i still haven't heard a good explanation of the
pamphlet distributed by Imam Abu Laban. if anything can incite the types of riots we have seen over "just a cartoon," perhaps it is his arguably skewed view of Denmark coupled with the blatantly offensive cartoons that are obviously
manufactured.
Wikipedia says
Quote:
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Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the Danish-based European Committee for Prophet Honouring. which co-organised the tour, claimed to be unaware of the origin of the three pictures and said that they had been sent by unknown persons to Muslims in Denmark. Arkkari purported to justify the use of the three drawings as providing "insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims." However, when Akkari was asked if the Muslims who had received these pictures could be interviewed, Akkari refused to reveal their identities.
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on
KCRW's To The Point 2/6/05, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was asked about these shoddy fakes, but claimed to know little about them and dismissively noted that they have been featured on right-wing blogs. this is not really true; the first place i saw the fake cartoons was on a
website that also has a lot of left-wing, Berkeley, & anti-war protest photos.
anyway, i wonder what's going on with the people who organized these violent protests. (i really appreciate ktspktsp's post on pg. 4 about the complexities in Lebanon.) so far i haven't seen evidence that separate the fradulent pamphlet from Imam Abu Laban and the resulting angry anti-cartoon movement. if i were to hear about Denmark from this man, i'd probably be pretty angry. again, i'd really like some details, because it seems that he may be more to blame for the violence than the European newspapers repeatedly mentioned in coverage of this story.