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Anatomy of a global crisis THREE-PAGE REPORT ON THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY PART ONE: HOW THE FIRE SPREAD(The Sunday Herald Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)EVEN to the strictest of Muslims, there's a world of difference between a picture of a beatific Muhammed leading a donkey through the desert - or even hiding a fizzing bomb in his turban - and an image of the prophet being raped by a dog or labelled a paedophile. While Islam forbids the creation of pictures representing the Prophet Muhammed, throwing such sexual slurs at the most holy figure of the faith is tantamount to pouring a gallon of petrol on a fire. Any Muslim - any well-informed Christian or atheist or Hindu, for that matter - would know this. Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laden and his political and religious fellow-travellers knew that. Abu Laden was chief among a group of Danish Imams who travelled to the Middle East with a portfolio of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten September 2005. They went to show the collection to political and religious leaders. But tucked in the file with the 12 JyllandsPosten images were three additional pictures: one calling the Prophet a child molester, one showing him with a pig's face and another showing a kneeling Muslim at prayer - presumably, Muhammed - being raped by a dog. None of these cartoons were drawn by a Danish cartoonist nor published in a Danish paper or anywhere else - yet they helped turn an insensitive insult into a deed so offensive that some Muslims considered it an act of war. After the first publication of 12 cartoons in Jyllands-Posten the Islamic Society of Denmark demanded that the newspaper apologise and about 3500 Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen. Even the first re-publication in mid-October 2005, during Ramadan, of six of the original 12 cartoons in the Egyptian newspaper al-Fajr caused no adverse reaction. But then Danish Muslim leaders brought the cartoons - and the three other drawings - to the attention of ambassadors from Muslim countries, ranging from Egypt and Iran to Bosnia and Pakistan. The delegation met some of the most influential figures in the Muslim world. They included: the secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa; the Grand Imam of Cairo's al-Azhar University, Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi; the Egyptian Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa; the Lebanese Grand Mufti, Muhammed Rashid Kabbani and the leading Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadallah. They also appeared on al Manar, the TV channel owned and run by the terrorist organisation Hezbollah, and visited clerics in Saudi Arabia. The strategy was, said Abu Laban, agreed upon following conversations with leading Muslims from Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Denmark. "We [wanted] to internationalise this issue so the Danish government would realise the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark, but to Muslims worldwide, " said Abu Laban. "It was decided to take such a step because it is wrong to turn a blind eye to the fact that some European countries discriminate against their Muslims on the grounds that they are not democratic and that they can not understand western culture." The Danish clerics became a cause celebre in Saudi Arabia. In Mecca, the Imam of the Grand Mosque, Sheikh Osama Khayyat, gave a televised religious sermon attacking the Danes. The Imam of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, Sheikh Ali al-Hudaify, said: "We call upon governments, organisations and scholars in the Islamic world to extend support for campaigns protesting the sacrilegious attacks." IN December, the images were shown at a summit of around 60 Muslim nations in Mecca - the Organisation of the Islamic Conference - attended by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Together with the Danish Imams' tour, this meeting internationalised the protest by issuing a communique condemning the images. Iran and Syria made angry statements and Imams across the Saudi kingdom followed suit. While the Danish clerics toured the Middle East, Danish police investigated the publishers of the cartoons for an offence roughly equivalent to stirring up religious hatred. On January 6 this year - three months after the initial publication of the cartoons - the investigation was called to a halt in the interests of freedom of speech. But if the Danish Imams were ratcheting up a cultural clash, then so were other European newspapers. Another Danish newspaper, WeekendAvisen, reprinted the cartoons. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung followed, as did a Swedish newspaper, a Norwegian newspaper, France Soir, Die Welt, La Stampa, El Periodico de Catalunya, Dutch papers, an American paper, a Swiss paper and a Belgian paper. The tension exploded in a blaze of burning embassies, screaming mobs, online attacks on European websites, boycotts of goods from countries which had published the cartoons, death threats, killings, violent demonstrations, and the sight of masked Islamic fundamentalists in the UK threatening a European 9/11, another July 7 attack and the beheading of those who insult Islam. For the ultra-hardline Islamic extremists in the UK - such as Anjem Choudray, one of the leaders of the militant fundamentalist organisation al-Ghurabaa (the Strangers) - it was a godsend. Choudray, one of the organisers of the London protests, is a long-standing figure on the extreme right of British Islam. He was the trusted lieutenant of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who led the infamous organisation al-Muhajiroun until it morphed into alGhurabaa following a government vow to ban the organisation. AlMuhajiroun had helped British Muslims make their way to Pakistan during the attack on Afghanistan so they could fight for the Taliban. ON the al-Ghurabaa website there is an article headed "Kill those who insult the Prophet Muhammed", the same words that appeared on placards across Europe. Al-Ghurabaa is not worried about admitting that it is part of a fundamentalist network which spans the world and which co-ordinated the almost identical displays of fanatical hatred. Choudray says his movement is part of a loose Islamic sect which he referred to as "Muhammed's companions". Others in this sect, he said, included Omar Bakri Mohammed, Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq responsible for beheading hostages. "They all share our understanding, " he added. Members of this sect are assured a place in paradise, Choudray went on, as they were devoted to both propagating Islam and fighting in jihad. "We belong to the saved sect, " he said. Anyone Muslim who described themselves as "moderate" and condemned organisations like alGhurabaa was a "hypocrite and a sinner, not a Muslim". Choudray has been visited by "specialist police" but not charged with an offence. Choudray was close to Abu Hamza, the so-called "Preacher of Hate" imprisoned last week. "Abu Hamza had great fortitude, " he said. Another of al-Ghurabaa's senior figures close to Abu Hamza is Abu Yahya. He helped co-ordinate the protests in Britain, and defended the placards, saying: "The Prophet Muhammed said whoever insults a prophet shall be punished with death. Whatever you think about capital punishment is beside the point. Punishment by death is the only solution if you are a Muslim. The placards were expressing what the Prophet Muhammed said 1400 years ago." Yahya said the protests were well co-ordinated because of links developed by organisations such as his with political fellow-travellers overseas - using the latest communications technology - centring on opposition to the war in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. "We are one body, " he said. "If you attack it in one part, the rest will respond." The reason placards bearing similar expressions and threats such as "behead the insulters" cropped up all over the world was because leaders of the protests, such as Yahya and Choudray in the UK, went to the Koran and other holy books, looked up what was said about defaming the Prophet and then wrote their interpretations on banners. "The response was universal because we consulted our books, found the same answer and expressed it the same way, " he said. Yahya refused to "divulge the logistics" of how the protest was put together, but said that it was "networked internationally", adding: "This is very common. Our leaders here contact leaders in other quarters of the world. We are globalised." Yahya hinted that rioting could come to Britain, just as it recently did to France. "If Nick Griffin of the BNP is allowed to peddle hate and go free, but Abu Hamza goes to jail, hatred will fester and Muslims may resort to radical means as they did in Paris, " he said. Yahya said he had met Abu Hamza "many, many times" and shared a platform with the jailed cleric at a London mosque. "He was a really nice guy, " said Yahya, a 30-year-old married father-of-five of Pakistani descent who works as a fibre optic engineer. "Funny, witty and sharp - a decent normal guy. He loved children. Many Muslims feel exactly as he does. I have no problem with anything he said." Hamza, who was jailed for seven years on Tuesday for inciting murder and racial hatred, ran an effective academy for al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists from the Finsbury Park mosque, which he ran as his own personal fiefdom. Those linked to Hamza and his mosque included: the so-called twentieth 9/11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui; Kamel Bourgass, who murdered a police officer during an anti-terror raid in Manchester; the shoe-bomber Richard Reid; Haroon Rashid Aswat, who is accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in the US; Djamel Beghal, accused of plotting to blow up the US embassy in Paris; Abu Qatada, al-Qaeda's so-called ambassador to Europe awaiting deportation from the UK; Abdullah el-Faisal, a jailed cleric who advocated using chemical weapons on non-Muslims; and Ahmed Ressam, now serving 22 years for planning an attack on Los Angeles airport. The list goes on. As Abu Hamza's old friend Anjem Choudray says: "Our voices are the ones with prominence. We are a global phenomenon now." As demonstrations go on - seemingly without end - it appears Choudray may be right. |