Cartoon Wars: Editorializing chronlogy: How events unfolded from Denmark to worldwide anti-Western demos
This editorializing chronology is a reivsion of an earlier one I posted on Discoshaman's blog Religion of Peace?. In recent weeks (months?), the main posting has been done Xyba who has done such an excellent daily job of keeping up with news of Islamofascist terrorist deeds and events that I must publically thank this blogger become journalist. The blogger found and posted a fine chronlogy by
Howden, Hardaker, & Castle (who also must be thanked). To that good skeleton, I added some flesh of further facts plus this reviser's Christian-democratic political and journalism-philosophic editorializing on several of the chronicled events in question. I'm cross-posting some days later that blog-entry on Relgion of Peace?, but I'm adding further fact and editorial matter dug up from additional sources in the meantime. 
Here we go, the basic unmarked layer is that of Howden, Hardaker, & Castle:
* 17 SEPTEMBER 2005: Danish newspaper Politiken reports [that] a writer failed to find an artist for a book about Mohamed because of fear of reprisals.
* 17-30 SEPTEMBER 2005:
Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten culture editor
who birthed the Islampophobic cartoons
Here's the profile from Another day in the Empire:
As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured “clash of civilizations” engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has “has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons.” Rose “traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism,” Bollyn reveals.I detest the rhetoric this blog uses to besmear "Straussian neo-cons." I appreciate much that Weekly Standard has done to advance awareness of the power realities with which Americans and their leaders must cope wisely in the present world. I suspect a blame-America-first attitude in the Another day in the Empire blog. But the slant they are captured by also canj help from time to time in getting a fresh look at a dubious figure like culture editor Rose.
Daniel Pipes is one of the more virulent and hateful of the Straussian neocons, famous for his racist and xenophobic statement that Muslim immigrants are “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene,” an attitude straight out of the Nazi school of racial hyperbole (a philosophy embraced by no small number of Jabotinsky Likudites and their fellow travelers among the traitorous Straussian neocons).
Bollyn continues:
“Agents of certain persuasion” are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key “agent” is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark’s leading morning paper last September….
Rose told the international paper owned by The New York Times that “he would not publish a cartoon of Israel’s Ariel Sharon strangling a Palestinian baby, since that could be construed as ‘racist.’”
Danish-Palestinian Imam Ahmed Abu Laban
Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian imam who has been residing in Copenhagen since 1993, has become over the last few years the face of Islam in Denmark, creating his own persona of a moderate cleric who seeks dialogue but who is victimized by the widespread "racism" of the Danes. Despite his poor command of the Danish language, Abu Laban is a frequent guest on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, where he claims to represent the voice of the local Muslim community. Even though part of the establishment has always looked at him with suspicion (Prime Minister Rasmussen has always refused to meet with him), Danish intelligentsia has made him a celebrity — so much of one that even the Washington Post recently profiled him as "one of Denmark's most prominent imams."
But Abu Laban's real face has now been revealed. In September, the imam immediately condemned Jyllands-Posten's cartoons and led protests at the local level. Danish politicians and media, busy with local elections, ignored him. But Abu Laban is not the kind of person who gives up easily. After having contacted ambassadors from Muslim countries in Copenhagen, he put together a delegation with the goal of touring the Middle East to "internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide," as he explained in an interview with "Islam Online". The delegation met with, among others, Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam's most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten, along with others that had never been published by any Danish publication. The new cartoons were every more offensive, as showing the Prophet Mohammed with a pig face or having sexual intercourse with a dog. While the delegation claimed that the differentiation was pointed out to their interlocutors, there is no other evidence, and rumors about the more blasphemous images began to circulate in the Middle East. Moreover, the booklet that was presented by the delegation contained several other lies about the "oppression" of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.
With emotions about the cartoons mounting, Qaradawi, the real brains of the Muslim Brotherhood's international network and a key opinion maker in the Middle East thanks to his weekly show on al Jazeera, attacked Denmark directly, warning that an apology would not be sufficient, and that "a firm stance" should have be taken by the Danish government. As Prime Minister Rasmussen refused to intervene, referring to the cherished tradition of freedom of the press in his country, Qaradawi and his ilk unleashed their propagandistic war against Denmark. Abu Laban, from his mosque in the Copenhagen suburb of Nørrebro, is now happily reaping the fruits of his hard work. But, in a quintessential exercise in taqiya (double-speak), Abu Laban has tried to hide his satisfaction to the Danes. Speaking on Danish television, Abu Laban has wept crocodile tears, condemning the boycott of Danish goods and the other consequences of his actions. Yet, interviewed by al Jazeera, the imam has said just the opposite, praising the outrage of the Muslim world at his adoptive country.
So just who is Abu Laban? The Danes are slowly getting a fuller portrait. Friday night, Danish state television DR broadcasted a long report on him and Danes have begun to understand more about the self-proclaimed voice of Islam in Denmark. According to DR, Intelligence documents reveal that Abu Laban has been in close contact for years with members of various terrorist organizations, and in particular with leaders of the Egyptian Gamaa Islamiya. In the beginning of the 1990s, in fact, several leaders of the Gamaa escaped the long arm of the Egyptian mukhabarat and relocated to Europe. Copenhagen became the new hometown of two of the group's leaders, Ayman al Zawahiri, currently serving as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, and Talaat Fouad Qassimy. From the quiet of the Scandinavian capital, the men published Al Murabitoun, the Gamaa's official publication. Abu Laban worked as a translator and distributor of the publication, which glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Palestine. Then Abu Laban worked closely with Said Mansour, a Moroccan man currently charged in Denmark for running a publishing house that distributed jihadi material.
* 30 SEPTEMBER: Twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed are published in Jyllands-Posten as a protest against self-censorship [by the artists who mite have done the illustrating of the book, presumably - P]. [
Addition by Politicarp: Here's the latterday editorial spin by ultra-war USA newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal (Jan12,2k6):Last year, Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's biggest daily newspaper, asked 40 artists to submit caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The request was not made to encourage condemnation of the historical figure or his followers, but to test whether residents were afraid of provoking Muslims. The newspaper wanted to find out whether the country's freedom of speech had been eroded by Islamic intimidation.But this spindoctored miseditorial nowhere confronts the stark contradiction of the journalism-philosophy of the J-P best summarized in the words of Christopher Bollyn (not that I endorse the totality of his exposé for which see below the chronicle entry for Feb3,2k6): "The fact that the editors behind the anti-Islamic images claim to be exercising free speech while refusing to address Europe's strict censorship laws regarding discussion of the Holocaust and the ongoing imprisonment of historical revisionists reveals the existence of a more sinister agenda behind the provocative cartoons." Maybe Bollyn prefers to do away with restrictions on both sides of J-P's contradiction. I would prefer to have some limits on both and on gratuitous cruelty to Christians and other civilly-responsible religious communities by word or image in the public media and government-funded art locations; that's a better direction in which to err than what I sense in Bollyn and certainly in what J-P has arrogated to itself. I also feel restrictions on a vaunted absolute freedom for all kinds of pronography are valid. Of course, it would take really excellent law-makers to formulate such laws, but too many courts are ruled by Humanist notions of absolute freedom of speech, press (all public media), and expression (graphics, imagery, art and a whole bunch of other inappropriate acts in sphere-specific locations - like Superbowl telecasts).
* 2 OCTOBER: Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, hears complaints from 10 Arab ambassadors. [Addition by Politicarp: But Rasmussen is to be faulted for not vigorously denouncing the cruel publication of the cartoons as an instance of unneighborliness, intolerance, and religious bigotry - this he could have done without attempting to exercize any directly punitive powers, which correctly he does not have. Compare the statement of Canada's brand-new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Conservative Member of Parliament and Cabinet member Peter MacKay. In stark contrast, Rasmussen too could have stayed strictly within the law on press freedom and still have denounced the unethical abuse of press freedom. Like Adam in the Creation story, Rasmussen committed the sin of uxoriousness, surrendering his other available powers to scold severely
* 2-14 OCTOBER: On one side of the conflict in Denmark we have Flemming Rose, his newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the unreceptive Prime Minister Rasmussen, his Social Democrats, and any colition partners they may have. On the other side, a largely peaceful and civil Danism Muslim population, its leadership, and the ambassadors of 10 Muslim countries called upon by the Danish Muslim leadership, or some segment of them to help in petitioning Rasmussen for a justice against religious insult of Muslim core values, akin to the strict laws Denmark has in place to protect the core religious value of truth about the Holocaust, with imprisonment of persons who write books seriously revising the canonical interpretation of it in Denmark.
* 14 OCTOBER: 5,000 people march through Copenhagen to protest against the cartoons. [Addition by Politicarp: Having given no level of public justice whatsoever to the Danish Muslims deeply offended by the Jyllands-Post derogation of one of the deepest religious values by which many Muslims identify the very core of their personhood with reverence for the Prophet Mohammed, the incompetent Rasmussen reaped the whirlwind of 5,000 offended souls stabbed to the heart by Humanist anti-religious bigotry.]
• 17 OCTOBER: Full entry by Politicarp: Al-Fagra , a nongovernment newspaper, Cairo. Egypt, publishes cartoons on part of its frontpage and all of page 17 of that day's edition. There was no reaction from the paper's Muslims readers, no press statement or street action from the anti-Mubarak fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, no government denunciation of the cartoons (but, of course, with no punitive action in any case for sake of freedom of the press), no representations to the government from the Muslim Brotherhood or to the other Arab embassies in Cairo, and no penalty for the paper's illustrious editor. - You can clickup my earlier blog-entry in refWrite refWrite, where the detail above is documented as to its sources - blogs Rantings of a Sandmonkey (Sandmonkey is from Cairo who has since presented the Al-Fagr edition for Oct17,2k5, scanned it and distributed it to Western bloggers like Freedom for Egytians and websites like Michelle Malkin and WorldNetDaily.
* 21 OCTOBER: Mr Fogh Rasmussen refuses to meet the 10 ambassadors, saying his government is unable to interfere with press freedom. [Addition by Politicarp: I repeat now in regard to this second Rasmussen offence that after 21 days Rasmussen still could not offer anything to these surrogate representatives of the Danish Muslims, representatives also of countries who buy Danish goods and services and the population of which countries are excellent customers adding to the prosperity of Denmark. Rasmussen is a religious bigot, he practiced intolerance - not by refusing to violate the sphere sovereignty of the press for the abuse of its freedom - but for not speaking up to denounce the Jyllands-Posten Humanist anti-religious bigotry. His government should have fallen from power for these two offences, this second one involving a refusal to even hear the complainants petitioning for redress of greivances. His uxoriousnes, his cowardliness, his political calculations left him unmovable on any level where avenues were open to him as Prime Minister, and again he has reaped the whirlwind. Politicarp and refWrite do not blame ordinary Danish citizens, nor do we in any sense endorse, rather we denounce, subsequent actions by governments and violent protestors of Muslim countries (we do not object, however, to peaceful protests and boycotts, that's their right of freedom of speech and expression); we do not endorse, rather we denounce, the violent Muslim crowds whipped up by provocateurs (a Lebanese Christian friend tells me that his info is that Syrian intelligence agents were responsible for burning the Danish embassy in Beirut, Lebanon and that the Lebanese government has since apologized to Denmark). Nevertheless, Rasmussen is no hero; he is instead an unjust holder of an office defined by the God-given task of public justice to all the people of Denmark, including its Muslims. Rasmussen's government should have fallen from power. And Christians in North America should denounce both Rasmussen with his Social Democrats party and the Islamic countries' exploiters of popular Muslim religious feelings, acts of burning the Danish flag (which is a red field with a white cross on its side, in the position of Christ carrying his Cross). This burning of the Cross semiotically evokes in North America the perfidy of the Ku Klux Klan. The burning of embassies is also utterly reprehensible. But Rasmussen should be denounced too, and his government should fall. Were I Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada, I would pull our Ambassador from the countries that whipped up the burnings and from Denmark until the coward Rasmussen and his Social Democrats resign OR he/they forcefully denounce their presumed fellow Humanists who set the tone and journalism philosophy of Jyllands-Posten. Not to discern the Spirts among the Danish poiticians and parties is a serious mistake.]
* 27 OCTOBER: Danish Muslim groups file a criminal complaint against Jyllands-Posten.
[Addition by Politicarp: But, of course, everything is stacked against a prosecution that would balance out the Danish law protecting the core religious value of remembering the Holocausrt (you don't have to be an observant Jew for this to be a core religious value, you can even be an atheist, or a complete nonJew). The prosecution could not do its duty to seek a balanced justice for Jew and Muslim alike, eithr throwing out the Holocaust-remembrance privileging law and the provision for jailing Holocaust revisionists / deniers OR protecting as well and equally Muslim core religious values to protect them from stereotyping and generalizing antiMuslim insults. So, here Denmark entered into a denial of its God-given state-political tasks in a twofold way: the executive function and the jurdicial function.]* DECEMBER 2005 - JANUARY 2006: The coalition of Danish Muslim groups travels to the Middle East. Delegates at the Islamic Conference in Mecca talk of boycotting Danish goods. [Addition by Politicarp: A key Danish imam added at least 2 or 3 hi-ly inflammatory cartoons that were never part of the set of 12 published by either a presumably Humanist newspaper like Jyllands-Posten (Denmark) or a later copycat Christian newspaper, Magasinet (Norway).
* 7 JANUARY: Prosecutors decide there is no case to answer against Jyllands-Posten.
[Addition by Politicarp: Here we see the blatant denial of justice for Danish Muslims equal to that for Danish Jews and their core religious values. Thus, Denmark becomes twofold a bigotry state.]* 10 JANUARY: Norwegian Christian magazine Magasinet reprints the cartoons. [Addition by Politicarp: Shame on this unreflective copycat abuser of Muslim neighbours! This shows how Christian journalism devolves into mere copycatting of Humanist journalism when the Christian news media and editorial approaches have no distinctively Christian journalism philosophy. The Christian-newspaper editor has since apologized, but I want to look at the text. Did he apologize that some people took offence, or because the cartoons were wickedly offensive in something of an objective sense?
In any case, Magasinet (Feb13,2k6) discusses Imam Laban in its ongoing coverage. Another Norwegian daily, the English-language edition of Aftenposten today published this info:A formal apology from Magasinet's editor, Vebjørn Selbekk, was accepted on Friday by Norwegian imams who lead the 46 Muslim communities in Norway. They declared that the conflict thus was over, and the Norwegian delegation wants to spread that declaration in areas of the Middle East where protests have been most vigorous and violent.The Danish Christian daily newspaper
* 27 JANUARY: Saudi Arabia calls for a boycott of Danish goods and recalls ambassador.
* 28 JANUARY: Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla places adverts in Middle Eastern papers to calm the row.
* 29 JANUARY: Libya recalls its envoy [to Denmark]. Jyllands-Posten prints an Arabic editorial saying the cartoons were printed as a test of public expression.
* 30 JANUARY: Editor of Jyllands-Posten apologises as masked gunmen briefly storm the EU's offices in Gaza.
* 31 JANUARY: Denmark advises its citizens not to travel to Saudi Arabia.
* 1 FEBRUARY: Seven newspapers across Europe republish the cartoons in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten.
* 2 FEBRUARY: Jordanian paper Shihan becomes the first in the Arab world to reprint the cartoons saying its decision was made to show their readers "the extent of the Danish offence". The editor is fired. [Addition by Politicarp: Not so! Al-Fagr , nongovernment newspaper in Cairo, Egypt was the first in the Arab world, publishing the cartoons already on Oct17,2k6, three and one-half months earlier. On the same day, Counterrorism Blog presents the story of the fake cartoons pedalled by a key Danish imam (I don't know when or where this story broke, but you don't want to miss it! - P]
* 3 FEBRUARY: As 50,000 people protest in Gaza, a small group of Muslim radicals hold a demonstration in London.
[Addition by Politicarp: Blogger Christopher Bollyn of Rumour Mill News made public his correspondence with Flemmings Rose, cultural editor of J-P, in regard to his religiopolitical motives in commissioning the cartoons and provoking the Cartoons Backlash Wars: [A month ago, when I first became aware of the provocative anti-Muslim cartoons published in JP, I immediately contacted the editors and asked why they had allowed their newspaper to be dragged into such a ridiculous and provocative situation.
With Europe already involved in two Middle Eastern wars and with the political tension with Iran increasing daily, I asked the editors, "Do you truly wish to antagonize Muslims?"
"I support freedom of speech and am against self-censorship," Rose, who commissioned the cartoons, wrote in response. It was, however, clearly not simply to exercise Denmark's non-existent freedom of speech that Rose commissioned the anti-Muslim cartoons. The more sinister motive of advancing the "clash of civilizations" among Europeans was evidently behind the offensive images.
"If the issue is really one of free speech, would you publish cartoons making fun of the Jewish Holocaust?" I asked Rose and the editors. "If not, do you at least support the right of newspapers and individuals to raise historical questions about the Holocaust?"
Yet after a month of correspondence with Rose and the editors, they have completely avoided answering my questions about the Holocaust and the right of free speech for historical revisionists in Europe.
Finis
Also today, Feb3,2k6, the BBC's Stephen Sackeur on the HARDtalk program interviewed the two previously-mentioned-&-pictured provocatuers of the "clash of civilizations," both of them working the same terror-itory from opposite sides of the street, a definite duo of danger to us mere pedestrians - Imam Ahmed Abu Laban and Flemming Rose.* 4 FEBRUARY: Violent protests spread to Damascus.
* 5 FEBRUARY: Danish embassy in Beirut set alight as Iran recalls its ambassador in Copenhagen.
* 6 FEBRUARY: Protests spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and Afghanistan.
* 7 FEBRUARY: Denmark's embassy in Tehran is attacked.
* 8 FEBRUARY: George Bush accuses Iran and Syria of exploiting the cartoons.
Addition by Politicarp: Today also BBC published its final update online regardng the split among Danish Muslims. - Politicarp---------------
Previous coverage and editorializing by refWrite on this story:
* refWrite (Feb10,2k6) - Canada: Foreign Policy: Follow-up on Cairo newspaper Al-Fagr's taste for Danish cartoons
* refWrite (Feb9,2k6) - Canada: Foreign Policy: Peter MacKay, Canada's new Tory Foreign Minister, condemns cartoon violence; Canadianna's clarity
* refWrite (Feb8,2k6) - USA: Foreign Polcy: Iran and Syria named as sponsors of cartoon-protest violence, Hamas unnamed so far
We at refWrite are planning a future blog-entry on the campaigns to Buy Danish (because not all of Denmark's people are part of the Rasmussen - SocialDemocrats - Jyllands-Posten severe injustice to a Danish religious minority] and the campaign that never was to boycott Iranian and Syrian products - including oil. Should the USA and Canada cut back any funds to support Egypt because of its implicit complicity in the encouragement / provocation of violence, if any? Many questions remain unanswered.
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