This Hate Has Taken Its Toll

Never before Denmark been awarded a worldwide publicity. Now it get one as a country that tolerate intolerance.
Once upon a time a Dane author named Kåre Bluitgen was set to publish a book on prophet Muhammad, but there was just one catch: he couldn’t find an illustrator. Visualisation of Muhammad is taboo and considered blasphemy by Islam. So three artist turn down to illustrate the book.
Frants Iver Gundelach, president of the Danish Writers Union, decried this as a threat to free speech — and the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, responded. They contacted forty artists to make insult cartoon of Prophet Muhammad and received in response twelve cartoons of the Prophet , and publish the cartoons in its September 30, 2005 issue. And the hell broke loose.

Is it for free press? The answer is no. I quote 6 February 2006 issue of The Guardian :

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten. Zieler received an email back from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

First of all, let me use the word bule to refer to the west. It is more handy and the word carries the ugly side of it’s culture. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe there are quite a number of sensible open minded bules who tolerate other faiths. But I am not sure if they constitute majority , especially today. It is indeed difficult to deny a strong impression that there is more resentment against Islam recently shown by bule.

Following are just a few examples. First, there were brutal attack on Mosque and assault to muslim population in Holland in revenge to the assasination of a film director. Then, there was a denial of basic human rights in France and Germany when muslim students were not allowed to wear hijab. And still fresh in our memory how a bunch of descendants of ex convicts brutally attacked Muslim in Cronulla Sydney.

Bule’s governments are today more open in their dislike of Islam. German chanchelor Angela Merkel has made it clear that multiculturalism is a hollow vision. Muslim immigrants must take off their hijab and adopt western culture or else leave the country. Can somebody tell me Gusdur’s phone number.He may have to unlearn his idea of pluralism and learn Christian patrotism from Merkel, so he can retain his title of cosmopolitan man.

In France , Minister of Internal Affair bluntly said that he will wipe off those thugs living in the suburb with vaccum cleaner. Obviously he referred to Muslim and Arab population . The would be saint Pope Benedict join the crusade by saying that Turkey should not be part of Europe ,because Turks are Muslim while European are christian. Well, he didn’t say that explicitly, but his using the word “culture incompatibility” make no difference.
And do you still remember the dumbest head of state on earth Bush declared a crusade against enemy of America. Later he quickly retracted the word crusade, but spontaneous statement reflects your subconscious, right? And believe it or not, today the spirit of crusade is the name of the game .

Now let us look at our backyard. Have you been lately reading blogs run by expat in Indonesia.Take a look to see that having been in Indonesia doesn’t make them more sensitive. But I want to be fair minded. According to statistics compiled by Kelurahan Bangka Kemang ,number of bule population in Kemang has dropped 85% since Bom Bali I. After all, who want to live in a country where bombs explodes every year,except of course the remaining 15% who are second rated .They seems to have no choice but stay because otherwise they will be one of those standing in the line collecting social security money in their homeland. If you want to visit their blog sites, drop an email to me, cause I don’t want to link my blog with rubbish.

All these boiled down to what I believe that Jyllands case is only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath, the hatred campaign against Islam has taken its toll. And, free press, yes of course as long as you do not publish bad things about jews and Israel, because that kind of stuff is anti semitism and considered something like blasphemy. But if we were to extrapolate free press all the way down to the domain of insult and degradation of religion, then bule must tolerate the depiction of jewish cannibal sucking the blood of Jesus Christ, or maybe an article glorifying Osama Bin Laden as a freedom fighter. How about that.