{"id":561,"date":"2006-07-29T14:42:45","date_gmt":"2006-07-29T14:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/akramsrazor\/2006\/07\/29\/compelling_new_\/"},"modified":"2013-05-07T18:47:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T23:47:43","slug":"compelling_new_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/akramsrazor\/2006\/07\/compelling_new_\/","title":{"rendered":"Compelling new evidence against Danish government’s handling of the cartoons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Have been too busy to blog lately, alas.<\/p>\n

A quick update on the Danish cartoon controversy.<\/p>\n

Just got my hands on a great new book by Rune Engelbreth Larsen and T\u00f8ger Seidenfaden called Karikaturkrisen: En unders\u00f8gelse af baggrund og ansvar<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 (\"The Cartoon Crisis:\u00a0 An Study of its background and responsibility\") which pretty much demolishes the government\u2019s justifications and much of the conventional wisdom about the Danish imam\u2019s supposedly inflammatory contribution to the crisis.<\/p>\n

Haven\u2019t read the whole thing yet and don\u2019t have time to translate anything from it at the moment, but suffice it to provides considerable evidence to prove that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen had ample opportunity to nip this crisis in the bud over a period of half a year.<\/li>\n
  2. The early Muslim response did not <\/em>demand government censorship.\u00a0 The October 2005 letter from Muslim ambassadors to the Prime Minister explicitly affirmed freedom of speech (and presciently warned of the danger of unrest in Muslim societies), as did even Egypt\u2019s protest letter the following month to the UN.\u00a0 All that was asked was for him to distance the government from Jyllands-Posten\u2019s divisive PR campaign against Islam.\u00a0 In other words, the argument that the Danish government had no choice but to rebuff Muslims because they were demanding that the government ignore Danish laws protecting speech are patently false.<\/li>\n
  3. While the Danish imams did say some some things that\u2019s weren\u2019t entirely accurate in the heat of the controversy, there is no evidence that they sought to misrepresent the cartoons by including the infamous additional drawings.\u00a0 These additional items were physically separated from the JP cartoons. <\/li>\n
  4. They provide compelling arguments for the view that the imams
    \nand the dossier (i.e., with the JP cartoons and various other more
    \noffensive ones that Danish Muslims had encountered in Denmark) they
    \ndistributed to leaders in the region did not contribute appreciably to
    \nthe escalation of the conflict.\u00a0 One interesting point they make is
    \nthat most of the leaders they met were already quite familiar with the
    \ncartoons, so it is unlikely the additional drawings in any way misled
    \nthem.<\/li>\n
  5. Not only is it a myth that the Danish Muslim delegation whipped up the Muslim world into a frenzy against Denmark, they actually were instrumental in delaying the outbreak of the boycott.\u00a0 They opposed a fatwa by Egyptian mufti Ali Guma urging a boycott.\u00a0 The authors note that a senior Danish counterterrorism official publicly thanked them for their constructive and moderate role while in the Middle East.\u00a0 They go on to state that there is considerable evidence for the view that the imams prevented the boycott from beginning two months earlier.\u00a0 The boycott and mayhem did not occur until they\u2019d returned to Denmark (and at a point at which the Danish government had had months to defuse the crisis).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Hope this book gets translated into English soon, as it provides so much important context that\u2019s lacking from international coverage. <\/p>\n

    Even if you don\u2019t agree with all the authors conclusions\u2013though I don\u2019t see how one could argue against them given the evidence they marshal\u2013it\u2019s hands down the most thorough study of the saga done to date.<\/p>\n

    It definitely puts the government in a bad light, not to mention supports my take on the sorry saga.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    Just finished an article for book on the controversy, btw.\u00a0 \u00a0More later. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Have been too busy to blog lately, alas. A quick update on the Danish cartoon controversy. Just got my hands on a great new book by Rune Engelbreth Larsen and T\u00f8ger Seidenfaden called Karikaturkrisen: En unders\u00f8gelse af baggrund og ansvar\u00a0 (“The Cartoon Crisis:\u00a0 An Study of its background and responsibility”) which pretty much demolishes the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-danish-cartoons"],"yoast_head":"\nCompelling new evidence against Danish government's handling of the cartoons - Akram's Razor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have been too busy to blog lately, alas. A quick update on the Danish cartoon controversy. 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