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Danish Cartoons Interview

11 March 2006 No Comment

Fleming Rose is the cultural editor of the Jyllens Posten, and the man behind the publication of the Muhammad (S.A.W) cartoons. Fleming Rose, who has a surprisingly delicate name, is a very polite man. It was with the utmost politeness that I was refused an interview. It was so polite, that I wondered at the extreme…..impoliteness of the cartoons that he sanctioned for the Jyllens Posten. Put simply, Denmark funds Hamas-led towns. Norway wanted to phase out and ban Israeli goods. Condoleeza Rice became instantly anal and threatened to castrate Norway where it hurts the most. Fleming Rose and Daniel Pipes are poker buddies (lets not go into the finer details of this). Son Daniel makes his career from fighting the evil of Islam by way of the neo-con/Zionist light saber, which says that Muslims are crazy people who ware insanely jealous of the democratic American lifestyle. Sure. We all wanna chow down on DNA altered cows and GM food, while listening to Britney Spears – American’s biggest cultural export after Coca-Cola.

Father Norman made his career in the Reagan administration by way of fighting the evil Communists who were insanely jealous of the American way of life (blah blah read above). He too used the light saber of the neo-con cabal, the roots of which go back to Leo Strauss, a German Jew who settled in America and made his ideological pina coladas at the University of Chicago. The pad for all neo-cons. Israel itself is the non-negotiable heart of the Neo-Cons. Yummy. What transpires in this article is a (mock) interview with Fleming Rose, based on his most famous/quoted answers – which I have not altered. Since I could not get an interview with him, and seeing as how Freedom of Speech seemed to be his main concern, (as it should be to us all), I have included it many times. I hope I did Mr Rose justice, for justice is after all, the most important factor to consider at all times. It should be duly noted that the best mock interview I have ever done was with a man called 50c. Lick my Lollipop, was his most famous line. I am thus, very used to one liners that form the basis of interviews. Additionally, since I am female, I just used to bad one liners all around…

El Gato: Mr Rose, What is your take on the Islamic religion and the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)?

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

El Gato: You commissioned 40 cartoonists to depict the Prophet of Islam as they saw him. They depicted him as a pig, a terrorist etc 
Do you believe that the Prophet of Islam is the root of what Islam today has become, and what do you see when you look at Islam today? 

Mr Rose: I am sorry if the pictures have offended any Muslims.

El Gato: But are you at all regretful that the actual pictures were published?

Mr Rose: I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: Does your apology in essence mean anything, if you are not apologizing for the root of the problem?

Mr Rose: In Denmark we make fun of everything.

El Gato: Were you aware of the position of Muhammad (S.A.W) within Islam prior to the publications of the cartoons? 

Mr Rose: I am sorry if the cartoons offended any Muslims.

El Gato: Would awareness have changed your mind? 

Mr Rose: I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: Why commission the cartoonists to draw Muhammad (S.A.W) – the man who is considered to be the living Islam- were you aware that what you were attacking was Islam itself, which says to 1 billion Muslims world-wide that Islam is considered the enemy? 

Mr Rose: We couldn’t find illustrators.

El Gato: Do you feel that you have been unfairly put on the spot, considering that you did state on national television your agreement in publishing cartoons of the Holocaust?

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

El Gato: We know the reaction that came with Salman Rushdie’s book, the Satanic Verses…..was the publication of these cartoons a premeditated course of action which aimed for a specific reaction? 

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech

El Gato: Some people believe that there are two sets of rules for Danes…Is Denmark a country that provides freedom of religion, expression, speech etc to all it’s citizens, Muslim/immigrants included?

Mr Rose: I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: In 2004, you travelled to New York to meet with Daniel Pipes, a neo con idealogue. 
He oftens uses the term Clash of Civilisations, referring to the Islam and the West as two diametrically opposed ways of life. 
Robert Fisk quotes you as using the same phrase – Clash Of Civilisations. 
Do you subscribe to the same ideologies as Daniel Pipes?

Mr Rose: We couldn’t find illustrators who were willing to draw Muhammad. 

El Gato: You wrote a very glowing article about him (Pipes), who has compared Islam with fascism and communism.

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

El Gato: In your opinion, is the Jyllens Posten a neo-conservative paper? Please describe neo-conservatism as you see it. 

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

El Gato: Do you see the reactions of so-called Muslim governments as typical or hyprocritical—, considering as you might say – and I would agree-,there is a great deal of censorship within the Middle Eastern media?

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

El Gato: Is there any censorship within the European media- some have said that issues such as the Holocaust are not up for discussion. We know that the denial of such evils as the Holocaust leads to ever more evil, yet was freedom of debate not the essence of the cartoon saga, and is this applied to all issues? 

Mr Rose: We have history of satire in Denmark. Freedom of Speech.
I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: David Irving was recently handed a prison sentence for his past statements which called for a revision/denial? of the Holocaust – the cruel Nazi massacre of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals etc 
What is your opinion on this issue.

Mr Rose: Freedom of speech.

El Gato: Is David Irving, regardless of the sanity of his opinions, allowed this same freedom of speech?

Mr Rose: I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: The JP have argued that even though one does not agree with what was said (in this case what was drawn) Freedom of Speech gives you the right to say it. 
As you know, within the Muslim religion, Jesus (Isa A.S) is revered as a Prophet of God. 
The J.P. rejected cartoon caricatures of Jesus a few years ago (as Muslims would have) on the basis that it was too offensive to Christians. Why was this angle not taken into consideration with the Muslim peoples? 

Mr Rose: I wanted to open up the channels of debate.

El Gato: Is Islam considered a valid religion in Europe, real in the sense that it is given the same considerations regarding places of worship, rights of believers etc? 

Mr Rose: Freedom of Speech.

Yes Mr Rose, Jyllen Posten, Denamrk, Europe et al.
Freedom of Speech by all means. But does not the word Freedom signify, at it’s very core, freedom from all agenda’s?
It seems that one of the militaristic aspects of the West, is not it’s gun or it’s tank….but the control of knowledge and information, be it in the form of patenting DNA, or allowing only selected pieces of news to filter down to the masses…thus moulding their minds, their thoughts, and by implication – their actions and reactions.

The actions of the Western people are not so different to the actions of the Eastern- both react when they see what they believe to be their way of life under threat by an outsider.
This is the nature of man, and it is this very nature that is being manipulated by a small elite, who need the fomented clashes of civilizations to occur and exist in the realest sense.

If not, how would they, the warmongers maintain their control?

Freedom of Speech. Please. 
But who has the right to own this freedom and decide it’s terms? Must one be free to speak whilst the other is free only to listen?

So Freedom. Yes.
But for whom?

© El Gato.

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