Back in August of last year, Diana West wrote about the dhimmitude of Yale University Press, whose (now ironic) motto, Lux et Veritas now ought to read Darkness and Lies. Or perhaps Fear and Cowering. Whatever they call themselves, we judged them by their deeds. In that case, it was their craven decision to remove all illustrations of Mohammed from a book under their imprint, The Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen.
Yale University Press claimed the authority of an craven anonymous two dozen poo-bahs who, Yale said, had advised them not to include the illustrations in a book about pictures of Mohammed.
There were to be no pictures. None. Nada. Not just the cartoons, but engravings from the Dutch, medieval Persian and French illustrations, even a laudatory Indian Mughal carpet from the 17th century.
How about the frieze of Mohammed in the Supreme Court? Banned with the rest.
And why? Because they were afraid of any scimitar-happy Jihadists who might use them as examples. It all boiled down to fear, though they sugar-coated their cowardice with concern for others. Uh huh. Sure.
Fortunately, Dr. Hull at Voltaire Press was not so easily dissuaded. In fact, Yale University Press’ decision was the catalyst for his own book, a slim volume of the banned images. I bought a copy of Dr. Hull’s book through Amazon. I was surprised at the games Amazon played with this initially; they must have been intimidated by someone because they took three weeks to get the book to me. And on their site, they claimed there would be a delay, though when I emailed Dr. Hull he said he had thousands of volumes. What, Amazon thought maybe we would go away if they took too long?
Now it turns out that The Metropolitan Museum of Art is just as dhimmified as Yale because it has pulled all its Mohammed art also. This is obviously an infectious disease of some sort and the vector is Islam, at least in its latest, most virulent form.
The New York Post wonders if the Met is afraid:
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011, The Post has learned.
The museum said the controversial images — objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder — were “under review.”
Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.
“This is typical of the Met — trying to avoid any controversy,” said a source with inside knowledge of the museum.
The Met currently has about 60 items from its 60,000-piece Islamic collection on temporary display in a corner of its vast second-floor Great Hall while larger galleries are renovated. But its three ancient renderings of Mohammed are not among them.
“We have a very small space at the moment in which to display the whole sweep of Islamic art,” said spokeswoman Egle Zygas. “They didn’t fit the theme of the current installation.”
Does she sound nervous or what? Since when did curators become interior decorators? “They didn’t fit the theme of the current installation.” [“And not only that, but we like breathing in and out”, she didn’t say].
This isn’t their first p.c. move:
Three years ago, the Met changed its “Primitive Art Galleries” to the “Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas” for the sake of political correctness, said author Michael Gross, author of “Rogues’ Gallery,” a book about the Met.
Political correctness is ubiquitous. I tried to get a synonym for “savage” from the Thesaurus in Word. Guess what. The words “savage” and “savagery” are not there. Too primitive for Microsoft or what?? I was looking for an alternative to “savage criticism” but came up with nothing. I haven’t tried “terrorist” but that’s probably in the process of being stuffed down the memory hole even as you read this.
If people are becoming more paranoid, it’s no wonder when our leading institutions are so pusillanimous…oh, I just checked: “pusillanimous” is evidently a safe word so I am permitted to choose “lily-livered”, “spineless”, and “cowardly”. That’s y’all, Yale and the Met. Choose your adjective and wear it proudly but don’t think they’ll spare your infidel necks just because you submitted. Good heavens, people, they kill one another. Why would they save you?
Here’s a gauge to indicate how safe we are: when they send workers up the side of the Supreme Court Building to chip away Mohammed’s image, you’ll know we’re dead meat.
And if you want some gallows humor, click on to the Post article and read the advice from the Yale advisor to the Met. Sheesh.
Hat tip: Diana West
Next we’ll be told we mustn’t teach Dante’s Divine Comedy in schools or enjoy Mozart’s Idomeneo…
Those are the real Islamophobes.
I’m surprised the argument is not returned upon them more often.
Actually, I have a piece of advice : whenever a Leftist accuses you of something silly, try turning the tables on him. Tell him he’s the ***, or the ***, or whatever. And explain him why.
You’d be surprised how often it works.
It works with “Islamophobe”. It works with “racist”.
This usually leaves them speechless. They are so accustomed to claiming the moral high ground, and getting away with it, that they cannot imagine being called to task on such grounds.
Because they were afraid of any scimitar-happy Jihadists who might use them as examples.
Yet, in their abject cowardice, they become just that, pluperfect “examples” of yet one more Islamic victory won without firing a shot or unsheathing a scimitar.
The very nature of predatory ideologies like Islam or other rapacious entities of their ilk allows anything short of an undeniably conspicuous and crushing physical defeat to be interpreted by them as an unalloyed victory. Worst of all is how, not just appeasing liberals but, nearly every contender in this sordid mockery of a global conflict consistently fails to recognize the inherent “no-win” nature of all non-military interaction with Muslims.
Appeasement of Islam enters the same self-defeating cul-de-sac as all other negotiation, dialogue, compromise or any other form of accepted diplomatic exchange. Muslims will twist, distort, reformulate, rescript or weaponize any aspect of normal relations in order to obtain even the least extra bit of situational advantage.
Pre-emptive concessions will always be interpreted as nothing but an open invitation to make even more rigorous and exacting demands.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. − Sir Winston Churchill
When the food supply runs out, you end up, as the Chinese say; “Feeding the tiger with your own flesh”. This is precisely what we are seeing now. No matter how hard-won they originally might have been, the supposedly less vital and more easily-dispensed-with individual liberties or freedoms that we currently enjoy are systematically being eviscerated from us so as to feed the insatiable Islamic crocodile in a vain and delusional hope that it will not begin snapping at the very legs that support modern civilization.
Only a Western world comprised of several generations that have enjoyed global peace, unheralded proserity and previously unknown security−without having gone to battle for it−could possibly delude itself into believing that a rapacious predator like Islam will be sated by being allowed to gorge itself upon the supposedly nonessential appendages of civilization. All the while pretending that this ravening beast will never develop an appetite for those more vital organs of the West’s body politic.
Culpable as these generations of complacently smug individuals most certainly are, far more depraved and guilty is the Western political leadership that continues to, one small amputation at a time, dismember modern civilization in their haste to feed the Islamic crocodile.
The innermost core of everlasting Hell cannot adequately reward these traitors.
I understand why Islam doesn’t like images of its founder – who’d want to have a picture of a paedophile on the wall?