As We Lose Our Fortitude, A Swede Finds The Testicular Kind
Following the controversy, Vilks was forced to live under police protection due to receiving several death threats, including a statement by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq which had offered up to $150,000 for his assassination. But it didn’t end there:
— March 9, 2010 – Colleen R. LaRose from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania suburbs had her federal indictment unsealed charging her with trying to recruit Muslims to murder Vilks.
— March 9, 2010 – Seven people were arrested in the Republic of Ireland over an plot to assassinate Vilks. Police said those arrested were foreign-born Irish residents, mostly from Yemen and Morocco and had refugee status.
— May 11, 2010 – Muslim protesters assaulted Vilks while he was giving a lecture about free speech at Uppsala University.
— May 15, 2010 – Vilks’ house in southern Sweden was attacked by arsonists.
— November 24, 2010 – a video produced by the Somali Islamic organization Al-Shaabab was sent out. In the video, a Swedish speaking voice appeals to “all the Somali brothers and sisters” in Sweden, to leave that country and come to Somalia to fight for Al-Shabaab. He also announces a death threat against Lars Vilks.
— December 12, 2010 – a suicide bomber in Stockholm said in a message to media and the Swedish Security Police that: “Now will your children, daughters and sisters die the same way our brothers and sisters die. Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you don’t end your war against Islam and degradation against the prophet and your foolish support for the pig Vilks.”
— September 10, 2011 – 3 Muslim men were arrested on suspicion of preparing to commit terrorist crimes in Gothenburg, Sweden. Two days after the arrest, the crime classification was changed to conspiring to murder. It was revealed a few days later that Vilks was the intended target of the 3 men.
So, most by now would guess that Vilks is living surreptitiously somewhere … keeping very quiet…
Guess again…
Vilks has started the Roundabout Dog Tour (named after his first sketch of Muhammed’s head on a dog’s body). It’s a Free Speech tour making stops all over Europe. PLUS, he’s come out with 4 more paintings featuring Muhammed in classic works (Vermeer, Gentileschi, Sisters and Carravagio).
The man has righteous chutzpah … a fortitude of the testicular kind. Something woefully absent in the rest of the leadership of the West.
Here’s hoping US leaders will take Vilks paradigm and begin standing up to the Islamic threat we are now faced with … instead of cowering behind the skirts of the media and world opinion.
In other words: Find your fortitude … the testicular kind!
Image: Lars Vilks vid Nimis 30-årsjubileum; author: Peter Wemmert; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
