Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Latest developments

By now, things are developing so fast that its hard to keep track:

  • Hungary sides with Denmark. Says the Hungarian foreign minister: "To us, freedom of speech is a cornerstone of a functioning democracy". The arab reaction is "unfitting".
  • In the arab parts of Palestine, the Danish representative office in Ramallah was fired on yesterday, and today demonstrations burned pictures of, among others, prime minister Fogh, US president Bush and Israeli prime minister Olmert.
  • In Iraq, a terrorist has issued a fatwa against the Danish battalion stationed there.
  • In Sudan, the foreign minister has urged "all sudanese companies and institutions to stop the omport of Danish products".
  • In Bahrain, the parliament has passed a resolution calling for boycott of Danish goods, and demanding apologies from the Danish government and the Danish queen.
  • A like resolution from the Egyptian parliament has brought EU trade commisioner Peter Mandelson to threaten opening an investigation into it, since government-sponsored boycotts are a breach of WTO-rules.
  • At the same time the Council of Arab Ministers of the Interior representing 17 arab ministers has demanded the Danish government punish those responsible for the 12 drawings.
  • Suicide bombers are threatening attacks on Denmark.

In Denmark, things are heating up, too:

Businessman with balls

In my last post, the Danish businessman Asger Aamund was mentioned as condemning the demands coming from Danish Industry. The following is his piece in Jyllands-Posten saturday (sorry, no link):

It is when you are under pressure, that you are tempted to give in. It is when you are under pressure, that you are lured into compromising. But it is also when you are under pressure, that you have to stand up for eachother.

In the middle og the debate over the disputed prophet-drawings the prominent businessman, CEO and board chariman Asger Aamund speaks up. And the message to politicians, Jyllands-Posten and the danish people is quite clear: "You´re not giving an inch of ground, no matter how much the political, diplomatic and economic pressure increases".

Even though Saudi Arabia has withdrawn its ambassador for consultations, and even though danish companies in the country with the official name Al-mamlaka al-Arabiya as-Saudiya fear a total boycot of danish goods, nobody can begin to give in, says Asger Aamund. ..

"As the pressure increases, it is very, very important that everybody stands firm. If the politicians or Jyllands-Posten start apologizing, it will have to very serious consequences: Firstly, it will send the signal, that you can always just start a boycot and thus remove freedom of speech. We are in a typical hostage situation, where Arla (Danish dairy giant - Henrik) has been taken hostage. If we want to avoid that in the future, we have to make an example out of it. Secondly, it will have the consequence that we institute a direct or indirect form of cencorship. It they succeed in quashing Jyllands-Posten, or the politicians become unsettled, the medie will be tempted to hold back. Next time, you for example have a critical article on the theocracy in Iran and are threatened, you will be tempted to say: No, we´re not doing this. That is why there only is one way: The politicians cannot hesitate, the prime minister has to stand firm, and the foreign minister has to use his diplomatic channels," says Asger Aamund. ..

He refers to the fact, that Denmark earlier has given in, and mentions the documentary "Deat of a princess" from 1980 as an example.

The movie was critical over the saudi government and showed, how the princess Mishael bint Fahd bint Mohammed of Saudi Arabia was beheaded in 1977, because she had been unfaithful to her husband. The documentary was shown in several european countries. Never in Denmark:

"Saudi-Arabia put enormous pressure on the english BBC, dutch radio and norwegian media. They succeeded in no places - except in Denmark, where DR (Danish national public television - Henrik) gave in. The case has been forgotten here, but probably not in Saudi Arabia, since they have succeeded in quashing freedom of speech," says Asger Aamund, who also mentions an example to contrary, when a danish paper during the Cultural Revolution in China 1966-69 published a carricature of Mao Tse-Tung.

"Back then the chinese ran amuck and sent shower of protests from the chinese embassy. but prime minister Jens Otto Krag (Social Democrat) reacted promptly and emphasized the structure of power in Denmark: We politicians on one side, the press on the other. After that, nothing was heard." ..

Asger Aamund also mentions other examples of Danish inconsequential behavior:

We have seen two bloody dictators: Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania. One got the finger, the other the Elephant Order (the highest danish order - Henrik). As a small country, we have a tendency to apologize when the pressure gets big enough. In this case, you can say that the danes didnt care about the prophet, but about profits. We are pretty indifferent about islam, but dont want to be hit on the wallet. But we cannot make the same mistake again," says Asger Aamund.

But dont we rist, that the prophet-affair runs amuck with this position?

"Yes, we do. But the alternative is worse. The affair ends at some time, and if we give in, we are left helpless afterwards, because we have shown that if you push hard enough, we probably will give in."

Why do you enter this debate?

I did that too in 1980 about the documentary. I have been interested in industrial exports all my life, and if we dont put the foot down this time, it will go on in eternity," says Asger Aamund.

Profit or Prophet?

Put under pressure by the islamic boycot of Danish goods, some of the Danish business leaders have begun whining about the threat to their dividend. Hans Skov Christensen, the head of the association "Danish Industry" came out saturday in the paper Berlingske Tidende, demanding that Jyllands-Posten explain itself. The following is the reply of Jyllands-Posten on sunday:

You have sent The Morning Paper Jyllands-Posten an open letter, in which you request what you describe as a clear statement on this matter from the leadership of Jyllands-Posten. In other mediea, among them radio and television, you have claimed that Jyllands-Posten has been completely silent in the discussion about the Mohammed-drawings of September 30th last year. We note, that you apparently havent read neither the numerous articles nor the 13 editorials, of which the one brought on October 12th was translated into arabic and is still online at Jyllands-Postens website in both danish and arabic.

In this editorial we again write, what we have said many times before: that it wasnt our intention with this initiative to hurt anybodys religious feelings.

Anybody who reads Jyllands-Posten even superficially knows, that the paper respects everybodys right to worship his religion and both have and express the feelings that this brings with it.

On September 30th last year we published 12 drawings as part of a debate on the increasing self-censorship in the media and the arts - some of the artists had directed their satire against Jyllands-Posten itself, but we take that smiling. That is part of an open and free debate.

Some moslems have felt offended to a degree we did not foresee, and this we feel sorry for, and we repeat that that was not our intet.

When that is said, we dont have anything more to regret, and The Morning Paper Jyllands-Posten has nothing to apologize for.

This journalistic initiative is in full agreement with the papers´ set of ethical values, with the governmentally guiding lines for press ethics and with the danish laws that regulate media activity and set out punishment where due.

One wonders, Mr Skov Christensen, that you only speak up four months after the drawings were published, and that you claim that there is no direct link between this and that middle eastern dictatorships now boycot goods from innocent danish export companies.

You claim that you in vain have looked for statements on the affair from the paper, for example in editorials. Apparently, you have overlooked the editorials on the topic on september 30th, October 9th, October 12th, October 20th, October 30th, November 18th, December 21st, December 23rd, December 31st, January 4th, January 10th, January 16th and January 24th.

Maybe you now will bother to read these editorials before you come out with false accusations.

Maybe you might even set aside time for a bit of reflection: Do you really think, that middleeastern dictatorships, for whom freedom of religion and speech are cuss-words, and who practice flogging, decapitation and the chopping off of hands as punishment for banal crimes, are to decide how Danish media are edited?

Is the businessman Asger Aamund right when he says, that profits are more import to you than the prophet?

He probably is, but are you really so blinded by profit that you think that foreign powers, even bloody dictatorships, should be allowed to decide how the Danish media should treat a relevant topic like religiously incited self-censorship?

Do you really think, that the danish government should short-circuit constitutionally secured principles just to pander to an alien dictatorship?

If you think so, it will be hard to continue this dialogue any further. If you, on the other hand let reason reign, you will see, that The Morning Paper Jyllands-Posten has nothing further to explain in this affair, and certainly nothing to apologise for.

It is not the responsibility of the paper, that a slew of persons, organisations and now also foreign countries have abused this affair to ends that have nothing to do with this paper.

Your accusations against the paper can probably be expained by the fact that the saudiarabic porfit-weapon has blinded you. When you have regained sight, you will see that you owe The Morning Paper Jyllands-Posten an apology.


Today, tuesday, Jyllandsposten topped that one off with this carricature:
Picture courtesy of Dansk-Svensk. The piece of paper is a Danish 100-crown bill.

Monday, January 30, 2006

The cyber-jihad goes on

Danish blog Polemiken is down. Same with the blog Bussels Journal.

Walking the dog....

The boys over at the conservative blog MINUT (named after the Minutemen) have a habit of whipping up politically loaded graphics when they feel like it. The islamist boycot of Denmark is another opportunity, and they seized it:

For more good ol´Danish rightwing propaganda, go here and here. One of my personal favorites:


Loony Lefto acting as a good Dhimmi

Sometimes the Loony Left surprises me. Normally, its for the worse, like when they launch into anti-semitic conspiracy-mongering. This time, its a case of pre-emptive pleading for Dhimmi status that has surprised me.

Danish Loony Lefto blogger Raapil is including the message "Do not hack this site! It is not islam critical!" on his blog. Just to show his multi-culti sensibility, he is translating it into arab, too.

I dont know what to say.

The book that started it all

Most people have heard about the case of the drawings of the alleged prophet Mohammed. Few know that it all started because a Danish author writing a childrens´ book about him couldnt find artists willing to draw Mohammed under their own name.

Now the book is out, and it is a neutral reporting of Mohammeds life as the Koran and Hadith describe it. Of course that also means protraying Mohammed fondling his wife Aisha, whom he raped at age 9, as well as portraying the mass murder of hundreds of Jews. The front page of the book:


Mass murder, prophet-style:


You can see more pictures on the forum exilen.org.

Danish counter-attacks

The islamic boycot of Danish goods, and the cyber attacks on Danish media over the weekend are not eliciting a response from the general population. On one hand, there is a cyber-counterattack brewing (Jyllands-Posten):

Chain-mail suggests attack on arab media

A Danish chain-mail that is circulating by email urges people to take part in a web-based attack on arab media. This happens in reaction to the hacker-attack on Danish papers´ websites over the weekend.

The affair about the Mohammed-drawings of the paper Jyllands-Posten has now set off a hacker-war on the internet. Over the weekend several Danish papers´ web-versions, among them Jyllands-Posten, were attacked by hackers, and speculation has been rife, that the drawings might be the reason for the attack. Now a Danish chain-mail spreading via email urges to take part in a counter-attack on arab media.

The email starts out with the headline "Denmark under attack by moslem hackers" and contains an attached program, that starts a so-called denial-of-service attack on five arab media, among them Al-Jazeera, Arab News og Gulf News.

In the letter the recipient is urged to let the program run on his computer to bombard the arab media with data and thus block their homepages.

The Danish security firm CSIS explains that they received the first notifications about the mail sunday evening.

"If the user sends the email on - and accepts that the script is being run, then his computer is taking part in a targetted denial-of-service attack on several media in the arab world. An action, that can contribute enormously to the already heated situation," says Peter Kruse, virus analyst at CSIS.

He suggests that people erase the email right away, and says that his company has notified the Danish police, that currently is investigating the case.

At the same time, oppinion pages are full of demands for a boycot of the gas station chain Q8 (its Kuwaiti-owned), and there is a general consumer boycott of moslem businesses being urged by text messages. Two versions are known to me, and they read as follows:

This text message urges everybody to boycot the moslem-owned pizzarias and kiosks in Denmark. It is the same thing they do to our Danish companies, all because of a measely drawing in a paper. Send this text message to everybody you know.

and

Moslems are boycotting Danish goods because of satirical drawings. Soon Donald Duck will have to wear pants and Daisy a veil. Let us christians boycot moslem vegetable sellers, pizza-bakers and taxi-chauffeurs in Denmark. Pass this text message on if you agree.

The sender of the latter message is an atheist.

Screen caps soon.

More on the Cyber-Jihad

Various rightwing Danish blogs are reporting an inordinate amount of traffic from the Middle East, normally in the 20-30% range. From Angantyrs Hjørne:


And from Ab jetzt wird zurückgeschossen:



Denmark subject of cyber-attacks

Most people following current affairs are probably by now aware, that a boycot of all things Danish (and Norwegian and Swedish, too, in some instances) is spreading in the ME. What hasnt been reported is, that Denmark has likewise come under cyber attack. From the paper Politiken friday:

Hacker attack paralyzed news media

A large number of Danish papers´ web versions have crashed. Suspicions immediately center on the hacker attacks being because of the Mohammed-drawings in Jyllands-Posten. ..

All the web media hit are hosted on the same servers at the internet company Metropol Online, owned by Berlingske (Danish publishing house). ..

Among the media hit is the homepage of Jyllands-Postens, www.jp.dk, which creates suspicions, that hackers are trying to hit the paper as part of the row over the papers´ Mohammed-drawings.

Casper Bruun Møller, team leader at Metropol Online, suspects, that it is a hacker attack.


"I cant say for certain, that it is an attack on jp.dk, but somebody is trying to bombard us with so many electronic requests, that we have a suspicion that it is a hacker attack", he says.


Other than Jyllands-Posten, also berlingske.dk, bt.dk, aok.dk and a number of local papers were hit by the attack, that overloaded the homepages to such an extent that they werent accessible for most of the evening. ..

Last night the media conglomerate JP/Politikens Hus, that amongst others publishes Jyllands-Posten, was also hit.

Jyllands-Posten has, for the last fourteen days, received 500-600 mails each day with content that relates directly to the 12 Mohammed-drawings, and during the night leading up to thursday, JP/Politikens Hus was hit by 75.000 spammails sent to an internal mail address.

The many mails delayed the mail systems for several hours, and the conglomerate´s IT-technicians are certain, that the many thousand mails hail from the Middle East.


And from the same paper sunday:

New hacker attack paralyzes Jyllands-Posten

The web version of Jyllands-Posten is off-line. Hackers pulled off another large attack on the website of the paper.

The web version of the paper Jyllands-Posten, www.jp.dk, has again been nocked to the ground. The web paper is under attack by hackers.

A new so-called distributed "denial of the service"-attack has hit the home page of Jyllands-Posten. The technical term means, that attackers in different parts of the world take control of computers all over the world. ..

These computers bombard the homepage with so many simultaneous requests, that it finally crashes.

So says Casper Bruun Møller, teamleader at Metropol Online, the internet company owned by Berlingske (Danish publishing house), on whose server Jyllands-Posten web version is located.

"Over the last couple days, there have been several distributed "denial of service" attacks against the homepage of Jyllands-Posten. We had a smallish attack early friday, a larger one friday evening, and not there is another attack brewing", says Casper Bruun Møller. ..

Since the attacks come from different computers all over the world, it is hard to find the source, which is why Casper Bruun Møller doesnt want to comment on, whether the attacks might be due to the papers´ Mohammed-drawings.

He says, that they currently are working on sorting out the enormous traffic directed at the site. And he hopes, that the home page will be running smoothely again later in the day.


What hasnt filtered through to the media, even the Danish one, is that the rightwing blogosphere was also hit hard by hacker attacks from the ME. The largest blog Uriasposten (still recovering - may not load for you) was taken over and defaced with amongst others a Saudi flag friday. The blog Filtrat was similarly attacked sunday, though without being defaced by arab content.

Screencaps and more on the blog-attacks shortly.

UPDATE:

As promised, and courtesy of the blog ENOUGH!, here are screencaps of the blog Uriasposten as defaced friday:



According to Islam in Europe via ENOUGH!, the text reads as follows:

First page, under a Saudi flag:

Allah the greatest and merciful Allah

Oh messenger of Allah (ie, Muhammed)

The forward infiltration is complete

Second page:

Allah the greatest and merciful Allah

Oh messenger of Allah (ie, Muhammed)

This is the simple answer for every insolence/insult to the loved one

pray to god for him and for peace

and give this infiltration and this step.. to every muslim

infiltration is over

Hacked by

The forward infiltration is complete

Friday, January 20, 2006

Pause

Sorry, people, but I have to put blogging on hold for another week or two. My computer crashed a week ago, so I dont have access to the internet until it has been repaired.

Sorry.

Henrik

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Rapes jump 30% in Sweden

Norwegian blogger Fjordman has earlier blogged extensively on the wave of rapes that Scandinavia has been seeing coming to a large degree from immigrants. One of his posts even made it into Frontpage Magazine, creating global awareness of the problem.

Things are getting worse, however: rape statistics in Sweden have jumped 30% between 2004 and 2005 (source: Svenska Dagbladet, my translation):

The increase cannot be all explained by the new sex-crime law and an increased tendency to report rapes to the police.

In total, the number of reported rapes and rape attempts nationally increased by over 30% last year compared to 2004, a comparison that TT has made between the local police´s preliminary statistics shows.

The number of reported rapes only decreased in a few län (regions - Henrik).

The police´s statistics are just now being quality-proofed by the Crime Prevention Council, that is expected to publicize an overview of them. The numbers might thus be adjusted somewhat. But even the half-year statistics for 2005 show a large increase.

The percentage-wise increase was the highest in Hallands and Jönköping län.

With the new sex crime law, more crimes are put in the rape category. That has thus produced some change after April 1st. But the stricter law cannot explain the entire jump, says Lotta Nilsson, analyst at the Crime Prevention Council, when she delivers a statement to TT about the increased number of reported rapes in general.

In an earlier post, I reported how rapists in Sweden are four times more likely to be foreigners compared to Swedes, and how immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya dominate the group.

The number of rapes in Sweden was 2631 in 2004. A 30% increase would mean the 2005 number is 3.400.

UPDATE:

The blog Danske øjne på svenske forhold has found graphics to show the development over time in Stockholm, Swedens capital:


He also has the raw numbers for Stockholm, pop. 1.8 million:

1996: 463
1997: 431
1998: 601
1999: 488
2000: 656
2001: 708
2002: 660
2003: 716
2004: 708
2005: 935

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

The age of petitions

During December, Denmark has been the place where our intellectual elite staged an offensive against the immigration policies that our current government, now elected with decent majorities twice in a row, is conducting. The thing finally starting it was the Mohammed drawings, and the medium was petitions signed by various groups.

First came a petition on December 15th in the leftwing paper Politiken, signed by 22 authors, that complained about the "tone" in the immigration debate. That was joined on 20. December by 251 members of the Danish Author Association, and two days later by 61 member of The Association of Danish Fiction Authors. (source, in Danish: Politiken).

Accompanying protests included 150 psykologists, 250 doctors and 200 priests, the latter trying under the headline "there still is no open space in the inn" to link the more restricted immigration policy we have had since 2001 to baby Jesus having to be born in a stable since there was no open space in any inn. They went on to collectively preach on that theme against the sitting democratically elected governments policy on Christmas Eve, which is traditionally the day with the biggest church attendance in Denmark.

Even 22 former ambassadors (most of whom hadnt been accredited to moslem countries, btw) were protesting over both the tone, and the fact that prime minister Fogh didnt want to meet with moslem ambassadors demanding he violate the Danish freedom of speech.

Then came Foghs statements in the traditional new years´speech, and the protestors revealed themselves to be less concerned with the "tone" than with party politics, trying to remove the Danish People´s Party from influence (source: Politiken, my translation):

When the prime minister sunday evening was looking into the camera and finished off his new years´ speech, he left behind 12 happy authors.

The authors - who three weeks ago directed a sharp criticism at the tone of the immigrant debate and against the imiigrant policy - were happy, that prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberals) in his new years´speech condemned "any utterance, act or statement, that tries to demonize groups of people based on their religion or ethnic background".

The prime ministers new years´ speech was also well received with approving nods with the groups of priests and doctors, who backed up the authors´criticism.

The spokesman of the authors, Stig Dalager, is "very satisfied":

"The prime minister had distanced himself clearly from any form of demonization of big groups based on their religion or ethnic background. Such a declaration has not been made before, and we see it as a first victory, since we were the first, who started the wave of criticism of the tone in the immigrant debate and the legislation about refugees and immigrants", says Stig Dalager ..

"Now we face the next step: If it really is so, that the prime minister distances himself from the tone and any form of demonization, then you have to question whether the government still can work with the Danish People´s Party".

When it came down to basics, the elite protesters didnt achieve anything, though. Quite the contrary: especially the priests´use of the pulpit for political purposes was strongly condemned (DPP politician and priest himself Jesper Langballe called the preaching priests "a flock of mooing cows"). The same happened in regard to their attempt to portray themselves as representing the majority of priests (200 is a small minority of the ab. 3500 priests in Denmark). The action was especially glaring since the Danish left wing normally condemns the US for religion intruding too often into politics.

The authors were also rediculed for their concern about the "tone" in the debate since some of those protesting arent exactly saints in that regard. Especially politicians of the Danish People´s Party have had to endure a lot. From the article "The age of petitions" in Weekend-avisen, dealing with the original 12 protesting authors:

..there are two names that flash in red in this collective concern for the tone of the debate: Carsten Jensen and Klaus Rifbjerg. ..

..Rifbjerg has described Pia Kjærsgaard (leader of the DPP - Henrik) like this: "Pia Kjærsgaard is, I suppose, still in the fertile age, just consider if she fucked a black guy and got a little chocolage pig as a bonus...They - the subhumans - want to take something from us, they want to take advantage of our kindness, our humanism and that is not all: they want to replace our empty churches with mosques stuffed to the roof, and they want to cut off Pia Kjærsgaards clitoris."

Apparently there are a lot of sexual visions in Rifbjergs head, because there are lots of examples: "And Søren Krarup (DPP politician and priest), a man that has so much energy could really get a Tamil lady going, something really life-affirming could result of that, not to think of Jesper Langballe (another DPP politician and priest) rolling around in the hay with a muslim."

One more: "I dont know the prime ministers´sexual preferences, and I dont give a rat´s ass, as to me he could be sleeping with the chickens. What I protest against is his almost erotic attraction to George W. Bush, because this is not just a question of a questionable submission, but a liaison dangereuse. It is a dangerous connection, not just because it is built on several handfuls of lies, but because it insists on its purity in the name of freedom and democracy."

At the same time, oppinion polls showed the protesting elite to be totally out of step with the general population (source: TV2):

A totally unlimited freedom of speech is more important than the consideration of religious or ethnic minorities.

That is the view of an overwhelming majority, a new oppinion poll by A&B Analyse shows.

A majority of 85% against barely 7% refuse to limit the freedom of speech to avoid offending minorities.

The majority is, as expected, larges with the Danish People´s Party, but even with parties like the Socialist People´s Party and the Radicals, less than 10 percent think that consideration of the feelings of minorities justifies limiting the freedom of speech.

There are also large majorities against that with the Unity List (communists - Henrik) and the Christian Democrats, though these are the only parties where supporters of limiting the freedom of speech reach into the double digits.

Lesson: dont listen to elite protestors.

Henrik

Danish values and not-so-Danish values

The New York Times three days ago decided to publish a story about the row over the depiction of the alleged prophet Mohammed. In it, imam Ahmed abu Laban, a leader of The Islamic Belief Society gets much airtime:

In Norrebro, an ethnically mixed neighborhood of Copenhagen where the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is buried and where kebab stands dot the tree-lined streets, Imam Ahmed Abu-Laban, a leader among Denmark's Muslims, bristles at what he calls the "Islam phobia" gripping the country. He asserted that the cartoons had been calculated to incite Muslims because it was well known that in Islam depictions of the prophet were considered blasphemy.

"We are being mentally tortured," Imam Ahmed said at his mosque, an anonymous building that looks more like an apartment complex than a house of worship. "The cartoons are an insult against Islam, an attempt by right-wing forces in this country to get a rise out of the Muslim community and so portray us as against Danish values."

Victimhood in high gear. Plus, he sounds pretty moderate, right? Problem is, that he has a past that, while well-known in Denmark, doesnt get portrayed when Laban (which, curiously means "mischief-maker" in Danish) acts as spokesman in the international press. The web-magazine of The Freedom of Printing Society, Sappho, has dug into the archives. One example:

On 21 August 1994 Abu Laban was interviewed in Jyllands-Posten after the Algerian terror organisation had run amok and murdered amongst others seven Christian monks and several foreigners. Abu Laban didnt want to give a clear-cut answer to the question of whether it was good or bad to kill. Pressured by the journalist, some sort of statement finally came out: "Maybe the tourists are spreading AIDS in Algeria, just like the Jews spread AIDS in Egypt.".

Unfortnately for him, jew-baiting IS against Danish culture. Denmark was the only country under German occupation during WWII to save its jewish population from the Holocaust.

Henrik

Jyllands-Posten continues a good tradition

Jyllands-Posten continues a tradition of hard-hitting drawings. In case you cant see it, the guy is Irans president "The holocaust didnt happen - lets remove Israel from the face of the earth" Ahmadinejad:

In case you are wondering: "Ugens streger" means "lines (as in a drawing) of the week". It was to be found in the recent JP (Jyllands-Posten) International section.

Henrik

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Culture, religion or merely because of immigrant status?

The last couple years, much has been made of moslem immigrants in Denmark having a lower employment rate than Danes, or for that matter any number of other groups in the immigrant population. A number of theories have come up trying to explain this, from the less-than-charitable ("they´d rather mooch off of our taxes") to the more graceful. One of the latter set is, that the simple fact that many of them are refugees means that many of them are incapable of holding down a job.

Fair enough. The theory has to be put to a test though. Preferably against a country without a lot of moslem immigrants, but with groups of various other religions in it large enough to have the comparison make sense. From the 2001 Indian census (Im throwing literacy in just for fun):

Literacy rate:
  1. Jains: 94,1%
  2. Christians: 80,3%
  3. Buddhists: 72,7%
  4. Sikhs: 69,4%
  5. Hindus: 65,1%
  6. Moslems: 59,1%

Work participation rate:
  1. Buddhists: 40,6%
  2. Hindus: 40,4%
  3. Christians: 39,7%
  4. Sikhs: 37,7%
  5. Jains: 32,9%
  6. Moslems: 31,3%

Some might argue, that the civil war islamist fundamentalists are running in Jammu and Kashmir is to blame, but given that less than 1 in 20 moslem indians live there, we can safely dispense with that excuse.

So, even in a nation in which they have been present for more than a millenium, they still end up at the bottom. Somebody aught to look into just why that is.

Henrik

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Propet drawings in Norway? Hardly.

From the norwegian blog document.no:

Finn Graff, drawer for the paper Dagbladet, admits that he doesnt dare draw the prophet. He´s afraid for his life.

That emerged when NRKs (Norwegian national public broadcaster) program "Kulturbeitet" covered the dispute about the prophet-drawings in Jyllands-Posten.

Asked whether he would consider to draw the prophet, Finn Graff answered:

- No. That is taboo. That civilization is prepared to cut off your head instead of talking to you.

NRK: - So what you are saying is that you would be scared for your life or some such thing?

Graff: -Yes, I have to admit that that is the way it is. After the thing with van Gogh in the Netherlands last year or the year before, whenever it was, the extremists use that kind of measures, instead of being more civilized.

- So you are letting a religion dictate to you how you express yourself in your art?

- Yes, that is what we have been forced to do. Its as simple as that.

Henrik

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

...and suddenly the moslems had even more to be offended at

After the past months of perpetual cries of "Im offended" from moslem clerics and spokespersons, they suddenly got a whole new set of Danish carricatures to be offended by (from Politiken, my translation):

It is not just the Mohammed-drawings by Jyllands-Posten, that the Islamic Belief Society is enraged by.

10 satirical pictures published in Weekendavisen in November last year are even worse, says spokesman Kasem Ahmad from the Islamic Belief Society.

"Weekendavisen has published pictures even worse than Jyllands-Posten did. This is a campaign to mock moslems in Denmark", he says. ..

The pictures were published on a satirical last page in Weekendavisen, and show amongst others a chair with the text "This is the profet", an abstract picture with the text "Howling prophet at lake in wood" and a picture of the Mona Lisa with a beard.

It is a drawing of a bearded lady with the text: "Well, are YOU able to prove that the prophet wasnt a woman?", that Kasem Ahmad finds blasphemic. ..

During a tour of the Middle East, the Islamic Belief Society has shown copies of both papers´pictures to officials and journalists.

"We expect prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to distance himself from the drawings", says Kasem Ahmad.

Im trying to find copies of the pictures in Weekendavisen. If I do, Ill post them here.

Henrik