Rasmussen’s political apology
Despite denying it beforehand, Rasmussen issued a – somewhat hidden – apology to ‘the Muslim world.’
Last weekend, several outlets, including PoliGazette, reported that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Minister had agreed to apologize to “the Islamic world” for the infamous Mohammed cartoons in order to convince Turkey to accept his nomination for NATO secretary general. Earlier today, we reported that Rasmussen himself contradicted these reports saying he could not and would apologize for anything printed by a newspaper.
Rasmussen gave his 2009-take on the cartoons earlier today. “I respect Islam as one of the world’s major religions as well as its religious symbols,” Rasmussen said during a panel discussion at a conference in Istanbul.
“I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark and insult or behave disrespectively towards Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Nothing could be further from my mind,” he added.
I’ll let you decide whether you consider this an apology or not.
My take: this is as close as one can come to apologizing save for downright begging for forgiveness. It’s what you could call a “political apology.”
Rasmussen should have stuck to his guns. He has nothing to apologize nor to ’sympathize’ for. The cartoons were printed by a newspaper, not by his government. It is sad that many felt insulted by them, but it is even sadder that mobs in Indonesia and Arab countries took the streets, boycotted Danish products, and attacked its embassies.
It was not an open, outright apology, but it is hard if not impossible to interpret it differently than a political one.
UPDATE Hot Air summarizes the ‘political apology’ quite perfectly as follows: “Danish PM’s ‘apology’: sorry if you took those cartoons the wrong way.” I’d only add “because we meant no harm” to that.
Again, feel free to disagree with me on whether or not Rasmussen’s statements constitute an apology or not. I’ve got my interpretation of it, but others can disagree.
Thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking in. Be sure to read her post on Rasmussen’s political apology, and Obama’s speech before the Turkish Parliament. Her succinctly expressed opinion: “He didn’t say the exact words “I’m sorry,” but he might as well have tattooed it on his forehead.”
One of those disagreeing with me is perhaps the best conservative member of the blogosphere, Ed Morrissey. Ed argues that Rasmussen did not apologize as much as he made a truly diplomatic gesture of goodwill, which was of vital importance considering Turkey’s importance for NATO and tensions in the country itself.
I’m inclined to give Rasmussen a pass on this. It looks like he found the bare minimum that would satisfy the Turks and keep the government from having to deal with its radical Islamist faction and gave it to them.
It’s well a argued post, as we are used of Ed, but I disagree nonetheless: the cartoons controversy is completely irrelvant for the job Rasmussen just accepted. NATO is not an organization dedicated to political correctness. It is a military alliance.
Furthermore, if he was truly “distressed” by the cartoons, Rasmussen could have said so immediately after the controversy was artificially created by fundamentalists. Instead, he chose to stand up for himself, his country, and the freedom of speech and of the press – which was obviously the right thing to do. Fundamentalists on the other hand, organized riots, attacked Danish embassies and boycotted the country’s products.
Not Rasmussen but these countries and peoples should express “distress” at what happened. Good post, but we continue to disagree.
Ed updated his post quoting me from an email I sent him pointing out that if Rasmussen was upset he could have apologized when the riots started. He acted tough instead. Why, oh why the obvious change? It makes me wonder whether Rasmussen refused to give in years ago out of principles or (solely) for domestic reasons?
This is a stupid analysis of what he said. Read it again. He was upset that muslims couldn’t understand that it was an exercise of free speech and it distressed him. Since when has any nation in recent time actively gone out to fight or insult Islam? None as far as I know. Not even Israel does that. So, stop putting the man in an impossible position to appease some political fantasy that’s not gonna happen. Denmark and Anders Fogh Rasmussen did more to stand up for free speech when facing a tyrannical and murderous enemy than most have–and even the US State Dept fell down and minced words.
That’s not an apology – he’s still standing strong on free speech and separation of religion and politics.
Let’s NOT try to shoot the man down for something he did not do – he is STILL one of the worlds strongest leaders when it comes to protecting liberty of speech, thought and other human rights!
This is as much as an apology as he could offer. He couldn’t go farther for he did not publish the cartoons himself.
Weak.
I agree with previous commenters; Fogh Rasmussen is one of the few international leaders with integrity.
Swedish papers quote him making the following remark to the journalists before his official statement:
– Now listen. In Denmark we don’t apologise for having freedom of speech.
http://sydsvenskan.se/varlden/article424475/Ingen-Muhammedursakt-fran-Fogh.html
The cartoons that were published in Denmark were published by a newspaper. In Western society, we have a strong tradition of free speech. The government does not control what newspapers say or print. The cartoons were not an act by the Danish government. Under the West’s tradition of free speech, a person or paper can print anything they want with very narrow limitations, including criticizing or making fun of someone’s religious or tribal beliefs. It is unfortunate the a number of Islamists are so intolerant and insecure that they reacted violently to the cartoons. It is unfortunate that some Islamists are so extreme that they damaged property and injured people because they felt they were offended by the cartoons. Get over it.
That’s what Rassmussen should have said.
Regarding Update 2: They also ran with your original story of a full apology which didn’t happen. Shame on them for not getting more sources before condemning our ally by the appeaser/betrayer version the Turks put out to make themselves the “winner”.
I think that Michael’s point is that Rasmussen need not have apologized or even mentioned the incident in an attempt to provide ‘clarification’ of his thoughts or feelings about it. If he did indeed open with the statement “Now listen. In Denmark we don’t apologise for having freedom of speech,” he should have stopped and left it at that. Trying to ease wounded feelings while ignoring the response that the publishing of the cartoons elicited certainly comes off as an apology, even if not stated explicitly. In doing so, he legitimizes the over-the-top reactions as valid.
I re-posted on my website near pope’s cartoons
Why do you make this story, and do you also confuse freedom of speech and responsibility. If you have freedom of speech the prime minister has no responsibility whatever of something written in a newspaper. It is totally ridiculous. Why couldn’t he say that he was distressed by this. That the muslim countries doesn’t understand freedom of speech is ok, but that poligazette doesn’t understand it is more disturbing.
Michael,
I would like to send my compliments on the fine argument you have made here. Rasmussen has taken the posture of a Dhimmi and the people shouldn’t stand for it.
Perhaps the reason the prime minister did not express his “distress” at the time is that he was dealing with attacks on Danish citizens, some of which appeared to be sanctioned by foreign governments. At this point, he can say he’s sorry that elements in the Muslim world took offense, without appearing to justify the threats and violence. What’s really needed is for such words to be countered by equal expressions from other quarters, refusing to justify violence as a response to a newspaper cartoon.
Good post. Expected attacks on Danish citizens were a real threat (anecdotal: my hubby’s company (Danish) relocated a meeting in Dubai Mar ‘06 and moved it to Copenhagen for security reasons) and from what I can figure, the first time the Danes have ever found themselves “hated” specifically for a position–must less a newspaper took! Plus, to think these cartoons from a few years ago don’t have anything to do with his getting the NATO is completely naive. Turkey was well peeved that AFR refused to meet with reps from muslim countries when they wanted to complain back then–and that included snubbing Turkey. Erdogan is an islamist in disguise. He has a covered wife. He is a threat to the secularism of Turkey so I’m sure he is extra annoyed at the AFR. But, with the US in his corner to get into the EU, I would think Erdogan also have to walk a fine line in his outrage.
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/06/erdo287an-turkey-is-not-a-country-where.html
I have been thinking about this story since this morning, and that scene from the Karate Kid keeps popping into my mind:
“Miyagi say, you walk one one side of road fine, or walk on other side of road ok, but walk in middle of road and squash like grape.”
Is the “non-apology apology” as bad or worse than the “non-denial denial”?
I wonder if the Turks would want the man who said this about them to apologize to the Turks as well:
“Before the end of the world, you shall fight Turks, whose eyes are small and noses flattened and who have ugly reddish faces, like hammered shields.”
Racism? Hate speech? Guess who said this about Turks: http://www.myspear.org/muhammad_racism_turks.html
The point is not good or bad cartoons published by a newspaper. The point is that a Prime Minister is in charge of 1) his country’s international relationships withe the rest of our common world; 2) his fellow citizens attitude when adressing foreigners.
Rather wrongly Rasmussen’s choice was to focus on freedom of expression, when the core of the problem was a matter of tact and intelligence.
Rasmussen would have been totally right to remind his fellow citizens that tact is not useless in international affairs and that mutual respect should be a shared value. Exactly what he did not say.
I even wonder if he ever considered this side of the coin.