First Mo, then the Saudi Flag

The Weekly Standard has a very good post mortem -- including a concise summary of the South Park episodes that indicated our defeat -- on the cartoon wars. Its verdict, delivered as the subtitle to the article, is that we lost.

"Ever since those cartoons in Denmark, the rules have changed. Nobody shows an image of Muhammad anymore." When a character on the animated TV show South Park made that avowal a few weeks ago, he could easily have been speaking for media outlets across Europe and North America. This past winter's Cartoon Jihad occasioned far fewer robust defenses of press freedom than it did craven surrenders to the threats of radicals. Now, even South Park, Comedy Central's irreverent powerhouse, has felt the backlash.

Recent events would seem to confirm that verdict. We can look at Germany to see what is in store for us if we do not reverse the sorry trend started by our willingness to self-censor mere cartoons. A couple of weeks ago, I briefly noted that a hotel in a German resort town was taking down pictures of naked women from its health spa, for fear of "offending" its expected Saudi overlor-- um customers.

A closer look at the article shows that it wasn't just the hotel, but the whole town, and it wasn't just the removal of a few pieces of artwork glorifying the human body that was being done. It is worthwhile to reproduce part of the story here, for only in doing so can I convey the true extent of Germany's voluntary self-degradation and the unlimited appetite for domination in some quarters of its Moslem population. The nation, once known as "the land of poets and philosophers", is all but prostrate at the feet of barbarians.

"There are 20 tasteful portrait photos, but out of courtesy there will be no skin and no breasts," [hotel manager Michel Prokop] added.

There are also five art nouveau paintings hanging in a theatre in the park that belongs to the hotel. The paintings by Wilhelm Kleukens feature naked boys wearing wings - and will come down.

"We're following some basic 'do's and don'ts'. The whole staff is taking cross cultural training sessions to make them aware of the differences of Germany and Saudi Arabia."

Prokop, who lived in Egypt for two years said all 123 hotel staff members have been taking eight-hour courses in sensitivity training and on top of that are learning some basic Arabic phrases such as "Hello", "Welcome" and "Have a nice day".

"Among the things they're learning is about dress codes, that skirts should not be too short," he said, using words last heard in Germany in the 1960s.

"To avoid all problems, all women staffers are going to wear trousers instead of dresses."

...

"We will leave the Pay-TV on in their rooms but the porn movie channels will of course be turned off," said Prokop, 47.

"All the alcohol will be removed from the mini bars and replaced with soft drinks," he added.

...

With the help of the local Islamic community, the hotel will set up a separate prayer room and will also remove bibles from Saudi rooms.

...

"We're very excited to be hosting Saudi Arabia," said Prokop. Saudi Arabia flags will be hoisted atop about 30 public buildings in the town in honour of the visitors. [bold added]

The article makes it clear that the obsequiousness stems in part from the fact that the town has historic commercial ties to the desert kingdom. But really: If Arabs are so easily offended, why would you want to revive such ties? Hell. Why would you want anything to do with them?

By itself, the town's festooning itself with Saudi flags would not really be such a big deal. Heck, it is conceivable -- even in this day and age -- that some backward hamlet somewhere might even do that very same favor for the U.S. of A. were it to host our national team.

And even in the context of the above laundry list of things the Saudis will profess to disdain, but indulge in on the sly, my choice to mention the flags may seem over the top.

But it isn't. Via the Belmont Club, Tigerhawk notes a story that indicates that the German town of Bad Nauheim -- even in flying the Saudi flag -- may be playing with fire! He quotes an article from Spiegel Online.

A German brothel seeking to drum up business during the World Cup has been forced to remove the national flags of Saudi Arabia and Iran from an array of flags on its facade after threats from Muslims saying it was insulting their faith....

A giant poster covering the side of the seven-story, 126-apartment building showed a friendly-looking blonde woman lifting up her bra above the slogan "A Time to Make Girlfriends", in a play on the World Cup's official slogan "A Time to Make Friends." Right beneath her pink panties were posters of the flags, including those of strictly Islamic Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Pascha's manager Armin Lobscheid had also erected real flags of all the World Cup nations on another side of the building.

The campaign provoked excitement, but not the kind the management was hoping for. Men from the Muslim community came to the door complaining that showing the flags of Saudi Arabia and Iran was an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. Later, some returned in masks.

"On Friday evening we were threatened by 11 masked men who demand that we take down the Saudi Arabian flag," Lobscheid told the [Koelner] Express, a local newspaper. Not wanting any trouble, the brothel obliged and removed it and the Iranian one. But that still left the flags printed on the poster.

"On Saturday night there were 20 masked men armed with knives and sticks. They threatened to get violent and even bomb the place unless we black out the Iranian and Saudia Arabian flags on the poster as well," said Lobscheid.

There is a picture of the poster, with a blacked-out flag, over at Tigerhawk.

Tigerhawk's commentary narrowly misses nailing it on why this has come to pass.

First, if it is blasphemous in the minds of Muslims to denigrate the flag of Iran, how will Muslims the world over react to Western criticism of the government of that country? Yes, we have always expected that Muslims will to some degree naturally rally to the side of Muslim governments that stand up to the United States. What will we do if large numbers of Muslims living in the West claim that criticism of Muslim governments is blasphemous? Will that fact undermine the ability of the West to contain Iran and other Muslim powers?

Second, what are the implications of this for the American legal system, particularly civil rights laws? For better or for worse, American law usually defines discrimination according to the sensitivities of the plaintiff. If an employer expresses the political opinion that "We should bomb Iran to kingdom come," has he just created a hostile work environment for his Muslim employees, actionable under U.S. law? Under the logic of the brothel vigilantes, why not? [This is happening already. See below. --ed]

Third, the German Muslim vigilantes did not seem to care that Iran is Shiite and Saudi Arabia is Sunni. Both national flags were seen as a proxy for Islam the religion. If disaffected European Muslims take this point of view, why should we assume that other radicals won't? Beware the claims of Western analysts that Sunnis and Shiites won't work together, at least in the confronting of non-Muslims.

Fourth, if the perspective of the brothel vigilantes are not uncommon in the Muslim community, what does this say about the claimed distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? If the denigration of the flags of Muslim nations is equivalent to insulting Muslims, how can it be that denigration of Israel is not equivalent to anti-Semitism? [bold added]

Legally, the problem is that discrimination, although it is immoral and stupid, should not be illegal. Why? Because the law should protect individual rights, which are ultimately based on man's nature as a rational animal and his need to be free from the initiation of force by others to use his mind to survive.

Being "offended" in no way makes someone less able to survive. Indeed, when the law punishes someone who has merely "offended" someone else, it necessarily infringes upon his right to freedom of expression. And it may violate other rights as well. Furthermore, since we can't read minds, the notion of "offense" lends itself very nicely to abuse.

And the fact that "offense" has been enshrined into law in the West, often for laudable if misguided reasons, has opened to door for barbarians to take advantage of that fact -- by using the legal system to attack actual rights. CAIR is well-known for doing just this, after the example set for it by America's corrupt "civil rights" establishment.

Worse still, the doctrines of multiculturalism remain very influential even after such events as last year's London subway bombings drew attention to its role in weakening the cultural confidence of the West in the face of Islamic barbarity. Recall the following post-bombing exchange between Salman Rushdie and George Galloway.

[Galloway] said: "You have to be aware if you do [offend people's beliefs] you will get blowback. You should do it very carefully, especially if you are a public service broadcaster."

"Is that a threat?" asked Rushdie during the debate at the Media Guardian Edinburgh international television festival.

Describing Mr Galloway's argument as "craven", the author said: "The simple fact is that any system of ideas that decides you have to ringfence it, that you cannot discuss it in fundamental terms, that you can't say that this bit of it is junk, or that bit is oppressive ... we are supposed to respect that?"

And now, consider this recent incident (HT: TIA Daily), which shows the synergistic effects of multiculturalism and America's legal environment to stifle freedom of speech.

A Michigan State University professor who referred to Muslims as "brutal and uncivilized" and urged Islamic students to return to their "ancestral homelands" came under fire from a civil rights group on Monday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called engineering professor Indrek Wichman's remarks "Islamaphobic" and issued a statement quoting the e-mail that prompted the controversy.

"The university needs to take appropriate disciplinary action in this case to demonstrate through its actions that anti-Muslim bigotry will not be tolerated on campus," said Dawud Walid, head of the rights group's Michigan chapter.

...

A spokesman for MSU said Wichman had been warned that any further comments of a similar kind could prompt a formal complaint under the university's anti-discrimination policy.

...

Wichman said his remarks were meant as a defense of free speech. "It's not a call for mass deportation or vigilantism," he said. "I just care deeply about the First Amendment and the right to say what you think."

His suggestion that Muslims uncomfortable with America's open culture should leave was not unreasonable, Wichman said, adding that he hoped the controversy would die down soon.

Thanks to the pervasive influence of multiculturalism, it is CAIR here which sounds more mainstream, and Professor Wichman, the lone voice of reason in the wilderness, who sounds -- by comparison -- like a loose cannon!

And thanks to misguided legislation and institutional policies that have been on the books for decades in some cases -- and to which the American public is used, if not favorably disposed toward -- the legal and institutional machinery already exists to basically steamroll the good Professor.

First, silly cartoons of Mohammed, and now the flags of intolerant Saudi Arabia and genocidal Iran are to be treated -- by Westerners -- as if they are holy relics! And, as I noted this morning, this pattern of escalation is wholly consistent with that on other fronts in the Islamic War Against Civilization.

Hmmm. Yasser Arafat harasses Israel with murder and mayhem for decades -- and gets them to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza. So is it really any big surprise that Iran is building nukes and threatening to launch them at Israel -- and calling for them to withdraw from Israel altogether?

And so it will be with our rights, which are, by the way necessary for us to live at all, let alone live lives proper to man.

How much more of this will we have to take before we fight back on more than just a military front? How much more can our civilization take? So far, it looks like, "too much" and "too little" are the answers to these questions.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Nick Provenzo is organizing a freedom of speech rally in DC. If you can't actually attend, consider donating. It sounds like such things can be expensive.