Denmark, Canada and Islam

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, it is impossible to have missed the current uproar over some cartoons of Mohamed.  Civil unrest, rioting and now embassy burnings are the issue du jour for huge swaths of the muslim world.  Over cartoons.

The current level of protest has easily surpassed any outrage witnessed over Abu Ghraib, The Satanic Verses or the invasion of Iraq.  Over cartoons.

You have to wonder at the scale of the protests, and also the sudden and stunning availability of flammable Danish flags across the muslim world.  I live in a large Canadian city, yet I suspect that even if I emptied every store of their Danish flag stock that I could manage even a few dozen.  So where did they all come from?  I’d like to see the credit card statements for some imams - I bet their Al-Amazon bills are pretty big, unless they got some kind of bulk discount.  Maybe there is a handy website where your average muslim extremist can get quick supplies?  ‘flammable-flags-of-the-world.com’ maybe?  Who knows.  I’m guessing that somewhere in China or India there are factories adding shifts to the Danish lines right now trying to keep up with demand.

Now let us compare and contrast this current cartoon anger with another Danish indiscretion, the actual invasion of Canadian sovereign territory in 2002 of Hans Island.  This disputed chunk of rock was visited by a Danish warship and a few troops hopped off, wandered around and planted a Danish flag on this Canadian rock.  Yes, Canada was invaded by the Danes. 

Do you recall the cross-Canada riots and outrage?  Remember the pictures from Toronto of residents dropping their morning Timbits and pouring Carlsberg into the city sewers, waving their Ecco’s and renaming Danish pastries ‘Freedom Pastries’?  No, because it just didn’t happen.  What did happen wasn’t much - poor Bill Graham got sent up to the rock to symbolically set foot on Canadian soil and a few diplomatic exchanges took place.  That was it.  And that was a bona fide, no-kidding actual territorial invasion.  I think it trumps a cartoon.  Or twelve.

Now it is possible that Canada could have gotten all Falklands about it, except for the small matter of not having any ice-breakers that could make the trip for 6 months.  And the likelihood that our armed forces were undergoing some French immersion and sensitivity training and were therefore unavailable for an actual conflict at the time.  So that’s moot.  But did Canadians get uppity?  Even a little cross?  Not really.

So, once more into parody my friends.  The Islamic world burns on the news channels over cartoons that were drawn to illustrate that perhaps the Religion of Peace isn’t in fact peaceful.  You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. 

The worst part of the entire episode isn’t that cartoons were drawn, or that muslims are more than a little upset, but that a good number of western politicians and people that should know better are bending backwards to appease the violent haters currently burning embassies.  Welcome to the world of dhimmitude.  What happened to defending a free press?  Or perhaps shining a reasoned light of perspective on the matter?  No, it is easier to apologise and appease than stand up for western values.

The ceremonial bayonetting goes today to those western leaders and figures that are in great need of a spine transplant - they should be ashamed for bowing before the great intolerant multitude that really needs to get a grip.

Update: Looks like some Imam decided to make this happen, and added a few non-published cartoons into the mix.  Details.

Update#2: Michelle Malkin has a great round-up and commentary on the topic here

Update#3: The Mudville Gazette has more on the Cartoon War.