THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 11, January 12, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A DHIMMIFIED MAN
By Dr. David J. Rusin
EUROPE, THE EUROPEAN CREATIVE CLASS, & THE CONTINENT'S RESTIVE, UNCIVILIZED MUSLIM UNDERCLASS:
INROADS OF
ISLAMISM IN EUROPE & APPEASEMENT OF ISLAMISTS BY EUROPEAN ARTISTS & MEDIA OUTLETS -- WILL EUROPE
ULTIMATELY CHOOSE TO PRESERVE THE FOUNDATIONAL VALUES OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM, CONSTITUTIONALISM,
THE RULE OF LAW, LIBERTY UNDER LAW, INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, RELIGIOUS TOLERATION, & INTELLECTUAL & ARTISTIC
INDEPENDENCE FORGED DURING EUROPE'S RENAISSANCE, ENLIGHTENMENT, & LONG PERIOD OF DEMOCRATIZATION?
OR WILL EUROPE CONTINUE TO YIELD TO THE UNREASONABLE DEMANDS OF MILITANT ISLAM & THEREBY SUFFER
A LONG, SLOW DECLINE INTO A DARK AGE OF DHIMMITUDE?
FULL STORY:
"Art is not what you see," noted Edgar Degas, "but what you make others see." Ninety years after his death, a new
maxim applies to Europe: The art that you do not see reflects what everyone already sees. And what we see is the
preemptive surrender of public freedoms in the name of appeasing the continent's restive Muslim underclass.
Grayson Perry serves as the ideal poster boy — or perhaps poster girl — for this discomfiting trend. A Turner Prize
recipient and England's most famous cross-dressing potter, Perry has been heralded for his controversial explorations
of religious imagery, which include a vase entitled "Transvestite Brides of Christ" and a portrayal of the Virgin Mary
that is best left to the imagination. Yet, apparently, there are some boundaries that even groundbreaking artists dare
not cross.
"I've censored myself," Perry told the Times, admitting that he treads lightly around radical Islam.
"With other targets, you've got a better idea of who they are,
but Islamism is very amorphous. You don't know what the
threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might
trigger off a really violent reaction, so I just play safe all the
time."
Self-censorship thus boils down to self-preservation. "The reason I haven't gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is
because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat."
His fears are not without logic. On the morning of November 2, 2004, hours before Americans would vote in an election
shaped by the conflict between radical Islam and the West, that conflict violently manifested itself on the streets of
Amsterdam. There, filmmaker Theo van Gogh succumbed to a rain of bullets from the gun of Mohammed Bouyeri, a
Dutch Muslim of Moroccan extraction. Bouyeri proceeded to slash his victim's neck to near decapitation before leaving a
pair of knives impaled in his chest. One pinned a letter outlining his grievances and threatening ex-Muslim activist
Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The controversialist's life and death form a microcosm of Europe's new realities. An equal-opportunity offender, van
Gogh loathed all religions and never missed a chance to insult the faithful — Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike.
However, his demise was directly linked to Submission, a short film written by Hirsi Ali that depicts the abuse of
women in Muslim cultures. The contrast is striking. Christians and Jews responded to van Gogh's provocations with
the occasional letter or picket sign, but a young Muslim chose an HS 2000 firearm as his instrument of "protest."
Van Gogh's murder was neither the first nor the most recent case of Islamists employing violence to intimidate the
Western creative class. Just ask Salman Rushdie, the British author of The Satanic Verses, who is now
completing his second decade of sequestration following the death sentence pronounced by Iranian clerics. Renewed
pledges of retaliation rose up on the heels of his knighting in 2007. The danger is undeniable. Several translators of
Verses were assaulted at the behest of the 1989 fatwa; one, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed.
Violence also erupted in the wake of the infamous Mohammed cartoons, first printed by the Danish broadsheet
Jyllands-Posten in the Fall of 2005. Dozens perished across the globe, consulates were set ablaze, threats of
murder and kidnapping were issued, and several of the artists went into hiding. Islamists also marched on Denmark's
London Embassy, raising placards that read "Europe you will pay, your 9/11 will come," "Behead those who insult
Islam," "Freedom go to hell," and "Be prepared for the real holocaust."
Ironically, the cartoons were put forth as a protest against the type of self-censorship described by Grayson Perry.
Jyllands-Posten Editor Flemming Rose commissioned them, after learning that a Danish writer had been unable
to find an artist willing to illustrate his book about the life of Mohammed. A report noted that "one [declined] with
reference to the murder in Amsterdam of the film director Theo van Gogh, while another [cited the attack on] the
lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute in Copenhagen." The latter victim was assaulted for reading passages from
the Koran to an infidel audience.
The cartoon controversy has only accelerated self-censorship. A museum in The Hague recently declined to display a
photograph by Sooreh Hera that shows two gay men wearing masks of Mohammed and Ali, based on fears that
"certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive." Though critics of this action were assured that "all
Dutch museums are free to choose what they exhibit," Hera disagreed. "Apparently a Muslim minority decides what
will be on display in the museum." The artist has now retreated to an "unspecified location" following emails promising
to "burn you naked or put a bullet in your mouth."
Similarly, in October, 2006, London's Whitechapel Art Gallery removed erotic works by the surrealist Hans Bellmer.
According to the curator, "the motive was simply to not shock the population of the Whitechapel neighborhood,
which is partly Muslim." The pictures were pulled merely one week after a Berlin opera house had cancelled — then
sheepishly reinstated — performances of Mozart's Idomeneo, in which the title character grandstands with the severed
heads of Poseidon, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. Needless to say, the severed heads of Poseidon, Buddha, and
Jesus were never an issue.
Amir Taheri has compiled other disturbing cases from across the continent: German carnivals prohibiting costumes that
might look "Islamic," Spanish towns canceling traditional festivals marking the victory over the Moors, the blacklisting
of books deemed critical of Islam, and the removal from public view of illuminated manuscripts that feature images of
Mohammed.
Even art aimed at children has not been immune, as evidenced by a British school that excised the pigs from The
Three Little Pigs to forestall Muslim objections. "If changing a few words avoids offense, then we will do so," a
teacher explained. The school later reversed the decision. Likewise, British author Kes Gray just postponed a reprinting
of his "inclusive" children's book so that Mohammed the Mole could be renamed Morgan. "I had no idea at all of the
sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan," he said, referencing the teacher imprisoned over
a class teddy bear. "As soon as I saw the news, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I've got a mole called Mohammed — this is not
good.'"
Particularly "not good" is the preemptive nature of these capitulations. "At this point, it seems, terrorists don't even
need to issue a specific threat in order to intimidate us," observed Der Spiegel. Indeed, many of the above
productions or exhibits faced no threats at all. Some Muslims are even helping to expose the hypersensitivity for what it
is. Regarding the Pigs fiasco, the Daily Mail reported that "Islamic leaders condemned the politically correct
move as misguided and said decisions like this were turning Muslims into ‘misfits' in society."
There can be no true freedom in a climate of fear. Given the history of Islamist violence directed at European artists, a
significant portion of that fear is justified. However, the continent's groveling cultural elites have needlessly exacerbated
this atmosphere. Their inability or unwillingness to distinguish between Islam and Islamism magnifies the perceived
strength of the radicals, while their eagerness to assume the role of dhimmis — subjugated infidels living under Islamic
rule — can only demoralize the population and embolden the extremists.
Will Europe ultimately choose to preserve the foundational values of classical liberalism, constitutionalism, the rule of
law, liberty under law, individual freedom, religious toleration, and intellectual and artistic independence forged during
Europe's Renaissance, Enlightenment, and long period of democratization? Or will Europe continue to yield to the
unreasonable demands of militant Islam and thereby suffer a long, slow decline into a dark age of dhimmitude? For now,
only one conclusion appears certain: somewhere in a Dutch prison cell, Mohammed Bouyeri is smiling.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Europe, European States, Politics, & Public Policy
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. David J. Rusin is a research associate at Islamist Watch and a Philadelphia-based editor for Pajamas Media. He
holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania. Please feel free to contact him at
djrusin@gmail.com.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rusin was originally published in Pajamas Media, January 10, 2008, and can be found
on the Internet website
maintained by the Middle East Forum, a think tank which seeks to define and
promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, working for
Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional
democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly asserting U.S.
interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
January 19, 2008
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