You can register your outrage (just don’t riot!) by writing directly to Dagbladet’s editor-in-chief John Arne Markussen at [email protected].
The cartoon Dagbladet published ostensibly depicts the circumcision of an infant, but the sinister-looking people carrying out the ritual are actually cutting off the baby’s toes and stabbing his head with a demonic-looking fork. On the right side of the cartoon, you see police arriving on the scene, but after being assured that the practice is simply an expression of religious belief, they leave.
“Mistreating? No this is tradition, an important part of our belief!” the woman is shown telling the policemen.”Belief? Oh yes, then it is all right,” the officer responds while the second policeman apologizes for the interference.
The men in the cartoon bear a striking resemblance to the hideous caricatures of Jews in classic anti-Semitic cartoons, right down to their black garb and beards. And they are holding books — ostensibly volumes of Torah — that are soaked in the blood of the screaming child.
After this cartoon appeared, people around the world wrote to Dagbladet to complain. Not only did the newspaper defend the anti-Semitic cartoon, but they compared those complaining to the massive, global Muslim riots after publication of the cartoons depicting Mohammed. These were violent, deadly riots and it is a outrageous comparison.
Here’s what they said:
“We witnessed this when Jyllands-Posten — and subsequently Dagbladet and other Norwegian Newspapers — printed the satirical cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. We now have similar reactions to a cartoon that Dagbladet printed last week.”
Where was there rioting? In fact, where was there a single act of violence in reaction to this cartoon?
What an ignorant comparison.
