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Rantings of a Sandmonkey

Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Incommunicato

Youssef, our resident half-Egyptian/Half-Danish blogger, is reporting that due to continues snubbing by muslim leaders, the Danish government has announced the end of dialogue between it and the muslim leaders. The Danish Integration Minister (a ministerial post with a mandate to work to ensure that minorities such as Muslims can integrate well with Danish society) has announced the end of any dialog with Muslim leaders. Calls for dialog and invitations to speak from the Prime Minister and the Integration Minister were snubbed by Muslim leaders. The Muslim leaders apparently made public statements to their constituencies that they were not interested in such dialogs. You see, news like that and the fact that the danish Imam who started this whole thing used a picture of a contestent in a pig squealing contest and claimed it was someone portraying the prophet as half-pig that makes me suspect the validity of the argument that this current crisis is something the danish government instigated. It's sad that danish the muslim leaders rejected calls for dialogue though, because now, surely, the danish population will start really riling up against them. Cause while it could be argued that the muslim anti-danish craziness all over the world is not their fault, the muslim leaders' decision to reject dialogue will surely make it seem as if they are not interested in any kind of peacefull resolution for this and in turn not interested in the welfare of Denmark. And if they are not intrested in the welfare and safety of danish citizens, well, why should the danish citizens care at all about their welfare and safety? This is an unnecessary move that probably aims to exploit the increasing worldwide pressure to its advantage to press for demands, which may be smart if the danes cave in, but I fear this will not be the case. Oh well.... On a completely seperate note, I heard that a couple of "No Danish people allowed in" signs appeared at some supermarkets and stores in an apparent attempt to one-up other Danish-boycotters. That depressed me, but it also made me wonder how people like Youssef* may feel about this. How are you supposed to react to something like that if you are half danish, half egyptian? How are you suppsoed to react if you are that and a muslim as well? Interestingly enough, we know how he feels about the cartoons: I am half Danish and half Egyptian. Has I been in the role of the Jyllands Posten Editor, the Prime Minister of Denmark, the Foreign Minister of Denmark, or any other Danish official who has commented and reacted thus far, I declare that I would have behaved exactly as they did. They have my support. There can be no exemptions from free speech; no one is given special protection. There is no room for privilege in free speech. Offensive cartoons like these demand class-action lawsuits against the newspaper, no more and no less. People should stop wallowing in their collective victim complexes. Come next elections, my vote is going somewhere more towards the right. I don't want people in Denmark who hold up placards calling for beheading. And he is half-egyptian. Imagine how the rest of the danish population feels! Do you see now why this whole thing has been retarded? sigh... * By people like Youssef I mean half-egyptian/half-danish people, regardless of religious affiliation,

13 Comments:

At 2/08/2006 03:54:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The government has not said that they don't want to talk to muslims, far from it! - a member of parliment have said that "they" don't want to talk to radical imams/muslims (however other members of the government does not agree with her), and instead have started an open dialogue with the moderate muslims.

 
At 2/08/2006 04:11:00 AM, Blogger Josef Assad said...

When you say I am a muslim, where'd that come from?

 
At 2/08/2006 04:13:00 AM, Blogger Jordan said...

When thinking about this culture war, I am often reminded of a half-naked Charlton Heston screeming:

"You maniacs! You blew it up! Oh, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

 
At 2/08/2006 04:22:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The article from Politiken is not correct translated!

The have been dialogues between those imams and danish politicians about integration, but after all this mess where Imams have lied as hell they have no credibility anymore, so it is the integration minister that decided to end the dialogue with them when it comes to integration issues.

The government will still have dialogue with muslims, just not that group of fucked up imams, and I agree 100%

There are several politicians that are muslims, and also other muslims orgs that have much more credibilities than lying imams.

Personally I think this will improve integration and tolerance now that those radical imams have been put on ice.

Good decision.

 
At 2/08/2006 04:23:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holger said
>> One of the problems with the middle-age imams of denmark, is that they dont know anything about denmark

And let me continue that Abu Laban don't speak danish, so how on earth can he promote integration?

 
At 2/08/2006 04:44:00 AM, Blogger The Sandmonkey said...

Youssef, I thought about that actually when I was writing the post. When I said people who were half egyptian, half danish and muslim I didn;t mean you specifically, but I did use you as the example for the half danish half egyptian population, to which the question is still valid. However, I can see where confusion can set in on this, and I hope I helped clearify things with the correction I made in the post.

 
At 2/08/2006 04:49:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think Mr. Holger means medieval - not middle-aged. In danish those two words are very similar.

Besides: I agree 100% with our minister of integration on this one (thinking about it, it's the first time - ever!). And just to clarify: She has only disrupted the cooperation with the radical imams in Denmark - they can not be trusted, when they stir up things, say peace on danish tv and war on arabic.

And they are so stupid! They think we would never find out! They must have leaned themselves forward too hard during friday praiers...

I fear very much that this whole affair has pushed the danish society further to the right. We didn't need that at all.

 
At 2/08/2006 05:12:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hear there is an opening with the Sirius patrol on Greenland. We should send Abu Laban there so he can have some time for himself to think about what he has done.

 
At 2/08/2006 05:20:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Way to go, Mr. Holger.

To go even further, all kindergartens og Copenhagen only uses halal butchered meat (I hope I got the spelling right there), which many danish politicians (right wing, off course) are mad about.

It means, that these kindergartens can not serve children the danish national dish frikadeller, because they are made of meat from pigs.

I think the children will survive!

 
At 2/08/2006 11:13:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Which half is Egyptian and which half is Danish? Will only half of him get into the store? How will he buy anything if his money is on the wrong half? Will he get only half as much as he orders?

SK.

 
At 2/08/2006 11:14:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW - Thanks David Warren. :-)

Please send a copy to the Danish Embassey., All of the people in the muslim world - and one for me. PLEASE!!

Thank You

Erik - Denmark

 
At 2/09/2006 03:59:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

this is back fire big time.

and think about all the millions in aid Denmark give to the blokading countryes can now be use for helping the more needing causes also in denmark.

in 2005:

egypt 150 mill dkk
afganistan 200 mill dkk
irak 130 mill dkk

plus any chance we can get the
DKK 7 million (EUR 930,000) to support democratic efforts in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January, back. ?

they dont seam to like the gift anyway

they could go to build a real mosk in denmark ;)

 
At 2/10/2006 04:29:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm a dane who came across your blog. I've read a lot of the entries about this mess, and I want to give you a danes point of view.

First off...I totally agree with the previous poster, that Ahmed Abu-Labans trip to the middle eastern countries was the real reason, that all of this started. No one outside Denmark would've ever heard of the cartoons, if he and his followers hadn't spread the lies through out those muslim countries.

That kind of drawings is a very normal part of the danish press. Often we see cartoons like those of Mohammed portraying our Prime minister and other politicians. Even our queen. And noone is ever really offended by it...that's just we way we do things in Denmark.

So you can imagine my surprise, when I saw some of the anti-semitic cartoons in arab newspapers, after seeing people burning off embassies and danish flags because of the cartoons in Jyllands-Posten, right? ;)

Well...in my oppinion Ahmed Abu-Laban is responsible for starting this conflict...arab governments are responsible for the way people need to blow off steam, resulting in something that could be considered declarations of war against Denmark, Norway and Sweden, when they burnt down our embassies.

There is a lot of debate in Denmark on where to place the responsability for all of this. Danish media reports new stories about the development in the middle east daily. And people discuss this topic on the street, in supermarkets, on the job...everywhere. 'Cause we DID start it with the cartoons, though it was never intended to go this far.

I believe in our right to critizise everything. If people get offended, they are free to react on it, but then they must also pay the consequences, if they get out of line. And things have gotten out of line for sure.

In Denmark there is a politically correct elite, that excuses muslims from their responsibilities as citizens of the danish community. If i were to make some mistake, they would want me to be punished for it, while they would be more overbearing with a muslim...'cause he's a minority. "Poor little muslim...he wouldn't be like that, if he wasn't treated so bad by everyone...he just needs love and understanding".

You know what i mean?

Well...i believe this happens in a much larger scale too. Western countries are like..."Okay, so you burnt down our embassies, but well...if the conditions were right for you, then we're pretty sure, you wouldn't have done it, so we're just gonna let this one slip...forgive and forget, right?".

Hell no...I'm convinced, that we could use this situation to improve our relationship to each other. But we have to stop encouraging this victim-mentalitet...it's a very clear sign of the arrogance of the western countries. 'Cause we ARE arrogant.

I say, that there should be consequences for the governments that boycot danish companies and allowed embassies to be burnt down. We ought to treat these countries as we would treat any other countries, that did the same.

Maybe it would be misunderstood by these governments...it most likely would. But then we could say, that we at least did the right thing instead of treating the arab world as a "lower grade" part of the world by not even dealing out consequences for breaking international laws.

And then maybe...just maybe...this could inspire the people that live under dictatorship and surpressing governments to stand up and take the power back...claim their right to be treated like human beings in a way, that is based an common sense and caring for each other. Or am I being to idealistic? ;)

Most of all I would have preferred that none of this ever happened. But now that it did, then...and i believe I speak for most danes and probably all thinking individuals...I hope we can use this to either get closer to one another...or come to realize, that the western and arab world should not have diplomatic relations at all and break the contact.

I hope this was in any way helpful to you in the arab countries, that do not approve of the way this conflict has been handled. :)

 

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