Semitic literature is on sale in Cairo, just like many other Arab capitals. The BBC News website's Martin Patience reports on the apparent inconsistency in the Egyptian reaction to the Danish cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad...

…kiosks openly stock the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic text that purports to be an account of Jewish plans to rule the world, but was actually written by Tsarist secret police in 1905.

This hypocrisy by many Muslims is also the focus of the comments from a reader in Brooklyn:

My reaction to the cartoons:

1. Arab countries vilify Jews not only in cartoons, but in textbooks, teaching Jew-hatred to children from their earliest schooling.

2. They immediately blamed Israel and burned USA flags when neither country had anything to do with them.

3. Freedom of speech is paramount in democracies, but these Muslim fanatics are so intolerant of any kind of dissent that they kill their own countrymen and Muslims in other countries who are more moderate or want peace.

I say to hell with all intolerant religious fanatics -- Muslim, Christian and Jewish. All fanatics are equally repressive and intolerant. BUT THE PROTESTING MUSLIMS ARE THE BIGGEST HYPOCRITES BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY DO IN DEPICTING JEWS. THEY CAN DISH IT OUT, BUT THEY CAN'T TAKE IT. As for the Bush reaction, he is an abysmal embarrassment in all he says and does, but we no longer have a media that distinguishes between lies and truth. We have newspeak and doublethink straight out of 1984 -- and our constitution is going straight down the memory hole in view of the total neglect and ignorance of the American people.

I will also point out that the Muslim anti-Jewish reaction to the cartoons, exemplified in their call for cartoons making fun of the Holocaust, ignores the fact that almost overwhelmingly, Jewish groups from around the world have come out in support of the Muslim outrage against the cartoons. Jewish groups have condemned the cartoons yet the Muslims still blame the Jews.

Interestingly, the Jewish response to the Iranian caricatures of the Holocaust is to start a JEWISH competition of cartoons caricaturing the Holocaust:

To counter the Shoah caricatures competition proposed by Iran, two Israeli artists Eyal Zusman and Amitai Sandy decided to organize a competition of antisemitic pictures only for Jewish participants. (Guysen.Israël.News)

"We will show to the Iranians that nobody can win against Jews in this field.'' reported on the site boomka.org where they present their project.

Hmmm...interesting approach. Well, it sure beats rioting!

I have focused on the Muslim hypocrisy. But the hypocrisy may go both ways. It seems that the Danish paper was also hypocritical. They published these cartoons of Muhammed in the name of freedom of expression, but the apparently have in the past refused to publish cartoons that might have been offensive to Christians. Again from BBC:

More than two years previously, in April 2003, a Danish cartoonist Christoffer Zieler offered some cartoons of Jesus Christ to Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest daily paper and generally seen as right-wing.

One of the paper's editors told Zieler: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

Now I think the Muslim rioters are way out of line and have mostly supported the freedom of expression of the Danish paper. But, now it looks like Jyllands-Posten is just as hypocritical as the Muslim rioters!

Now let me give Ann Coulter's wonderful opinion, representative of the view of many right-wingers in America. From Media Matters:

Coulter: Islam is "a car-burning cult"

In a Wednesday column commenting on the recent violence linked to cartoons in European newspapers that satirized the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter suggested that Islam is "a car-burning cult," and wrote that Muslims have "a predilection for violence."

And this is from the woman who has advocated a.) bombing the NY Times building, b.) using baseball bats on Americans she disagrees with, and c.) assassinating a Supreme Court justice. Talk about hypocrisy! It seems to me that Ann Coulter has a predilection for violence! As does Bush. When we invade another nation based on lies, we shouldn't be surprised that there will be a lot of anger against us.

Amid all this hypocrisy no one is coming off very good. But a reader from Tennessee had an interesting take on the rioters. Freedom of expression and hypocrisy aside, what really makes someone so angry that they riot? She looks at the economic environment that surrounds the controversy.

I am an economic determinist. I cannot look at politics or sociology without considering what the actors have in their bank accounts, piggy banks, or back pockets. My first reaction to the rioting was how similar it was to the race riots in the US in the 60s, starting with Watts. Angry people, with little to use, were not reluctant to loose it. It's easier to lash out at stuff than to hurt people when power is running against you. The people rioting now are not the ones who have shops, I believe. And it's almost certain that they are not analyzing every stroke of the cartoonists' pen. Somehow it became popular to believe that "the infidel" is making fun of their religion. (We don't get really upset when fanatics call us infidels, regardless of what our religious beliefs. Oh, no! We are a nation of laws and not of men!)

People will believe in the faith they were taught as children. They will not necessarily live up to the highest standards of that faith. However, they are more likely to talk about it than to discuss how they are shafted in the workplace, the marketplace and the town square.

I would add that those who are exploiting the anger of the rioters in the Muslim world are also rich and are using that anger to turn attention away from their own exploitation of poor Muslims. The rioters probably are, by and large, hurt by both the West and their own governments. The cartoons, carefully exploited by their own governments, has become the trigger for an outpouring of anger that probably stems from far more fundamental causes--poverty and disempowerment. Although this does not negate the other issues, it also is a very important part of the dynamic that is being ignored by all but a few "economic determinists" out there.