Cartoons and Islamic Imperialism
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 4:19 pm by NealCartoons and Islamic Imperialism is the latest from Middle-East expert Daniel Pipes. He writes
The key issue at stake in the battle over the twelve Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.
More specifically, will Westerners accede to a double standard by which Muslims are free to insult Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, while Muhammad, Islam, and Muslims enjoy immunity from insults? Muslims routinely publish cartoons far more offensive than the Danish ones. Are they entitled to dish it out while being insulated from similar indignities?
Our thoughts exactly. Pipes continues,
Germany’s Die Welt newspaper hinted at this issue in an editorial: “The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical. When Syrian television showed drama documentaries in prime time depicting rabbis as cannibals, the imams were quiet.” Nor, by the way, have imams protested the stomping on the Christian cross embedded in the Danish flag.
The deeper issue here, however, is not Muslim hypocrisy but Islamic supremacism. The Danish editor who published the cartoons, Flemming Rose, explained that if Muslims insist “that I, as a non-Muslim, should submit to their taboos … they’re asking for my submission.”
And that really is the issue here. They expect — no, demand — us to submit to their double standards. They’ve said as much, as reported by Michelle Malkin:
Imam Ahmad Abu Laban: I demand them within their abilities and competence and within the concept of dynamism of liberalism to create to fashion a new set of rules…
Jonathon Hunt: So, you want a new set of rules for the way Western Europe lives?
Imam Ahmad Abu Laban: Yes.
Check out powerlineblog.com for more on the Daniel Pipes article.