AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - A group of Islamic activists in Jordan says it plans to file lawsuits against nearly 20 Danish newspapers and magazines for republishing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.Velvet Hammer's post goes on to give more history on the Muslim ire at the Danish Motoons. Apparently, the flag-burning, fire-throwing cartoonifada has graduated to litigation-ifada.
The group says it also plans to sue the editor-in-chief of the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings in 2005 and the daily’s cartoonist.
Last month, Denmark’s leading newspapers reprinted 1 of the 12 original cartoons after Danish police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist. The papers said the reprint was meant to promote freedom of speech.
The group says it will file the lawsuits in Jordanian courts because the country’s penal code says publicly slandering religious figures is an offense that carries up to three years in prison.
o Muslims committed the huge blunder of revealing their vulnerability [cartoon flap]. Now the world knows what hurts them. When you find your opponent's weak spot, it is exactly where you want to hit him. If Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated.The West has a long tradition of satire and in the form of cartoons. Thomas Nast is but one famous example of such a cartoonist:
o Muslim psychology is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter.
o How much ridicule is enough? Until it hurts. The pain of shame must become bigger than the comfort of clinging to this false fetish. When you see their eyes are popping out of their eyeballs, their veins bulging in their necks, foam forming at their mouths, and they are ready to explode, you know that the remedy is working. Give them more. They will either die of heart attacks or they will come to their senses and recover from this insanity.
o Every one of us must become a cyberwarrior and mock Muhammad, Islam and the Muslims. Use your talent. Draw cartoons based on the hadith and the Quran. You can find tons of ridiculous stuff in these books to lampoon. Write articles, lyrics, jokes, plays, do whatever you can to ridicule Muhammad the prophet pretender and Muslims. Don't heed to their howls and cries.
In general his political cartoons supported American Indians, Chinese Americans and advocated abolition of slavery. Nast also dealt with segregation and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, which was detailed in one of his more famous cartoons called "Worse than Slavery", which showed a despondent black family having their house destroyed by arson, and two members of the Ku Klux Klan and White League are shaking hands in their mutually destructive work against black Americans. His cartoons frequently had numerous sidebars and panels with intricate subplots to the main cartoon. A Sunday feature could provide hours of entertainment and highlight social causes.One has to ask, "Why are Muslims so incensed about a bunch of CARTOONS. After all, if Muslims don't like the Motoons, they don't have to look at those images. After all, most of the Western press has refused to publish the illustrations, although fearless Denmark will.