Time Immortal

Completely unacceptable. I guess even the Danes have a point at which they fold and give in to fear of Islamic violence.

He was “too much of a security risk.” Unconscionable. This man should be a hero of every freedom-loving Dane. “Danish Caricaturist of Muhammad Fame Now Homeless,” from Spiegel (thanks to all who sent this in):

Draw a picture offensive to Muslim extremists, and you might find yourself without a roof. Ask Kurt Westergaard, one of the twelve Danish cartoonists whose autumn 2005 Muhammad caricatures lead to violent protests throughout the Muslim world. He was booted from his police-protected hotel room on Feb. 15 for being “too much of a security risk.” And now the 73-year-old cartoonist and his wife are without a place to live.

Westergaard was forced to leave his actual residence in November after the Danish security and intelligence agency, PET, informed him of a “concrete” plan to murder him, according to the paper that originally published the cartoons, Jyllands-Posten.

It is much more likely, now, that both the cartoonist and his wife will end up getting the Theo van Gogh treatment, living (as they are) exposed on the streets of Denmark. That would be a travesty, O Reader, and an indictment of the Danish government and its police service as well.

Around 11am today a bomb exploded in a solarium in Copenhagen. The suntan shop was situated just by the national football stadium in Oesterbro, a peaceful and affluent part of the Danish capital. The explosion completely destroyed the shop and the surrounding flats were also damaged. The police are putting the fact that no one was hurt down to sheer luck; two other bags were found in the area and have been destroyed. Two young men between the ages of 15 and 25 were seen running away from the crime scene; they were described as “foreign-looking” and are now wanted by the police.

The explosion is a drastic escalation of the week-long riots on the streets Denmark where young Muslim men have vented their anger and frustration towards Danish society by setting fire to cars and burning bonfires in the streets. The rioters claim that their action is a protest against the reprinting of the prophet cartoons, which took place last Wednesday when a unified Danish press decided to print/reprint the cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The decision to reprint was taken when the Danish security service (PET) notified the public that three men had been arrested on suspicion of plotting the murder of the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.

However, it is debatable whether the reprinting of the cartoons was the real reason behind the rioting. The night before they were published the air on Oesterbro was thick with the smoke of bonfires and burning rubber, carried by the wind from neighbouring Noerrebro, where much of the rioting has taken place. The cartoons no doubt had an explosive effect on matters, but the fire was already burning.

Denmark, once acknowledged for her liberal stance and social egalitarianism, has over the last years become an increasingly polarised society where the differences between the Danish majority and migrants and especially Muslim migrants have been the dominant political agenda.

…

In certain neighbourhoods the atmosphere is now so tense that I avoid going there when in Copenhagen. Far from the prophet cartoon crisis clearing the air like most good arguments, this argument only led to division. There are countless examples of qualified foreigners who can’t get a job in Denmark simply because of the sound of their surname. On the other hand, many young Muslim migrants have behaved like thugs, vandalising their neighbourhoods. The situation is clearly untenable; the question is: who’s got the remedy to solve it?

Any European government could come up with the remedy to solve the problem — the real question is: would any European government have the necessary stones to implement harsh restrictions on immigration and harsh policing measures in predominantly immigrant communities? Basically, the degree to which a European nation espouses multiculturalism as a virtue is the degree to which that country is imperiled by a surge of radical Islam within its immigrant population; the degree to which a European nation demands that immigrants integrate into the prevailing culture of that nation is the degree to which that nation might have a fighting chance in the years to come.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: SDA)