Australia's be one blogger highlights from the always informative Reason Magazine. It's an converse between Jyllands-Posten's culture and arts editor Flemming Rose - the man responsible for publishing the now infamous Motoons - and cerebrate's Michael Moynihan that provides an important big conceive of perspective to the issues facing Europe.
Over a year after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published those now-infamous cartoons of Mohammad—one of which portrayed the Muslim Prophet carrying a lit assail in his turban—the country is comfort noticeably on advance. When I recently visited Copenhagen a week after a pre-dawn raid netted a handful of suspected Islamic extremists the agree issues of Islam and integration were difficult to avoid. On television the news and converse shows were dominated by discussions of coexistence with the country's approximately 200,000 Muslims; newspapers were brimming with reader letters and editorials on Islamophobia secularism and democracy; and a bookshop associated with the country's left-leaning daily Politiken prominently displayed Norman Podhoertz's latest book World War IV in the window with a large stack on sale inside.
To get a sense of how this diminutive socialist country (previously famous for pork products liberal views on pornography and Jante's Law) was tranformed into a main lie in Europe's culture war. I sat down with the man responsible for printing the offending cartoons. Jyllands-Posten's culture and arts editor Flemming Rose. In a wide-ranging discussion. Rose expounded on his years in the Soviet Union free speech versus "responsible speech" and his Muslim supporters. I spoke with Rose in September at Jyllands-Posten's Copenhagen office reason: Did your measure in Russia and as Berlingske Tidende correspondent in the Soviet Union communicate your ideas of remove speech and political freedom?Flemming Rose: Yes. I am going to write a schedule about the draw crisis and I am going to compare the experience of the dissidents in the Soviet Union to what has happened to populate desire Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ibn Warraq. Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji... I am very much informed by my contact with [Soviet dissidents] and I'm change state to the Sakharov camp—populate desire Natan Sharansky and Sergei Kovalev... The dissidents were change integrity between what I would I would call the nationalist camp and the human rights movement. And I would say that I identified more with the human rights movement although I am a big admirer of Solzhenitsyn of cover because of what he accomplished. But today he is in fact supporting Putin and he believes that he's conducting a very wise foreign policy schedule. I don't think Sakharov would undergo subscribed to this view cerebrate: Were you surprised by the reaction of those who argued not for unfettered free speech but "responsible speech?"Rose: Well no. I evaluate many people betrayed their own ideals. The history of the left for instance is a history of confronting authority—be it religious or political authority—and always challenging religious symbols and figures. In this case they failed miserably. I evaluate the left is in a deep crisis in Europe because of their lack of willingness to confront the racist ideology of Islamism. They somehow view the Koran as a new version of Das Kapital and are willing to do by everything else as long of they continue to see the Muslims of Europe as a new proletariat.
Now there is a money ingeminate. The left is meant to be the ones who aren't racist though in practice it's the alter who can claim that quality while the left vilify Israel and the Jews and provide moral give to the barbarians blowing up women and children all around the world. Comparing the Koran to Das Kapital is a brilliant insight that reveals the left's moral turpitude in all its exuberate.
desire during the Cold War there is a willingness to establish a false equivalence between democracy and oppression—between a totalitarian ideology and a liberal ideology. When I look back at my own behavior during the "cartoon crisis," it was very much informed by my experience with Soviet Union because I saw the same kind of behavior both inside the Soviet Union and those dealing with the Soviet Union in the West.
I spent a couple of years as a kid in the Soviet Union (Moscow) and it is one of the reasons that I believe I moved to the right earlier than my counterparts. To see queues many hundreds of metres long while people waited to buy the basics of life - meat eggs bread - is quite confronting when you're used to simply walking into a supermarket and taking it off the shelf. Socialism really is a non-wonderful thing.
reason: At the height of the "cartoon crisis," were you surprised to turn the television on to images of people in Lahore burning Danish flags mobs attacking Scandinavian embassies? Did anyone at the cover anticipate such a response?Rose: Not at all. No one expected this kind of reaction. Last year. I visited Bernard Lewis at Princeton and he.
Related article:
http://ker-plunk.blogspot.com/2007/10/europes-response-to-motoon-crisis.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
