Punch lines

Today's treeware column is getting a lot of reaction so I figured I should slap it up here so that people might comment away. I've added a few links -- and some emphasis for those right-wing bloggers too stupid to get what I was saying. They're now calling me an ''apologist'' for the violence.

Well that didn't take long.

While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived of their Danish feta over cartoons that were never actually published in any legitimate newspaper, the right-wing blogosphere has been staging its own "blogburst": the act of reproducing the offending depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

It's a "simultaneous, co-ordinated posting by a large group of webmasters and bloggers on a given topic," says Israpundit who, along with Michelle Malkin, who is like Ann Coulter but not as funny and not so skinny, are leading the cartoon crusade.

Follow their politics and you'll understand why they're on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims. In fact, if they were to write about Jews the way they sometimes do about followers of the Prophet Muhammad, they'd be denounced as anti-Semites or Holocaust deniers.

So it isn't surprising that some of their more eager acolytes have gone far beyond denigrating the fanatical rioting, which has, at deadline, claimed six lives and left hundreds of wounded.

No doubt, the Kartoon Karnage Kapers are inexcusable, and threaten to escalate into even more senseless death and destruction. That's why the absolute glee with which this has been received by the online cons strikes me as so puzzling. Do they enjoy the blood sport of watching out-of-control Muslim mobs in the streets?

It's also bemusing to see how they have suddenly declared solidarity with the heretofore "appeasers" of Europe for republishing the cartoons.

(Interestingly, one explanation for the sudden resurgence of these offending drawings after their initial appearance last September was that a so-called Christian magazine in Norway republished them. Why it chose to do so is unclear.)

In issuing their fatwa on the Muslims who are calling for the heads of people whose mightiest weapon is the pen, the North American pyjamahadeen have gone too far, using the incident as another reason to bash Muslims and sow further divisions between what are already "clashing civilizations."

It's like they have been waiting for just this opportunity.

Case in point: Toronto-based blogger Kathy Shaidle (a.k.a. Relapsed Catholic) whose religious politics would have easily qualified her as chief judge and bonfire builder during the Spanish Inquisition. The woman never misses an opportunity to insult Islam. And so, it was hardly surprising that, not only did she publish the offending cartoons, she giddily took up the torch and ran with it.

On Sunday she posted a Tom McMahon cartoon claiming that when it comes to skyscrapers Muslims "destroy" them, and when it comes to cartoons Muslims "riot about them" — as if this applies to every single Muslim every single minute.

Why she doesn't call her blog the Daily Auto Da Fe — for the public burning of heretics in Spain — is beyond me.

The cartoon uproar has merely added fuel to her fire, one she and others of her ilk had been hoping for ever since the calls for Muslim blood over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 calmed down.

In terms of the North American corporate media, only a few dailies, including Montreal's Le Devoir, have republished the cartoons, which are not particularly good, not very funny and not necessary to understanding the story. As many editors have explained, merely describing the cartoons is sufficient for making the point.

(Antonia interrupts: It would appear many readers missed these next few paragraphs:)

I hope that's the real reason for their reticence. I would hate to think that newspapers are backing away to avoid angry protests, to prevent ad boycotts, out of political correctness or a sense that some communities should get special treatment or, most of all, because they fear violent reprisals.

If you're in the news business, sometimes you just have to take major risks in order to defend freedom of the press.

To be honest, I think that, here in Canada anyway, our Muslim communities are too diverse and too embedded in our culture and society for any kind of concerted reaction.

As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators.

After all, when Irshad Manji published her controversial The Trouble With Islam: A Wake Up Call for Honesty and Change in 2003, no harm ever came to her despite so many — again right-wing — bloggers' musings that it would. That said, their fears helped Manji move a lot of books around the world.

Frankly, we're a lot more tolerant society than our own intolerant right would like to believe.

Which makes me wonder who the real hate-mongers are: those who are cut off from modern communications technology and are more easily subject to the machinations of ignorant clerics — or those that should know better and who claim to be morally superior.

Kathy Shaidle retaliates replies here. And the big kahuna of the right-wing blogosphere takes a whack here.

Please, comment away. (Note that Shaidle doesn't accept comments.) I have to leave the workstation for a while but I will post them when I return. Note that I will delete any obscene comments. If I get a chance I will post some of my funner emails.

Comments

[mishu]

OK. Why are you such a dhimmi then? Why do you give deference to people who want to chop other peoples heads off because they draw cartoons?

[Outageous]

So are you capable of making a valid, intellectually honest point without first resorting to personal attacks on another blogger?

[Robert Ellis]

How easily you skip over the main fact. Muslims, not Jews, not Christians, not Hindus, are rioting and killing people about a CARTOON. This was stirred up by the Muslims to the extent that they added three cartoons that were not part of the original postings to give it a larger impact.

[fanofzerbisiasnot]

Typical reaction from you and others on the left like your fellow Star columnist Haroon the emeritus. Disagree with me and you must be a stupid right winger.

That reaction belongs in the playground but you haven't advanced much beyond that.

You are the one that seens to be disappointed that no harm came to Irshad Manji. Given what happened to Theo van Gogh, and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the threats against cartoonists what did "right-wing bloggers" have to do with anything?

Your whole article appears to be nothing more than another opportunity to "bash" those you disagree with. Talk about intolerance.

[Canadian Headhunter]

Antonia, Zerb, what about Tareq Fatah? He claimed -in The Star - that he was getting death threats too. (Not just Irshad Manji). And he took them very seriously.

Personally, I think she's in danger.

[Bozeman]

Interesting that in all the hand wringing over the Muslim fanatics plotting to sow death and destruction among us infidels, there is nary a mention about the direct role Uncle Sam played in indoctrinating many thousands of Muslim youth in the teachings of the fundamentalist Taliban and inspiring them to take up jihad against the infidels.

The Jihad Schoolbook Scandal...

Why has the US been Shipping Muslim Extremist Schoolbooks into Afghanistan...for 20 Years?

And why is President Bush hiding it?

By Jared Israel
[Posted 9 April 2002]

=======================================

Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan. (Islamist

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd. (1)

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Continued at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

Personally I would not be at all surprised if this latest episode over the cartoons is just another black op/false flag operation to get the Europeans, who up to know have been quite reticent to pitch in with the US plans for the Middle East, to get on board for the coming attack on Iran.

[ATS]

It warrants noting that the first time the cartoon "offensive" was initiated it was courtesy of a Mr. Fleming Rose at the Danish paper, and Mr. Rose is an old pal of Daniel Pipes. Yeah, THAT Daniel Pipes.

So we have Mr. Rose, an avowed champion of free speech when it comes to infuriating Muslims, being close pals with the boss of Campus Watch— an organization formed to shut up Israel's critics at US Universities. That is no coincidence. Ask yourself who profits form all this.
That fact is, neither Pipes nor Rose cares a fig about free speech. What they care about is first, marginalizing Muslims, then demonizing them.
This is just more "Clash of Civilization" blarney from the usual (but this time well-masked) sources. Rose and Pipes love every little cinder in the air. And to think that Pipes sits on a Bush peace council!

ATS
Washington DC

[joeldavid]

"As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators."

Any factual basis for this?

The truth is that the liberal commentators have contorted themselves into pretzels to excuse Muslim behavior, and the more apologetic you get the more outrageous they get. You are quick, of course, to deplore and to use words like inexcusable -- but hardly has the word passed your lips than you start making excuses.

It may be perfectly true that Islam, as a religion or a body of theology, is peaceful and tolerant. It is also fairly obvious -- if only because of the law of large numbers -- that the majority of Muslims are neither terrorists nor fanatics. But the uncomfortable fact is that the Muslim bus is, if only for the moment, being driven by criminal lunatics who do not seem to be easily stopped either by their co-religionists or by the "let's-be-reasonable" apologists like you, who worry more about George Bush than Osama bin Laden.

It's also interesting how insouciant you are about Muslim intolerance of other religions, and how silent in the face of their breathtaking hypocrisy. Egypt, whose state-run TV produced a dramatic enactment of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Saudi Arabia, whose state-run media routinely portray Jews with graphics that would have delighted Joseph Goebbels, have the nerve to recall their ambassadors...and yet your outrage is for the right-wing bloggers who have pointed all this out.

With great respect, you're not making it very easy for anyone to take you seriously on this topic.

[Ron Mann]

Antonia - What is the basis for your statement that the cartoons "were never actually published in any legitimate newspaper"? Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is the largest-selling daily newspaper in Denmark with a circulation of approximately 150,000 on weekdays.

It seems that the bloggers are more accurate than you are.

[Robert McClelland]

I find it interesting that these bigots think freedom of speech is in danger from a group of people who quite literally have no power what-so-ever in the this world. Muslims are powerless and that is part of the reason many of them have turned to violence.

I also find it interesting that these people are trotting out the canard that what they are doing is justified because our very culture is at stake. Bigots through the ages have relied on that worn out canard to justify their bigotry against one group or another.

Most importantly though, I find it rather cowardly that these people are working so hard to inflame Muslims from the safety of their keyboards thousands of miles away from the danger without a care that the target of the extremist's anger will be the soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And for what? All just so that they can justify what they are doing and what's being done in their name.

[Jonathan]

"As many editors have explained, merely describing the cartoons is sufficient for making the point."

When Muslims all over the world protest and exclaim via signage that Europe will experience another holocaust over these cartoons, I think it is fair to say that people have a right to know what caused such hyperbole. That is, are these cartoons really that insulting? As the Mohammad Image Archive even shows, Mohammad's portraits are currently being sold very legally in Iran now.

If that is the case, then the only puzzle left to readers is whether or not these cartoons truly are "anti-Muslim" in the portrayal of Mohammad.

And given the vast amounts of people searching for the cartoons on Technorati and the spike in traffic to my site for people looking for the offending cartoons, people really want to know what the fuss is all about. Why priests are being killed. Why embassies are burning. Etc. Etc.

Such a lack of press in Canada is just a glaring example of why people are turning to the internet, and blogs specifically, for news that the mainstream media refuses to give them.

[entozoa]

I blogged that the people who re-'publish' the controversial cartoons are being childish and immature. They aren't 'sticking it to the terrorists', they're abusing free speech.

This got me a two-word link from Kate Macmillan suggesting I would be at home in Vichy France and directing a deluge of angry (and sometimes incoherent) commenters at me. Talk of a "clash of civilizations" and Neville Chaimberlain ensued.

Such angry people.

[gsj]

hmmm, hate Muslims... i don't see it. i certainly don't hate Muslems. i do have very strong feelings against terrorists and any group that intentionally kills civilians. i have the same feelings toward protestant Christian terrorists and the IRA in Ireland; the Croat, Serb and Muslim murder squads in the former Yougoslavia, the Hutu death squads and any group of their ilk. i believe that most of the right-leaning blogosphere shares this view. i t is not those bloggers fault that 99% of terrorists today are Muslim. if the fact that these blogs has the fortitude to state that bothers you tough. it bothers me that the MSM goes out of it's way to ignore (at best) or cover for (in practical terms) radical Islam. the fact that they are Islamic is important because it it the main factor in determining their goals. to ignore the fact is totaly irresponsible.

[J Carreras]

Antonia, your a faithful liberal, to the core. It's sad to see that your hate and vitriol is directed against fantasy bogey men and women, conservatives, the Neanderthals of the 21st Century.
Lets see, you say "they hate Muslims", that some are "acolytes", and that the right shows some sort of glee in the fact that the Muslim world is burning at cartoons. How little you must listen to conservatives. Your editorial is a good example of why right and the left are always at odds.
Antonia, do you hate conservative Christians more than you do radical Islam? The answer seems to be yes.
So lets see where the Dutch were before the cartoons were published.
Fresh from losing Theo Van Goth to one of these poor misunderstood-understood and down trodden misfits, an author in Demark looked to write a children's book about Muhammad. Why when the prophet was married to a 9 year old girl and called her his favorite wife someone would want to write a children's book about him is beyond me. No one would provide art work for the book. The press then, in the face of this unmovable influence on their FREE society decided to ask for cartoons, which they published. Sadly you didn't inform your readers about this. Not a word into the origins of the cartoons.
You should have told us about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim, and Danish parliamentary member who is now in hiding. She authored the story Van Goth directed, which also cost him his life. Van Goth had a note knifed to his chest stating Ayaan Hirsi Ali would die, and that the Holland and the US will be destroyed.
But instead you had to let us know that one of the reprinters of the cartoons was a Christian based Magazine in Norway. You only in passing intimated at the other non-Christian publishers of newspapers who also published the cartoons. Why is a good question you should ask of them. Here is one Russian response to that question.
MOSCOW, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Moscow museum has announced it will exhibit the entire series of cartoons of Mohammed that have caused riots throughout the Islamic world.
Yury Samodurov, director of the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, said on Russian television that the center was ready to organize a public exhibition of the cartoons satirizing the founder of Islam that originally were published in a Danish newspaper, Pravda.ru reported Monday.
"We must show the whole world that Russia goes along with Europe, that the freedom of expression is much more important for us than the dogmas of religious fanatics," Samodurov said.
Sadly to you, the Christians are the real bogie men here. So in your world, any kind of insult against Islam is a declaration of a fatwa, with the pen? Interesting, so when Islamic press organs of Egypt, Iran, Syria, and countless other countries constantly, on a weekly basis bash Christians, Jews, and the West with insanity, and hatred, are they also declaring a Fatwa too?
Maybe, well here's more, Iran called for the destruction of Israel. Not good enough to say a Fatwa, or a Jihad has been declared by the peace loving people?
Why according to you "As for violence, I would guess that Muslims are more victims than perpetrators."
Really? And at who's hands are they victims? Of course you'd say the West and that biggest of all bogie men, George Bush, but sad to say, even this deranged view is wrong. Seems to be that the average Muslim's most dangerous enemy is his own religious brother. More Muslims die at the hands of fellow Muslims than any one else.
You can throw that tripe about the west, women and children, collateral damage and the rest, but check out the facts again. Not Michael Moore's facts, but the truth.
Of course again that might bring you to the real reason the right is publishing these cartoons. Not for glee, not out of some devious demonic drive, but as a rallying cry against the fanatics of Islam, who would can not only decapitate 12 year old Christians girls in Asia, but us as well if they could. They have no care of the right and left. To fanatic Islamic warrior, all non-fundamentalist are infidels, you, me, the left, the right, all.

Here's the latest from Hamas.
Found on right wing hate internet site: World Net Daily (run by an Arab)

… "All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions," the charter states. "They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It [Zionism] is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion."

More well-known, perhaps, is the institutionalized anti-Semitic strain that runs throughout Hamas ideology – including its charter. It doesn't just call for the destruction of Israel, it calls for the killing of all Jews.

"Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious," says the charter. "It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realized.

The charter then goes on to quote a hadith, or narrative of Muhammad: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

The charter also equates the Jews with the Nazis, who waged an extermination campaign against them.

I could fill pages of your site with statements such as these coming from the Middle East. Because of these kinds of statements and precisely because of what the terrorist represent, is the very reason the right is shouting out about the cartoons. It's a clarion call to the west to wake up. The French have started to wake up, as Chirac basically warned Iran with a nuclear strike if any terrorist strike France with unconventional weapons. If the French know who the real enemy is, maybe you to can wake up to who the real enemy is.

With the right, you have serious disagreements. They will call you all sorts of name, and you will and have done the same, but they will never silence you, knowing that in the end, your silence would mean their own silence in the future.

The Islamic radicals have no such qualms, they want "our" silence, permanently, in Allah's name.....

[Amused in Mississauga]

Read your article in the Star this morning, and checked Ms. Shaidle's blog for the inevitable reactionary frothing.

Let's see: spaz, dumbass and cougar. Way to elevate your discourse Ms. Shaidle. Loved the fat comments, too.

(hope you don't mind a comment here directed her way Z., but as she prefers her frothing unleavened by criticism ...)

[Jonathan]

When the CRTC was considering letting Al-Jazeera into Canada, you said "Perhaps the best way to end the cycle of violence is by starting with the cycle of ignorance."

Now, limiting an important piece of the news is "not necessary to understanding the story."

Cycle of ignorance indeed.

[Christian Conservative]

Please ensure that you look at ALL the blogs before you paint us all with the same brush... many of us are greatly disturbed by what we're seeing around the world right now.

I too have commented on it, but I haven't, and won't, repost the cartoons. BUT, I'd like to remind everyone THAT THESE ARE CARTOONS... and nothing can justify the cold-blooded execution of people in response to the publication of these images.

[Feisty]

The "appeasers of Europe" are the European left, the left of the EU, the left that believes in human rights as long as it is convenient to. Did you hear the Danish PM today declare that there have been no Korans burned in Denmark and the police would stop anyone who tried? Whoa! Wasn't it the left that got quite uptight about flag burning amendments in the US? But here we have our EU friends not even bothering with that pesky discussion of free expression rights, they move directly to banning free expression. That's why the blogs are in an uproar. When we bow to violence and start denying basic rights, provocative though that may be, we may as well start dressing the women in Burqas 'cause that's where we're headed.

[Bill-Muskoka]

Well, here we go with the left/right; liberal/conservative BS!

An interesting anatomical fact is that most people's brains are joined together by the corpus callosum which allows communication between the left and right sides.

There is, however, a syndrome called agenesis which prevents some people from being able to visualize two images.

http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/921361458.html

This seems to be a rather common malady among the extreme left/right pundits.

So, we have the antagonists on one side and the respondents on the other. No one, of course, simply says...such acts are STUPID and serve no purpose other than providing low level entertainment of those looking for anything to make themselves think they are better than others.

[Ti-Guy]

I don't even get that cartoon about Muslims and skyscrapers. I was in Kuala-Lumpur a few years ago; there are a lot of Muslims there and some very big, very nice skyscrapers.

I think Shaidle and Glenn Reynolds are confused and lapse into disingenuousness and sophistry to hide that fact. Too bad they don't allow people to dialogue with them and point that out, but I understand their fear of and disdain for free expression.

[Antonia Z.]

To Ron Mann:

I refer to the three cartoons that appeared much later, not in any Danish newspaper. If you had clicked on the link provided under
you would have understood that.
Here it is again:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/danish-imams-busted.html

[Kristopher]

Well ... the last auto-da-fe was in 1790, I think. It would be nice if Islam could at least get itself into the 19th century.

This cartoon controversy does have value. The Islamacists are making it clear that they are totally intolerant, and want to force western civilization, with its traditions of individualism and free thought, into their own mental burkha.

[J B Duncan]

"they hate Muslims."

No moron. We hate vicious, child murdering, death celebrating, Islamofascist jihadists.

[Dante]

Wow...you insulted Michelle Malkin's weight. That was classy, Zerb. Classy. What next, an attack on people who wear glasses?

The reason so many bloggers are posting these cartoons is fundamentally important: people don't actually know what they look like. Describing them is NOT good enough, people need to see them in order to understand what the fuss is about. Which is, of course, nothing at all. I'm willing to place a large bet with all of you that most of the rioting Muslims out there haven't even seen the damn cartoons in the first place. "What? Excuse to riot against the West, upon whom we blame all our societal ills? Count me in, who cares what the reason is!" The people in that part of the world will riot against the west given any excuse. Come on, a fictional story about disrespect towards the Koran resulted in numerous deaths during riots last year...Ironically, all, were Muslim. The middle eastern magazine editor who published the cartoons (and was ARRESTED for it) had it right. What causes more harm to Islam? A few stupid cartoons, or the morons who riot, burn embassies and cut off the heads of innocent people with FAMILIES in the name of Islam?

What it boils down to is the fact that these people are rioting over CARTOONS, Zerb. Cartoons. Not all of which can even be CONSIDERED disrespectful (and portraying Mohammed is not taboo, it's been done countless times in Islamic art throughout the ages). Rioting over a cartoon is stupid, especially in light of the fact that middle eastern newspapers often publish Anti-Semitic cartoons that would make Hitler Blush.

These people need to lose their medieval attitudes and stop trying to force their narrow-minded culture upon us. This is the West, not the middle east. We don't have to live according to their values, and for them to presume that we must is laughable and insolent. When an artist put a crucifix in a bottle of urine and called it art, did you see Western Christians rioting and burning embassies? Yeah, I didn't think so. The people in that part of the world have to give up their medieval attitudes and acknowledge that other people in the world are different from them - and that's okay.

And foolish people like you need to stop defending them. Lenin had a particular term for those in the west who supported bolshevism. Look it up, because I think it applies quite wholeheartedly to individuals such as yourself.

[DocMartyn]

The Danish immams have been busted.
One of the three cartoons, unpublished in the press, that the Danes immams took with them on a tour of the ME has been identified.

http://www.neandernews.com/?p=54

Now why would a Danish Immam wish to cause trouble in this way? My guess is that it is all the fault of white middle-class males or the Jooooos.

Keep up the bad work and apologising for Western Culture and Society.