A Thorn Among Roses

That peculiar name - Flemming Rose - has popped up again, this time on the opinion pages of The Australian, as the author of a column headed You can't take away our right to offend: Islamist threats to kill free-thinking Western artists must be resisted (20/2/08).

Flemming who? Think 2005-2006, Denmark, and12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, sub-edited by...Flemming Rose. Originally appearing in The Wall Street Journal (surely a dead giveaway that the WSJ is now well and truly in Murdoch's hands), Rose's plaint touches on the plight of Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, now apparently on the run following the arrest by Danish police of 3 men "who allegedly had been plotting to kill him."

Says Rose of Westergaard's original 2005 cartoon, "depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban": "My colleagues and I understand that this cartoon may be offensive to some people, but sometimes the truth can be very offensive."

This crusader for "truth" goes on to detail further examples of what he calls "a global battle for free speech," and rails against last year's adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of "a resolution against defamation of religion, calling on governments across the world to clamp down on cartoonists, writers, journalists, artists and dissidents who dare to speak up."

A brief bio appended to the above informs us that Flemming Rose "is writing a book about the challenges to free speech in a globalised world." We can hardly wait.

Taking the offending cartoons at face value, US cartoonist and author, Art Spiegelman, has made the following observations in a detailed and thoughtful (though apolitical) critique of the cartoons, and the controversy and violence which followed their publication and distribution: "The cartoon insults were used as an excuse to add more very real injury to an already badly injured world, and in this at least they succeeded. They polarized the West into viewing Muslims as the unassimilable Other; for True Believers, the insults were irrefutable proof of Muslim victimization, and served as recruiting posters for the Holy War...the Jyllands-Posten - a newspaper with a history of anti-immigrant bias - seemed somewhat disingenuous when it wrapped itself in the mantle of free speech to invite cartoonists to throw pies at the face of Muhammad last September." (Drawing Blood: Outrageous cartoons and the art of outrage, Harper's Magazine, June 2006) Rose's publish-and-be-damned posturing would, it seems, cut little ice with Spiegelman.

Which brings us back to the question: Flemming who? Daring crusader for free speech, or something else entirely? The following, from The Caricatures in Middle East Politics by James Petras & Robin Eastman-Abaya, 26/2/06, pulls no punches:-

"Given Mossad's long-standing penetration of the Danish intelligence agencies, and their close working relations with the right wing media, it is not surprising that a Ukrainian Jew, operating under the name 'Flemming Rose' with close working relations with the Israeli state (and in particular the far right Likud regime) should be the center of the controversy over the cartoons. 'Rose's' ties to the Israeli state antedate his well known promotional 'interview' with Daniel Pipes [who also pops up from time to time in The Australian], the notorious Arab-hating Zionist ideologue. Prior to being placed as a cultural editor of a leading right-wing Danish daily, from 1990 to 1995 'Rose' was a Moscow-based reporter who translated into Danish a self-serving autobiography by Boris Yeltsin, godchild of the pro-Israeli, post-communist Russian oligarchs, most of whom held dual citizenship and collaborated with the Mossad in laundering illicit billions. Between 1996-1999 'Rose' the journalist, worked the Washington circuit...before returning to Moscow 1999-2004 as a reporter for Jyllands-Posten. In 2005 he became its cultural editor...In his new position 'Rose' found a powerful platform to incite and play on the growing hostility of conservative Danes to immigrants from the Middle East, particularly practising Muslims. Using the format of an interview he published Pipes' virulent anti-Islamic diatribe, probably to 'test the waters' before proceeding to the next stage in the Mossad strategy to polarize a West-East confrontation."

You can read the rest at petras.lahaine.org.