The conflict over the Mohammed cartoons take on insane proportions. Now the two largest Muslim organisations want to have the United Nations pass a resolution against "attacks on religion".
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League, the Muslim world's two main political bodies, are seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions following the publication of cartoons depicting and ridiculing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
"Consultations are currently taking place at the highest level between Arab countries and the OIC to ask the UN to adopt a binding resolution banning contempt of religious beliefs and providing for sanctions to be imposed on contravening countries or institutions," Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, OIC's secretary general, told reporters in Cairo on Sunday, January 29, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
He said the UN General Assembly would be asked to "pass a resolution banning attacks on religious beliefs."
I trust these Muslim countries then agree to stop "attacks" on the religious beliefs of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others, then? Or maybe not.
It's pathetic to see how many in our own societies, mostly on the left, are now lining up to sacrifice our freedom of speech in face of extremist threats and intimidation. Criticism of Islam, even mocking and and insulting it, are not in any way or form racist. Western civilisation grew up by mocking its old fundamentalist religion, Christianity, forcing it to eventually adapt and accept pluralism and religious freedom. Muslims will simply have to learn to accept the same.
In Denmark, there is strong public support for freedom of speech. A poll had 79 percent agreeing that prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen should not apologise.
PS: It occurred to me that I haven't actually linked to the offending cartoons. Before now.
PS 2: There is an ongoing campaign to offset the Muslim boycotts by encouraging people to buy Danish. That shouldn't be difficult. Buy Lego for the kids and Carlsberg for yourself! After all, my favourite football side Liverpool plays with the Carlsberg logo on their chests.
Update: And now some thugs in Gaza are burning Norwegian flags. This is a quite rare occurrence; Americans take such displays for granted. Our media is now filled with statements regretting that we are so evil we make the Palestinians behave this way. One of the worst examples is Gudrun Bertinussen, the Gaza representative from Norwegian People's Aid, who according to Aftenposten puts all blame on, of course, us! My translation:
- People look to Norway as one of the good countries that supports the Palestinians. Therefor they react so strongly on the publication of the Mohammed-drawings. People say they had never believed that Norway wanted to harass and humiliate Muslims in this way, she says to Aftenposten.no. [...]
- This is a message to Norway and the international society. The message is that we must not harass Muslims if we are to be guests in their country, she says.
Well, excuse me! "Norway" doesn't harass Muslims just because some obscure religious newspaper, which is printed in less than 6,000 copies every three days or so, prints copies of cartoons depicting Mohammed. After all this emphasis on us learning about other cultures and their habits, we should perhaps ask these people to learn a bit or two about our countries, which just happen to feed their people with tax money collected here. One thing they should understand is that we value freedom of speech so highly we accept that publications have a right to "harass" our own beliefs and culture. This is a principle Muslims would do well to adopt in their own societies, because without criticism, there cannot be progress.
Some obscure magazine insults, they say, the Muslims. So these thugs decide to insult all Norwegians by burning our flag. And yet, we should apologise to them? They want us to beg and humble ourselves to be allowed to provide aid to their own people!
If the Palestinian Authority, whoever it is these days, doesn't clearly distance themselves from these street thugs and guarantee the safety of these misguided fools we send down to do humanitarian work there, we should stop all aid to the territories immediately. Of course Jonas Gahr Støre doesn't have remotely enough spine to take these steps. He is going to continue to apologise for something he has no right, and no duty, to apologise for. This is shameful appeasement from our leftist government.
Never send a socialist to do a man's job.
Update 2: The Beeb picks up the story about the raid on the EU office and threats against Danes and Norwegians.
Update 3: The Brussels Journal follows this story extensively. Interesting headline: Cartoon Rage: Vikings Warned to Leave Palestine. It was mentioned by several in the crowd at LGF, which linked my previous entry, that the Norwegian courage has gone downhill since the viking age. No kidding.
There is an inaccurary in the Brussels Journal article, though.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades distributed leaflets saying that Danes and Swedes had three days to get out of the region. Sweden, however, unlike Denmark and Norway, has nothing to do with the cartoon affair. Perhaps the Norwegians have been omitted by the al-Aqsa Brigades because its leftist government parties have called for a boycott of Israel.
The speculation about motive aside (it appears the terrorists have read up on their geography knowledge since the original pamphlets were made; nobody has spotted burning Swedish flags), it is simply wrong that the government parties have called for a boycott. It is only one of the three, the junior Socialist Left, that encouraged a consumer boycott of Israel, and was seriously pounded by their partners (not to mention the opposition) for it.
12:40:32 PM 
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