It’s hard to believe that almost eighteen years have passed since the onset of the Danish Mohammed Cartoon Crisis. Kurt Westergaard’s “Turban Bomb” was the iconic image for the affair, but it’s important to remember than twelve cartoons were actually commissioned and published by Jyllands-Posten, and one of the others is shown at the top of this post.
Dymphna and I covered the Motoons — for that was the shortened version of the name that rapidly emerged in the blogosphere — in the early days of this blog. Then, a couple of years later, when I became more closely involved with the European Counterjihad, I was able to make the acquaintance of some of those doughty Danes, and got to know the Scandinavian scene fairly well.
Back then Denmark was refreshingly different. Not only did the Danes tolerate political incorrectness, they even celebrated it on certain occasions. And freedom of speech was vigorously defended, even by government ministers.
That was then; this is now.
The Danish government is planning to reintroduce a blasphemy law so that the burning of Korans can be forbidden. They have been successfully mau-maued by Muslim leaders — including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who demand that the Danes and the Swedes forbid their citizens to engage in activities that Islam deems offensive.
This is a watershed moment in the history of the West. It marks the beginning of the official transfer of power from the secular humanists to the proponents of sharia. The process will be slow, but inexorable. It will probably take a couple of decades before it is complete. In the end, the tenets of Islamic law will reign supreme in what were formerly known as the Western democracies. Savvy and cynical politicians and bureaucrats will convert to Islam in order to enjoy the privileges and perquisites of the new system. Those who don’t will become second-class citizens.
It will take a while, but we’ll get there in the end.
One of the people I was privileged to meet during my involvement with the European Counterjihad was the redoubtable Mark Steyn, who has been untiring in his struggle against sharia and in support of free speech. His latest essay is a retrospective on the Motoon crisis, and a somber recognition of the emergence of a dhimmi government in Denmark — The Danes, Gelded. Below are some excerpts:
Many years ago, my compatriot Ezra Levant observed that one day the Danish Mohammed cartoons would come to be seen as a more consequential event than 9/11. Not in the overall death toll, obviously — although the corpse count of the Motoons continues to rise (Charlie Hebdo et al) — but in its lessons for a free society’s enemies. 9/11 led to two decades of ineffectual warmongering in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the goatherds with fertilizer soon had the measure of that. But the cartoons and the west’s reaction to them told the world that we would not defend core liberties such as freedom of speech. You don’t need to blow up our skyscrapers; we’re happy to surrender to subtler pressures.
And here we are eighteen years later, with the Danish Government proposing to criminalize the burning of the Koran and make it an offense punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.
So:
~In 2005 Jyllands-Posten, one of the biggest-selling newspapers in Denmark, as part of an exploration of the state of free speech, was willing to publish a dozen cartoons of Mohammed by prominent cartoonists.
~In 2010, on the fifth anniversary, I was given an award by the Danish Free Press Society and appeared on stage with the society’s founder Lars Hedegaard and fellow freespeechers from across the Continent: the Norwegian comedienne Shabana Rehman, the Dutch cartoonist Nekschot, the Swedish artist Lars Vilks and the Danish-Iranian actor Farshad Kholghi.
If those names don’t ring a lot of bells for you, here’s the scorecard so far:
- Shabana Rehman’s family restaurant was firebombed, and she was forced to live under 24/7 police protection, which is not terribly conducive to a career in observational comedy. She died of cancer last year at the age of forty-six;
- Nekschot was already under so many death threats that he could only appear at public engagements with his face obscured and unidentifiable. So in Copenhagen that day he chose to wear a burqa. Funny, but not quite secure enough. He had already been arrested for “hate speech” with the Dutch authorities openly taunting him about the impending loss of his anonymity. The year after our appearance in Denmark, he gave up cartooning and went into hiding. I assume he is still alive;
- Lars Vilks was speaking at an event on art and blasphemy when a Muslim opened fire with a semi-automatic. A Danish film director was killed and three police officers. The jihad boy then went to a nearby synagogue and killed a second man. Lars retired from public life, and died in 2021 with two of his security detail when their unmarked police car crashed;
- oh, and our host Lars Hedegaard was shot at point blank range, but fortunately by an incompetent. So Lars survived, but his opponent managed to flee to Turkey.
Most of the above did not impinge on the media in a big way: There were no celebrities wearing #JeSuisLars buttons. Nevertheless, of the six who were on stage that day in 2010, there would be only two of us today: me and Farshad Kholghi, last men standing in an Agatha Christie for the jihad set — And Then There Were None. Come to think of it, that might make a blackly comic play, or novel, or film… But good luck finding a publisher or producer.
~In 2015, on the tenth anniversary, I was back in Copenhagen, this time with Douglas Murray:
Like Mark Steyn I’ve been doing these ‘defend free speech’ gigs for some years now and as Mark recently mordantly observed, I also sometimes wonder why I keep ascending up the running order only to realise that it’s because everybody who used to be ahead of me is either in hiding or dead.
As Douglas also remarked:
The event will be in the Danish Parliament apparently because it’s the only place in Denmark sufficiently secure enough that — we hope — the now traditional gunmen won’t be able to get in and shoot everyone.
[…]
As Marie [Krarup] said, the walls of Christiansborg are “thick and massive”. However, I woke up on the morning of the event to find that both the US State Department and the British Foreign Office had issued travel advisories warning their nationals to steer clear of both Copenhagen in general and Christiansborg Palace in particular.
Indeed. You don’t want to be caught in the shootout at a free-speech event, do you? I doubt either the US Congress or the British Parliament would have agreed (under any circumstances) to permit a conference to be held under a giant portrait of Mohammed [top right] at the heart of the Capitol or the Palace of Westminster. Katrine, Marie and a small but determined group fought hard against the remorseless, suffocating urge to appease. And to be sitting in the heart of the Danish establishment with the Big Mo scowling above me was itself a modestly encouraging sign.
But it was on a day without many others. As Katrine alludes to above, Jyllands-Posten marked the tenth anniversary by re-publishing a perfect facsimile of the newspaper page as it had appeared in 2005 — except with white space where the cartoons had been.
“So sad,” said Katrine. “Violence works.”
That day, I was protected, as I have been on all post-cartoon visits to Copenhagen, by men from the PET — the Danish Security and Intelligence Service. Marie had booked a post-conference dinner at a fashionable restaurant, but they figured out why we needed security and declined to honor our booking.
So by the tenth anniversary it was not just that once publishable cartoons are now unpublishable, but that figures even tangentially associated with them can’t get a table in a restaurant.
We wound up in a pub called the Mouse and Elephant in what Douglas characterized as feeling like “a party at the end of the world”. Indeed. Post-Christian Europe is a mouse that decided to get into bed with the elephant of Islam; eventually, the elephant will roll over — and crush the mouse.
~In 2020, on the fifteenth anniversary, there was no conference, not because Douglas and I were dead, but because it was Covid Year One and there was no nothing, anywhere. With hindsight, I think one can see that as a convergence of interests on the part of the jihad and progressive wisdom: You can come to your assault on free speech because you won’t hear a word against Mohammed… or because you won’t permit “disinformation” on Covid, climate change, whatever. The men who shoot up Lars Vilks events and those who try to get doctors struck off for disagreeing with the official propaganda are merely at different points on the same continuum. “Free speech” is a fringe cause now, for the “alt-right” and such like. Which would surprise Lars Vilks and Nekschot and Charlie Hebdo, because, until they fell out with Mohammed, they were all more or less conventional Euro-lefties.
~And so in 2023 the Danish Government plans to re-introduce blasphemy laws — but for the incoming state religion. And it barely makes the papers.
Frustrated Danes burn Korans because what else can you do? The gradual but remorseless Islamization of European societies would seem unlikely to end well. But what options do you have if you’re minded to disagree? You can’t talk about it, honestly, on British or Continental TV or radio. You can vote for anti-immigration parties, but, even if they win, nothing significant ever seems to happen. So a couple of blokes burn Korans — and the establishment reacts by further insulating Islam from the rough-and-tumble of free societies.
I have profound admiration for all those who have resisted the grim retreat into darkness these last two decades: Flemming Rose, the commissioning editor at Jyllands-Posten; the late Kurt Westergaard and the other cartoonists; Lars and Katrine and Marie; and all the dead and vanished across the Continent. But it is a lonely business: as I said way back in 2005, when the cartoon controversy was front-page news but the cartoons themselves weren’t, if Le Monde and The New York Times and Der Spiegel had simply reported this as they would any other story, that would have been an effective response: they can’t kill us all. But, because the only other publications to re-print the Motoons were Charlie Hebdo and my own magazine in Canada The Western Standard, they were able instead to silence us one by one.
To the point where, less than two decades later, a European country introducing an Islamic blasphemy law isn’t even a story at all.
Read the rest at Steyn Online.
Hat tip: Steen.
@ Baron
Re: “The Danish government is planning to reintroduce a blasphemy law so that the burning of Korans can be forbidden. They have been successfully mau-maued by Muslim leaders — including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who demand that the Danes and the Swedes forbid their citizens to engage in activities that Islam deems offensive.”
If the Danes go through with this, if they surrender their birthright as free human beings with the ancient rights of free speech and expression, then they have already been beaten by those who would rule them.
French philosopher Voltaire is alleged to have said, “If you want to know who rules over you, find out whom you are not allowed to criticize…” By that standard, Denmark is now ruled by Turkish President Recep Erdogan and not by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen or Queen Margrethe II of the royal family.
“This is a watershed moment in the history of the West. It marks the beginning of the official transfer of power from the secular humanists to the proponents of sharia. The process will be slow, but inexorable.”
If the so-called leaders of nations like Denmark are appeasing Islam, then they are de facto enemies of their own nations and people, and of their own civilization… not withstanding whatever lofty and impressive titles they may hold.
There is no more implacable force, no more determined enemy, of the West than Islam. The Muslims have tried for almost 1,500 years to conquer the heretofore Christian world of the West. Thus far, they have not been successful via force of arms, but they are persistent and determined, and where arms have failed, other more-subtle tactics seem to be working.
It is germane, however, to note that Islam as an entity is highly-opportunistic and tends to strike when its adversaries are weak or preoccupied. The soldiers of Allah are just one of the weapons being used to dismantle and destroy the West. What Europeans ought to ask is – who is holding the weapon and training it upon our civilization?
Phrased differently, in olden times, the Saracens would have had to fight their way into Europe proper. Today, however, the proverbial red carpet is being laid out to welcome them inside the gates of one European country after another. Someone or something is rolling out the welcome mat, because none of this is happening by accident.
So – who has unlocked the gates of the West and left them open, thereby admitting Europe’s oldest and most-implacable enemy?
Until Europe and Europeans ask and answer that question truthfully and without the blinders of political correctness, no coherent defense of her society is possible. It is impossible to survive – let alone win – a war you refuse to admit exists.
“It is germane, however, to note that Islam as an entity is highly-opportunistic and tends to strike when its adversaries are weak or preoccupied.”
Islam is the civilizational equivalent of a staphylococcus infection.
“So – who has unlocked the gates of the West and left them open, thereby admitting Europe’s oldest and most-implacable enemy?”
That is “the” question but the answer is too taboo even for GoV.
This is further obfuscated by multiple layers of dupes and useful idiots who think they are acting out of whatever vapid motives they have been brainwashed to believe in; the ignorant young females waving “Migrants Welcome” placards are not responsible. And, the rentier parasites who charge the government extortionary rates to house the orcs in five star hotels are likewise not responsible. Even the politicians who allow the borders to be opened to the orcish hordes are not the instigators of this, but merely the servants doing their master’s bidding. As with almost everything political it is not dreamed up or done at their own initiative but ordered by those who fund their campaigns. This uber-wealthy donor class who are the pinnacle of financial parasitism could have been content to just swim in pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck, yet they persist in funding politicians and causes which are highly destructive of western civilization, Christianity, and ethnic white racial perpetuation. Who is putting them up to this and for what purpose is the real core of the onion once all the layers have been unpeeled.
It but takes less than 1% of the population to lead a nation and somewhere waiting in the wings are the strong and ruthless hard men who at some point will take over, it is natural for European men to do so. Then the Great Purge of all things 3rd world in the west can begin in earnest. There is no voting out of this mess any longer and thinking so is nothing but wishful thinking. Why you bloody Brits haven’t armed up by whatever means necessary simply boggles my mind, and don’t bloody tell the laws says you can’t, it is your God given right to self protection and the state DOES NOT have the monopoly on force, YOU DO! Start doing something about it, block by bloc and village by village and so forth. an army of a million lone wolves cannot be infiltrated by the spooks and circumvented. So start being the Wolf instead of the bleating sheep that you have become.
It’s not just a GB and Ireland collapse. How’s the US and Canada doing?
Just as hosed as the rest of the west except, we are armed to the teeth in the US.
The first step that has to be taken is an awakening and return to God through Jesus Christ. A numb and Godless society has got to start there.
As it is now, Europe and the USA have forsaken Christianity which leaves an open door for Satan to rush in and take over.
Amen.
100% correct Georgiaboy, I amongst many others have been saying for years, that the power of Islam is and has been moving towards its goals-the Gates of Vienna are now open! As and Englishman, whose Parents/Grandparents fought so hard to keep Britain safe and Free, now have to tolerate the immoral self serving intellectual politicians- intellectual in very small print. Britain lost its statemen with the departure of Maggie Thatcher, woman she may have been but steadfastly British she certainly was. The construct of the European Union whish was first introduced back in 1940’s was never something that Britain should have been involved in. Frankly I feel it was a disaster in many ways for most European Countries. Germany in particular opened the door to invasion of Islam.
Merkel started, and now Greens , SPD , FDP , will finished.. heartbreaking..
As soon as Germany lost the war, Britain lost it’s empire and went soft socialism to where we are today. The nation of Britain is sheep led by more sheep. Who could have thought that Britain, a nation of Lions who led lions and was run by donkey’s. It is too bad young William can’t take over and march on Parliament and direct rule and hang all those bloody traitors, either run out every 3rd worlder of put them to the sword, because that is the only way out of this mess now.
@ Tarien
Re: “The construct of the European Union whish was first introduced back in 1940’s was never something that Britain should have been involved in. Frankly I feel it was a disaster in many ways for most European Countries. Germany in particular opened the door to invasion of Islam.”
I’m old-enough to remember the days of the European Common Market, which was the economic predecessor of the actual EU itself. As with many others, I did not recognize at the time that it was the thin end of the wedge which would lead to the supra-national European Union and the rise of globalism on that continent.
It was all a giant bait-and-switch, since what ordinary Europeans were promised and what they actually got were very different things. Knowing what they know about the state of things today in their communities and nations, how many would support the idea now?
It is tempting to blame Germany for the vast influx of culture enrichers, as our host likes to say, but it isn’t that simple. There is ample blame to go around, in other nations and upon other heads.
In Britain, the royal family drank the multicultural Kool-Aid a long time ago, and not even the late Queen Elizabeth II, hailed by many as the last sovereign of ‘old Britain,’ put a stop to the de facto invasion of her nation. She could have exercised her prerogatives as queen, but chose not to do so. Prince Charles, well, the less said about that nit-wit the better…
Alas, my own country, the United States, had a central role back in the 1950s and 1960s in introducing the Muslim Brotherhood into the heart of Europe. That sad story is told in the book, “A Mosque in Munich” by Ian Johnson. The CIA, up to their usual tricks, thought that they could use the Ikhwan as a weapon of anti-communism during the Cold War, but instead of Langley using them, the spies ended up being used in return by the Muslim Brothers.
In France in the 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle sought a means of creating a third way or path of reasserting French prominence on the world stage, one separate and apart from the NATO bloc on one hand and the Warsaw Pact on the other. He did this in part by strengthening ties with the former nations of French Northwest Africa and the Arab world.
Renowned historian B’at Yeor discusses this at length in one of her books. The actions of the vainglorious de Gaulle threw open the door of La Belle France to the Saracens. What the soldiers of Allah had been unable to achieve at Tours over a millennium ago, they now seemed poised to do today.
Returning to Germany, you are correct insofar as her recent political leaders – such as former Chancellor Angela Merkel – have been openly Islamophilic. Mutti Merkel has “gone native” to such an extent that I expected her to don a burka one of these days and proclaim her conversion to Islam openly. She threw open the door to the Turks, who now vote in German elections as well as Turkish ones. The Germans wring their hands, but do nothing.
The reason offered for all of this dramatic demographic change is that since ordinary natives of Germany have not sired children enough to fund the welfare state and run the economy, “immigrants” will be needed instead. It is by the use of such rhetorical fig leaves that the population there is being replaced by the shahids from the old Ottoman Empire. And so it goes…
It is too bad the Legion didn’t succeed in assassinating ole De Gaulle after he threw the army and Legion under the bus in favor of the islamic orcs.
Your aug 27 story, “the reformation”, and this one, go hand in hand and are quite remarkable.
Very succinct and a sad reminder of why we are in this situation today. Thank you for posting.
The government wants to make it an issue of national security now, when the proper reaction would be to get rid of those who threaten it by reacting with violence. And this is the whole point the Koran burnings intend to make visible and palpable, to awaken public consciousness about the danger allowed to grow on its own home soil. Otherwise nobody would bother doing such a thing, or it simply wouldn’t catch much attention at all. A certain Mr. Quisling made himself a very famous name by following this sort of logic, maybe he had a reason in his time as the threat was coming from outside. Now it’s the same line of politicians who created it in the first place and refuse to take responsibility for it.
Violence at this point is the only bloody thing that is going to save you.
Truth: “This is a watershed moment in the history of the West. It marks the beginning of the official transfer of power from the secular humanists to the proponents of sharia.”
The Marxists’ 100 year plan and Islam’s dawah has been and continues to be extremely successful at dislocating the West from its faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But our Creator desires to save us:
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
II Chronicles 7:14