Over at Spiegel Online, the culture editor of the now infamous Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten explains his decision to run the Muhammad cartoons and criticizes Europe’s “failed experiment with multiculturalism.” Read the thing in its entirety, but just to give you an idea of what to expect:
Europe today finds itself trapped in a posture of moral relativism that is undermining its liberal values. An unholy three-cornered alliance between Middle East dictators, radical imams who live in Europe and Europe’s traditional left wing is enabling a politics of victimology. This politics drives a culture that resists integration and adaptation, perpetuates national and religious differences and aggravates such debilitating social ills as high immigrant crime rates and entrenched unemployment.
(Thanks go out to the Sports Seoul, for without their translation of a Der Spiegel piece on Kate Winslet’s nude scene in “Titanic,” I would never have found the linked column)
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This paragraph was particularly funny to me:
An act of inclusion. Equal treatment is the democratic way to overcome traditional barriers of blood and soil for newcomers. To me, that means treating immigrants just as I would any other Danes. And that’s what I felt I was doing in publishing the 12 cartoons of Muhammad last year. Those images in no way exceeded the bounds of taste, satire and humor to which I would subject any other Dane, whether the queen, the head of the church or the prime minister. By treating a Muslim figure the same way I would a Christian or Jewish icon, I was sending an important message: You are not strangers, you are here to stay, and we accept you as an integrated part of our life. And we will satirize you, too. It was an act of inclusion, not exclusion; an act of respect and recognition.
It’s like saying, “Welcome to New York, and f-k you too!”
If anybody is interested in a conservative viewpoint on European issues regarding Islam, the EU, etc.:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/
I don’t agree with a lot of stuff on here but it’s run by a former journalist and has some interesting perspectives.
It’s just a cartoon. South Park makes fun of everyone equally, and way better than the Family Guy ever could.
–Remort