This is a sad piece of editorial journalism where once again Salon insists on seeing all conflicts as being either for or against Bush. The whole article is like a premature ejaculation over the possibility that Rasmussen’s government will fall. That apparently gets Salon going because it is a vicarious enjoyment of the mere possibility of what people (including myself) would like to see happen to Bush in a parliamentary system. Slow news weeks at Salon bring out the anti-Israeli and pro-Muslim articles, no matter how silly or at times hateful.

“those in the Danish government and media who were spoiling for a culture war had failed to recognize the depth of Muslims' feelings”

I’m glad Klausen is still so lacking in principle that she feels we should sacrifice our foundational principles because Muslims feel bad about something. That is the argument after all trotted out again and again by the multiculturalist crowd: Muslims (or other non-Western victim group) feel angry, insulted, humiliated, etc. and everyone should accommodate their emotional outburst because it will then be our own fault then if they turn violent. Not only does that attitude show the typical paternalism of leftist apologists for Islam, but of course fails to recognize that the emotional attachment of people to free expression may be no less strong nor unworthy of consideration.

“defiant diatribes from xenophobes defending free speech, and defiant diatribes from Muslim leaders bent on stirring religious radicalism.”

Notice the disproportion, the Muslim fault lies only with the leaders (notice Klausen does not condemn the attacks on the embassies or note that the hundreds who died were Muslims killed in Muslim countries by other Muslims), whereas the average person defending free speech gets lumped in with people who hate foreigners just because they are foreigners? Klausen is always too much of a coward to come out openly against free speech in this or her execrable article from last year. I think the Salonista crowd nodding with her should consider the disturbing implication of a professor against free expression.

“They also denounce the Rasmussen government for failing to distance itself from racist remarks made by Søren Krarup and Jesper Langballe, cousins and both former pastors in the Lutheran Church who were elected to Parliament from the DPP. Krarup recently said that there was no difference between the Muslim head scarf and the Nazi Iron Cross.”

This passage is awash in dishonest tactics. First note the pejorative “racist” is trotted out and then no example of racist speech or action is forthcoming. That is a typical tactic to silence critics of Islam. The statement which is cited is just an ignorant, absurd cultural comment which has nothing whatsoever to do with race. Does Klausen really think Krarup would find the headscarf any less offensive on a blond-haired, blue-eyed Muslim? Plus anyone with a basic knowledge of German history would know that the Iron Cross is a symbol which well predates and transcends the Third Reich. So is that anti-German racism, Jytte?

In response to your valid point, Canadian multiculturalism is I would argue not representative in any way of what multiculturalism has become in Europe. It came too soon afterwards to reflect the anti-Western, anti-Enlightenment (e.g. freedom for non-Western cultures from rational critique) ideologies popular among socialists and leftists in Western Europe after 1968. The Québecois and Native Canadians for whom it was implemented were long established societies with a largely defined and homogenous geo-political boundaries. The situation cannot be compared in any way with post-colonial immigrants. Québec’s consideration of independence and to some degrees the creation Nunavut actually speaks to the neat division of the constituent cultures. The Silent Revolution in Québec normalized the socio-political values between French and English-speaking Canada I would argue and is perhaps the most important factor in the Canadian model working.

Did anyone else think about Klausen’s book title, Peaceful Jihad: The Danish Cartoon Crisis?

She readily admits that mobs burned down embassies, killed 250 people and that a boycott was begun which punished people and companies who had nothing to do with the cartoons in question and yet (leaving out numerous other violent or aggressive Muslim responses she fails to mention) it was a “peaceful jihad?”

Is this the world turned upside down?

THobbes (well named) and another writer already pointed out major flaws in Edmond Dantés' statements, but I want to elucidate the totalitarian impulse at the heart of his argument, typical of modern European leftist politics.

Read his comments in this context:

Our glorious socialist democracy (which ever one you happen to live in) will be threatened by allowing people to express a given idea, so label that idea “hate speech” and the person involved “right wing agitators,” then ban it with criminal penalties as a danger to the state, community, etc.

Does that sound like a free society or a fascist state (in a genuine sense: the subordination of the individual to the state)? Every one keeps their mouth shut, pays their taxes and we’ll all be one big happy family, right Eddie?