Scananadvian Cartoon Crisis '07

This time it's the Swedes who've grossly insulted the Prophet, according to Paul Marshall:

Swedish artist Lars Vilks was invited by an art school to participate in an exhibit with the theme, of all things, of dogs. Vilks, something of a provocateur (his website has a cartoon of a Jew’s head on a pig’s body), submitted cartoons including one with Mohammed’s head on a dog’s body (it’s connected to the contemporary Swedish craze for “roundabout dogs,” but that’s another story). Before the exhibit opened, his drawings were removed by the organizers, citing possible security threats. Another gallery followed suit, claiming similar worries.

This provoked much discussion in the Swedish media. Although several other newspapers had already published the cartoons, it was only when Nerikes Allehanda, a regional paper in Orebro, published one of them on August 18 that the fur began to fly. Like the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Mohammed published in September 2005, the cartoon was used to accompany and illustrate an article discussing self-censorship, threats, and freedom of religion.

Sweden’s own Muslims have merely demonstrated peacefully outside the paper’s office, but, like the Jyllands-Posten affair, foreign intervention has now raised the stakes. With the Danish cartoons it took four months before several Muslim governments, at the behest of an Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) meeting in Mecca, launched protests, boycotts, and threats, resulting in dozens of murders, especially of Christians. This time they took only nine days.

The offending (and really, really amateurish) cartoons, which will not be running in your local newspaper any time soon, can be seen on the artist's website. IKEA stores and Saab dealerships should probably get extra security ready.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at August 31, 2007 02:43 PM