Cartoon cowardice

Steve.W

“They (the Muhammad Cartoons) were of little editorial merit”.

What does this mean? Cartoons are supposed to be funny, that's all. Going for editorial merit is just larding it up and crazy. It also sounds like ducking out of the real issue, again.

Freddo

Why don't you show us them so we can make up our own minds?
Because it seems absurd to publish a piece about them without including them.

Jeremy

Personally, I find the "founders of religions" - figures like Moses, Christ (if he ever existed) and Mohammed - to be figures both sinister and ridiculous in equal measure.

The best place for a send-up of Mohammed would be within the pages of Viz. And if they ever did do it, I am sure it would have a great deal more wit, style and genuine humour than the cartoons you mention.

It would also be better drawn.

How typical of the Americans to produce a yawn-inducing academic tome on cartoons that were not funny in the first place. And then not show the cartoons...*laughs*...Now, when you think about it, that is actually quite funny.

David Alexander

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit"

The Cartoons were the entire story and as such could hardly have been of greater 'editorial merit'.

Your statement to the contrary shows the depth of the crisis to which the values of the European Enlightenment has sunk.

bruce mclaughlin

In your piece of Friday, 15th May 2009 entitled 'Theres Nothing British about the BNP' you reported on a campaign with that title and published the video which gave us the full picture.

When it comes to editorial merit, I guess that some stories are more equal than others.

Derek

Well done Freddo! Come on the Spectator - show us your bottle!

Tim B

Remember appeasement in the 1930s - it merely postpones the inevitable.

Suki

The reaction to those cartoons demonstrates their merit.

This is how Islam intimidates Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Go near the subject and you may be threatened with death.

Once you create a climate of fear around a religion, people become afraid to speak up about the creeping Islamisation of everything else from the imposition of sharia law to the failure to report 'honour' killings and so on.

Not your finest post, James.

GeoffH

"Why don't you show us them so we can make up our own minds?"

Presumably, CH doesn't have or can't afford the copyright fee, Freddo

"Little editorial merit" = not very funny in the editor's view and a perfectly good reason unconnected with any sort of appeasement, Steve W

Verity

Well said to Freddo!

Britain was afraid to publish even one. France published them. Sweden published them. Mexican papers published one. And Jordan published them. But not Britain, home of the freest press in the world. Ha ha ha! Charles Moore was editing The Telegraph at the time and I lost all respect for him right there. I have never read a word he has written since.

And while we're at it, Speccie, why not publish the ones that that venomous mullah trawled through the internet to find and added to the anodyne portfolio of the Danish paper?

Steve W is also correct. Not publishing them on grounds of lack of "editorial merit", when the entire Toon Rage was engendered by their publication is like reporting on WWII, but not mentioning Hitler.

So, per Freddo, Speccie, I've seen them, but those who haven't might like to see them to judge for themselves.

logdon

This has beem going on for a couple of days.

Pajamas media are quite rightly all over it. As is Campus-watch

http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2009/08/why-wont-yale-identify-the-experts-who-advocated

I'd urge everyone to read it as an indication of how far down the dhimmi road we've descended. Next?- abject slavery.

Obviously Yale gets huge wads of funding from Saudi so mustn't rock the boat, eh?

Had any other group intimidated in this fashion all hell would let lose. As it stands Islam gets a free pass.

And talking of free pass?

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit. But it seems absurd to publish a book on them without including them."

Little editorial merit? The most famous pictures in the world that no one was allowed to see? Come off it.

Via political correctness and threat they've got you all on the run. Admit it.

In a slight diversion I see Shahid Malik has now recalibrated terror law to include right wing organisations.

A confirmed expenses cheat now in charge of communities?

A man who in an Excel Centre speech expressed the hope that all MP would be muslim at some future date?

Are we effing crazy?

If this goes on the BNP WILL get MP's in Westminster. Then the proverbial will hit the fan.

Add in some major riots and Britain will start to unravel.

Just like Yale!

Move Over for the Funnies

Yes, let's see what all the fuss is about.

Andy Leeds

How can we judge their 'editorial merit' unless we can see them ? So publish them. Stop being such a chicken. Like many I'm sick of the way the media appease Islamic intolerance. I recently read about a gallery in Glasgow that had a Bible on display with a instruction to add to it if you felt 'excluded'. I bet they wouldn't do that with a Koran. And I had my pen all ready to mark it as I'm 'excluded' from it ! Hypocrisy of the worst possible sort.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Craven.

JohnAnt

Only a highly-subsidised publishing house with a guaranteed long list of willy-nilly university library buyers for whatever rubbish it chooses to publish could afford to do anything quite so pointless.

Nicholas

If the cap fits, or the turban in this case, then wear it.

Can we expect a Speccie edition showcasing these cartoons and other irreverent lampooning through the ages? Say, the 40 most irreverent cartoons of all time?

A J Scott

Absolutely,Freddo. Can Coffee House put them on line somehow?
Yale should know better but sadly it seems to grow more pusinallimous (sp) with every passing year.

David Ossitt

James it is now 5.37 pm Saturday; your front page shows a total of 15 comments but inside only two the second posted at 12.05pm?

Scary Biscuits

I agree. The mainstream media have become terrified of speaking truth to power - in this case the power of violence, of Muslim fanatics.

SussexJon

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit"

Did you think before you wrote that that your readers were stupid?

Fergus Pickering

I saw the cartoons, all six of them, on the BNP website - God save the BNP in this instance. Perhaps they're still there. I thought they were pretty funny, especially the one about the 1001 virgins.

Verity

When the Danish newspaper published these really very boring, just-not-funny cartoons, a bunch of mullahs, sensing their day in the sun, began theatrical foaming at the mouth.

For those of you who don't remember, or didn't get the news in Britain, they then demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Anders Fogh (my hero) to get him to have the issues of the paper withdrawn and get an apology from the editor.

PM Fogh expressed himself unable to accommodate them, saying the Prime Minister of Denmark had no control over the press. As a light aside, he added, "Sometimes I wish I had!" Anyway, he was too busy to see them.

Then the foaming really hit the fan and the leading mad mullah went trawling through the internet for other cartoons featuring Mohammad, and found some that were mildly insulting.

He then printed them out, cut the page with the cartoons from the Danish newspaper, mixed them all in and off he went to create havoc, murdering, maiming and mayhem throughout the world.

Poor Denmark had its butter, LurPak banned in several Arab countries. Several Muslims got killed in riots.

As I said above, brave Jordan (an Islamic kingdom) published the cartoons. France published a couple of them, as did Sweden. I believe the LA Times published one or two, the only newspaper in the US to do so. And a national Mexican newspaper ran one.

But in Britain ... not a peep.

David Ossitt

I find it a little sad that a piece that I posted at 12.05pm today has been censored.

A political blog; of the very best political weekly that is printed in the UK, will not let one make comment, that followers of a certain faith are ultra sensitive and take offence far too easily.

And that the authorities and the media should stop pandering to them; and treat them in the same way as the rest of the population.

Pointing out that the BNP thrives on the frustrations of many caused by the suppression of opinions, and the favouring of minorities.

Will this mild mannered piece get past the censor?

Yale Office of Public Affairs

Statement by the Yale University Press
Yale University Press will publish The Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen this November. The Press hopes that her excellent scholarly treatment of the Danish cartoon controversy will be read by those seeking deeper understanding of its causes and consequences.
After careful consideration, the Press has declined to re-print the cartoons that were published in the September 30, 2005 edition of Jyllands-Posten, as well as other depictions of the Prophet Muhammad that the author proposed to include.
The original publication in 2005 of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad led to a series of violent incidents, and repeated violent acts have followed republication as recently as June 2008, when a car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing eight people and injuring at least 30. The next day al-Qa’ida claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for the “insulting drawings.”

Republication of the cartoons – not just the original printing of them in Denmark – has repeatedly resulted in violence around the world. More than 200 lives have been lost, and hundreds more have been injured. It is noteworthy that, at the time of the initial crisis over the cartoons in 2005-2006, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe declined to print them, as did every major newspaper in the U.K.
The publishing of the book raised the obvious question of whether there remains a serious threat of violence if the cartoons were reprinted in the context of a book about the controversy. The Press asked the University for assistance on this question.
The University consulted both domestic and international experts on behalf of the Press. Among those consulted were counterterrorism officials in the United States and in the United Kingdom, U.S. diplomats who had served as ambassadors in the Middle East, foreign ambassadors from Muslim countries, the top Muslim official at the United Nations, and senior scholars in Islamic Studies. The experts with the most insight about the threats of violence repeatedly expressed serious concerns about violence occurring following publication of either the cartoons or other images of the Prophet Muhammad in a book about the cartoons.
Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Senior Adviser to the Secretary General, the highest ranking Muslim at the United Nations, stated, “You can count on violence if any illustration of the Prophet is published. It will cause riots I predict from Indonesia to Nigeria.”
Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed, Dean of the Under-Secretary Generals, Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, informed us, “These images of Muhammad could and would be used as a convenient excuse for inciting violent anti-American actions.”
Marcia Inhorn, Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs and Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale, said, “ I agree completely with the other expert opinions Yale has received. If Yale publishes this book with any of the proposed illustrations, it is likely to provoke a violent outcry.”
Given the quantity and quality of the expert advice Yale received, the author consented, with reluctance, to publish the book without any of these visual images.
Yale and Yale University Press are deeply committed to freedom of speech and expression, so the issues raised here were difficult. The University has no speech code, and the response to “hate speech” on campus has always been the assertion that the appropriate response to hate speech is not suppression, but more speech, leading to a full airing of views. The Press would never have reached the decision it did on the grounds that some might be offended by portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad. Indeed, Yale Press has printed books in the past that included images of the Prophet. The decision rested solely on the experts’ assessments that there existed a substantial likelihood of violence that might take the lives of innocent victims.

C Powell

I echo what Freddo and David Alexander said.

The public are heartily sick of this pre-emptive grovelling to Islamic fanatics. If we don't stand up for our culture and our values, we're going to have to fight for them just as we did 1939 - 45. Why is it so difficult for you so-called opinion formers to understand that?

Verity

Jeremy wrote, with towering rudeness, "personally, I find the"founders of religions" - figures like Moses, Christ (if he ever existed) and Mohammed - to be figures both sinister and ridiculous in equal measure."

Thank you for your considered opinion on historical figures respected by approximately 5bn people worldwide.

How do you feel about R Ron Hubbard?

Derek

There seems to be some overenthusiastic moderating going on in the Comments section of Martin Bright's post on Fitzpatrick. No one too interested in debating creeping Sharia and the demerits of a vast legal and illegal Muslim population in Britain I guess...For those wanting to keep abreast of developments in Islam's great legal system as endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, see the blog by Daniel Pipes on teeth pulling in Somalia (http://www.danielpipes.org/)

Verity

Yale Office of Public Affairs: Bullshit.

Only five or six people came out of the MoToons episode with any honour, and the first is Anders Fogh, who simply would not yield. Not even enough to give the mullahs an appointment. Then the editors of the papers that ran the toons. That's about it. Everyone else was craven.

Fergus Pickering

Verity, if the cartoons were not published in the UK, what did I see on the BNP website?

Nicholas

Reading the Yale statement made me smile. Peace at any price from the nation that fought for Liberty eh? Better not upset Mr Hitler in case he bombs London.

You'd a thunk we might have learned by now.

David Ossitt

I posted a link; at 7.38 that would have taken you directly to the original 12 cartoons plus many more pictures.

It has been censored.

It only took me five minutes to find go look and you will find.

David Ossitt

I have been censored twice today on this post; the second time because I gave a link to the cartoons.

Does anyone else agree that this attitude of The Spectator is becoming a bit sinister.

Rob

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit. But it seems absurd to publish a book on them without including them."

As absurd as publishing an article on them without including them?

Jez

Hi everyone,

Just got back from abroad and obviously had some of the Euro currency left.

Being a paraniod android i was looking at the new royal mint coins today wondering whether the national symbolism was more prominant that the token crap put on the states plunged into the Euro- eg. the new 5, 2, 1p's etc.

Has anyone noticed something quite important that has been left off.... that was on our earlier currency?

Yep. You guessed it; There's no Christain crosses- or more importantly a cross on the crown of the Queen etc.

Sneaky b******.

This place is getting pushed to a place absolutely no one but a few want it to go.... and i don't think they're clever enough to pull this off- well, without utterly knackering the whole lot of it up along the way.

Verity

Fergus Pickering - Because the censorship on this thread is so quixotic and highly personalised, and I am not sure that my last, fairly anodyne, post would pass the sentries, here it is again in different words:

Self-published websites do not count as "published in the media". The media are the accepted media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, not individuals who set up websites. All hail to the BNP for publishing the Motoons on their website, but they are not "the media".

Austin Barry

What is this crisis of confidence in the West that faced with the mad, unthinking cult of death called Islamism, we collapse in a pusillanimous heap of fear and appeasement? "Everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost...." Too true.

Steve.W

I think I've joined a club and without intention. I've had a post to a Spectator forum censored. I thought that some of the posters, by virtue of their comments, might not have seen the Muhammad cartoons so gave a link and pointed out that there is a Wikipedia page on this subject. Now I ask you, where is the harm in that?

But this post has vanished, could it be me? Well yes, but I have managed to press all the right buttons before as I'm at the head of this column with an earlier post.

So here we go again, the title of this article by James Forsyth includes the word 'cowardice'. I say it's all very well taking the Yale University Press to task for not printing the images and doing just a text only job when the Spectator has no images in the Forsyth article and dumps my post with the link.

It's fine, James Forsyth, to pretend the cartoons had “little editorial merit” when the Yale book, minus images, was the very reason for your article. So why did you bother to write about it then?

I've seen the Spectator describe itself as 'champagne for the brain'. Based on this run-around I'd say it's not so much champagne, more like cold soup, cartoon cowardice? Too right it is.

Hysteria

i think the Spectator has opened a little Pandora's box here - let's hope we get a considered view from the journos soon... many interesting points raised today that need answers

Suki

Yale Office of Public Affairs - we are all at the threat of Islamic violence. Every day.

Every day I go to work on the tube where 54 died and hundreds more were injured.

Do I have to list all the other terrorist fatalities across the globe too?

And you want to say there's a risk of violence?

Let's hope my head doesn't get blown off on the tube, then. Because I don't want to die in vain so people like you just end up grovelling even more.

This decision is a disgrace and a betrayal.

Verity

David Ossitt - Definitely agree and have thought this for several months now. We'll see whether this goes up.

Herbert Thornton

David Ossitt - You are not alone in being censored - the same happened to my post. Whoever has been entrusted to do the moderating must believe it necessary to suppress the use of words & expressions like "dhimmitude" and "supine submission".

Derek

Jez. This bears further investigation, though unfortunately I have none of the coins where I am. I have had time to look online only at this year's 1/4 oz. gold coin from the Royal Mint, which is a horror of poor design and political correctness. In the good old days, if Britannia was shown on our coinage , she was seated with her shield showing the Union Jack; (if St. George, then astride a horse and doing serious damage to a dragon - trampling underfoot, etc). On the quarter ounce coin,choosing from among a series of recent excruciatingly bad designs, the Royal Mint goes back to 1997. Britannia has no shield and therefore of course no Union Jack, but is making empty gestures in a chariot with (Iranian government please note) a trident (!) in her left (?) hand, the chariot pulled by two overweight horses. Contrast this image with Thornycroft's statue on Westminster Bridge of a right-handed, spear-holding Boadicea and her daughters. However the choice of Boadicea to represent Britannia is appropriate as a representative of the people's aspirations for independence from a government imposed from continental Europe but was more likely chosen by our masters to remind us that her rallying of her troops before the battle -‘I am fighting for my lost freedom' - only resulted in defeat and massacre.

The coin by the way informs us, as since 1997, that it is "100 pounds". What on earth is that supposed to mean?

David Ossit. There is a case to be made that publishing the cartoons would attract the attention of the Islamist murderers to Old Queen Street and that the editor's first duty is not to endanger the lives of his staff and writers, the government having partially abandoned responsibility to ensure their safety. At the same time, while I love the Spectator and look forward each week to the pleasure which it always brings, it has shown itself, like the rest of our political class, unable to address in any effective or principled manner the concerns of what I would guess is a majority of the people in the country on the issue of immigration, and particularly muslim immigration and the spread of muslim ideology and hostile organizations in Britain.This is possibly reflected in suppression of robust posts on the subject. In that regard, the magazine has the mind-set of Louis XVI who, it will be remembered, entered in his diary on 14th July 1789: "Nothing today".

Verity

Thanks for your post, Jez. Being "pushed to a place absolutely no one wants to go ...?"

Well, the Labour Party and most of the Conservative Front Bench wants to go there, so what is left that has the power to change things?

Tony Blair started to dismantle our society 13 years ago. If Dave's Tories get in - which they won't, God willing! (or, if it is more acceptable to The Speccie moderators, "in'sh'Allah"!) - then we are in for the total destruction of the country of our forebears. And it happened so quickly. Thirteen years and, say, another three for Dave - 16 years to pulverise 2,000 years of laws, history, folkways, language ... all fought for with blood and terrible pain.

David Cameron must not be allowed to slither in.

Ray

No doubt derogatory Jesus cartoons will continue to do a roaring trade.

Andy Leeds

Jez,
From memory the profile of Her Majesty used on coins and notes does not show her wearing either St Edward's Crown or the Imperial State Crown. On some earlier coins she wears King George IV state diadem, which is similar to a tiara, and on more recent coin she wears a tiara (Queen Mary's 'Girls of Great Britain Tiara).

Suki

I'm not 100% but I think Peter Hitchens has dealt with this point about the money. I don't recall anyone else speaking on it.

Peter Hitchens is very good at spotting everyday things that are loaded with signioficance that more illiterate journalists just miss completely. He's done it again today with a story on the BBC poll tax, an everyday thing that is about cultural brainwashing (just like the images on our money) but now look at this:

Loophole that could tie the BBC in knots

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1206792/Honesty-Sorry-Tory-policy.html

Fascinating.

Jim Smith

Verity - "David Cameron must not be allowed to slither in".
Who then? for goodness sake tell us.

Jay

As a Lebanese-American (Moslem) I don't what the problem with the cartoons being published. We see cartoons about Jesus with wings and about other respected figures but the main issue is that Arab countries they use everything to stir a political agenda and some small narrow minded Arabs follow idiocracy like this. In lebanon for example you can make of any political and religious figure but Hisbollah Leader causer the mouran that follow him they start burning tires and crashing people cars. I totaly understand Yale view on the issue for not wanting to create an issue and I do respect the Author view on wanting to publish with pictures but also behind both Yale and the publisher is always this higher someone else trying to push the yes and no vote for their own agenda and own interest. Thanks to all.

Verity

Well, Jim Smith, I'd like to think that cometh the hour, cometh the man ... but I'm not too sure ...

I would propose four men who would each make an outstanding and principled prime minister. All four have strong personalities (unlike the weak-faced, anodyne Dave) and good presence. All four love their country and our British society, and all four regard the present non-governance - except bossiness by park attendants and bin men - with a cold, clear eye.

David Davis. John Redwood. William Hague (who I think may now be too committed to making his fortune, and good luck to him) and Daniel Hannan. All four show acute clarity of vision.

Somehow, the Tories have to get rid of the boulder around their ankle that is David Cameron. I have never read one word in his defence in correspondence and columns and blogs.

logdon

Come on Speccie, as Freddo and many others have commented, make my day.

Publish and every right minded person in Britain will hail your courage.

You'll go down in history as being on the side of the angels.

If they come after you make it a cause celebre.

You have the power to do this.

Or is freedom of speech just another loss in an amorphous society where nothing matters?

logdon

"Suki
August 16th, 2009 10:53am

Peter Hitchens is very good at spotting everyday things that are loaded with signioficance that more illiterate journalists just miss completely."

Too bloody right! My view on Hitchens soared after watching his documentary on Nelson Mandela.

Never have I seen such honesty in the face of errant hysterical nonsense.

Like the NHS, Islam and all the other totemic shibboleths of untouchable status, Mandela has achieved immortality in the eyes of the eternally gullible.

Hitchens plowed through it all with rapier eye and exposed a few home truths.

We live in a society of frauds. PC has all but removed objective honesty from much of what passes as journalism.

I don't doubt Mandela achieved great things in his fight against the tyranny of apartheidt but looking at the basket case of SA now, for what?

Same old, same old but another colour?

logdon

Spectator. J'Accuse!

Your modding does you a grave disservice.

Joining the ranks of the intolerant offers no kudos.

I read this site and try to do my bit, often to a resounding and frustrating blank.

Others obviously agree.

If that bastion of the left, the Guardian's Comment is Free can post mod, why not adopt a similar policy?

The disclaimer covers you and offending posts can be deleted.

That way we will all see the real value of the internet in action.

Come on, the water of freedom is lovely!

And refreshing in an age where growing intolerance is a serious and real threat.

David Ossitt

Verity.

The four that I would have picked; have you noticed that they are all real men.

logdon

Where to begin on this tangled tale of Islamic superiority and world domination?

Forget the Yale thing. They are merely the usual suspect dhimmis who have regurgitated this whole catastrophe and amongst the abject cowards who bowed to Islam in the first place, thus effectively offering our traditions of free speech on a plate.

We expect nothing less from these grovelling people who would sell our birthright in return for the approval of their Arab paymasters.

Anders Fogh was one who stood firm but my hero's in all of this are the doughty Kurt Westergaard , the artist who actually drew the turban picture and the indomitable Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jylands Posten.

Westergaard lives in hiding and his teacher wife has been threatened and has had to leave her job. He is magnificently stoical, citing his age and lack of fear of death at the hand of these barbarians. Compare with the crawling pusillanimous western leaders who caved in instantly and we get the picture.

Flemming Rose, under extreme pressure has not buckled one inch. No apologies from this lone defender of all which has made western civilisation what it is. This unprepossessing man refused to back down and for that our debt is enormous.

Islam is backward precisely because of this stifling censorship. Read the numbers of books read in the whole ME compared with say, Spain in one year and it’s clear that we are way ahead of these semi illiterates, yet our powers that be bow to the cultural retards who promote this religion? Is this what they want? A return to the dark ages?

I’m not at a loss for words, in fact there are too many which could vent my anger. Way too many for a forum such as this.

Here goes. In a nut shell.

In effect we are at a crossroads of choice.

We wage wars in Muslim countries ‘to protect western values and security’, yet at every turn, domestically we roll over at any opportunity.

Whilst the death toll of soldiers in Afghanistan has reached 201, police women in Sheffield don burkas. We extend our terrorist threat to include ‘extreme right wing organisations’ because muslims are ‘upset at being targeted’.

The craven capitulation rolls to the very horizon.

When Straw that morning, on Radio Four announced his solidarity with Islamic censorship, he handed Britain hostage to the powers who would with one sweep turn our country into a caliphate. He is nothing short of a national disgrace and should have been removed instantly. We all knew what his game was, he had his muslim constituents to look after.

This was our then foreign secretary obeying the power of a religion with it’s roots in Mecca and not one peep.

Since then the victims have been the iconoclasts rather than the aggressors. Marl Steyn and Ezra Levant, facing the ire and litigation of the Canadian HRC.
Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, Oriana Fallaci, Phyllis Chesler, Melanie Phillips and so many others, all painted as panting, rabid fascists.

Meanwhile the ones who would shut down all debate get away with it, scott- free to continue their dark work of silencing us all.

PS

It ain’t over yet. France is banning the burka. Danish citizens are quite literally fighting back. Italians restricting the spread of mosques. Switzerland banning high minarets. Swedes waking up to the debacle of Rossengard. Right wing parties sweeping the board in elections. BNP gaining EU seats.

This is war!

Hysteria

I think at least a trial period of post moderation would be worth a go. One of the nice things about this site is the lack of the abuse, bad language, ad hominems etc we see on Guido and others. So if a more open forum lowers the tone too much then perhaps revert to the status quo ante...?

David Ossitt

logdon.

Thank you; thank you very much.

logdon

Hysteria
August 16th, 2009 4:57pm

I agree. Guido is fun at times and often cleverly witty in a laddish way but dominated by the usual suspects who magpie-like mob the innocently unwary.

Coffee House for me offers a serious platform which is free from all of that immaturity.

But, and there's always one isn't there? - sometimes after spending a chunk of time thinking about, honestly researching and then typing the well meaning words, to be met with a big fat zero is, putting it mildly, mildly disconcerting.

If one compares discourse here with any, and I really mean any other UK site you'll find a level of knowledge,literacy and basic spelling ability which puts most to shame.

Ever looked at what the Times comment spews out? It’s like a writing chimps tea party. All inane chatter conducted in quite insane spelling. Ah the power of modern British education, eh? All girth and no gumption.

The only comparables are American Thinker and Pajamas media where the discourse is lively yet often quite frighteningly erudite.

As for the post mod thing, I still think it would work if only to facilitate a more demonstrative poster discourse.

Right now it’s like the fabled three buses at once syndrome. Wait hours and here they come.

The resulting jumble can be quite surreal in it’s William Burroughs alike cut and paste fractured time-line.

Without the controversial subject matter of course.

Move over for the Funnies

It is perhaps no surprise that this piece on the cowardice of an American publishing press to show the Motoons should have such a surreal feel to it - for after all what is religion apart from intense ritual and pontification about the most improbable events which have been set up to require absolutes of faith and certitude?

Not to show the cartoons about a person who probably did not exist in the manner described is therefore a canny act of surrealistic theatre and the Spectator should be applauded!

Verity

1983 - Lebanon, the murder of 242 US Marines while they slept in their barracks.

1985 - The highjack of the cruise ship the Achille Lauro by Islamic aggressors.

1992 - Bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires by Islamic terrorists.

1993 - The first attempt on the WTC in NY.

2001 Bombing of the WTC in New York and the Pentagon.

2002 - Bombing of nightclub in Kuta, Bali.

2004 - The bombing of Madrid railway station at rush hour with trains packed with commuters.

2005 - Bombing of London Transport.

2009 - Bombing of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay.

These are the massacres and aggressions I can remember off the top of my head.

logdon

"David Ossitt
August 16th, 2009 5:57pm"

As an indulgence to a kind of a nostalgia trip I watched some of the Woodstock film last night.

Half a million people. Free entry. Free useage of soft drugs. Free expression from the stage. Not one death. No violence. Police praise.

Of course it was a kind of frozen moment and all changed after the chaos and killing at Altamont but would any Yale professor, educated during that heady era and maybe actually being there, see the same event happening in the lands of Al Azhar university? Then or now?

Whether or not you think that Woodstock was just a bunch of overindulged kids exploiting their own fantasies and that the drug use was an omen of far worse addictions and inner city woe is not pertinent. In the Land of the Free they were allowed that brief moment of youthful joi de vivre. Under Islam they certainly would not.

That's the difference.

If you are reading this,
Yale Office of Public Affairs, in your iveyed ivory towers, ain't cultural relativity just grand and dandy?

logdon

Verity
August 16th, 2009 7:40pm

Between the 1993 and 2001 entries, the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

A portent of 9/11. Bin Laden's first atrocity and unheeded warning to the US.

Clinton's response? Bombing a Sudanese aspirin factory and empty Afghan AQ camps.

That was the moment it all changed, reason being, if that's all the US has got they are indeed the running dog paper tigers.

Archie

Bravo, Verity (as usual!), Derek and Freddo,

Agreed that Coffee House is serious, thoughtful and LITERATE! As I've said before, the others mentioned are the refuges of scurrilous, foul-languaged, illiterate, boring trolls and oxygen thieves. I fear that lack of moderation might reduce these columns to similar, but easy on that pedal, Pete!
Let's see the cartoons, Speccer. Time to stand up and be counted!

Hysteria

logdon - thanks

Another problem I think is the lack of any cross referencing between posts - many of the topics overlap but there is no easy way to to search, sort by poster/date/topic etc.

As you say, there are real experts posting here (see also Burning our Money and the Oil Drum for similar levels of erudition).

I thought maybe a chat environment would be worth a try - perhaps with volunteer moderators, or maybe a subscription service.

I guess one of the reasons for the "three bus syndrome" is the time zones - I am still having fun posting here in Texas when all the folks back home are asleep!

Nicholas

Verity, your list is good but the atrocities go back further into the 1960's with the activities of the PLO. I lump them altogether. Since the 1960's Arab/Muslim terrorists have committed crimes against humanity all over the world. Personally I would not let a single one of them travel anywhere on any form of transport.

logdon the lack of response to your comments probably has more to do with the Coffee House's weekend slowdown where only a few seem to make through it the slumbering and abandoned offices.

Herbert Thornton

Fergus said he'd seen the cartoons on the BNP website but - since sometime yesterday I think - the site has been shown as unavailable. It makes me wonder whether websites that carry quotations touching on this topic from people such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Manuel II Palaiologos, Kemal Atatürk and Winston Churchill will also soon become "unavailable"?

Jeremy

Variety:

"How do you feel about R Ron Hubbard?"

You mean L Ron Hubbard - the hack author of extremely bad science fiction.

Jeremy

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit..."

Apologies for my third post to this thread, James, but I just wanted to let you know - having looked at the cartoons again - that you would have been quite right not to publish them. They are badly drawn and unfunny - simple as that.

Fearless Frank

Jeremy
August 16th, 2009 10:54pm

"The Muhammad Cartoons are not something that I would have published; they were of little editorial merit..."
...you would have been quite right not to publish them. They are badly drawn and unfunny - simple as that.

Yes, but whatever their failings as cartoons, the fact that they sparked a wave of outrage, the reaction to that outrage and the fact that they are now the subject of a (presumably) learned tome gives them documentary importance.

Steve.W

Jeremy – Tell me what you think of the Spectator cartoons, I'd value your opinion.

Derek

My personal lesson in the temptation to appease Islam took the form of a Scotch egg.

It was in the very early 1980s and I was living in Balham. Close to the Underground station was a little family grocer's shop serving the general population. The family, Ismaili muslims whose leader is the Aga Khan, had fled to Great Britain from Uganda after Idi Amin's men had stolen their business and threatened their lives.

One day, I noticed that there had been none of the Scotch eggs on sale which I had been in the custom of buying from time to time on my way home from work.

The head of the family, an extremely friendly, articulate and serious man, had discovered that they were made with pork and had taken them off the shelves so as to prevent both believers and infidels from falling into error.

Who is to say what our next Scotch egg will be?

Verity

logdon
August 16th, 2009 8:34pm - Thank you and you are correct.

Also, how did it slip my mind that during the last waning days of the Carter administration, the Iranians, against every international diplomatic code that even crap nations follow, seized the American embassy in Teheran, murdered some of the staff, and held the American embassy for over a year, while Carter wrung his hands and tried to understand them, until ONE MINUTE AFTER President Reagan took the oath of office, when they surrendered it.

Tells ya something, does it not?

Jeremy, yes, thanks, it was a typo. Most of us have heard of L Ron Hubbard who, whatever your literary critique, managed to get a cult going. I asked you what you thought of him.

You have missed the point about the MoToons. Correct; they were not funny, although the turban as a bomb was a good stab at humour. "Simple as that", you write with such overweening superiority.

Do you understand that these were commissioned by the Danish paper and these cartoonists were the only ones brave enough to come forward? None of them was Noel Coward, none of them was Ronald Searle, but they came forward to be on the team that was making a point.

Your denigration of the talent of these brave people who came forward to make a point really is a little de trop.

Derek

Pause for reflection.

Jeremy at 10.54pm seems to be missing the point: the criterion for publication in this instance is not whether the cartoons are funny or not or well or badly drawn.

Mr. Forsyth writes "It is also worrying that Yale University Press’s reason for not including the cartoons is because it fears that they would spark violence".

That's the real point and presumably that is also the Spectator's reason for not publishing the cartoons to accompany Mr. Forsyth's blog.

Is there really a contradiction here in Mr. Forsyth's position? Although my first reaction was to note the apparent contradiction and by implication unfairly accuse the Spectator of a lack of "bottle", on reflection I think it is a sound reason, as I would not want to see the Islamofascists and their hangers on attacking the magazine's staff and offices to make a point of principle. If I were the editor, that would have to be my first concern.

In the same way, it is the government's first duty to protect its citizens; but the government, unlike the editor of the Spectator his staff and offices, has the means to do this and its failure to use those means is the appeasement at issue in this matter for us in Great Britain.

The Spectator's fault is in not condemning as comprehensively as it should by articles and editorials over the past years the government's failure on this score - no doubt for fear of being accused of being, in the solecism of the day, "racist".

Laura

Derek spectacularly misses the point: "It is also worrying that Yale University Press’s reason for not including the cartoons is because it fears that they would spark violence."

As others point out, we are under the threat of Islamic terror every day, why grovel on this point?

Censoring these cartoons just says: "Yes, we are dhimmis, because your threat of violence means you decide what's allowable and what's not."

It tells the enemy we are afraid.

Remember the Rushdie affair? Nothing did more to inflame Islamic aggression in the UK than the failure to clamp down on on what the Islamist thugs got up to back then.

Have we learned nothing?

Steve.W

I've been censored again! This time my crime was to challenge a line in the post from Yale University Press. I also gave a link to the Guardian that had an article giving a different view to YUP.

Then I quoted Sheila Blair, professor of Islamic and Asian art at Norma Jean Calderwood University and one of the authorities consulted by Yale about publication, said she had "strongly urged" the press to publish the images.

Naughty me eh?

David Blackburn

Steve W,

I've been through the system and we've not received the comment you refer to in your above post. Please re-send it. If you have any further questions, contact me at dblackburn @ spectator.co.uk

Many thanks,

Steve.W

David B – Thank you for your efforts, here it is.

In the Yale University Press statement above one of the points made is the agreement of the experts they consulted that trouble would surely follow if the YUP book about the cartoons went ahead with the images.

However, there was according to this article - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/14/publisher-bans-images-muhammad

no such thing as a general and total agreement. As Sheila Blair, professor of Islamic and Asian art at Norma Jean Calderwood University and one of the authorities consulted by Yale about publication, said she had "strongly urged" the press to publish the images.

logdon

Blowback?

This is not spite but I'm sure that for a large percentage of Danes, the Motoon attack marked a turning point.

Liberal as Denmark is, they've evaluated and reclaimed the original virtue of the term which has been hijacked by the Frankfurt School PCniks for political gain.

For the latter, multiculturalism and acceptance of the dilution of native cultures in favour of a hotchpotch stew is the pinnacle of liberality.

This blind eyes the fact that the imported traits can be based on platforms of mysogny, homophobia and hatred of others ouside their sphere of religion.

No matter, squawk the Frankfurters. Who are we to impose our western decadence on these people, merely because they have chosen to live in our societies? We are not petty, insular nationalists, look where that lead to in the 1930's.

That's basically how it goes and the flaws are showing already.

The gravest of which is when, as is always the case, a pecking order emerges. There is no such thing as a level playing field in humankind.

So, bolstered by their own infallibility of faith, a multitude of laws ringfencing their religious rights and a wahabbi mindset pushing for dawa, proseletisation and dominance of their own shariah law, the Islamists held all the cards.

Little by little the ante was upped. The incremental weighting of the scales shifted and pretty soon these people submitted to the misguided impression that they could call the shots.

One of which was telling Danes what they could and could not publish in their own country.

Wrong move and a massive over reach. Danes have decided that their original version of liberality was quite sufficient, thankyou.

Furthermore free speech and universal rights were the unimpeachable planks on which the raft of enlightenment floated. The Danish answer is therefore,an unequivocal, No Deal.

This latest news comes on the heels of similar moves in France and doesn’t it shame Britain that the most we can do is having an MP walk out of a segregated Muslim wedding?

I’ll not bang on about cradle of democracy, but I’m sure most will understand where the strand of thought was headed.

"Denmark: Conservative Party proposes burka ban

A ban on burkas is part of a series of integration initiatives adopted by the Conservative Party. Another such initiative is to integrate democracy and Danish values into the curriculum of private schools.

In an interview with Danish newspaper Politiken Lene Espersen, the head of the Conservative People's Party and the current Trade and Economy Minister, said that the greatest threat against Denmark and Danish values comes from militant Muslim extremism. Espersen said that immigrants can go to work and earn a living yet still live in a parallel society where they see Arab and Pakistani TV at home and have no connection to Danish society. She says they will reach out to those who see the wisdom in the Danish social model, and that they intend to offer a carrot and not only a stick.

The Danish People Party and the opposition Social Democrats support the proposal to ban burkas. The Coalition partner Liberal Party, however, rejects such legislation."

Folly

In their statement of 13 August, the American Association of University Professors deplore the decision and its potential consequences.

They interpret YUP's current position as follows: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands."

Verity

It may be of interest, and add to the feeling of rising nausea when one contemplates Britain, to know that Turkey, around 98% Muslim, has banned the burqa in public. Women can still wear hijabs - the scarf around their heads - but no burqas in public.

Morocco has gone one step further, having banned burqas, but also does not now allow hijabs to be worn on government premises. So a woman wearing a hijab has to take it off if she wants to go into the Post Office, for example.

As we know, France banned burqas on school property and has, for years, banned burqas and hijabs for workers in government buildings. Sarkozy is now in the process of banning that ridiculous women's Muslim swimming gear in public pools.

Pretty soon, Britain will be the only country in the advanced world where the streets are full of Hallowe'en ghouls.

Derek

Laura. I don't of course agree that I have missed the point, spectacularly or otherwise. I was suggesting a pause for reflection on the dilemma faced by the Spectator, which presumably considered whether Mr. Forsyth's blog should be accompanied by photos of the cartoons or not.

How can I make the reality of the dilemma clear to you?

I know - try this, Laura.

Stand in Blackburn town centre (or Trafalgar Square if you will - but not Winchester) for two hours during the daytime at a weekend holding up a placard bearing an enlargement of one of the Danish cartoons (Google "Danish cartoons"). You may, if you choose, add the words "No appeasement of Islamofascism". Make sure that the placard bears your name, address, and contact numbers printed legibly.

Take a friend along with a camera.

This will tell the enemy that you are not afraid and that you have not learned nothing.

Photographs and report to this site, please.

Derek

By the way, Mark Steyn has noted that Yale has now extended the ban on the cartoons "to any and all representations of Mohammed, including great works of art that have been reproduced in thousands of books over the years. They're saying so long not just to a few no-name Jutland doodlers but to Gustave Doré, Botticelli, Blake, and Dante".

David Ossitt

"and that you have not learned nothing"?

As clear as Marmite.

Derek

David Ossit. Please cross-refer
Laura
August 17th, 2009 10:02am

Parallectual

Is it possible that John Donatich took the decision for commercial reasons, hoping thereby to avoid offending influential Saudi Arabian backers, and used the threat of potential violence as a ruse to censor the cartoon images?

David Ossitt

Derek.

I am sorry about that; I had missed Laura, all is now crystal clear.

Herbert Thornton

This morning, Canada's National Post newspaper published (in its printed version) a robust article by Christopher Hitchens with the headline "Appeasing The Extremists". It was accompanied by the cartoon.

David Ossitt

Herbert Thornton.

"It was accompanied by the cartoon."

Herbert; there were twelve.

Herbert Thornton

David - Yes, I know. But it was the most potent one - the one with the bomb in the turban and a burning fuse. Perhaps I should have written "THE" cartoon.

Verity

David Ossitt, well, it's a start.

Derek - "They're saying so long not just to a few no-name Jutland doodlers but to Gustave Doré, Botticelli, Blake, and Dante".

Derek - Well, it'll be a long goodbye because in Iran, you can buy representations, including copies of famous ones, of Mohammad, in shops and markets and no one blinks an eye.

It's the Saudi nut jobs and their Pakistani and African hangers on who think the world will explode if anyone limns Mohammad. These are the nut jobs who go around knocking noses off statues - including statues of horses.

David Ossitt

There must have been dozens of posts not let through on this page, I had at least two stopped.

Lets see if they will let this through.

For me the funniest cartoon was the one where an individual is seen on a cloud shouting, stop stop we have run out of virgins.

Adonis

Robert Spencer writing in 2005:

The cartoon controversy indicates the gulf between the Islamic world and the post-Christian West in matters of freedom of speech and expression. And it may yet turn out that as the West continues to pay homage to its idols of tolerance, multiculturalism, and pluralism, it will give up those hard-won freedoms voluntarily.