Wow.
I’ve been saying that you can’t count out the European self-preservation instinct. I don’t believe that the nations that have millennia-old history of war and bloodshed will just lie down and die when their way of life is threatened. And here’s proof I’m not wrong:
Denmark’s five major daily newspapers republished on Wednesday one of the 12 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad which angered Muslims around the world, as a protest against a plot to murder one of the cartoonists.
A Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisians were arrested on Tuesday in western Denmark for planning to murder 73-year-old Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that originally published the drawings in September 2005.
The five newspapers—Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, BT and Ekstra Bladet—on Wednesday republished Westergaard’s cartoon, which depicts the founder of Islam with a bomb in his turban.
Apparently, even the left recognizes existential threats. And their response has none of the xenophobia and bigotry of the far-right anti-Muslim parties like Vlaams Belang.
“Regardless of whether Jyllands-Posten at the time used freedom of speech unwisely and with damaging consequences, the paper deserves unconditional solidarity when it is threatened with terror,” It said.
This is exactly the reaction that Muslim organizations don’t want. The West, it seems, is not going to kowtow to the bullying and threats of the radical Islamists. Not counting, of course, morons like the Archibishop of Canterbury.
There is no inherent right not to be offended. Time to let the professional victimologists know that.
This is good news, make no doubt about it, but I wouldn’t generalize from Denmark to “the West”. In World War II, Denmark was one of the only European nations that actively tried to protect its Jews, so it doesn’t surprise me (much) that they are one of the only countries to take a stand (however symbolic) against Muslim terrorist threats.
But the rest of Europe? As you well know, the UK is actively surrendering to pressure from Muslim terrorists. Germany’s supreme court has already upheld Sharia law in at least one case involving Muslims. There are plenty of other examples showing how the French, Spanish and other governments are effectively taking orders from the terrorists.
Maybe they’ll grow a spine and try to defend themselves before they are completely conquered, but I wouldn’t count on it. It will probably require intervention by the US (assuming our government hasn’t also surrendered by then) in order to save Europe – just as it was in World War II.
Actually, it was a lower court and the judge was then taken off the case and the decision overthrown.