Deep anger in the bombing world
As is typical with coverage of this subject, the New York Times has to blame Lars Vilks just a little for doing that Motoon.
But the country’s prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, stopped short of connecting the bombs to an e-mail that a Swedish news organization received minutes before the blasts, which seemed to link the attacks to anger over anti-Islamic cartoons and the war in Afghanistan.
It wasn’t cartoons plural, it was one cartoon. And anti-Islamic? What’s that supposed to mean? It sounds sinister.
The e-mail’s reference to Mr. Vilks, a 64-year-old artist and free-speech activist, pointed to the deep anger in the Muslim world over his drawings of the prophet Muhammad in 2007.
“The” deep anger in “the” Muslim world – by which is meant, some Muslims were very angry, but what it sounds like is, all Muslims were very angry, and probably justifiably (“deep” tends to imply that).
It would be nice if journalists and editors could learn to be more careful about this. But they won’t.
Even during (and following) the Jyllands-Posten episode, very few news outlets or opinion columns mentioned the sinister role of the Danish Imams who purposely inserted the extra cartoon. Facts be damned. If it’s criticism of Islam, only one template is to be followed – we provoked this violence.
When that fundie wanted to burn the Koran, even our beloved leader suggested that appeasement was the proper course. Sadly people I would have expected more from (i.e. alleged atheists) lined up behind Obama.
Lets see what happens this time.
Didn’t you get the memo from the clueless and post-progressive left blogosphere?
No criticism of Islam is allowed whatsoever, because that is equivalent to calling for the genocide of each and every Muslim man, woman, and child. sheesh
The bombers identity is known now in Sweden. He was a 28 year old guy who was born in Baghdad and who had come over to Sweden with his parents when he was about 11. He didn’t live in Stockholm but apparently knew enough about it to know exactly the location of the busiest part of the city for pedestrians. He was about 50 meters from that spot when one of the pipe bombs exploded prematurely. The other five pipe bombs and the nail bomb in his backpack failed to go off and the only casualty was himself – he died in a side street with few shops just before the busy shopping street. If he had managed to explode himself as planned then he would have killed many people – including many muslims; Stockholm is a very mixed city with a substantial population of muslims, many of whom would have been shopping the same as the rest of us on Saturday.
Don’t expect the sort of cowardly reaction to events that is usual from the US and British media. The last time Vilks was attacked the main newspapers here responded by republishing the cartoon as an act of defiance against threats of terrorism.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Deep anger in the bombing world http://dlvr.it/BFTq8 […]
It’s partly just journalese of course. Like when I used to work in labour relations – doing quasi-legal stuff and for a period in legal practice. Whenever I was involved in a dispute that got inches in a newspaper and there was an event involving a union, it was never just a union. It was always a “key union”. In the context concerned, “deep anger” seems much like “key union” in journalism about Australian strikes and work bans. The main effect is to convey a certain faux insight on the part of the journalist.
Yay Sweden!
(Mind you,
AftenpostenAftonbladet turned down an article I’d written after first accepting it – the ed in chief vetoed the editorial ed – because they’d “already done” an anti-religion piece recently. But yay Sweden anyway.)Heh. Yeah. I hate journalese.
I went on holiday to Syria and Jordan a few weeks ago, and before I went my colleagues were saying, aren’t you afraid, do be careful, watch out for bombs and so on. Another colleague went to Stockholm this weekend and everyone said, how nice, beautiful place.
Deep anger in the bombing world! That’s good. Ophelia, your mots are always bon.
It’s a bit worrying that this myth of a giant organized octopus organization known as al-Qaeda with agents spread all over the world is still the framing from which American intelligence still operates. It could not possibly be ordinary Muslims that have become spontaneously radical simply because of the consequences of what their religion preaches.
Because that would be the horrible truth wouldn’t it? That in fact, Islam is horrible and doesn’t belong within politics, because all Islam does is spread division and hatred and conflict and misery. And so we can’t face that horrible truth, and so we’ll stick our heads in the sand instead, and pretend it’s not true.
The latest developments in the story are about the level of Swedish involvement in the whole incident. It’s looking more likely that this is an external plot – although it may still be only one individual. The bomber had moved to England in 2004 to do a degree in sports therapy and had got married and settled down there, living in Luton, a town north of London. He seems to have been radicalized over there and came back to Sweden a few weeks back to prepare to answer calls from middle east based Al-Qaeda spokesmen to attack various western countries that had either troops present in Afghanistan or who have allowed free speech of cartoonists.
Ophelia,
Can you provide a link to the essay that Aftenposten wouldn’t print? I’d like to read it!
Peter, well the
AftenpostenAftonbladet version is in Swedish, but I guess I could post the original (which is in English) here. Much of it is taken from the last chapter of the book though, so it might not be all that interesting to Anglophones. It was basically a launch sort of article.@Ophelia
Ahem….Aftenposten in Swedish??!! Aftenposten is a Norwegian newspaper!
http://www.aftenposten.no/
That would rise quite a few eybrows here in Scandinavia. :-) Could it be a confusion with Aftonbladet?
http://www.aftonbladet.se/
aften (No) = afton (Sw) = evening
Incidentally, also Aftenposten(sic) and other Norwegian as well as Danish papers have been involved in a very similar case: reprinting (in solidarity) the Mo-toons (at least as faximiles) following new threats against the dainish Mo-painter Kurt Westergaard.
http://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/article2795918.ece
Cassanders
Ik writu i runor frá Norvegr
@Ophelia
Ahem….
“Aftenposten” in Swedish would have raised a few eyebrows here in Scandinavia. I suspect you are confusing (quite understandably) Aftenposten (Norwegian) http://www.aftenposten.no/ with Aftonbladet (Swedish) http://www.aftonbladet.se/
Aften (No/Da) = Afton (Sw) = Evening.
Aftenposten (the Norwegian) was BTW involved in the reprinting (in solidarity) of the Mo-toons when there was a new attempt to asassinate the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
Cassanders
Ek writu i runor frá Norvegr
Cassanders – oops! I knew I should have taken the time to look it up.
I had the same problem with Fri Tanke. I didn’t know there were two, one Swedish and one Norwegian.
Indeed, they are even worse. “Fri tanke” (Free Thought) is both a Norwegian netzine associated with the Norwegian Humanist Society http://www.fritanke.no/
and
a Swedish publisher http://www.fritanke.se/
the latter have promoted your book in Sweden, and as I just discovered on their page: convened the seminar on “Does god hate women?” in August.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Yup, I know; I was there. :- )
My confusion created a very amusing few moments of mutual befuddlement at dinner on Friday evening (with the Fri Tanke people and the writer Lena Andersson) when I thought they had published an article on atheism by Julian and they said nu uh, we never. Finally Christer said “Oh it must be the Norwegian Fri Tanke.”
It’s all the more confusing because Christer heads both Fri Tanke and Humanisterna.