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TOON TOWN TERROR: Thoughts on the Danish Cartoon Controversy PART II by Larry Stout
Few international issues in the past few years have raised my ire as much as the controversy over the Danish caricatures of Mohammed.  The incredible simplicity of these drawings only adds to the ludicrous reaction that is taking place in the Muslim world.  Let me see if I can get this straight.  When terrorist use Mohammed to justify the savage 9/11 attacks on the United States, bombings in Spain and England, these are met by a total indifference on the Arab street.  When insurgents (polite name for murderers) invoke the name of Mohammed for the car bombing of innocent women and children, or even an entire school such as Breslin in Russia, this is met with a collective shrug by the imams who must safeguard Muslim purity.  And when politicians cite Mohammed to demand the destruction of Israel, and the total extermination of all Jews – this is considered normal.  Not an eyebrow is raised in anger over any of these violations of the Koran.  But when a Danish newspaper publishes several cartoons to complain about the difficulty of finding an illustrator for a book on Mohammed – Muslims everywhere scream with outrage. What in the name of all that is holy justifies the burning of embassies in Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran, the murder of a Catholic priest in Turkey, and the death of at least another dozen people throughout the Middle East in anti-Danish riots? These are cartoons, for goodness sake!
Perhaps it is time to cut through the crud and see what is truly happening here.  First, these cartoons were published back in September, and did not cause any ruckus then.  It was not until Ahmed Akkari, a 28 year-old Lebanese-born Dane, led a group to Cairo to meet with the Arab League in early December to get help to raise awareness of the issue.  He took the twelve cartoons that were published, but three that were not.  Among these three was one depicting Mohammed as a pig.  Akkari also noted that Denmark was openly hostile to Islam, closing mosques, and even currently planning on outlawing the Koran itself.  These were lies, of course, which even a three-minute Google search would have proved.  But the skeptic in me suspects that the Arab League was much more interested in using this “blasphemy” as an opportunity.  It is not a coincidence that Denmark is due on a rotation to assume the head of the UN Security Council (which may have a problem with Iran, which is busy hiding their atomic bomb development), and that this could be used to marginalize them.  The cynic in me looks at the “spontaneous” demonstrations in Damascus (where nothing of the sort could ever have happened without government approval) and cannot help but marvel how this religious fervor by Syria will help everyone forget about their involvement of its secret service in the murder of the Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri.  And when I watch the riots that take place in Palestine, I cannot help but note how opportune this moment is for Hamas, the openly terrorist organization that has recently won the Palestine elections, to demonstrate their solidarity with their Muslim brethren.  
As the television cameras rolled, Danish flags were being burned everywhere and chants of protest were shouted for the world to hear.  But more than a few conservative columnists asked the question, where did all those flags come from?  Mark Steyn mused, “Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza?  If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven’t a clue how I’d get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire.”  Forgive me, but when I look at all these uprisings, I see politics at work – not religion.  
This is why all the talk about “sensitivity” to Muslim interests will never go anywhere.  This is a battle over democracy, not religion.  For the past hundred years, the Middle East regimes have had a love affair with totalitarianism.  They supported Nazi Germany, then the Soviet Union, and now are watching helplessly as democracy has finally taken a foothold in Iraq.  The guilt of the Danes is that they are free.  No country in Europe has been as tolerant to their immigrants.  Per capita, Denmark gives more humanitarian aid than any country in the world.  And for a few cartoons in a Danish newspaper they are being painted as the scourge of the earth?  
I have a challenge for the Western world.  Let’s really display our freedom by reading Dante’s Divine Comedy.   Okay, that might be a tall order, so let’s make it simple.  In the first volume, Inferno, Canto XXVIII is the story of ninth gulf – where Dante depicted Mohammed.  He wrote “As one I mark’d, torn from the chin throughout down to the hinder passage: ‘twixt the legs dangling his entrails hung, the midriff lay open to view, and wretched ventricle, that turns the englutted ailment to dross.  Whilst eagerly I fix on him my gaze, he eyed me, with his hands laid his breast bare, and cried, ‘Now mark how I do rip me: lo!’  How is Mohammed mangled…”  
Should we stop reading what many consider one of the greatest masterpieces of literature of all time since it blasphemes the Great Prophet of Islam?   If so, where will it end?