The Church of Tolerance and Islamic Danegeld

In the Western world, Tolerance is close to being a religion. This past week, it has suffered a theological crisis. Do cartoons portraying Mohammed show lack of respect for Islam, thereby violating the creedal principle that all religions are entitled to equal dignity? Or are rioting, burning down embassies and issuing death threats in response to such slights themselves intolerant acts?

The elders of the Church of Tolerance long ago asked and answered those questions in the context of Christianity. What one might term the “Serrano Encyclical” declared that ridiculing Christian piety is appropriate dialogue among belief systems, whereas negative Christian reaction is unacceptable. In fact, governments have an affirmative duty to subsidize anti-Christian artwork; that it offends a large proportion of the taxpayers is a virtue, not a fault.

No Christian extremist tested the resilience of that doctrine by threatening to bomb museums that exhibited “Piss Christ” or assassinate government officials who failed to suppress it. Now a test has arisen in a different quarter. It’s fascinating to observe how the C of T is handling it.

The pertinent facts are these: Last September a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published twelve Mohammed-themed cartoons, falling into several groups:

• Four that do not show any image of the Moslem prophet: a lineup in which the witness doesn’t recognize any of the suspects as Mohammed, a schoolboy named “Mohammed” writing in Arabic on a blackboard, a semi-abstract drawing of hajib-clad women protesting against Moslem misogyny, and a jibe at the paper’s “PR stunt”.

• Two utterly innocuous caricatures: Mohammed leading a donkey in the desert and a face incorporating the Islamic crescent and star.

• One showing an ambiguous Mohammed figure, sporting either a halo or a pair of horns.

• Two that associate Mohammed with terrorism: In one he wears a turban with a fuse; in the other, he tells suicide bombers to stop, because “We have run out of virgins”.

• One symbolically showing Mohammed as blind to the rights of women.

• Two that rebuke Moslem violence against critics: A cartoonist looks nervously over his shoulder while sketching Mohammed, and the prophet restrains scimitar-waving followers, saying, “Easy, my friends . . . it is only a drawing made by a non-believing Dane”.

In comparison to “Piss Christ”, that is pretty mild stuff but not mild enough to escape censure by the Church of Tolerance. While it has no Pope, Bill Clinton can stand in as a peritus to interpret its decrees. Agence France Presse reports that he was “appalled” by “these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam”, which bid fair to “replace anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice”. That seems to be in line with the general perception of bien-pensants throughout the Western world. Government spokesmen around the world have excoriated them. The France-Soir editor who reprinted the cartoons was fired. No newspaper or television network in the United States has yet displayed them. The Boston Globe, while rejecting demands that the cartoonists be punished, opined that –

publishing the cartoons reflects an obtuse refusal to accept the profound meaning for a billion Muslims of Islam’s prohibition against any pictorial representation of the prophet. Depicting Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb with a sputtering fuse is no less hurtful to most Muslims than Nazi caricatures of Jews or Ku Klux Klan caricatures of blacks are to those victims of intolerance.

Well, I can think of a couple of differences. Moslems claiming to follow the example of Mohammed, and seconded in that claim by Islamic preachers and teachers, really do set off bombs. By contrast, Jewish financiers are not conspiring to take over the world, and black men are no special danger to innocent young white girls. Nor do rabbis or Baptist ministers applaud conspiracy or seduction. Anti-Jewish and anti-Negro caricatures start with prejudice and invent conduct to match it.

The Jyllands-Posten cartoons, to the extent that they are anti-Islamic, denounce actual, not imaginary, conduct. No underlying hatred of Islam inspires them. Moslems are prominently associated with terrorism, oppression of women and censorship, and those practices have been defended by at least some persons who pass themselves off, truly or falsely, as Islamic religious authorities. If Danish cartoonists have gotten the impression that many Moslems hold views antithetical to civilized values, the fault lies not in European bigotry but in the activities of Moslem terrorists and tyrants.

What of “the profound meaning for a billion Muslims of Islam’s prohibition against any pictorial representation of the prophet”? That is the excuse for death threats against the makers of innocuous pictures. Leaving aside the interesting questions of whether that prohibition is as “profound” as the Boston Globe imagines and how widely it has been observed in practice, one wonders whether due respect for Islam mandates that Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, secularists, etc. observe Moslem taboos. If so, I await the day when the Globe editorializes that due respect for Christian fundamentalism compels the removal of the offensive teaching of evolution from school curricula.

What the Moslem rioters seek, and what Bill Clinton, the Boston Globe and other apostles of the Church of Tolerance want to give them, is not respect but subservience: Infidels have no right to criticize Islam or to offend the tenderest of Moslem sensibilities. There is no reciprocity, of course. Crude anti-Jewish and anti-Christian propaganda does not merely circulate freely in the House of Islam; it appears in government-sponsored media and official statements.

The declared purpose of Jyllands-Posten’s Mohammed cartooning was to break down “self-censorship”, which is different from politeness and restraint. Its essence is refraining from true statements and fair commentary, out of fear of retaliation. The artist or writer does the censor’s work for him.

The censors whom the Clintons and the Globes would aid and abet are the militants of Islamofascism. To refuse to submit to their dictation is no insult to a great religion. Indeed, it is a sign of genuine, meaningful respect. The cartoon that I have reproduced assumes that the scimitar-wielding fanatics are an immature fringe of Islam. The turban-with-a-bomb image that upsets the Globe assumes that most Moslems do not want their religion identified with mass murder. It is a rebuke, but the sort of rebuke that one addresses to men whom one believes can do better.

In the short run, self-censorship is the easy, seemingly safe course of action. It is a kind of cheap Danegeld: no gold to pay, just a tacit agreement to avoid certain actions. But, like its historical counterpart, it doesn’t work. Next year’s demands are bigger, and eventually comes one that the treasury cannot endure. The only safe choice for the long run is the one that Kipling proclaimed:

We never pay anyone Danegeld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost.

If the friars of the Church of Tolerance wish to do good and promote understanding among religions, let them promote knowledge of the best of Islam, of Averroes and Ferdowsi and Ibn Khaldun and numerous others. By appeasing the Danegeld-seekers, they diminish our own civilization, and Islam as well.

Related posts: What the Cartoon Jihadists Want
If They’re Going To Be Offended Anyway. . . .
High-Minded Distortion

Comments

[anil]

Folks what is going on here.. Do you all have time to discuss about cartoons... Come on grow up....

[Jerry]

The Islamic religion should be outlawed. Everywhere it goes it causes chaos and seeks to force out other religions and to take away personal freedoms. All one has to do is look at the way people live in any number of Islamic countries to understand the oppressive nature of this religion on the people that it makes subservient.

[sarah]

why dont we respect what each other wants. Muslims have a real respect to their Prophet PBUH. They just ask a little favor, no cartoon of Muhammad etc(not fooling around with the prophet. which is good) theres many other people to make fun of, just pick any and stop making excuses to get a fight with muslim. stop provoking

[السلامpeaceLa paz和平平和]

We judge our race to be the epitome of all creation here on Earth because we are capable of reasoning. As such, please let us use what we have that separates us from the beast and act like true delegates of a supposed highest race of all.

[John from Dallas]

They are just cartoons! Get a life! Surely there must be something more important that Allah would want you to be doing than threatening people who draw cartoons! Why don't you get your priorities straight and help some starving children?

[Layla Jillood]

Wow, Tamanna...Maybe you need to practice some tolerance. I dont even know how to respond to that level of ignorance. Good luck to you, I hope that your hard parts soften...

[Tamanna]

The Muslims are the most intolerant of crowds As a religion Islam is both false and Terrorist. Any holy book which says sun sets in the dark waters here on earth cannot be the word of god. The Quran says so and its wrong and hence false.
Please visit www.prophetofdoom.net to know the real mission and goal and realise the danger posed by islam to the free world. We have to act now I hope europe and americas ban the emigration of muslims to their country and ban the resident ones from haveing any voting rights and also ban them from building additinal mosques and madarssas this would be a good start better late than never save the world from Islam .

[Stephanie Cairns]

Exactly right, Layla... do people really think that ALL Muslims are bomb-weilding fanatics? Just as not all Christians are gay-hating polygamists, not all Muslims are suicide bombers. And those that are represent a very small portion of the religious community.

[Layla Jillood]

I come from a Muslim family and personally do not practice Islam. I think that the cartoons are completely harmless and muslims are taking it way too far. Yes its offensive, but so what? I find a lot of things totally offensive but I dont freak out about it. I speak for the sane Arab people who dont threaten to blow things up when people offend us. Not all Muslims are crazy, and a lot believe that this fuss is pure silliness. Unfortunelty the crazy Muslims get all the attention.

[Steff The Viking from Sweden]

Cartoons can never be taken seriously...why? Because it is CARTOONS. In Sweden we make fun of everything. Even muslims. For example: A cartoon I saw: Parents standing in front of their son and he say´s with a big smile in his face: "-Father!, Mother! I have a new job!"... Around his waist he has a bombbelt...

So many cartoons I have seen and how they made fun of Jesus, God, the pope and aids and...further on. I think the Muslims are brainwashed even before birth...it comes with the milk of their mothers...I have met a lot of arab people and especially muslims and they are often false...There isn´t many that I trust. Never in business. Never ever...I am a Swedish patriot and I love the freedom of speech; the cost of whatsoever. Allah is fake. Muhammad was a paraniod pedophilia full of lies. There is only one GOD! That is GOD. Not Allah, not Buddha or Thor or whatever. GOD=GOOD=LOVE=ENERGY. That what it´s all about, folks...

[Jorge]

I just want to say, I'm Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior, and I'm totallly against this movement, I know we should have freedom of speech but at the same time we need to have freedom of believes, and we cannot ofend something sacred for someone, without thinking that we aren't gonna get something back from that person.
We really need to think before we act or say something bad about someone.
How about if somebody tells that Dutch cartoonist that his mother is a slut and he is a bastard... Will he be ofended? You tell me.

[Shanna]

(imthebadguy, you have the power to slit your own throat, but leave the Jews alone)no one dumped white phosphourous on the Jews merely locked them up in cattle cars on way to concentration camps.

[Galen Haugh]

So tell me, Mr. Ahmed Jami Sakhi, a newspaper cartoon is part of your nose? If your conclusion is yes, then you have no logical thought whatsoever. No wonder third world countries are predominantly Islamic. Try thinking for a change rather than resorting to terrorist actions and diatribe in order to achieve parity with the rest of the world. And a big dose of tolerance wouldn't hurt either.

[Im the bad guy]

The Jewish faith is a bunch of bull. When the Jews wake up from there false reality, they should slit their throats with the star of david.

[Tom Veal]

To sben: If, as you say, the historical Mohammed believed in tolerance and freedom of religion, wouldn’t you agree that those who riot and kill in reaction to criticism are traitors to his legacy?

[sben]

Freedom of Speech, you have it all wrong. Get the historical facts straight before you jump into the realm of jive talk. First of all, Mohammed is quoted in saying and writing to, "be good to the people of the book", obviously refering to the the first books of Moses and the immediate followers thereof; Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews. Hell, he even allowed these people to attend learning institutions in the Arab world, e.g. the university at cairo. You should approach you method of scrutinizing peoples beliefs with a bit more charisma and humility.

[Freedom of Speech - Freedom of religion]

The Prophet Muhammad was a thief and pirate. He raped, pillaged, and ravaged anyone he could from behind the anonymity of a turbin and rag. It is against his madeup religion to publish his likeness because he was a fugitve and he did not want his enemies to see his face.
His religion doesnt even make sense. It is simply a list of rules Muhammad made up and claimed God told him. All of the rules were made to benefit Muhammad. Fight for me and you get virgins in heaven. Don't disclose what I look like. I get 20% of your any booty you steal.

[Michael Williams]

Amazingly, Muslim's the world over show not a single diplomatic response but consistent neanderthal reaction to what they barely understand, i.e. free speech. Are Christians appalled at the murder of priests in Bethlehem during a foreful breaking into our most holy of shrines? Yes. Do we murder in response? No. Do we burn your Mosques in response? No! The muslims of the world are trying the patience of more evolved and the far more edciated, intelligent people people of the West. This tolerance is soon coming to an end. Much as we tolerated the Nazi Fascicm of the last century (for a time), the Islamo-Fascism will be tolerated only so much. Iraq and Afghanistan were a simple warning. The warning was not well taken, much as the warning of God to Pharoah was not taken. Do muslims want a "real" war? Iraq had the 4th largest army and military in the world. It was removed in 23 days with very little effort fewer casualties than 1 month of automobile accidents in Canada. Soon we'll settle this the way Muslim would like, power to power. True God against the false god of Islam. Does this sound about the way you want it fellas?

[dertash]

ıt`s really unacceptable to see that cartoons. he ıs our dear prophet.I SEVERELY CONDEMN THE EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER.THE UNDERSTANDING OF FREEDOM OF SOME PEOPLE IS REALLY VERY VERY INTERESTING

[Ahmed Jami Sakhi]

It is appauling and disgusting to see the cartoons of the Holy Prophet Muhammad in Denish News paper, which has widely been circulated by the print as well as electronic media.This is playing with the feelings and faith of more than 1.5 Billion Muslims around the planet. We strongly condemn such Blasphemous acts by the Editor of the Newspaper as well as Cartoonists.
The First American President had rightly said that "Your freedoms ends, where my nose starts".It is totally unacceptable in the name of so-called freedom of speech and expression.
Ahmed jami Sakhi
Northern part of Pakistan.