« The measure of artistic risk | Home | The Open Center's Catalog: What, No Imams? »
February 10, 2006
Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Sot
I'm exceedingly pleased to see that Carsten Juste, the editor in chief of Jyllands-Posten, the paper in Denmark recently notable for launching one of the first battles of World War IV in Scandanavia the Great Cartoon Jihad of 2006, has taken my advice and placed Flemming Rose, the culture editor, on indefinite leave. Not for the original decision to run the cartoons, but his decision to overcome the problem he had landed in with the Muslims by reprinting cartoons depicting the Holocaust commissioned by an Iranian newspaper.
Earlier this week, [Flemming Rose] said he would also be open to reprinting cartoons depicting the Holocaust commissioned by an Iranian newspaper. That prompted a public disagreement with editor-in-chief Carsten Juste, who has also come under pressure to resign over the row. "The editorial management and Flemming Rose have agreed that he needed a break from work until further notice," said Tage Clausen, a spokesman for the Jyllands-Posten paper.
Jyllands-Posten has apologised for offending Muslims but has insisted it was right to print the cartoons because of the importance of freedom of speech. Muslims incensed by the images have insisted that Denmark properly apologises to defuse the row.
And apparently Flemming Rose was of the opinion that the best way to defuse the row was to insult Holocaust Victims.
Hat Tip: LGF
Alcibiades | 02/10/06 at 05:28 PM | Categories: - The Fourth Estate
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.keshertalk.com/cgi-bin/mtb.cgi/4552
Comments
That is one possible interpretation. It is also possible that Rose thought that by publishing the Holocaust cartoons he would be showing (1) that they really do believe in freedom of speech; (2) just how hateful the Muslim press can be; (3) how much nastier those cartoons are than the ones of Muhammad that Jyllands-Posten published.
Lewis Reich | February 12, 2006 01:54 AM
I concede your last two points.
But I can't see how acquiring Iranian cartoons for Jyllands-Posten in the current atmosphere which were soliticted by an Iranian newspaper in the first place as a bizarre riposte for the Mohommed imbroglio is going to show freedom of speech as opposed to dhimmitude.
OTOH, if it is true, as another commenter below states, that Flemming Rose, the "cartoon" editor, is himself Jewish (and I don't know his source for that information, so I am not endorsing it one way or another), one begins to see why some Muslims might believe that Holocaust cartoons are an appropriate return gesture.
alcibiades | February 12, 2006 10:58 AM
What's your problem here? I think it would be highly informative to see the Iranian cartoons. If you can't see them then, frankly, I don't see how you can have an opinion about them. Free speech is free speech, and the point is to get information and opinion out there.
I don't think Germany banning Mein Kampf serves any purpose either. I found it in the library when I was thirteen and read it then. It is always worth knowing what people think, especially if there is a fight looming in the future.
chuck | February 12, 2006 02:44 PM
I think there is a rather significant difference between publishing those cartoons in the spirit of "reaching out "to the Moslem world, as a "conciliatory gesture". And publishing them as a news story in order to report that this was the reaction to the original cartoons in Iran.
The way the gesture came across initially, it seemed to be a case of the former. An impression only strengthened when the editor in chief nixed Rose's decision and volunteered him for indefinite leave.
alcibiades | February 12, 2006 03:02 PM
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
