Cartoon frenzy (cont'd)

Jeff Weintraub poses a good question:

Islamist groups in Europe and the Middle East, as well as the government of Iran, have decided to respond to the Danish cartoons by publishing offensive cartoons about the Holocaust. Even when people have criticized these actions, they have tended to pass over one element about them that should strike us as peculiar. When these Islamists are offended by Danish cartoons, they don't respond by publishing anti-Danish, anti-Christian, or anti-western cartoons. They respond by publishing anti-semitic cartoons. Why is that, I wonder?

Quite puzzling indeed. Does someone have a good answer?

Comments

[Michael]

The best explanation I have read is censorship envy. If European countries outlaw blasphemy of the Holocaust, the defining event of modern Judaism, then when shouldn't Islam receive such protection?

[Fatima]

Hello there,
Just wanted to make a couple of comments concerning all this cartoon madness and Denmark's satanization. Denmark is the second largest contributor to development aid in the world in proportion to its GDP and has probably been paying a good amount of the 600 M euros that the Palestinian authority receives per year from the EU. You've probably heard of this famous "0,7% of GDP for development" aim that was first set up in 1976, well thirty years later Denmark is one of the six countries in the world that is actually complying with it...I guess Denmark has a lot of PR to make for itself.
Concerning media and the use that is made of it on both sides of the Mediterranean, it is fair to say that for a good part of the muslim world, the "west" (US, Europe, Israel...) is all the same, just like for many westerners the "muslims" are all the same (I refer to Edward Said's notion of "orientalism"). But in case you ever wondered what media in muslim countries is like (I guess we all have a pretty good idea) check out www.memri.org, a think tank that analyzes media manipulation in the Middle East. For instance, there's a pretty funny TV interview with Gaddafi in which he recognizes the US's military superiority and invincibility by conventional means and therefore proposes to eliminate his country's defense budget altogether and reinvest it all in car bombs and suicide volunteers. That's what I call defense cuts! Crazy...

But in the end it's stupid to try to compare the uncomparable. There was a time when here too there was no division of powers and religion dictaded our behavior...but then came the French Revolution, Enlightment, the Industrial Revolutions, a couple of World Wars and finally the recognition of human rights as a standard for all.
The simple truth is that the muslim world is not free, especially half of its population (women). I am surprised of the cowardish reactions to all this cartoon issue and how some countries (US namely) even tried to gain from it to improve their image in the Middle East. But don't worry George W Bush, no matter what you do or say to make up, sentence has been passed for you.

[eric]

Probably because the last time they permitted free press was in the late 1940s, and they haven't learnt anything about the World since. What they should have done was compare European anti-muslimism to Europe's latent anti-semitism. That would have at least been clever and not ignorant and antiquated. It may have even produced some sympathy.