Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, banana-fanna fo Fahmadinejad...

[arib]

So, in response to the Danish Mohammed cartoon balagan, one of the major Iranian newspapers has decided to have a contest in which readers can send in anti-Holocaust/antisemitic cartoons and the like for publication.

Does this mean that I'm allowed to flip out, riot in the streets, and burn down the Iranian embassy? I mean, I was in the Boy Scouts for 12 years, I know a whole bunch of burly Jewish pyromaniacs.

C'mon, please? I'll even bring Kosher marshmallows for roasting!

Comments

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

As soon as I heard about that this morning, I said to myself: aha! There are Muslim rednecks, too!

There was an interesting time line analysis on BBC World Service on Sunday. It pointed out that the original cartoons had to do with "well, we want to tell the story of the life of Mohammed. Anyone want to come up with a depiction?" In other words, these were contest entries (albeit mostly from professionals). Some were normal and some... were just "here's what I think of them. Heh." Again, even the Danes have rednecks.

These cartoons all got published in September -- not two weeks ago. There was some Islamic group negotiating an apology but they got tired of waiting for one so they tripped their Instant Outrage Relay. Yippee.

The other interesting parts of the analysis:

1. Only Arab Muslims seem to care. Indonesians make up more of the world Muslim world than Arabs.
2. In the Arab nations, people are so used to newspapers being the mouthpieces of the government that they assume the Danish government is behind this.
3. The newspaper editors of Europe are now putting up their copies of the cartoons because they are tired of getting yelled at for something they don't do: cow to their national leaders. "This is what free speech looks like. Obnoxious? Yup. Deal with it. We put up a lame comic. You torched a building. Who is the bigger problem?"
4. This, of course, leads to the theory of Zionist Conspiracy because... wait, lemme get my notes out... ah yes: "all Jews control Western media and governments." I suppose the success of the Fox Corporation gets dropped as the lowest grade in that semester.

So yeah, dreamy. At least it's another cartoon. If we all put 'em on our fridges next to the old Far Side cartoons, it'll make 'em angrier. We'll show that we are deeply blase.