John Simpson is asking the question that needs to be asked: how did the cartoon controversy develop into the cartoon war?
Simpson asks the question of how the Danish cartoons published on 30th Sept. 05 came to be so inflammatory in Feb 06. He claims to have the answer when he says that Egypt’s Foreign Minister was leading a campaign ‘As early as November’.
Well, that is so, but as so often with the BBC, it’s a fragment of the story which they care to admit, and think they’re blessing us with. It might be more accurate to say that the Egyptian came to head the campaign at that time.
Simpson ignores the fact that Islamic diplomats in Denmark were naturally much quicker off the mark than the ‘mild, distinctly moderate’ one in Cairo, following hot on the heels of popular demonstrations in Copenhagen. What’s clear is that this was a team effort. Do delegations set off to Cairo without an invite? Are their meetings with all the high-ranking people who count set up just like that? I don’t think so. By the time that the Egyptian foreign minister ‘spoke his mind’ the delegation was clearly poised to visit Cairo, with all its meetings arranged at the highest level. That is remarkable, and to some extent explains the gap of 5-6 weeks, which was no doubt filled with frenzied email networking. Even George Galloway would admit that getting access to Egypt isn’t all that easy(I think I even get the joke on this one- they’re not totally without a sense of humour out there).
It would further be ridiculous to suggest that the delegation itself emerged out of nowhere, and was not the fruit of much domestic Danish Islamic work. If you read the links to Islam online, a network blessed by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi himself, you will see that the aims of the Danish Imams and the actions of the diplomats are quite clearly in a kind of synchronicity. This is the Ummah they talk about, in action.
My point? The BBC is obscuring a vital element of how the cartoon story (fakes which demonstrated ‘the truth of Islamic misery in Denmark’, and all) came about- while they know full well the mechanics of the story. Even one of the headlines at Islam Online screams the truth: ‘Danish Muslims “Internationalize” Anti-Prophet Cartoons’- just at the time in November when Simpson claims that the mild mannered Egyptian Foreign Minister was apparently pioneering the cartoon cause. The bottom line is that Simpson accepts the Islamic thesis: ‘we must understand that many Muslims around the world feel increasingly beleaguered’. This, for the Beeb and its World Affairs Editor, trumps all. What a patsy.
Update 7/2: BBC begin to get the point- and guess who? It’s Paul Reynolds, friend of this blog, who gets it for them. However, although his account is accurate, he merely talks of ‘The finger of suspicion’ pointing at the delegation, and says ‘It might not have made much difference’ . Well, maybe, but there are many indications that they were pretty central to events. He also admits that the BBC showed the false cartoons in their reports, but fails to point out they actually reported them verbally as though they were real.
Meanwhile, the source of the photograph the BBC showed in their clips is revealed here.
Rick,
I am not anti Christians, just anti mind control. In this world we deal in facts supported by evidence.
Today, 4 million believers in the Jain faith (Indian) will attend the anointing of the Gomateshwara this ceremony is held every 12 years.
As for the Christian Church today it is the biggest stumbling block to the control of Aids/HIV and family planning control.
Geldof asks us to make poverty history, he should start with asking the Church to be more flexible.
Adherence to 2,000 year old myths and cults leads to derangement. The Greeks had ditched Apollo and Zeus before the arrival of Jesus. Faith based religions are akin to a computer virus that crash the system.
If you believe in God logically you should be Muslim because the Christians have only had a partial revelation. Gods last and final words are the Koran.
In this world we deal in facts supported by evidence.
Not true. You have no evidence of sub-atomic particles, you know nothing of Charm or Worms or Singularities, and are completely at sea on Brane Theory……………..you take all this Physics on trust, you believe but you cannot prove one thing yourself.
There is little evidence to prove Einstein’s Theories of General Relativity; do you refute them ?
If you believe in God logically you should be Muslim
If you can find some logic in this sentence do clarify; it is just an empty assertion. Do you have any way of explaining what this particular sentence means, I find it incomprehensible.
As for the Christian Church today it is the biggest stumbling block to the control of Aids/HIV
Not at all true – in South Africa the Health Minister recommends Beetroot – there is no prohibition on eating Beetroot.
Maybe Ignorance is the word that should be applied, and sexual promiscuity. The reasons for HIV presence (and not all indicators suggesting HIV imply AIDS) in Africa is lack of social structure and the veryt low status of women coupled with an unsupportable birth rate.
If you had a falling out with the Catholic Church there is no reason to become a Missionary Zealot attacking others’ beliefs……..isn’t that the whole issue ?
Certain comments elsewhere on this blog have been deleted by the site owner as an “anti Islamic rant”
My comments encompass ALL religions which insist on believers wiping out the opposition or non-believers as they call them.
Until anyone can show me how you can ascend into heaven without first reaching escape velocity I shall continue to deal in facts supported by evidence.
The DIVERSITY of religions on this planet are a stumbling block to a bright future. They are like 2,000 year old time machines that have landed in the 21st century are are trying to drag us backward in time.
Christianity commands us to love all unbelievers because they too are made in God’s image and likeness. “Wiping out” just isn’t allowed. Benedict 16 is very sound on love in his latest encyclical.
Granted most Western religions are largely benign, only because we have outgrown them. To avoid a religious war of the future, Islam must also change, but this is unlikely in the short term.
The clerics of Iran have 70 million potential soldiers ready to die for? who? what? why? Islamic mothers consider their children heroes if they die for Islam. Iranian children fought one another to have the honour of clearing minefields during the war with Iraq. Human wave attacks went singing to their deaths.
This is not an anti Islamic rant, it is fact supported by evidence an example of how religion and ideology can make human beings deranged.
The sad fact is because of an out of date religion we in this century are preparing for war.
Whereas Christianity seems to have produced a more humane society based on mutual respect for our shared humanity. Post-Christian societies, or post-Christian sections of society seem to be in many cases to be abandoning this principle of mutual respect. When Christian societies have abandoned Christianity in the past they have ended up with Communism and Nazism, both of which are based on the explicit denial of our essential humanity.
You don’t have to believe (though I do) in order to recognise that a society founded on the Christian principle of the inalienable value to God of every human life has in fact resulted in more humane societies. And freedom.
I am being forced to dish the dirt on Christianity against my better judgement but I have to make this point. The Christian religion of today IN THIS COUNTRY is a shadow of its founding self. In the USA, stem cell research is banned because people of faith consider a cell to be a human being, notwithstanding, thousands are dieing from treatable diseases useing stem cells.
Christians bomb maim and attack abortion clinics.
The Bible is not studied in its entirety by Christians unlike Muslim Clerics who learn it off by heart starting as children in Madrassa. The four gospels contradict each other but no one has rescinded the death penalty for the following sins:
Taking the Lords name in vain death Leviticus 24;16
working on the sabbath – death Exodus 31;15
cursing your mum and dad – death Exodus 21;17
adultery – death Leviticus 20;10
Sarge – get your facts right. Stem cell research is NOT banned in the USA.
The use of Federal Funds for Cell-Stem Research is. Do you believe everything should be funded by taxpayers ? are you a totalitarian Socialist or something.
You must watch the BBC till you are goggle-eyed to lap up that rubbish – the only prohibition is on Federal Funds. Schwarzenegger wanted to fund it in California, but frankly I think the Us has a lot of private research funds.
BTW. Germany does BAN cell-stem research – they used to have a researcher called Dr Josef Mengele funded by the government to do experiments and send his research to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin (now Max-Planck).
Noone could accuse Germans of excessive Christian Faith – they just have an experience of Hades that makes them cautious.
You are a real Zealot for your anti-religious stuff – never mind – like the Moonies I can only smile and pass by.
how you can ascend into heaven without first reaching escape velocity
That is a Greek concept – nowhere in the Bible do you find this notion of heaven you seem to have formed. It is Greek mythology not Christian theology.
I do know however Sarge that light does escape the earth’s atmosphere, it travels at 300.000km/second. That is probably why Einstein took it as a constant.
You should brush up on Quantum Mechanics and probably read this book:
Warped Passages: Unravelling the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions (Penguin Press Science S.)
by Lisa Randall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brane
It seems your knowledge may be incomplete even about your own surroundings which may not be as physical as you imagine
No Christian Society or Jewish society imposes the Death Penalty for any of those sins
In any case they’re Old Testament prohibitions, and superseded by the New Testament. “A new commandment I give you….”
Jesus and Paul were both Torah-observant Jews.
The Jews only have the “Old Testament” but do not execute for these offences – however Islam has a traditional attachment to such remedies because they have a rigid text perfect for all time.
The level of AIDS/Hiv dropped in Uganda thanks to the Catholic Church insisting on people following their teachings and abstaining….
For the record, my grandparents were welsh baptist, my parents C of E, I was a choirboy and server. My wifes family are Catholic. As History is my subject I despair at what is being/has been done on the name of religion.
I have attended Catholic masses, sung prayed stood sat and kneeled with the faithful, but not taken communion as I don’t buy into the body of Christ appearing in the transflubation. I am not a hypocrite.
You do not have to be religious to rescue a drowning child.
When the congregation leaves the Church they are assailed on all sides by beggers street urchins cripples deformed penniless starving humanity, – AND they are ignored. I am mobbed because i hand out 50p to buy some bread. In such a catholic country, these poor people follow shoppers around as they do the weekly shop asking (pleading for bread). naturally I wonder what these pious catholics are DOING to help the slum dwellers in the favelas.
Answer; Nothing, I have deduced that they choose deliberately to ignore it, it doesn’t exist although it is under their noses. Maybe the starving will have a reward in heaven but do not see any compassion forthcoming from the faithful.
What did great civilisations do before Christ? Roman Greek Chinese etc?
I will return to the USA administration who apart from curtailing stem cell research have stopped aid for HIV.
Favelas ? You are in Brasil ?
Rick
I travel,
I agree that human beings can have extraordinary experiences, usually when they smoke a natural herb or plant.The Sermon on the Mount would have been good enough but to add born of a virgin, son of God, rising from the dead after 3 days, destined to return to earth, makes becoming like Jesus impossible. A gratuitous fairy tale so we can list our sins and await the end of the world.
The house of representatives voted effectively to ban stem cell research on february 27 2003.
G W Bush has stopped funding planning control clinics if they give information about abortion.
To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, God having created the world, must be peed off to get Hitler stalin and the H Bomb.
Betrand Russell was a mathematician in so many other areas he was deficient both as a man, and as a philosopher
Wasn’t Russell a great fan of Stalin, a fully paid-up fellow-traveller?
In the USA, stem cell research is banned because people of faith consider a cell to be a human being, notwithstanding, thousands are dieing from treatable diseases useing stem cells.
This is completely untrue, dear Sarge. Only someone who swallows the BBC’s anti-American hatefest inanities hook, line and sinker would actually believe this.
Stem cell research is alive and well in the U. S. of A.
there is no ban on stem cell research. there WAS a ban by the federal government on providing federal funds for stem cell research. NOT because anyone believes that stem cells are human beings, but because the cells were being harvested from aborted fetuses. Quite a different issue from what you are claiming.
Private entities and individual states are free to finance stem cell research on their own.
The State of California voted in 2004 to fund stem cell research to the tune of $3 billion from its own state revenues. This vote was by popular referendum.
Just because the federal government doesn’t want to provide funds for stem cell reserach doesn’t mean that it is banned.
Yes Susan, I explained that to him further up the thread but Sarge returns to his theme unmoved by facts.
Germany BANS stem cell research; the USA just refuses Federal Funds which is all the President can do; only Congress could ban it altogether but does not.
The propaganda on stem cell research is incredible and the disappointment will be huge because it will not do what the lobbyists claim.
It is amazing though how the lobbyists got their message into MSM and the BBC to promote it, but that is the essence of PR to get the masses to espouse something they do not comprehend.