In my youth, during the 1960's, I attended many anti-war rallies to protest the Vietnam War. By the late 1960's, the protests had become impressive affairs, with upwards of half a million people attending. In the spring of 1970, the protests in Washington, DC, drew over a million people. When "The People" are moved to action, their political will is hard to resist.
Recently we have learned this lesson anew, as hundreds of thousands protesting a stolen election in the Ukraine forced democratic change in that former Soviet Socialist Republic.
As well, large demonstrations were instrumental in forcing Syria out of Lebanon (though their influence persists in less direct ways.) Just yesterday, the Lebanese took to the streets on the one year anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri; Michelle Malkin has a picture of the protest and describes the scene in AN ANNIVERSARY IN LEBANON:
Today marks the first anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the birth of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution.
Half a million Lebanese citizens rallied in honor of Hariri's memory today.
Take a look at the picture Michelle has in the post; the crowd is extensive, filling the entire frame with innumerable tiny images of people crowded together. Contrast that with this story, CARTOON JIHAD: THE NEXT GENERATION, from yesterday, of a Hamas rally protesting the Danish cartoons. Notice how each picture features a tight close-up of no more than three or four children. It is a common MSM technique to shoot tight close-ups of protesters to make small crowds look more dramatic; with the proper placement, a crowd of 50 can look like it is merely a small portion of a crowd of many thousands.
You might wonder why I include such information in a post on the Cartoon Wars; the explanation is simple. What has become most striking about the Muslim protests about the cartoons is the limited size of the protesting crowds.
Need more? The BBC provides a time-line of the Cartoon imbroglio. Here are some highlights [Emphasis mine-SW]:
13 February: In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, police fire tear gas to disperse crowds when protests by at least 3,000 students demonstrating against the cartoons turn violent.
....
10 February: Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi tells a conference in Kuala Lumpur a huge chasm has opened between the West and Islam, fuelled by Muslim frustrations over Western foreign policy. Thousands outside protest over the cartoons.
9 February: Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims in Lebanon turn a religious ceremony into a protest over the cartoons.
....
7 February: Several hundred Iranians attack the Danish embassy in Tehran as the country announces it is cutting all trade ties with Denmark.
6 February: Protests claim lives - at least five people are killed in Afghanistan, and a teenage boy dies after protesters attack police in Somalia.
5 February: Lebanese demonstrators set the Danish embassy in Beirut on fire. Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh resigns over the violent protests.
4 February: Syrians attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus, prompting UN chief Kofi Annan to call for calm.
....
30 January: Gunmen raid the EU's offices in Gaza, demanding an apology over the cartoons.
26 January: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador to Denmark, while Libya says it is closing its embassy in Copenhagen.
Notice that whenever crowd estimates are printed, they number in the hundreds or thousands. (How many thousands? Almost certainly less than 10,000.) The only exception is the religious ceremony in Lebanon which was turned into a protest (by whom, one wonders.) When police states and totalitarian theocracies can only bring out such paltry numbers to protest such a grave injustice, it raises questions about the depth and breadth of Muslim "rage."
Meanwhile, the BBC reports Two die in Pakistan cartoon clash. Surely, Pakistan, home to over 150,000,000 Muslims will have massive crowds demonstrating against the cartoons. Perhaps these protests were better attended than those in Peshawar listed above:
Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the shots were fired by bank guards as crowds rampaged in the city. Hospital officials say 41 others were injured.
Police in Islamabad fired tear gas and used batons to beat back hundreds of students who entered a diplomatic area.
Interestingly, the BBC report continues with this little tidbit:
The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says the almost daily demonstrations in Pakistan have been relatively small and peaceful so far.
But they are getting bigger and angrier as Islamic opposition parties begin a rolling campaign of protests ahead of a visit by US President George W Bush at the start of next month, she says.
Captain Ed has put together an in depth look at the manner in which the cartoons have been manipulated to manufacture outrage and protest by a small group of radical Imams, aided and abetted by various noxious Islamic fascist states. In his post, The Traveling Imams, he concludes:
So it isn't just a case of a few supposedly inflammatory cartoons appearing in Jyllands-Posten that set this off. This has been a deliberate provocation by Danish Muslims to inflame Islam against Denmark specifically and the West in general -- and it would have happened eventually even without the cartoons.
Once again, this time without malice or any particular agenda, our MSM is being used to promote the ideology of fascism. While it may be true that many, perhaps most, Muslims find the Danish cartoons obnoxious, there is little evidence that there has been or continues to be a spontaneous outpouring of Muslim rage toward the West over this incident. We are being played, folks.
No Pasaran has pictures and links from a protest in Paris yesterday, Islamic Protestors in Paris Come Face to Face with an Unexpected Counter-Protest. When the 4000 Muslim protesters are met by 2 counter-protesters, their response is instructive:
Voices start to ring out. "It's provocation!" "You tread on 1.5 million Muslims!" "Connards!" "Rat faces!"
Perhaps the protesters meant to say 1.5 billion Muslims, or perhaps they unwittingly gave the game away with a Freudian slip. I have often wondered where the Moderate Muslims might be found. The two men who were counter-protesting were hustled away by the police (who were afraid to publicly proclaim their identity for fear of violence towards them.) If the police were not prepared to protect the free speech rights of the two men (one French and one Danish) it is no wonder that Moderate Muslims are afraid to raise their heads. They are no more interested in being decapitated than anyone else. When bullies are constantly appeased, they become emboldened; in time, their numbers swell as other cowards join them and find strength in their brutality and the lack of people willing and able to stand up to them. If the Europeans do what they have promised, and pass further limitations on speech, their surrender to fascism will be that much closer, and this time, as the old joke goes, the Islamo-Nazis will proclaim, "No more Mr. Nice Guy."
Perhaps the final words should go to the two protesters No Pasaran found in the streets of Paris confronting the crowd of irate French Muslims:
"Are you out of your minds?!" ask the two officers. "Do you know how many of them there were?!"
"Somebody's got to stand up for free speech", replies the French protestor.
After staying with us for 20-something minutes, they let us out. (As a departing farewell, I say, "You know, right before you came, we almost had them surrounded.")
Update: Helen, at EU Referendum, has a post today, The Muslims we betray through appeasement, which complements this post quite nicely. She writes about a group of Moderate Muslims who are organizing in Denmark to fight back against the fascists:
These are extraordinarily courageous people, who are willing to fight, to risk their lives for what they believe in. What, one wonders, is their attitude to the likes of Jack Straw, Dominic Grieve, Hizonner Ken or the various other scared little bunnies of our political life, who betray us and our democracy as well as the individuals who are willing to stand up to the tyrants in whatever form?
The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has suspended all dialogue on the subject of integration with the various radical imams, is meeting representatives of the Democratic Muslim network today.
When I wrote that the MSM is unwittingly promoting the fascists, I could have, and should have, included the politicians on the left who pander to the Islamic fascists in the same category; they should all know better.
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