The Danish Cartoons
Reading about the surfeit of other, more recent challenges to freedom of speech brought me back to the international meltdown over the Danish cartoons. "Meltdown" brings to mind a favorite quote of mine by T.R.: "no more backbone than a chocolate eclair" - and one microwaved on ‘high’ at that. Talk about being able to press our buttons, sheesh.
A mere 4 years ago - Sept. 30, 2005 - and the episode seems rather ancient history, doesn’t it? I think it’s good to remind ourselves just how dangerous the situation was. Here’s a discussion panel that took place at UCLA in April, 2006, where the cartoons were ‘unveiled’. Few people or publishers would touch them with a ten-foot pole. I understand some 40 police officers had to be hired to ensure the speakers’ physical safety - at a university! A supposed safe-zone for discussion of ideas, popular and unpopular, offensive and inoffensive alike.
Can you imagine how much more successful the attempted restriction on freedom of speech would have been if the internet didn’t exist?? I mean, book publishers are still volunteering to bend over backwards to toe the line set down by thugs and criminals who burn embassies (dialogue? what dialogue?) and advocate the beheading of those who offend them.
All this despite the fact that it looks like the cartoons that actually sparked the violence were not primarily the ones published by Jyllands-Posten, but three particularly offensive ones slipped into a handout and circulated by Danish imams in the Middle East in December or later, and falsely attributed to Jyllands-Posten. Scroll down to "The Fake Cartoons" for further reading and viewing, courtesy of zombietime.com.
Thanks to zombietime.com for the images below, and for compiling and organizing a Mohammed Image Archive. The original Jyllands-Posten page layout can be viewed at Wikimedia.
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