Western Resistance

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February 4, 2006

UK: Scottish Feminist Attacks Islamic Tyranny

I have found broadcaster and author Muriel Gray (pictured) always intelligent, but sometimes tiresome and dogmatic. However, I thoroughly salute her clarity and insight when she analyses the current affair of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. In a piece from the Scottish Sunday Herald, entitled "How can we have respect for Islam when we are too fearful to criticise it?", she accurately describes the origin of the cartoon row, and how it reflects a deeper intolerance by Islam of the West.

She wryly notes that the 9/11 assassins spent their last night alive celebrating not any of the cultural events on offer in the US, but instead imbibed the sleaze in a lap-dancing bar. She says that the West is being told that it misunderstands Islam, but argues that Islam too does not understand the West.

I advise you to read the article in its entirety, but this extract shows what the climate of fear, imposed upon creatives in art and publishing, has done. She has placed the blame for this climate of fear, where intolerant fundamentalists can call for death of individuals, no matter where they live, upon the shoulders of Ayatollah Khomeini, and his fatwa of 1989 against Salman Rushdie. She writes:

This paper's belief in freedom of speech is paramount. The decision not to reprint the cartoons, not to declare ourselves another Spartacus in support of our European colleagues, was taken, at least partly, out of consideration for the safety of the staff, and the safety of Scottish people here and abroad, and I fully support it. But the extremists, who created the fear that made that decision a foregone conclusion, must understand that if they think the UK press have done this out of respect, they are so very wrong. They have undoubtedly won this battle hands down. Well done. We are afraid. But do they think people neutered and silenced by fear are going to work at embracing their culture, their religion or their values? Clearly, they don't care. The danger of this backlashing on to our innocent Muslim fellow citizens is a distinct possibility and the thought makes me sick to the stomach. It looks as though those of us aching for the misery of all this hatred to end are in for a long wait."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 4, 2006 11:33 PM

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