The epidemic of politically correct apologies for historical events was bound to spread from the United States (where apologies for Antebellum Slavery are currently de rigeur) to Europe sooner or later.

The Guardian reports that Denmark’s minister of culture took the occasion of a visit to Ireland to apologize for Viking raids of more than a millenium ago.

More than 1,200 years ago hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants. Yesterday, one of their more mild-mannered descendants stepped ashore to apologise.

The Danish culture minister, Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to participate in celebrations marking the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the invasion and destruction inflicted. “In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship, but we are not proud of the damages to the people of Ireland that followed in the footsteps of the Vikings,” Mr Mikkelson declared in his welcoming speech delivered on the dockside at the river Liffey. “But the warmth and friendliness with which you greet us today and the Viking ship show us that, luckily, it has all been forgiven.”

One can almost hear the derisive laughter in Valhalla.

AP:

The Little Mermaid statue in Denmark’s capital was found draped in a Muslim dress and head scarf Sunday morning. Police removed the clothing after a telephone caller reported it, spokesman Jorgen Thomsen said.

The statue sculpted in tribute to author Hans Christian Andersen draws about 1 million visitors a year and is targeted occasionally by vandals. On Tuesday, the statue’s face, left arm and lap were found doused with red paint.

In 2004, someone put a burqa, the head-to-toe Islamic robe, on the statue, along with a sign questioning Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

The bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen has sat on a rock in Copenhagen harbor since 1913.

Mohammed Overcome by the Fundamentalists
(Balloon:) “It’s a Drag Being Loved By Idiots”

Reporters Without Borders announced

a Paris criminal court’s decision today to clear Philippe Val, the editor of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, of “publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion” by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed a year ago. The case was brought by the Paris Grand Mosque, the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF) and the World Islamic League…

France22 March 2007

Charlie Hebdo editor’s acquittal in Mohammed cartoon case hailed as positive for French society

Reporters Without Borders hailed a Paris criminal court’s decision today to clear Philippe Val, the editor of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, of “publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion” by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed a year ago. The case was brought by the Paris Grand Mosque, the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF) and the World Islamic League.

“The court’s verdict accords with the French republic’s values and is good for French society as a whole,” the press freedom organisation said. “We hail the judges’ finding that the limits of free expression were not exceeded in this case. This ruling is a victory for press freedom and in no way is a defeat for a community. We hope it will set a judicial precedent.”

The UOIF announced that it would appeal, but the Paris Grand Mosque said it would not.

The outcome of this key trial for the defence of press freedom follows a similar decision by Danish judges acquitting the editors of the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the first newspaper to publish controversial cartoons of Mohammed.

In the French case, the three plaintiffs had demanded 30,000 euros in damages from Charlie Hebdo, while the French public prosecutor’s office had recommended acquittal. Val had additionally faced a possible sentence of six months in prison and a fine of 22,500 euros. As he left the court today, he expressed his satisfaction and confidence in the French judicial system, commenting: “We have been vindicated by the court.”

Val had received strong backing not only from French journalists but also many politicians, including UDF presidential candidate François Bayrou and French Socialist Party leader François Hollande, who voiced their support for the weekly during the two-day trial on 7 and 8 February. Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP presidential candidate, had also indicated his support, commenting that he preferred “an excess of cartoons to a lack of cartoons.”

The lawsuit concerned three of the six Mohammed cartoons which the weekly published on 8 February 2006. Two of the three had appeared in Jyllands-Posten in 2005. One of them showed Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb about to explode. The other showed him saying: “Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins.” The third, which was on the cover, was by French cartoonist Jean “Cabu” Cabut. It showed Mohammed with his head in his hands saying: “It is hard to be loved by idiots.”

Previous posting

The G2 Bulletin, a subscription Intelligence newsletter, is quoted in World Net Daily as reporting that:

A dozen young terrorists have departed Afghanistan, bound first for Iran and then Europe, where their mission will be to hunt down the Danish cartoonists responsible for drawing anti-Muhammad sketches…

The report was passed on by Hamid Mir, the Pakistani journalist who has interviewed al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and who just visited the no-man’s land along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While there, he was told by Taliban sources in south Waziristan that 12 young men — nine Afghans and three Pakistanis — are on their way to Europe to kill the Danish cartoonists. While some carry Afghan passports and others carry Iranian passports, all will travel through Iran on their way to Europe, he reports.

All 12 have recorded the video messages that will be aired publicly if they hit their targets.

What will Europe do? I suppose they could refuse entry to, or simply intern, all persons bearing Afghani or Iranian passports. It looks like the the twelve Danish artists who drew the generally rather bland Mohammed cartoons will wind up living anonymously, under police security, like Salman Rushdie for years.

Roger Kimball views the supine reaction of Western elites to Islamofascist tantrums over the Danish cartoons, and quotes Hillaire Belloc:

Pale Ebeneezer thought it wrong to fight
But roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.

Hat tip to Austin Bay.

An Arab News columnist rejoices in the power of the Islamic and Arab worlds to bring a Western nation virtually to its knees.
————————————————————————————————————-

Mark Steyn wonders where all those Danish flags came from:

I long ago lost count of the number of times I’ve switched on the TV and seen crazy guys jumping up and down in the street, torching the Stars and Stripes and yelling ‘’Death to the Great Satan!’’ Or torching the Union Jack and yelling ‘’Death to the Original If Now Somewhat Arthritic And Semi-Retired Satan!’’ But I never thought I’d switch on the TV and see the excitable young lads jumping up and down in Jakarta, Lahore, Aden, Hebron, etc., etc., torching the flag of Denmark.

Denmark! Even if you were overcome with a sudden urge to burn the Danish flag, where do you get one in a hurry in Gaza? Well, OK, that’s easy: the nearest European Union Humanitarian Aid and Intifada-Funding Branch Office. But where do you get one in an obscure town on the Punjabi plain on a Thursday afternoon? If I had a sudden yen to burn the Yemeni or Sudanese flag on my village green, I haven’t a clue how I’d get hold of one in this part of New Hampshire. Say what you like about the Islamic world, but they show tremendous initiative and energy and inventiveness, at least when it comes to threatening death to the infidels every 48 hours for one perceived offense or another. If only it could be channeled into, say, a small software company, what an economy they’d have.

and cautions on the limits of sensitivity to one’s adversary’s point of view:

One day the British foreign secretary will wake up and discover that, in practice, there’s very little difference between living under Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity and Sharia. As a famously sensitive Dane once put it, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

Charles Moore at the Telegraph also remarks upon those flags:

It’s some time since I visited Palestine, so I may be out of date, but I don’t remember seeing many Danish flags on sale there. Not much demand, I suppose. I raise the question because, as soon as the row about the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten broke, angry Muslims popped up in Gaza City, and many other places, well supplied with Danish flags ready to burn. (In doing so, by the way, they offered a mortal insult to the most sacred symbol of my own religion, Christianity, since the Danish flag has a cross on it, but let that pass.)

Why were those Danish flags to hand? Who built up the stockpile so that they could be quickly dragged out right across the Muslim world and burnt where television cameras would come and look? The more you study this story of “spontaneous” Muslim rage, the odder it seems.

The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.

It rather looks as if the anger with which all Muslims are said to be burning needed some pretty determined stoking.

And Matthew Paris in the London Times opines: So they have thin skins. That shouldn’t stop us poking fun at them.

says Zeus to Mohammed in the France Soir cartoon, which ran today, after its managing editor Jacques Lefranc was fired by Raymond Lakah, the paper’s Franco-Egyptian owner for publishing the twelve Prophet Mohammed cartoons from Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten. Erik at ¡No Pasar¡n! is covering the European response.
——————————————-
BBC
——————————————-

It did seem strange that the controversy over the rather bland Danish cartoons should break out again so vigorously recently in Islamic countries and Islamic European communities. Counterterrorism Blog explains how this came about.

Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten apologized to the Islamic world today for a series of twelve cartoon caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. All twelve can be seen here. (You will have to be patient today. Francis’ server is overloaded.)

Evidently bucking to replace Jimmy Carter as the most embarassing former president, William Jefferson Clinton has spoken out on this free speech issue (quoted in Junkyardblog).

Clinton described as “appalling” the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.

“None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions … there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark … these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam,” he said.
The cartoons, including a portrayal of the prophet wearing a time-bomb-shaped turban, were reprinted in a Norwegian magazine in January, sparking uproar in the Muslim world where images of the prophet are considered blasphemous.

We do not apologize.

This cartoon, representing the Prophet Mohammed, was one of a number printed in the Daily Jyllands-Posten which led to Islamicist rioting in Denmark, and to Egypt contemplating of measures against Denmark.