Public Secrets

Recently a cartoon appeared in the German newspaper ‘Der Tagesspiegel’. Subject of the cartoon was the discussion in Germany whether the German army should take on the task of providing security during the World Football Championships. It depicted the four Iranian football players fitted with explosive belts flanked by four German soldiers. Off course the Iranian reacted on this cartoon and demanded an apology, something I can understand.
More interesting was how the cartoon was published in an Iranian newspaper. Below you can see the original cartoon and below that how it was published in Iran. Spot the difference.

Original.

Iranian publication.

© Martin Rowson 2005/Guardian

It is becoming more and more clear that the whole excitement about the cartoons is one big constructed media event.

1. It is far from true that Mohammed has never been depicted. In the past hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. Follow this link to a Mohammed Image Archive.
2. The cartoons which were send to the middle-east as ‘proof’ of the our blasphamies included some pictures which were never published by the Danish newspaper. Instead they included pictures of a Pig-Squealing Championship (follow this link).

Some 200 pieces of art are to be returned to the heirs of the original owners.

It is not known what the heirs are going to do with the paintings. A large number of them can be seen in the current collection of Dutch museums.
Strangly enough the paintings are not returned to the heirs on ‘legal’ grounds but on ‘moral’ grounds. In two earlier occasions the return was denied on legal grounds because the paintings were not sold under pressure and a fair price was given for them. On this third occasion the return on legal grounds was again denied. The state department responsible for art decided nevertheless to give the paintings back.
You can also read the full story here.

New drugs legislation accepted in Italy.

On Wednesday the Italians accepted a new law which takes away the difference between harddrugs and softdrugs. From now on you can be put behind bars up to 20 years for the possession of softdrugs. Fines go up €260.000.

Read here (in Dutch).

If you can receive the BBC 2, I would have recommened you to watch a program by Boris Johnson. The program is called; Boris and the dream of Rome and could be seen on Sunday evening. Could be because the last of the series was broadcasted tonight.

It is about the simmularities between the historical Rome and the European Union we are trying to build these days. The historical Rome unified an area larger than the current European Union and somehow they did it without a big army or many civil servants.
Of course the question he is trying to answer is; what can we learn from the Romans and is the European Union going to succeed or is it going the wrong way? It is fascinating to see how many problems which the Romans had are similar to the ones we have today.

News headline on the BBC News website ‘Danish embassy torched in Syria‘.

It is a reaction which you could have expected. The bad thing is my first reaction is; Screw them, if they think they can burn down our ambassies and get away with it, I say; I hope they publish the fucking the cartoons everywhere!

New Zealand newspapers have also decided to publish the cartoons because they think their readers have a right to know what all the fuzz is about. South Africa newspapers are being forced by courts not to publish the cartoons.
Now you can see that the issue is political and not religious. If it were religous these kind of outbursts would have happened in November last year when the cartoons were first published.
Now that it is political; publish the cartoons and talk!