[h/t: Michelle Malkin]

Michelle is keeping the burner turned up high on coverage of the Muslim Cartoon War, and this AM she links to Diana West’s Washington Times editorial called Cartoon Rage, which ties in the world’s reaction to the violence directed at the West over these images to dhimmitude.

We need to learn a new word: dhimmitude. I’ve written about dhimmitude periodically, lo, these many years since September 11, but it takes time to sink in. Dhimmitude is the coinage of a brilliant historian, Bat Ye’or, whose pioneering studies of the dhimmi, populations of Jews and Christians vanquished by Islamic jihad, have led her to conclude that a common culture has existed through the centuries among the varied dhimmi populations. From Egypt and Palestine to Iraq and Syria, from Morocco and Algeria to Spain, Sicily and Greece, from Armenia and the Balkans to the Caucasus: Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as “people of the book [the Bible],” were tolerated, allowed to practice their religion, but at a dehumanizing cost.
(…)
This is the lesson of Cartoon Rage 2006, a cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Muhammad appearing in a Danish newspaper. We have watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there is little recognition that its poisonous fallout is fear. Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall, which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which have failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in Europe, to salute, we have seen the proud Western tradition of a free press bow its head and submit to an Islamic law against depictions of Muhammad. That’s dhimmitude.

But what you say, isn’t it just common decency not to show the cartoons, not to needlessly offend our Muslim brothers and sisters around the world, not to give fuel to our enemies with which they can further inflame hatred against the West? Sounds logical — but is it?

How far does it go? Worth noting, for example, is that on the BBC Web site, a religion page about Islam presents the angels and revelations of Islamic belief as historical fact, rather than spiritual conjecture (as is the case with its Christianity Web page); plus, it follows every mention of Mohammed with “(pbuh),” which means “peace be upon him”—”as if,” writes Will Wyatt, former BBC chief executive, in a letter to the Times of London, “the corporation itself were Muslim.”

No one in America went burning and pillaging when Harper’s Magazine published this cartoon, or this one. Mr. Fish now appears from time to time in the LA Times, and Los Angeles Christians won’t be attacking the Times building when his next offending doodle is printed.

The publication of the Muhammad cartoons solicited by Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten was an act of anti-dhimmitude. Since no Danish artist would dare illustrate a PC children’s book about Muhammad for fear of Islamic law (and Islamic violence), the newspaper boldly set out to reassert the rule of (non-Islamic) Danish law. It’s as simple as that. And as vital.

Europe may finally be waking up to the threat from within — we can’t allow ourselves to fall asleep! (db)

Technorati Tags: Diana West, Washington Times, dhimmitude, Michelle Malkin, Mr. Fish, Muslim Cartoon War

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 9:59 am and is filed under Muslim Cartoon War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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