Month: February 2006

Here’s a small account of something that happened almost forty years ago. It suggests that the rioting over cartoons is not simply a function of today’s more extremist Islam, but something integral to Islam itself.

For my Sunday Times readers, and anyone else who is interested, here’s another link to what Bill Clinton called the "totally outrageous" cartoons.

"Thursday, CNN broadcast a story on how common anti-Semitic caricatures are in the Arab press and illustrated it with ‚Äî you guessed it ‚Äî one virulently anti-Semitic cartoon after another. As the segment concluded, Wolf Blitzer looked into the camera and piously explained that while CNN had decided as a matter of policy not to broadcast any image of Muhammad, telling the story of anti-Semitism in the Arab press required showing those caricatures. He didn’t even blush," – Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, today.

Rutten has a challenge to the mainstream media: will they avoid any images of the upcoming anti-Catholic movie, "The Da Vinci Code"? Of course, they won’t. And, I might add, I hope they won’t. Here’s a bleg to readers: please keep your eyes open for media representations of objects or images blasphemous to strict Christians and Jews. Last week, for example, the cartoon series, "Drawn Together," depicted Jesus refusing to extend compassion for one of the characters and eventually puking. Have you heard of it? South Park has Jesus as one its regular characters, and a recent South Park episode portrayed a statue of the Virgin Mary, with blood exploding out of her ass onto the face of the Pope. Yes, some people protested, but most Catholics and Jews understand that this kind of stuff is the price of freedom. Most Muslims – and I’m including the moderate ones here, as well – do not. It’s time for them to get over it. And it’s time for the media bigwigs to end their craven, fear-driven double-standards.

Another charming remark from Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad:

"Do the removal of Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations."

He is surely referring to something his government has referred to before: a nuclear attack on Israel, and, via, terrorists, on the West as a whole. These are the 1930s all over again. And we’re doing our utmost not to upset the aggressors.

The woman now living under police protection for standing up to Islamist bullies, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, spoke in Berlin yesterday. Her speech will one day be a critical historical document of our time. Her theme? The right to offend. Yes: offend. I’m tired of these excuses for self and actual censorship, saying free speech is only legit if it doesn’t offend someone’s religion. Free speech is at its most legitimate when it is offending people. That’s how societies change. And the absence of it is one reason so much of the Arab-Muslim world is an economic, cultural and political basket-case. These cultures need confronting, not enabling.

An observation.

The Ayatollah Sistani has been perhaps the most stabilizing force in Iraq these past few years. I’ve praised him often; some have suggested he be offered the Nobel Peace Prize. He is often presented as the very model of a modern mullah, open to separation of mosque and state. Still it’s very useful to see what he actually believes on his own website. He believes, for example, that he must not touch a non-Muslim. We are unclean. There is a short list of things regarded as unclean, and, if you are not a Muslim, you are on that list: urine, feces, semen, a dead body, blood, a dog, a pig, alcohol and the sweat of an animal that doesn’t eat the right things. Oh, and you:

The entire body of a Kafir, including his hair and nails, and all liquid substances of his body, are najis.

Faithful Jews and Christians fare a little better:

As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (Peace be upon him and his progeny), they are commonly considered najis, but it is not improbable that they are Pak. However, it is better to avoid them.

This website is useful for us to understand better why Islam – not just radical Islam – finds modern pluralistic societies so difficult to tolerate. The West’s view is that all humans are equal in their political and civil rights. Islam’s view is that non-Muslims are on a separate plane: beneath them. Hence their insistence that the West now comport to Islam’s rules with respect to what we can and cannot say and publish in public. We keep saying we must avoid a "clash of civilizations" and no sane person would want one. But that clash has already occurred – within our own civilization. And we’re slowly surrendering.

The Catholic Church is dedicated to celibacy for the priesthood, except when it isn’t. The parish church I attended as a child now has a married priest. Another one got ordained in San Bernadino yesterday. There are hundreds out there. If you’re a former Anglican, you can stay married as a priest if you convert to Catholicism. If you’re a Catholic from the get-go, no dice. This is very similar to the fixed rule that you cannot get divorced as a Catholic. You can just get an annulment. Whenever I’m told that the Church can change no rule, and violate no doctrine, when it comes to issues like celibacy, women priests, marriage, and homosexuality … I always remind myself of what the actual Catholic church does all the time. If the people involved are powerful enough; and its own self-interest strong enough.

My most devoted reader, Mickey Kaus, calls my defense of freedom of speech, including the right to offend others’ religions, "close to unhinged." Then there’s the perspective of someone just returning from Europe. By the way, I do not believe that a single one of the cartoons is objectively offensive, given the criteria applied to other cartoons in the West. Muhammad with a bomb as a turban is the only close call. But when mass-murderers specifically cite Muhammad as the inspiration for their terror, are cartoonists the actual blasphemers for depicting that connection – or the murderers they are criticizing? If Islamists blaspheme their own faith on a daily basis, then the West has every right to illustrate that fact. With no apology needed. What we’re seeing here is the emergence of a special dispensation for Islam in the West – to be free from the kind of rough treatment accorded every other faith. The only rational justification for such a double standard is that Islam is somehow more sacred than Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and the like. But, of course, the actual justification for the double-standard is merely fear. The intimidation is working and has worked.

Adding them up. In recent days, leading Republicans have called for the Bush administration wire-tapping surveillance program to have some kind of legal framework, outside what David Addington thinks is appropriate on any given day; a key CIA intelligence expert confirms the notion that vice president Dick Cheney was not seriously interested in finding the whole truth about Iraq’s WMD program, and railroaded the intelligence to produce the result he wanted; we have learned from the head of FEMA that the president knew fully about the dangers poised by Hurricane Katrina in plenty of time to coordinate a much better response; and we know that assurances by the administration about who’s in Guantanamo Bay and why have been lies. We have also learned that the vice-president routinely authorized the release of classified information to advance his political goals, told Scooter Libby of Valerie Plame’s identity, discussed how to handle the press, and shortly after one of the Libby-Cheney discussions, Plame’s identity was leaked. The one thread between all these instances of incompetence, malice and poor judgment is that the sources are either impeccable or Republicans. And the person responsible all of them … is Dick Cheney.