The Wardman Wire

I have just spotted that the Egyptian Sandmonkey blog has been back for some time (since August - and may have gone again). Blogrolled, regardless.

It was the Sandmonkey who provided a key piece of evidence that the “Motoons” controversy (which has just resurfaced) was - basically - a put up job, and the resulting demonstrations, deaths, embassy burnings and general outrage was essentially down to troublemaking.

The Sandmonkey, whose blog is summarised like this:

The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off.

Support the Neo-con American Right-wing Zionist Christian Imperialist Conspiracy in the Middle-east!

provided photographs of seven of the Mohammed Cartoons appearing in an Egyptian Newspaper (El Fagr) fully six weeks before the first delegation of Danish Imams visited the Middle East to stir up protest - with very little reaction by comparison. It is notable that there was no campaign mounted to boycott Egypt at the time !

I have been wondering whether to take part in the move to republish the cartoon (of Mohammed with a Bomb in his turban) as a statement of solidarity with the cartoonist who had been the subject of a murder plot.

Some may call that statement of solidarity provocative; in my opinion the best way to protect freedom of debate is to debate freely.

And it struck me - the picture has been on this blog since last June, as part of an article which was my paean for the Sandmonkey blog when it closed down then.

So, if you’re going to be offended by a photograph of a cartoon of Mohammed with a Bomb in his Turban (which I take to refer to the image of Islam projected by terror movements), appearing in a popular Arabic Newspaper in the largest Arab country in the world as an illustration for an article criticizing the cartoons which caused no widespread protests (before various people started fomenting trouble six weeks later) - then don’t click the link; otherwise do.

This is the link to the article about the Sandmonkey blog.

Tags: egyptian sandmonkey, el fagr, motoons, mohammed cartoons