Submission is all in your dhimmitude

By Aussiegirl

Diana West has an instructive and illuminating piece on dhimmitude and how the Cartoon Jihad fits in with that encroaching reality. Where do we stop in our quest to avoid offending the Moslems?

It is worth noting that the Danish cartoons, (which I would urge everyone to see before they form opinions as to their outrageousness), aroused exactly one lone phone call or letter to the editor at the time they were printed. It wasn't until they became useful to a group of radical mullahs that they became an issue. And even those mullahs realized that they would have to create and add three of their own cartoons in order to rouse emotions to the needed fever pitch.

If one looks at all twelve cartoons one will see that most don't even depict Mohammad, but simply reflect the artist's view of Moslem life or customs. Nothing blander could be imagined. Denmark did not set out to offend anyone, Denmark simply wanted to establish that in Denmark people are free to write and say what they wish without censorship. If I have to choose between tolerating something distatesteful and having a sanitized press which is scrutinized daily by a group of Imams, priests, ministers, leftist ministries of acceptable speech, etc. -- I will choose the most offensive and filthy speech rather than servitude and silence. Note that Diana mentions how the BBC website already follows each mention of Mohammad with the initials (PBUH) Peace Be Upon Him, as if BBC were already a Moslem site.

Submission is all in your dhimmitude by Diana West - Feb 13, 2006

The extremely distressing, but highly significant fact is, dhimmitude doesn't only exist in lands where Islamic law rules. This is the lesson of Cartoon Rage 2006, a cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Mohammed appearing in a Danish newspaper. We have watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there is little recognition that its poisonous fallout is fear.

Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall (where British government offices reside), which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which have failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in Europe, to salute, we have seen the proud Western tradition of a free press bow its head and submit to an Islamic law against depictions of Mohammed.

That's dhimmitude.

Not that we admit it: We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of "tolerance," "responsibility" and "sensitivity." We even congratulate ourselves for having the "editorial judgment" to make "pluralism" possible.

"Readers were well-served ... without publishing the cartoons," said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: "We've taken a decision not to go further ... in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number" of Muslim viewers worldwide.

Left unmentioned is the understanding (editorial judgment?) that "gratuitous offense" leads to gratuitous violence. Hence, fear -- not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation -- and a condition of dhimmitude.

How far does it go?

Worth noting, for example, is that on the BBC Web site, a religion page about Islam presents the angels and revelations of Islamic belief as historical fact, rather than spiritual conjecture (as is the case with its Christianity Web page); plus, it follows every mention of Mohammed with "(pbuh)," which means "peace be upon him" -- "as if," writes Will Wyatt, former BBC chief executive, in a letter to the Times of London, "the corporation itself were Muslim." Is it? Are we?

These questions may not seem so outlandish if we assess the extent to which encroaching sharia has already changed the Western way. Calling these cartoons "unacceptable," and censoring ourselves "in respect" to Islam brings the West into compliance with a central statute of sharia. As Jyllands Posten's Flemming Rose has noted, that's not respect, that's submission. And if that's not dhimmitude, what is?