Ultima Thule

In ancient times the northernmost region of the habitable world - hence, any distant, unknown or mysterious land.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

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?

2 Comments:

At 6:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Every newspaper in the free world should publish these cartoons ~ all on the same day! That includes college newspapers. The next thing that should happen is that the cameras should be turned OFF of these riots. Without the "audience" and resulting publicity, the riots would likely end sooner rather than later.

 
At 7:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Piano Girl, I couldn't agree with you more! And yes, let's turn off the cameras. For further support of your position, I'm reprinting here a comment I made a few posts back, just in case you didn't see it: I've been away from my computer for a while, and while I was gone, some cartoons were published in Denmark--and the whole world exploded. Well, I went to the internet and looked at all the cartoons, and my only reaction was--big deal! And then I thought further, I don't care that Moslems found them offensive, I didn't. It's their problem, not mine. Blasphemy is a concept internal to a religion...one Moslem can find another Moslem blasphemous, but it makes no sense at all to say that the Moslem can find the Christian blasphemous. And all this talk of "gangsterism"--well, the gangster, the blackmailer, the bully, is the Moslem. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"? If someone screams an obscenity at me--or draws an obscene cartoon with his "middle finger", well, let him. But if he then escalates to some sort of physical assault, well, we have laws for that. If it's a nation, of course, we bomb them. And why call the Big Mo the "Prophet Mo"? He isn't my prophet, I'm not part of his religion, to me he's just Mo...with a questionable personal history that has been documented at length on The American Thinker. And what an insane development, for the BBC to print "PBUH" [i.e. "Peace Be Upon Him"] after his name. I nearly threw up when I read that! What's next, a prayer rug in the BBC cafeteria? If a Moslem wants to do so, well, it's his religion, he can do what he wants. But I refuse to change my behavior because of some benighted idea that I have to act like a Moslem. Actually, why should I "respect" his religion at all? What difference should it make to his belief, that I laugh at it. He believes, I don't believe. He can laugh at my belief all he wants. I don't consider that blasphemous--what a ridiculous idea! I sneer at him, he sneers at me, and we go our separate ways. Of course, these cartoons are just a shot across the West's bow, the first shot in the battle the end of which is an entire world rendered Islamic...what a horrible thought! And a footnote: as Michael Savage said, if you have to choose between excess and freedom...you choose freedom.

 

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