Blogs > QUISLING REDUX/ UPDATES

Aug 5, 2006

QUISLING REDUX/ UPDATES

For years Scandinavian historians have tried to explain the difference between the vast difference between the Danish and Norwegian behavior under Nazi occupation. The Danes stood up to their Nazi occupiers, even risked their lives, and saved their Jewry. The Norwegian did no such thing.

Well, plus ça change. Following those infamous Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the Danish prime minister steadfastly refused to apologize of censuring the paper. Believe it or not but today the Saudi Arabia demonstrated that it does, indeed, support the Islamist agenda by recalling its ambassador from Denmark in protest.

Do not worry, the Saudi will not have to undertake the same action to insure Norwegian subservience. A small Norwegian Christian publication republished the cartoons in solidarity with its Danish brethren. The Norwegian government instructed its embassies in Muslim countries"to voice their regret" for the publication. A thrilled Malaysian paper reported: Mohammad cartoons force Norway to advise embassies. Norwegians must be proud.

Unfortunately, the Norwegian government is not alone. UN, EU and, even Danish professional associations have failed to back the freedom of expression of the provocative Danish editors or even go as far as steadfastly condemn the death threats emanating from Pakistani Islamists.

Writing for the Pakistani paper The Daily TimesMiranda Hussain complains:

When Muslims adopt the Old Testament prescription of an eye for an eye and respond to cartoons of Prophet Muhammad by producing a cartoon of the Virgin Mary with naked breasts one loses sight of the blasphemer and the blasphemed against.

When does blasphemy become blasphemous? Can only believers be guilty of blasphemy against a particular religion? Or can non-believers also be hauled before the dock?

Of course, the sly attribution of an"eye for an eye" to the Old Testament, is nothing but a way to discredit the idea by attributing it to the Jewish holy book. Miranda may not know that while in Judaism the idea has not been taken literally (if ever) at least since the first century. It is still part of the Muslim Sharia and it is currently invoked in Saudi Arabia.

Be that as it may, her questions are valid. May I suggest that Muslims follow the practice of Jews and Christians and let God take care of Himself?

UPDATE -

I have received two communications from Denmark. My first correspondent worries:

There was a great scandal in Norway yesterday: a leading newspaper got hold of a document in which the Norwegian government apologized for Expressens reprint of our drawings, i.e. the demanded excuse that they of course couldn't give openly without contradicting Norwegian law, since Expressen had not broken any. Then it is a dubious act for a government to regret this no-offence.

But they hoped that Norwegian exports wouldn't be threatened with this secret apology. Naively they didn't realize, that those documents always come into the open.

Danish exports of dairy products to the Middle East are worth 3 bio. kroner each year (1 dollar: 5 kroner), the massive boycott, that now is on it's way, will probably cost thousands of Danes their jobs. Maybe this will swing the public opinion.

The second was much more optimistic:

Remember how thrilled I was when we won the elections in 2001? Anders Fogh Rasmussen is the best Prime Minister Denmark has ever had. And the good news is all the polls indicate he will slide to reelection in 2008/2009, because the new chairman of the Social Democrats does not have a clue. His agenda consists of 3 issues:

1. No new taxes.

2. Immigrants must be willing to work, or they get no unemployment benefits and no citizenship.

3. A pro-American and pro-Israeli foreign policy.

We shall see but according to Islamonline Muslims Up Ante Against Denmark, Norway over Cartoons.

Professor John C. Zimmerman adds these cogent points:

I wonder whether the Danes demanded that the Saudis apologize for the anti - Christian hatred appearing in their textbooks or even made this an issue. They should have, and anyone who has access to the Danish press should make this point. The documentation on this appeared in academic articles in the"Middle East Journal" (Spring 2003) the British journal"International Affairs" (January 2003) and the comprehensive 95 page report which may be found at http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion (scroll down to the bottom of the page for the link.) entitled"Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques."

What is happening to the Danes is extremely critical and may have more profound implications than what happened in France several months ago. It is often overlooked that Denmark had its own riots at the same time as France. The Muslim countries have chosen Denmark because it is small and can be"muscled." This is obvious because there are a great many anti Islamic websites and publications that come out of the US which have launched much worse attacks on the Prophet Muhammad than anything published in Denmark. Yet, we don't see Muslim demanding US government leaders and publications to apologize. For example, after 9/11 one Christian leader made a very serious attack on the personal morals and character of Muhammad, and many US online and hardcover publications make similar accusations. With a growing and resentful Muslim population in small Denmark, we are seeing the strongest attempt to date to Islamize speech in a non - Muslim country. Once Islamists succeed there, they will be able to branch out. But for now Denmark, because of its small size, is the logical testing ground for the Islamists.


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More Comments:

Kristina - 2/2/2006

Go to http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/freespeech1
to sign a petition supporting Denmark.

Frederik Treue - 2/2/2006

Ohh, yes, you're right - my bad.

However, as you say, they can hardly be compared to the riots in France.

Borgsmidt - 2/1/2006

Zimmermann is at fault for judging the Norwegeans, they did get a lot of their jewry out; but the main problem was that the norwegean resistance went into offensive action prematurely and was eliminated by the German Occupation.
I could discuss this in detail; but the short version is that for the first 3 years the resistance stayed put and reported mainly navalmovement vital to the fight against the german submarines! AT THE INSISTANCE of the British Government under whose direction the movement from the first day put themselves.
Don't put the Norwegeans down, as it was the wish of the Danish resistnce to have Norwegean conditions to clearly mark the that the population was against the occupation! BUT THEY TOED THE LINE and kept the powder dry.

jess - 1/31/2006

Thank you for your support "from danmark"jess.

Lars Aabenhus Andersen - 1/31/2006

i cant see why we should "cave in" the danes have proven in history that we cant be pushed to submission and if they think that burning our flag helps they better think again.

the reason it has gone this far, is also that in denmark we have an imam (islamic priest) that travelled to the arab world with a picture of muhammed in this picture he has got pig ears and pig nose. this picture WAS NOT!! among the 12 that the paper brought (jyllands posten)!

so i cant see why we in denmark are called intolerant when we have to put up with that kind of behavior.

Poul Petersen - 1/31/2006

don't forget that the danish navy upon the german invasion, sunk all thier ships, so that they could not be used by the germans. And most of the commercial fleet flead to the UK, and went to service with the britts for the rest of the war. many danish merchanships was sunk during the war by german U-boats on that account

Kurt - 1/31/2006

Thank you for your support.

Thomas - 1/31/2006

Thank you for your support. I hope the politics listen to the people and don't cave in.

Arnt Furunes - 1/31/2006

I'd like to comment on the opening paragraph of this text.

It states: "The Danes stood up to their Nazi occupiers, even risked their lives, and saved their Jewry. The Norwegian did no such thing."

Obviously, Ms Klinghoffer can not be expected to know every little particular detail of the history of the Nazi occupation of Norway and Denmark, but I feel i should react when I read statements such as the one above.

It is a gross oversimplification, bordering on complete falsehood to say that Norway did not fight back against the Nazis.

Firstly; whereas Denmark had the misfortune of being run over within a day, Norwegian armed forces managed to keep up the fight for several weeks, well into June. Amongst Norwegian tactical victories are the sinking of the German battlecruiser 'Blücher' and the retaking of the town of Narvik.

Secondly; with the cessation of regular fighting, resistance movements were formed throughout the country. These were armed partisan groups, illegal newspaper and radio distributors as well as agents who specialized in smuggling people over the border to Sweden. One of the Norwegian resistance movement's greatest triumphs was the sabotage of the Nazi heavy water plant in Telemark (You may have heard of it; it got made into a Hollywood movie, starring Kirk Douglas).

Thirdly; jews were also helped by the Resistance. Of the 2200 jews in Norway before the war, roughly 1000 were helped over to Sweden and a few others to Britain. Of the remaining 767 were deported, whilst the rest survived in hiding. Of course, this does not compare with how the Danish resistance managed to smuggle almost 7500 jews into Sweden, right under the nazis' noses. In fact, only 161 Danish jews died during the war.

But, with this in mind, how can you say that the Norway did nothing?

Heidi - 1/31/2006

I just want to say THANK YOU!, for letting us know that you don't support a boycot of danish product.This boycot from the muslim world has after 3 days let to the fact that Arla today had to fire 100 employees, mainly in northern jutland, the place in Denmark where the unemployeement rate is very high allready.

M.S.Nissen - 1/31/2006

This is the first time I read HNN, but as a Dane I have to protest against this distortion of the truth.

While it is true that our politicians did very little to improve our defensive capabilities in the years and months leading up to April 1940, they never asked the Nazis to occupy our country. On the contrary they hoped, as naive as it may seem, that the non-threatening nature of our military would ensure our neutrality in the conflict.

The line "No guns were fired when they came and took our country." is not a distortion of the truth, it is outright false as this, albeit written in Danish, (http://www.milhist.dk/besattelsen/9april/9_april_dk.htm) website shows. Even though they were outnumbered, outgunned and lacked training (55% of the army were raw conscripts) the military took up the fight and inflicted, their number taken into consideration, considerable casualties on the Germans as they advanced through southern Jutland.

The political decision to seize hostilities and surrender have and will always be controversial, but the Danish military fought bravely to halt the German advance.

Jonas - 1/31/2006

Indeed there were riot-like events in Denmark. Although on a much smaller scale than in Paris.
The Danish events took place in a suburb of Aarhus (the 2nd largest city of Denmark).
http://www.politi.dk/Aarhus/da/lokalnyt/Doegnrapporter/doegnrapport_301005.htm

Michael Overgård Madsen - 1/31/2006

As an ethnical danish citizen, i´d like to comment on the muslim outrage against the drawings of there prophet.

The muslim world, complain against the drawings because they, hurt there feelings ?, well what about ?the burning of the danish flag in Gaza, as a Christian i know that the white cross in our flag (Dannebrog), is an symbol of christianity so one could claim that the palestinian (No-"government"), should apologize to the worlds christian-society.

But what is this all about, i`ll say it loud and clearly - it`s the be-ginning of worldwar three or one might say the beginning of the War of Religion.

For far too many years, we have let fundamentalistic and radical muslims infiltrate our society`s, and giving them the room and space to, practice there systematic brainwash of illiterats and spreading false propaganda in the muslim world as an example i can refer to Imam Abu Bashar who works at the prison where i work, he has knowingly twisted the facts on his tour to the middleeast in fall 2005, where he have shown pictures or drawings of there prophet with a pigs snout and ears, but those pictures or drawings never occured on any danish media - so too all the free people with a mind of there own and society`s of the world, prepare yourselves for the war.

Morten B. F. - 1/31/2006

In the "article" it says:" The Danes stood up to their Nazi occupiers, even risked their lives, and saved their Jewry." As a Dane I have to declare that incorrect. WE invited the Nazis in, and we did ever so little to make their lives miserable during the occupation. No guns were fired when they came and took our country. The Norwegians fought back, and should be proud of that. But us Danes, have always supported the wrong side, afterall we do have troops in Iraq at the present time.

søren bo jensen - 1/31/2006

it´s right,denmark has become a testing ground for extreme islamic fundamenlisme,because we have a tradition of eqality and freedom of speech,(we are all equal).
If we give a few ,and it is a few
ekstremist(we call them the fifth collonne),the ground,we will be
unable to responde to there attacks
europe has been infected,not by religion,but by some people who
wan´t to provocate an armageddon.
The only solution(in future) is to
educate people,so they can make
there own logoical opinion about
life,but all thoose imams are enjoying there power over all thoose illitterates,whout you jump into death without reason when you have a family you love?
Sorry for the spelling,english is not main language.love you all søren.


Frederik Treue - 1/30/2006

we CAN'T cave in - what do the islamists think is going to happen? Denmark ambolishing free speech?? Hardly....

That being said I don't recognise John Zimmermans account that there have been riots among danish muslims recently - and, being a dane, I think I would have heard...

Anyway, there have been some interesting things in the press lately, concerning danish muslims: Ekstra bladet, a danish semi-tabloid, uncovered that the imams number for practicing muslims are way overblown - rather than the aprx. 200.000 they usualy cite, the number is closer to 15.000. A member of the danish parliament, who is a non-observant muslim, has started a network to promote secular, modern muslim views in Denmark. Hopefully he'll succeed, since that will counter the imams, who has been trying to escalate this crisis from day 1. If it can be shown that many (most) of the muslims in denmark that the imams "represent" aren't very insulted about the drawings, their case (i.e. muslims worldwide should help the muslim minority in Denmark, who is being opressed) would loose at least some of its following.

Sverige - 1/30/2006


Save democracy! Don't cave in! You should have our unconditioned support.




kepiblanc - 1/30/2006

Danish polls show 79% supporting our Government's stance : NO CAVING IN.

Proud to be a Dane.