More on Saudi Aims in Cartoon Crisis

In the form of a parody of a memo to the Saudi King, The Religious Policeman explains Saudi Arabia's possible strategy in the Danish Cartoon crisis:

I was perhaps too pessimistic at the end of my previous memo. Things have in fact turned out better than we might have expected.

As I reported, a number of other European newspapers did publish the cartoons. In two of those cases, the owners of those papers sacked the offending editors, thus demonstrating that jobs are at risk when we Muslims are offended! This, I am sure, is a lesson that will not have been lost on other editors. It is noticeable now that with a few striking exceptions, such as those very aggressive Germans, newspapers and broadcasters are very reluctant to show them further, and they appear not to have been shown at all in the USA.

What is also very gratifying is that officials in the West are not only accepting our right to be offended at whatever we choose, but they are also saying that the Western media should work to our standards, not theirs. It is striking how soon they forget about their self-professed "freedoms" when they witness a little righteous Muslim anger. Thus UK Foreign Secretary Straw's comment....

Mr Straw said the decision by some European newspapers to print the cartoons was "disrespectful" and he added that freedom of speech did not mean an "open season" on religious taboos.

....or to paraphrase him, "having a freedom does not mean that you have the right to use it". We could not have put it better ourselves; perhaps we should ask Mr Straw to write editorials for the "Arab News"! The US State Department, on the other hand, persists in proclaiming kuffar values....

Our response is to say that while we certainly don’t agree with, support, or in some cases, we condemn the views that are aired in public that are published in media organizations around the world, we, at the same time, defend the right of those individuals to express their views.

....however the US is overall becoming a bit of a problem to which I shall refer later.

Generally, active Muslims around the world have reacted well to our lead. As well as the unemployed "usual suspects" in Palestine and Indonesia, some British Muslims gave a particularly impressive display yesterday.

The official reaction of British officialdom - precisely nothing! - illustrates how successful we have been over the years in getting them to accept the "Principle of Asymmetry". In other words, we use their sense of "fair play", "multiculturalism", "democratic values", and of course their guilt feelings, against them, so that they restrict their own freedom of action, but are very lax when dealing with the Muslim, for fear of offense or violent reaction. This of course confuses and demoralizes the ordinary person-in-the-street, and weakens their resistance to the onward march of the Ummah.

May I just say, Your Majesty, how these events have demonstrated the wisdom of your decision to remind people about those old cartoons. The story has now developed a momentum of its own, it will run and run, and who remembers those pilgrims in Makkah? What pilgrims? Exactly! Not only that, but the Egyptians' poor maritime standards mean that a much larger death toll will now remain in the public eye.