Bush/EU Almost Take Firm Stand RE: Cartoon Furor
February 17, 2006, 8:57 am |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
In the big picture, the most frightening aspect of the Muslim furor over a few cartoons is not so much the mob violence, but the way Western leaders initially responded to it. Early on, American and EU spokespersons seemed to blame free speech, and made promises about reigning in the right to expression. But this knee-jerk appeasement may be fading — hopefully.
Here’s our State Department’s initial attempt at (not) coming to the rescue:
“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question.
“We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”
And here’s the EU’s completely frightening kowtowing:
In an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter [code of conduct] would encourage the media to show “prudence” when covering religion.
“The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,” he told the newspaper. “We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.”
It is unnerving to see democratic institutions so eager to throw the right to free speech out the porthole in the interest of appeasement. But a few days of introspection have shored up democracy’s bulkheads.
“We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press,” Bush said.
Bush and Rice, making their first public remarks on the growing worldwide controversy, highlighted a shift in White House strategy to focusing on the killings and destruction during Muslim protests in several nations — in contrast to earlier statements that included criticism of the provocative drawings. Administration officials said Bush does not want a debate over free speech to diminish or deflect attention from the U.S. condemnation of the violence.
Here’s the EU’s turnaround:
Members of the European Parliament have condemned the violent protests in Europe following the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
They expressed solidarity with Denmark, saying an attack on one EU country was an attack on all. …
Hans-Gert Poettering, the leader of the main centre-right group in the parliament, said it was not enough to invoke a dialogue of civilisations - the EU had to take more concrete steps.
He condemned the violent protests in Islamic countries, saying they were not spontaneous but had been stirred up by regimes which did not believe in freedom of expression.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said a boycott of Danish goods was by definition a boycott of European goods, and he called for the best of values to win against the worst of prejudices.
We seem to have righted our rudder, but just barely. And to continue with the sea-faring analogy, we are swimming in a dangerous pond, filled with piranhas ready to strike at the first sign of weakness. The Arab/Muslim piranha quickly notices weakness, and only respects strength.
Special Report: Danish Cartoons
Related: Arab/Muslim World, Islam, War Against Islamo-fascism, Political Correctness
February 20th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Drew,
Bush and the EU have not taken any firm stand at all as regards the Mohammed cartoons. Rather they have shifted the focus away from the cartoons and condemned the violence which they rightly claim Syria and Iran orchestrated for their own ends as did radical Muslim imams including the Danish imam who took his cartoon show on the road.
You will note that neither the Bush administration nor the EU have commented on the fact that the cartoons were published in an Egyptian newspaper in October, 2005 with nary a ripple of discontent.
Further neither the Bush administration nor the EU have come down hard on the unapologetic Danish Imam who got this ball of violence rolling by supplementing the 12 cartoons with 3 egregiously offensive ones pulled off the internet and passing them off as having been also published in order to better assure an angry Muslim reaction.
America’s firm stand regarding the cartoons per se continues to be as reflected in the initial state department press release that while America stood behind its principles of free speech, that free speech must be exercised responsibly with due regard to not publish materials that would be offensive in respect of religion.
In the context of the Mohammed cartoon controversy, that call for self censorship on the West’s freedoms of speech is only in respect of exercising caution so as to not offend Islam and therefor Muslims.
The mainstream media in the U.S. and here in Canada have refused to publish these cartoons explaining disingenuously they do so out of respect and regard for Islam and an abhorrence of causing insult to religion, when in fact they refrain from doing so out of fear.
The mainstream media is ignoring and I would say deliberately ignoring the real story. That story concerns the great differences in the culture and mindset between Muslim and Western nations and Westerners vs. Muslims ruling and living in Muslim nations in the Middle East, in Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria.
That mindset has moved some Middle Eastern regimes and many radical Muslim imams to fire up their people worldwide with blind hatred and move them to violence as we still witness almost daily on our TV screens.
Even so called Moderate Muslims in the West have been moved by the call to arms as it were by responding with mass boycotts of Danish goods and taking to the airwaves and the streets to protest the publication of the cartoons.
In Britain as elsewhere, those Moderate Muslims walked with palacards threatening to behead or murder anyone who insulted Islam.
It is inconceivable in the West that Western Governments would ever seek to work up the masses into a frenzy to go out on the streets to protest some Muslim offence to the West so that the masses would run rampant through the streets to destroy Muslim embassies and other properties and harm Muslims. Even if a Western government tried to do that, it is inconceivable Westerners would respond as the Muslim world has.
The real story is all about the egregious offense to Westerners that many in the Muslim world deliberately perpetrate and the West’s ignoring that offense. It is about Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims vs. Western tolerance as regards Muslims. It is about those Muslims who engineered through fabrication and lies, the violent reaction by Muslims, knowing that many Muslims would react with violence.
There is no reason yet to rejoice that the West has turned around from its initial reaction of submitting to the angry demands of the Muslim world as regards the Mohammed cartoons.