Documentary by Claus Josten and Claudio Lange about the anti-Islamic message of Romanesque sculpture in Europe (Spain and France, 11th and 12th century). English subtitles, three You Tube parts.

Westergaards forgængere havde  meget få fine fornemmelser. Over 1 mio groft obskøne kirke-afbildninger af muslimer, man med sikkerhed ikke ville se i en nutidig avis.

Khader: “Nu siger han ikke direkte undskyldning, men han er meget, meget tæt på”

Kritik af Fogh fra interessant hold, både personmæssigt og partimæssigt. Bemærk i øvrigt billedet her: Den tidligere iranske præsident Khatami trykker Foghs venstre hånd. Umiddelbart ville jeg opfatte dette som helt uhørt, men svaret må formentlig findes i islams legalisme og nyttemoral – enten at der må dispenseres når den hilsende er afskåret fra at bruge højre hånd som her, eller fordi det diplomatiske møde kan skønnes at tjene islams interesser, og derfor kan tilsidesætte sædvanlige tabuer. Omvendt gives der åbenbart ikke dispensation for forbudet for muslimaer mod at give hånd til mænd. Ville der være dispensation hvis dette ikke blot blev accepteret af danskerne, men hvis ligefrem islams status i Danmark direkte afhang af denne gestus?

Hvis den tale var blevet holdt under Muhammedkrisen, så havde det været et knæfald. Det viser bare, at han giver indrømmelser på bekostning af ytringsfriheden, siger Naser Khader. […]

– Ytringsfrihed er essentiel. Dyb respekt for personlige religiøse følelser er også essentiel, og det er præcis den balance, som vi skal ramme, sagde han blandt andet. […]

Der er ikke en undskyldning for Muhammedtegningerne, men næsten, mener Naser Khader. – Nu siger han ikke direkte undskyldning, men han er meget, meget tæt på. Men han sætter sig også mellem to stole, hvor han på den ene side siger, at ytringsfriheden er essentiel og respekten for de religiøse følelser er også essentiel, men han tager ikke stilling til, hvad der kommer først, når de to ting kolliderer. […] Khader: Næsten undskyld fra Fogh

Her er hvad Robert Spencer, måske verdens førende dhimmitude detector, læser af Anders Fogh Rasmussens udmelding (LFPC):

[…] “I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectively towards Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing could be further from my mind.”

That is a carefully worded statement. He does not actually apologize for the cartoons themselves. He says that he was “distressed” that Muslims saw the publication of the cartoons as an attempt by Denmark itself to insult Islam. And of course, that is perfectly true: the cartoons were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Neither Rasmussen nor any other Danish official had anything to do with their publication. And to say that he was distressed that Muslims saw them as some attempt by Denmark itself to insult Islam is not to say that he thought their publication was wrong, or to accept the dhimmi status of silence and subservience toward one’s Muslim overlords. It’s only to say, “Hey, I’m sorry you took this wrong.” If this is really all Rasmussen said, it’s not nearly as bad as it could have been. […] Danish PM issue semi-apology to Islamic world for Motoons — so that Turkey will accept him as NATO chief

Rapport fra overdrevet

Utnämningen av den danske statsministern, Anders Fogh Rasmussen till generalsekreterare för NATO är bra för Danmark. Men dåligt för världen!

Det är bra för Danmark att bli av med en statsminister som under sju och ett halvt år har regerat med ett främlingsfientligt parti, Dansk Folkeparti, som fast stödparti och under den tiden fört en extremt restriktiv invandringspolitik och tillåtit öppet främlingsfientliga yttranden såväl från Dansk Folkeparti som sina egna ministrar.

Under Muhammedkrisen såg Fogh Rasmussen sig som yttrandefrihetens väktare. Nu kommer det snart att visa sig om denna hedersamma inställning offras när den egna karriären står på spel. Kanske var Foghs attityd aldrig så principiell som han försökte ge intryck av, kanske ogillar han inte Jyllands-Postens avsiktliga förhånande av muslimer, samtidigt som han avskyr det socialistiska PKK.

Dahlerup og Gahrton, professor og politiker,i Danmark knap nok tænkeligt kommende fra Enhedslisten. Som man ser af kommentarerne – også her – ved Medelssvensson udmærket hvad der er  op og ned. Det er  et elite-privilegium at være så frakoblet virkeligheden som Garthon-Dahlerup.

Frygt og bæven i Saudi Arabien: Moskeer viser sig at pege den forkerte vej

Gisp. Holy s…. Spørgsmålet er nu om Allah er ‘nådig og barmhjertig’, eller om millioner af troende nu kan vente sig en evighed i helvedes flammer på grund af byggesjusk. Er der noget at sige til at disse lande stadig befinder sig i dybeste mørke? Via Gates of Vienna (LFPC):

Some 200 mosques in Islam’s holiest city, Mecca, point the wrong way for prayers, reports from Saudi Arabia say. All mosques have a niche showing the direction of the most sacred Islamic site, the Kaaba, an ancient cube-like building in Mecca’s Grand Mosque. But people looking down from recently built high-rises in Mecca found the niches in many older mosques were not pointing directly towards the Kaaba.

Some worshippers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.

There have been suggestions that laser beams could be used to make an exact measurement. Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat. “There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques,” he said. “In any case, it does not affect the prayers.” Mecca mosques ‘wrongly aligned’

Danish cartoonist remains defiant

The row over publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper resurfaced this week as Turkey held up the appointment of Danish prime minister as the new Nato secretary general. But as the BBC’s Malcolm Brabant reports from Denmark, the impact of that 2006 controversy has never gone away for those closely involved.

Dusk was falling, the curtains were open and the house was hyggelig – a Danish word that means cosy, welcoming and enticing – with scores of candles flickering around the open-plan sitting room. Dressed in his favourite “anarchist” colours of red and black, Kurt Westergaard sat down to a nourishing Nordic repast of black bread, plaice and prawns.

Unwinding after a day at the coalface of his profession, the bohemian grandfather with a seadog’s beard and Father Christmas trousers appeared to be the epitome of Scandinavian tranquillity. Except relaxing completely is something that this cartoonist can never afford to do.

Islamic extremists placed a $1m price on his head after he dared to mock Muslim suicide bombers by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.For three years he was forced underground to avoid would-be assassins. But Mr Westergaard has decided that he will hide no more.

“I am 73 years old,” he says.

“Most of my life is over. I am too old to be afraid. I have complete faith in PET [the Danish Secret Service].”

Not only has he emerged from hiding but he has also gone on the offensive, contributing to a recently published Danish book. His latest cartoons are not as provocative as the Muhammad bomb but they satirise Islam and politicians who appease the mullahs.

“It is the question of freedom of speech, freedom of expression,” he says.

“I think we are in a period in which this democratic value is under pressure, so it has to be defended.”

Political repercussions

The re-emergence of Mr Westergaard has the potential to reinvigorate the argument over what is more important – respect for religion or absolute freedom of expression. The furore over the cartoons, which reached a zenith three years ago with Danish embassies being burned and Danish products boycotted in Muslim countries, has subsided.

The debate has simply lain dormant and has never been resolved.

But the cartoons issue dominated last week’s Nato heads of government meeting, attended by US President Barack Obama. Turkey threatened to veto the appointment of Denmark’s Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as Nato secretary general because he had refused to apologise for the cartoons.

The charm and intervention of President Obama was required to persuade Turkey to back down. As the alliance’s new chief executive, one of Mr Fogh Rasmussen’s prime tasks will be to try to heal the wounds between the West and the Muslim world.

Turkish newspapers say one of the key concessions obtained by President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is that Mr Fogh Rasmussen will be forced to apologise for the cartoons crisis.

According to the Danish press, one of his first acts of conciliation will be to publicly acknowledge that the 12 cartoons could have caused offence to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. The U-turn is certain to upset a large percentage of the Danish population.

It is not widely appreciated that the explosion of worldwide Muslim anger in 2006 followed a visit to the Middle East by a delegation of Danish imams.

In a 2006 BBC Radio Four documentary called Denmark In the Eye of the Cartoon Storm, one of the imams, Ahmed Akkari, admitted to me that the delegation had carried three extra images that were even more inflammatory than the bomb in the turban.

“We took them to show that Muslims were being provoked,” said Mr Akkari.

These extra pictures had apparently been produced by right-wing extremists and not by Jyllands Posten. They included drawings of Muhammad with a pig’s head and the Prophet as a paedophile.

Following the imams’ intervention, the lives of the 12 cartoonists changed irrevocably and they paid the same price as author Salman Rushdie.

Only Mr Westergaard has come out of hiding. The 11 others have followed Danish secret service advice and either have round-the-clock protection or maintain low profiles. One of them is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Still wary

Mr Westergaard’s critics accuse him of being a right-wing “islamophobe” and of using the cartoons to bully Denmark’s 250,000-strong Muslim minority. Tim Jensen, a professor of comparative religion at the University of Southern Denmark, said: “I think it is simply pathetic.

“I don’t think there is any need for that [new cartoons] right now. I think Muslims have to develop a thicker skin.

“But as long as they have not, let us deal with this in as a civilised manner as possible, let’s have our dialogues.”

Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Dane who converted to Islam and now sits on the country’s Muslim council, denies that his religion is trying to exert a veto on a fundamental Western freedom.

“If I insult you, I don’t have the freedom of speech as my protector any longer,” he says.

“It is a matter of finding this balance and we have got to find it, not only in Denmark but in the rest of Europe. If we want to keep our dialogue on the level of insult then we are bound to go down a real dirty track.”

Mr Westergaard denies that he bears any hostility towards Muslims.

“But of course I have an anger against those who want to kill me,” he adds.

Although special security measures have been installed at his hyggelig home, he closes the curtains, just in case an assassin is lurking. The great irony is that the new Nato secretary general is about to effectively apologise to the Islamic world for Mr Westergaard’s drawing while he, as Danish prime minister, was part of the Bush-Blair alliance which alienated Muslims by invading Iraq. BBC  5.4

Now you can own your exclusive copy of the most famous image of our time!