How life changed for the Westergaards

An article in the Guardian provides a depressing picture of what life is like for one of the Jyllands-Posten cartoonists because there are nutcases whose “ideologies” are tolerated largely without suspicion by society at large, and who make threats because of perceived insults to their “prophet”.

The Jyllands-Posten cartoonists were commissioned by that paper to provide cartoons of the Muslims’ fave big guy, and Kurt Westergaard has been living in fear ever since they were published. In fact, his life has changed dramatically.

Last week – and this is what has prompted the Guardian feature – his home was broken into and his life threatened by one of the followers of the man of questionable morals whom Muslims worship. He was still exercised by Westergaard’s representation of a man who may or may not have been meant to be Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. As often is the case when Muslims whinge, blogs such as this one make a point of showing their readers what the fuss is about, thus multiplying the numbers of pairs of eyes that get to see what it is the Muslims are getting so worked up about (it's notable that the Guardian doesn’t reproduce the picture, though – oh, no!).

The paper cites a scene in which Westergaard and his family were once unloading their luggage at a hotel, when “they came to the attention of two men and two women who were apparently of Middle Eastern origin”.

“May you burn in hell!” one of the men shouted at Westergaard.

“Can we talk about it?” the cartoonist asked.

“May you burn in hell,” the man repeated.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to talk about it in hell, then,” Westergaard finally said. When the police arrived five minutes later, the party of four was long gone.

This illustrates the unquestioning blindness of the “faith” of these crackpots, which would be a laugh if they weren’t often murderous psychopaths obeying what they perceive are the diktats of their loopy religion. One might have some sympathy with them if they could provide a decent argument as to why they feel they have a right to stamp on others’ freedom of expression.