How about this: Yale University Press publishes a book about the Sex Pistols but leaves out the lyrics. Or try this one: Yale University Press publishes a book about the Kama Sutra but leaves out the positions.
The reason for the ridicule is that Yale University Press actually is publishing a book about the Danish Muhammad cartoons... without the cartoons! This absurd publication by this spineless publisher must surely rank as one of the lowest points in the long road of submission to Islamic thuggery. And the publisher’s blurb gives the game away when it says that author Jytte Klausen “concludes that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not — as was commonly assumed — a spontaneous emotional reaction arising out of the clash of Western and Islamic civilizations. Rather it was orchestrated, first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria. Klausen shows how the cartoon crisis was, therefore, ultimately a political conflict rather than a colossal cultural misunderstanding.”
Which is why the publishing of the book about the cartoons without the cartoons is not an honest attempt to illustrate a political conflict, but a dishonest kowtow to those with vested interests in furthering extremism. In the New York Times one of the “experts” consulted by Yale — Ibrahim Gambari, special adviser to the secretary general of the United Nations and the former foreign minister of Nigeria — says: “You can count on violence if any illustration of the prophet is published. It will cause riots, I predict, from Indonesia to Nigeria.” Seeing the barbarism Nigeria and Indonesia have offered the world of late, Gambari’s warning must be taken at face value, but it is a very sad day when Yale is so cowed that it takes the cowardly option.
