Saturday, February 04, 2006

Michelle Malkin on Danish Cartoon Crisis

Her Washington Times column is directly on target in its explanation of why a Danish newspaper printed cartoons of Mohammed:
The newspaper was making a vivid editorial point about European artists' fear of retaliation for drawing any pictures of Muhammad at all. (Remember: It's been little more than a year since Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist gunman over his movie criticizing violence against women in Islamic societies.)
A Danish author had reported last fall he couldn't find an illustrator for a book about Muhammad; the Jyllands-Posten editors rose to the challenge by calling on artists to send in their submissions and publishing the 12 entries received.
The reaction to the cartoons resoundingly confirmed fears those artists expressed about radical Islamic intolerance and violence. The Jyllands-Posten reported two illustrators received death threats and went into hiding. The Pakistani Jamaaat-e-Islami Party put a 5,000-kroner bounty on the cartoonists' heads. A terrorist outfit called the "Glory Brigades" threatened suicide bombings in Denmark over the artwork.
Despite how relatively tame the pictures actually are (compared not only to Western standards, but also to the vicious, anti-Semitic propaganda regularly churned out by Arab cartoonists), the drawings have literally inflamed the radical Muslim world and its apologists...First, they came for the cartoonists. Then, they came for the filmmakers and talk show hosts and namers of evil. Next, who knows?
She has more photos on her blog, http://www.michellemalkin.com.