Syrian Cynicism in The Cartoon War
Talk about cynical use of religion to mask secular tyranny, but that describes the attacks on Denmark’s and Norway’s embassies in Damascus. Syria is a brutal secular dictatorship run by the Assad clan with the support of their Alawite sect (perhaps ten percent of the population).
The Cartoon War has generated an act of war– overt attacks on embassies.
These attacks would not be possible without the tacit permission or connivance (or both) of the Syrian government. At the moment Syria is facing UN censure for its role in the murder of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri.
But note the AP’s report:
Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam’s revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday _ the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East…
Thousands enraged, huh? More likely scenario: the dictatorship is using The Cartoon War as a convenient issue to deflect the anti-regime heat building inside Syria and shift media focus from the murder investigation.
The Alawites are usually described as a Shia sect. Note this reference (at absoluteastronomy) says the Alawites origin is “in dispute.”
From absoluteastronomy:
The Alawite religion is secret and Alawites do not accept converts or the publication of their sacred texts. The vast majority of Alawites know precious little about the contents of their sacred texts or theology which is jealously guarded by a small class of male initiates. At the age of 15 or 16 all Alawite men are given a few hours of initiation classes, but from then on, it is up to them to decide whether they want to become students of the religion, attach themselves to a Shaykh (Shaykh: shaikh (, also rendered as sheik, shaykh or…
[follow hyperlink for more…]) , and begin the lengthy initiation process and course of study in the religion.Because only one book has been translated, outsiders know little about Alawite theology and much nonsense is repeated on web pages…
The secrecy has led to assertions that the Alawites practice a “syncretic” religion, with features of Islam, Christianity, and Canaanite religions.
Answers.com explores this.
The Alawite religion seems to be based on Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. According to Alawite belief, all persons at first were stars in the world of light but fell from the firmament through the passion of jealousy. The material world is a place of danger, enemies and impurity. The essential evil of this present existence can be escaped by the help of the divine creator. Every Alawite has within his soul a bit of the light of the divine creator, which can be accessed and lead him on the right path and salvation. Faithful Alawites believe that all who put forth towards their soul shall receive their due reward from Allah. Alawites believe that their rewards are not financial gain or property but true knowledge of the prophets of Allah. They also believe infidels are reborn as animals, which is witnessed in the Quran.
Because of the highly syncretistic nature of the religion, scholars have claimed that Alawism is related to Christianity because they have a strong love for Jesus and the former prophets but Alawites say that all the prophets were Muslims and that knowledge is like the sea it nevers ends. Alawites also study the writings of Aristotle, Socrates and Alexander the Great.
Update: As noted Socrates has no writings (Plato does) and what did Alexander write (?).
Update 2: Mobs burn the Danish embassy in Beirut.
It occurs to me that the alawites could be closet monophysites
Comment by Francis Turner — 2/4/2006 @ 4:08 pm
The writings of Alexander the Great ? Such as “A treatise on how to best make use of the Persian treasury” ? LOL !
Comment by yomama — 2/4/2006 @ 4:42 pm
OK, let’s say that the burnings are deliberate, and were instigated by the Syrian government. What next? Another investigation? Do we respond to acts of war by treating each of them, individually, as criminal acts?
Comment by Diane Wilson — 2/4/2006 @ 4:45 pm
I’d certainly like to find out more about these “writings of Socrates” the Alawites supposedly study. Most scholars say Socrates left no writings.
Comment by Mark — 2/4/2006 @ 4:49 pm
“The Danish Cartoon Threat: Clear, Present, Imminent” Massive protests in the Muslim world against cartoons defaming Mohammed, satires originally published in a Danish newspaper, have highlighted the dire threat oft posed by evil Denmark. Centuries ago, vicious Vikings set sail from that cold, inhospitable land to wreak havoc on France, Ireland, and England, and conquer Iceland and Greenland from peace-loving indigenous folk. They subdued a New World of harmless Indians, and gave it a name, Vinland, sacrilegious to alcohol-forbidden Muslims. Other marauding Danish bands headed south into the Mediterranean to rape then-hallowed Islamic lands, in Sicily and among the Turks. One chieftain, Rurik, even raided Russia, which he founded, and which has been the bane of peace-loving Muslims down to today’s Chechens. Another cruel warlord, King Canute, dominated Norway and England, and would have dominated more, if his name hadn’t been so silly. Yet another Danish tribal leader, Hamlet, set a template for a depressed, self-obsessed, suicidal archetype of humanity. Danes don’t deign to kill only with sword. Their diet – mostly the unpronounceable, unspellable Haagen-Dazs, and ultra-sweet, nutrition-less Danish – is a guaranteed artery blocker. After supping on such stomach-clogging swill, Danes typically take rollercoaster rides at their overrated Tivoli amusement park, then rush to their barf bags for relief. Another key component of their national cuisine, the hated Holstein cow, is offensive to Hindus. Denmark sits astride a strategic location, between Norway and Germany, posing a threat to both, especially the latter. It juts out from Jutland provocatively, dagger-like, leaping from the European mainland into the North Sea, threatening shipping lanes, oil rigs, and red herrings. The nation’s flag, a white cross on a bloody field of red, is a veritable Crusader’s emblem waved in the face of beneficent Islam. Indeed the country’s most famed figure, changed his name, for maximum offense, to Hans CHRISTIAN Andersen. The nation’s second most famous man, Lars Ulrich, obliterates foes with 150-decibel heavy-Metallica sounds. Its people, fully five million strong, overwhelmingly blonde and blue-eyed, their fair daughters’ hair tied back typically into “pig” tails, in deliberate insult to pork-averse Muslims, are self-evidently racist. Lately the Danes have constructed a giant bridge to Sweden, placing that peaceful, Nobel place of hot-tubbing nudist colonists under threat of ax-wielding, bowl-hair-cutted barbarians gone berserk. It’s time long past the world stood up to these Nordic bullies.
Comment by Ed Moser — 2/4/2006 @ 5:40 pm
The Great Cartoon Crisis Of 2006 Gets Hotter Glenn Reynolds writes that the Danish Embassy in Syria was torched. Given the cause of the fire, one of Mark Steyn’s best observations still holds very much true:These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it…
Trackback by Ed Driscoll.com — 2/4/2006 @ 5:49 pm
Great post! What’s Syria really all about? It looks as if a minority is playing all factions against each other from Beirut to the Euphrates River.
Comment by Frank Sarsfield — 2/4/2006 @ 6:04 pm
And all on cue from Iran.
Comment by Gandalf — 2/4/2006 @ 6:09 pm
The Danish embassy in Syria houses the Swedish embassy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4681294.stm Norway and Sweden both sit on the IAEA board of Governors. http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/Board/
Comment by Soldier's Dad — 2/4/2006 @ 6:16 pm
[…] ns in Lebanon were free of Syrian finger-prints. Time for the Assad regime to go. UPDATE: Austin Bay has more: Thousands enraged, huh? More likely scenario: the dictatorship is using The Cartoon War as […]
Pingback by NoisyRoom.net » The Government of Syria is Responsible — 2/4/2006 @ 6:51 pm
Absoluteastronomy.com is just a mirror site of Wikipedia. You might as well cite the original as long as it is acurate.
Comment by Joshua — 2/4/2006 @ 7:18 pm
Socrates and Alexander the Great had no writings.
Comment by Walter — 2/4/2006 @ 9:28 pm
So the cartoons were published last November and the outcry started this week, after it became clear that the EU 3 would push for Irans referal to the security council. What am I missing?
Comment by Graham — 2/4/2006 @ 11:53 pm
So the cartoons were in the newspaper last November but it wasn’t until now that the outrage broke out, the same week that it became clear that the EU 3 were ready to refer Iran to the security council? What am I missing?
Comment by Graham — 2/5/2006 @ 12:01 am
Free Speech Impediment Syrians Torch Embassies Over Caricatures DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam’s revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday - the most violent in days of furious protests by
Trackback by Small Town Veteran — 2/5/2006 @ 12:37 am
Thank you, Ed Moser For that highly illuminating post on Denmark and the Danes. I just need to point out a couple of errors: Hans Christian Andersen did not change his name, Hägen-Dasz is NOT DANISH. Americans keep telling me this crap. It’s from San Diego, which is as un-Danish as places get in this world. The name is supposed to sound Swedish, as a spoof on another iconic eighties brand, Frusen Glädje. Anyway, while it’s available in Denmark, it’s not that popular. And we don’t throw up in Tivoli. We throw up at the other amusement park in town, Bakken, because that’s where we go to drink, fight and f***. Otherwise, many thanks for the kind words.
Comment by Dan Kjerulf — 2/5/2006 @ 12:46 am
Don’t forget those imperialist Norwegians! Their damn ships are everywhere to spread their aryan genes. Hitler liked them, you know.
Comment by brian — 2/5/2006 @ 7:07 am
Hey, the Danish embassy in Lebanon was burned. Isn’t that one of those places were ‘democratic revolution’ had just happened. Is the ‘Assad regime’ behind that too!
Comment by marcion — 2/5/2006 @ 7:38 am
I wouldn’t be surprised that the Danish Embassy would be torched in Lebanon, considering that the Assad dictatorship is still having Lebanese patriots murdered throughout Lebanon. The tentacles of the Assad/ahmadinijed monster continue to cause death and destruction in Lebanon. How difficult is it to see that hizbullah and Amal still dance to the puppet-masters in Damascus and Teheran?
Comment by Steve from Florida — 2/5/2006 @ 9:41 am
Check out Wretchard, He think it’s just possible that the terror masters have overplayed their hand (assume the EC stays tipped and pissed. Attacking an embassy is an act of war. If we had reacted (as the Soviets had said they would have responded) to the Terhan attack, perhaps we could have defused and disarmed these mad children years ago.
Comment by Ari Tai — 2/5/2006 @ 10:31 am
“The Alawite religion seems to be based on Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. According to Alawite belief, all persons at first were stars in the world of light but fell from the firmament through the passion of jealousy” Good God, they sound like Scientologists.
Comment by Sue Bob — 2/5/2006 @ 1:14 pm
[…] der G.W.O.T., Islam, Iran Threat by OkieBoy on Sunday February 5, 2006 at 12:44 pm Austin Bay has an interesting review of Syria’s Assad clan rulers and the “secret” religion th […]
Pingback by OKIE on the LAM - In LA » Muslim Cartoon War — Austin Bay Comments — 2/5/2006 @ 1:48 pm
[…] oints for interest… Now they’re burning Danish embassies in Lebanon and Syria. Austin Bay, I think, has it right - the majority of Muslim anger has been stoked by those with other goals in mi […]
Pingback by GoodBoysNation - Archives » Thoughts on a Cloudy Super Sunday… — 2/5/2006 @ 3:51 pm
[…] ary to defend the latter in order to uphold and praise the former. via Hugh Hewitt: this blogger thinks that the Syrian response at least is just a case of the government creating a smokescreen: Thous […]
Pingback by This Side of Glory » Blog Archive » Cartoon rage, cont. — 2/5/2006 @ 6:50 pm
on sept 25 i first predicted in a post at my blog that iran and syria would step up the efforts of their jihadoterrorists stooges in order to divert our focus from them. i followed this up with numerous post on the subject, suggesting that as we put more pressure on them they will attempt to put more pressure on us throuigh their surrogates. specifically i even predicted that zarqawi qould attack jordan (which happened), and that hamas (from gaza) and hizb’allah (from lebanon) would increase their attacks on israel and attempt to start a arab-israeli war (both of which have happened). i have all posted numerous times since then that the paris intifada and this cartoon intifada are NOT spontaneous at all but part of that global jihad effort. this ios tru of the so-called second initfada - the sharon visit wwas a pretext for a long-planned attack. please feel free to read my blog everyday - you’ll stay weeks ahead of the headlines…
Comment by reliapundit — 2/5/2006 @ 10:38 pm
Monday’s Winds of War: 6 Feb 2006 Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Monday’s Winds of War b…
Trackback by Security Watchtower — 2/5/2006 @ 10:54 pm
Those of us who Germany has taken away passports to attend a Teheran research session of the law edicted by Reinhard Heidrich at the Wannsee conference know of what they speak if they never use or mention Hebrew forged terms(two examples:[ 1.] the Walther & Herbert Bush clan attending a church or chapell always at the eve of a decapitation strike or else a bridge bombardement in Baghdad; [2.]Catholic Cross in the air Imitations: a smile to all those of us who don’t hail the Hebrew language of a Pope & Priest decoy as the shadow CINC Kerry did on all tv screens during the burrial(”pompes funebres”) of Roni Reagan in Washington and Arlington. I welcome instead the “international festival of cartoons” of “Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor of Hamshahiri”(compare please: Anthony Browne, The Times, February 07 2006 ,”Cartoons”"World leaders rally round as crisis deepens”) which will in a nice try _d_r_a_w_ us the proof that the Western World [_ _— actually —_ _] _i_s__or__i_s__n_o_t_ so free as they pretend. Till today the Western world reacted with interdictions to the Reasons and Causes about the Wannsee Conference Decisions even when it is in form of a funny _Not-Hebrew_ cartoons festival in Teheran(Iran).
Comment by chen — 2/7/2006 @ 10:05 am
It’s a tough world. If Islaziism is a trend then so be it and so will the fight continue on both sides.
Comment by Tough World — 2/17/2006 @ 8:42 pm