Western Standard Publish the "evil" Cartoons

[Hank C]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/02/13/cartoons060213.html

Western Canadian magazine publishes Muhammad cartoons

The publisher of an Alberta-based political magazine is defending his decision to publish controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, saying Western media have been cowed into fear.

Ezra Levant of the Western Standard told CBC Newsworld that he published the dozen cartoons in Monday's edition because they are "the central fact in the largest news story of the month.

"I'm doing something completely normal. I'm publishing the centre of a controversy. That's what news magazines do."

The cartoons, published in September in Denmark and reprinted in other European papers in recent weeks, have outraged the Muslim world, setting off protests and boycotts of Danish products in several countries.

Islamic tradition prohibits any depiction of the Prophet, even a respectful one, on the grounds that it could promote idolatry.

The caricatures include a drawing of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb. Another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

Most media in Canada and the United States have refused to publish the cartoons. But Levant dismissed the notion that the decision is based on respect for Islam, saying the real reason is "out of fear."

He said news organizations are more than willing to publish items that Christians find offensive because Christians only react by writing a letter to the editor.

"They don't bomb embassies and behead journalists," Levant said.

"Don't tell me the CBC respects religion. It's afraid of one religion."

The Western Standard has a circulation of 40,000 and publishes every two weeks.

Levant, who described the cartoons as "innocuous," said he would run cartoons about the Holocaust if Jews were burning embassies in response.

"We're not publishing them for their editorial merits. They're boring cartoons, they're bland. We're not running them because we share their views.

"We're running them because they're the central fact that caused radical Muslims around the world to riot."

Mohamed Elmasry, leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress, told the Globe and Mail that his organization will seek to have charges laid against the magazine under Canada's laws against distributing hate literature.

"It's unfortunate," said Elmasry, who had urged Levant not to republish the images. "I think he really goes against the will and the values of Canadians by this provocative action."

 

[Hank C]

"We're not publishing them for their editorial merits. They're boring cartoons, they're bland. We're not running them because we share their views.

"We're running them because they're the central fact that caused radical Muslims around the world to riot."

Exactly, the cartoon's have caused radical muslims to riot around the world......thus it is news. I don't know why anyone would want our news to be censored in Canada, which is a supposed to be a free country.......especially radical islamic censorship.

He said news organizations are more than willing to publish items that Christians find offensive because Christians only react by writing a letter to the editor.

"They don't bomb embassies and behead journalists," Levant said.

"Don't tell me the CBC respects religion. It's afraid of one religion."

No doubt, there is a double standard here which is being rammed down our throats. I don't care if it insults Christians, Jews or Muslims......censorship is wrong especially in a so called free country.

And don't get me started on the CBC...............

 

[Hank C]

Anywho, today I had some time to kill and decided to head to the local Chapters (book store) to see if I could get my hands on a copy of the Western Standard. Seems I was outta luck as it will take a few days for them to get their shipment, I was told to come back on wednesday.

Funny thing was I met another fellow who was there for the same reason I was, to support freedom of speech. He told me that he never read the magazine before but all the hype on the radio led him to make the trip out there today.

But anyways I know the Western Standard is a Calgary based magazine........do they sell copies at the bookstores out east and in other provinces?

 

[Jersay]

Anywho, today I had some time to kill and decided to head to the local Chapters (book store) to see if I could get my hands on a copy of the Western Standard. Seems I was outta luck as it will take a few days for them to get their shipment, I was told to come back on wednesday.

Funny thing was I met another fellow who was there for the same reason I was, to support freedom of speech. He told me that he never read the magazine before but all the hype on the radio led him to make the trip out there today.

But anyways I know the Western Standard is a Calgary based magazine........do they sell copies at the bookstores out east and in other provinces?

Freedom of Speech my ass. They were asked nicely by the Canadian Muslim Congress and other advocacy groups not to publish it.

The cartoons can be found anywhere. They are just attempting to hurt peoples feelings and make the issue flare up in Canada. If violence takes place I will fully blame them.

 

[Freethinker]

RE: Western Standard Publ

This is a perfectly logical stance. If there were no riots and burning embassies, there would be no news involving these cartoons and they wouldn't have been printed and we never would have even heard about them.

The certain way to get everyone to see something, is to insist no one should look at it, or even insist the producer be assasinated.

Salmon Rushdie never would have been a many times over best seller without fanatics insisting he be put to death.

 

[twotoques]

The cartoons can be found anywhere. They are just attempting to hurt peoples feelings and make the issue flare up in Canada. If violence takes place I will fully blame them.

[/quote]

I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death."

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
FATWA issued February, 1989
against Salman Rushdie

 

[Doryman]

Anywho, today I had some time to kill and decided to head to the local Chapters (book store) to see if I could get my hands on a copy of the Western Standard. Seems I was outta luck as it will take a few days for them to get their shipment, I was told to come back on wednesday.

Funny thing was I met another fellow who was there for the same reason I was, to support freedom of speech. He told me that he never read the magazine before but all the hype on the radio led him to make the trip out there today.

But anyways I know the Western Standard is a Calgary based magazine........do they sell copies at the bookstores out east and in other provinces?

Freedom of Speech my ass. They were asked nicely by the Canadian Muslim Congress and other advocacy groups not to publish it.

The cartoons can be found anywhere. They are just attempting to hurt peoples feelings and make the issue flare up in Canada. If violence takes place I will fully blame them.

Exactly. And in the case of another school shooting, I expect you to blame video games. Mass suicide? Heavy Metal Music! Nation-Wide Obesity.. err.. Oh wait! Blame the restaurants and the tv commercials. Nothing can possibly be an individuals fault in the slap-happy Canadian world of Today!!!!

Violent acts are perpetrated through individual choice. Jyllands-posten and Western Standard printed controversial cartoons. They did not load the rifles, they did not light the torches, they did not wire the bombs. Those acts were done by individuals. The blame should land squarely on the shoulders of those individuals.

 

[Curiosity]

More...

Magazine dives in to cartoon furor (Canadian firestorm alert)
The Globe and Mail (Canada) ^ | 2/14/2006
Diane Walton

CALGARY -- As 40,000 copies of the Western Standard containing the controversial Prophet Mohammed cartoons rolled off the presses yesterday, the Calgary-based magazine's phones rang off the hook, excessive traffic crashed its website and its publisher entered the main ring of a media circus.

Ezra Levant, publisher of the news and political magazine, spent the day defending his publication's position on the talk-radio circuit, speaking with television news anchors and being interviewed by reporters -- most from media outlets that have decided not to show the images, which have sparked riots around the world.

"Website overloaded by traffic -- too much for server," Mr. Levant wrote via BlackBerry while he was a guest on Dave Rutherford's radio call-in show on CHQR in Calgary.

Mr. Levant said publishing the images deep inside the magazine, along with commentary and eight cartoons under the headline Drawing The Line, was necessary to properly report the story that is dominating world news.

He also accused mainstream media, including The Globe and Mail, of being cowed by radical Islam, yet not being afraid to offend religious sensibilities of other groups, including Jews and Christians.

"We'll probably wind up losing a few subscribers and an advertiser or two," Mr. Levant would later tell Charles Adler, the CJOB radio host in Winnipeg.

At least one bookseller, independent McNally Robinson, which has stores in Calgary, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, will not put the magazine on its shelves.

Mr. Levant, who was among the original Reform and Canadian Alliance Party supporters, also penned a defence of publishing the cartoons, which ran yesterday in the Calgary Sun under the headline Media Runs Scared. His magazine -- which is not yet on newsstands or in mailboxes -- is being accused of disturbing the peace, racism and committing a hate crime.

"We will use every means within the Canadian legal system to stop this intellectual terrorism," Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said yesterday.

"This is yellow journalism. It is not civilized. The people will have to pay the price for what they have done. They have disturbed the peace in our society," he said.

His group has asked its legal team to consider civil action against publications that show the cartoons and will ask police to intervene.

Last week, Calgary police investigated whether replications of the cartoons that were posted in one neighbourhood and published in the Jewish Free Press, which is circulated among 2,000 homes, could be deemed a hate crime. But the Crown prosecutor's office said Criminal Code requirements were not met, and the city's diversity resources officer was assigned to work with Muslim and Jewish groups.

"We're working to keep things peaceful," said Constable Kelly Mergen, adding that there have been no reports of vandalism or violence in connection with publication of the cartoons.

The cartoons, which first appeared last year in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, have angered Muslims worldwide.

Some callers to Canadian radio shows yesterday termed the Western Standard's decision to publish the cartoons "courageous," while others described it as "ignorant."

The images have already appeared in Quebec media outlets, in the University of Prince Edward Island's student paper, and on a professor's door at St. Mary's University in Halifax.

Censorship is alive and well. You will actually allow others to decide what you will read and view???

I guess the internet will be next.

 

[Freethinker]

Freedom of Speech my ass. They were asked nicely by the Canadian Muslim Congress and other advocacy groups not to publish it.

The cartoons can be found anywhere. They are just attempting to hurt peoples feelings and make the issue flare up in Canada. If violence takes place I will fully blame them.

And they were told just as nicely I am sure, thank you for your concern, but we will be publishing anyway.

If there is violence, the blame will land rightly on the nutbars who commit it.

While I consider myself left of center, I really hate that there elements of the left that insist on acting as apologists for terrorists or other perpetrators of violence.

I personally don't think we should be changing our society to accomodate potential perpetrators of violence to keep them happy.

 

[annabattler]

Controversy sells newspapers,I guess.
I guess we in the west don't truly understand the mindset of people raised to hate,raised to "suicide bomb" their lives away.
Not being religious, I just don't get it.

 

[DasFX]

Freedom of Speech my ass. They were asked nicely by the Canadian Muslim Congress and other advocacy groups not to publish it.

The cartoons can be found anywhere. They are just attempting to hurt peoples feelings and make the issue flare up in Canada. If violence takes place I will fully blame them.

So what the CMC asked them no to publish it. I"m sure the media gets lots of request not to publish things. The cartoons can be found anywhere on the Internet, but not everyone in Canada has it, so what is wrong with bringing the infomation to those people.

If I were Muslim, the images that would hurt my feeling is seeing my people acting like complete idiots around the world.

Muslims have no issue with insulting and offending anyone else, why must their feelings be so well protected?

What about burning the Danish flag, is that not insulting and hurtful? What about all the cartoons against Jews, Christians, Hindus and all the other infidels? What about dancing in the streets after the WTC buildings collapsed. What about the injustices of Muslim governments against Muslim civilians?

How come these actions don't anger Allah and his peeps?

 

[Curiosity]

Enough Appeasement Already!

Muslim Opinion" Be Damned
Monday, February 6, 2006
By: Alex Epstein
http://www.AynRand.org

America's attempts to appease "Muslim opinion" are depraved and suicidal.

As Muslim groups express outrage and issue death threats over cartoons depicting Mohammad, many Western leaders are responding, not with condemnations of the death threats, but with condemnations of the cartoons--and of the newspapers that published them.

This is the latest example of the apologies and hand-wringing that occur anytime there is any widespread display of Muslim anger. To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.

"Whatever one's views on the [Iraq] war," writes a "New York Times" columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to Abu Ghraib, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.

We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.

All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields, trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East.

Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the United States' handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters.

So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways.

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as "coalition partners."

Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. "Condemn America," they have learned, "and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands." "Attack America via terrorist proxy," terrorist states and movements have been taught, "and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love."

Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned. They should begin by declaring that militant groups and states that threaten anti-Western violence in response to free speech will be met, not with appeasement, but with destruction.

 

[zoofer]

.
.
The publication of the Mohammed cartoons solicited by Denmark's Jyllands Posten was an act of anti-dhimmitude. Since no Danish artist would dare illustrate a PC children's book about Mohammed for fear of Islamic law (and Islamic violence), the newspaper boldly set out to reassert the rule of (non-Islamic) Danish law. It's as simple as that. And as vital. The cartoons ran to establish -- or re-establish -- Denmark as bastion of Western-style liberty.

But in trying to set up a force field against encroaching sharia, Jyllands Posten and the Danes have showed us that no single bastion of Western liberty can stand alone. So, how do you say solidarity in Danish? If we don't find out now, our future is more dhimmitude.
.
.
.

Rest of the article here

 

[zoofer]

.
These developments suggest what the prime minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has called a "huge chasm" between the Muslim world and the West. Or, in the more bellicose wording of the influential Sunni imam Youssef al-Qaradawi, "We must tell Europeans, we can live without you. But you cannot live without us."

Should the chasm widen, with its concomitant lessening of human interaction, commercial relations, and diplomatic engagement, the Muslim world will likely fall further behind than it already has. As I wrote in 2000, "Whatever index one employs, Muslims can be found clustering toward the bottom – whether measured in terms of their military prowess, political stability, economic development, corruption, human rights, health, longevity, or literacy."

Disengagement will only worsen the Muslim predicament. Reduced contact with the world's most modern, powerful, and advanced countries would likely cause Muslims to do even worse in those indexes and lapse deeper into a condition characterized by self-pity, jealousy, resentment, anger, and aggression.

Especially when contrasted with Muslim successes in pre-modern times, these traumatic circumstances help explain the crisis in identity that often causes Muslims to seek solace in radical Islam. For everyone's sake, it is important that Muslims begin more successfully to negotiate their path to modernity, not to isolation.

How the Cartoon Protests Harm Muslims

 

[pantoufle]

Freedom of the press is alive and well. Are we not discussing this issue of the cartoons? We don't need to view the cartoons to have an open discussion. With freedom of the press comes responsibility.

 

[zoofer]

American news media: little courage and little honesty
By Dennis Prager
Feb 14, 2006

American news media have suffered in recent years. Thanks to the Internet and talk radio, millions of Americans have ceased relying on The New York Times and CNN for their written and televised news.
But it is difficult to recall a greater blow to the credibility of American news media than their near-universal refusal to publish the Mohammed cartoons originally published in a Danish newspaper that have brought about worldwide Muslim protests.

This loss of credibility owes to two factors: dishonesty and cowardice.

Everyone and his mother knows why the networks and the print journals haven't shown the cartoons -- they fear Muslims blowing up their buildings and stabbing their editors to death. The only people who deny this are the news media. They all claim that they won't show the cartoons because of sensitivity to Muslim feelings.

Which brings us to the other reason for the latest blow to the news media's credibility: They are lying to us. If some politicians were telling lies as blatantly as the news media are now, the media would be having a field day exposing those politicians and calling for their removal from office. But, alas, what TV news station will criticize another TV news station? And what newspaper or magazine will criticize another newspaper or magazine?

So, without anyone in the media holding them accountable, the news media continue to believe they can fool nearly all the people all the time when they say they are not publishing the cartoons out of respect for Muslim sensibilities.

Why is this false?

First, major papers in virtually every European country have published the cartoons. It is inconceivable that European papers are less concerned with Muslim sensibilities than American media are. If anything, in Europe they are more pro-Muslim given their anti-Israel and anti-American views and given that they live in countries with far greater numbers of Muslims than live in America.

Second, the reason to publish the cartoons is not to offend Muslims; it is to explain the most significant current news event in the world. How can anyone understand the Islamic riots without having seen the cartoons that triggered them? If millions of Christians rioted after cartoons were published in the Muslim world, does anyone doubt that the Western press would publish them, or that it had the obligation to do so?

The argument that people can see the cartoons on the Internet is specious. Anyone could see the photos of the abuse of Arab prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison on the Internet, yet the news media presented these photos day after day for weeks.

Third, the American press has routinely published cartoons and pictures that insult Christians and Jews. The Los Angeles Times published a cartoon depicting the stones of the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple, the holiest site to Jews, as spelling out the word "HATE" and showing a religious Jew bowing down before it. And what newspaper did not publish a photo of "Piss Christ," the Andres Serrano work of "art" depicting a crucifix in the artist's urine?

American newspapers "insult" every group whenever they feel like it, but no one riots, burns and kills because of it.

Fourth, the ban on depicting Mohammed applies to Muslims, not to non-Muslims. It is remarkable that American newspapers, so frightened of any breakdown between church and state, are suddenly guided by Muslim religious prohibitions.

Fifth, the argument that publishing the images would inflame Muslims' passions is another coverup for cowardice. No American newspaper or TV news show exhibited the slightest concern with inflaming Muslim passions when they endlessly published and depicted Abu Ghraib abuse photos.

If the liberal news media in America -- conservative Fox News and The Weekly Standard have shown the cartoons -- admitted they feared being hurt if they showed the cartoons, one would have respect for their honesty, if not their courage. But the liberal news media's lack of courage coupled with their dishonest justifications make for a devastating commentary on American news media.

One should not be surprised. A few years ago, New York Times foreign affairs reporter John Burns reported -- to his great credit -- that some of the most prestigious American news organizations had made a deal with Saddam Hussein not to report negatively about his regime in exchange for being allowed to have a Baghdad news bureau.

When it comes to taking on conservatives, Catholics, Evangelicals and the like, liberal news media are Supermen. When it comes to confronting real evil, however, the news media are Mickey Mouse.

Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, author, and contributing columnist for Townhall.com.

Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/dennisprager/2006/02/14/186328.html

 

[zoofer]

Likewise we have to rely on the Western Standard and forget the CBC.

 

[Ballyhootenanny]

Exactly. And in the case of another school shooting, I expect you to blame video games. Mass suicide? Heavy Metal Music! Nation-Wide Obesity.. err.. Oh wait! Blame the restaurants and the tv commercials. Nothing can possibly be an individuals fault in the slap-happy Canadian world of Today!!!!

Violent acts are perpetrated through individual choice. Jyllands-posten and Western Standard printed controversial cartoons. They did not load the rifles, they did not light the torches, they did not wire the bombs. Those acts were done by individuals. The blame should land squarely on the shoulders of those individuals.[/quote]

They are without doubt culpable.

The Western Standard is aware that publishing these cartoons can lead to the death of innocent people but do it anyway - yet without a good reason. (These cartoons are available to Canadians over the internet, anyone interested enough can view them from the public library.) Their actions are gratuitous and provocative, and if deaths result the Western Standard is partially responsible for provoking this response.

Jyllands-posten had no such warning before publishing the cartoons originally, so the only thing they're guilty of is terminally bad taste and insensitivity.

 

[I think not]

 

[Freethinker]

The Western Standard is aware that publishing these cartoons can lead to the death of innocent people but do it anyway - yet without a good reason. (These cartoons are available to Canadians over the internet, anyone interested enough can view them from the public library.) Their actions are gratuitous and provocative, and if deaths result the Western Standard is partially responsible for provoking this response.

Nonsense. They are published because they are news now, and just like in Denmark, they are published in defiance of the fear based censorship imposed by these potential perpetrators of violence you seem to be referring to.

This uproar is a complete replay of what followed the release of Salmon Rushdies book. The same rhetoric, the same violent protests and many deaths. There was a legal challenge to the book entering Canada, that failed, and it was released here without violence.

It is all about the fear based censorship being foisted on us by fanatics. We should suport those brave enough to stand up against it. Not give tacit support to the intimidators.