The problem isn’t Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, Neptune etc. The problem is the people who do horrific things and blame it on them.
Fuck them as well.
Some of this actually reminds me of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US. There are a number of people who want to conflate the rioters with the peaceful protestors. And thus consider the protests to be violent per se. In the same way that those who object to racist depictions of Muhammed (as Charlie Hebdo’s were undoubtably) are dismissed because the most radical Muslims use it as an excuse for violence. Unfortunately I think the inability to say ‘yes these cartoons are beyond the pale, but they have the right to display them without violence’ may lead to further radicalization, especially when they are projected on buildings.
Who was killed over “Western reactions to Muslim depictions of Jews?” Who even called for them to be censored? I think you may be posting from an alternate history timeline.
If some group decided to project a Confederate Flag on the side of a building in the US, they would shunned by most of polite society. That’s because of the hard work of lots of people for many years, who got the truth out about the awful symbolism of that flag and its history as a white supremacist marker.
That’s the kind of work and dedication that moderate Muslims would have to put in in France in order for depictions of Muhammed to have the same effect on polite society.
Personally, I think racist symbols are worse than things that are offensive to one’s religion, but that’s probably because I’m not religious at all. Also, religion is not something you’re born with, it’s not an inherent part of you, like race or sexual orientation. That said, it’s not like I’m creating cartoons of Muhammed, or artwork like Piss Christ either.
Who said anyone was?
Censoring? Naah. Censure? Plenty.
Maybe you would be better off posting in the Pit?
That’s an easy experiment to run. Project a racist Jewish caricature on the side of a government building and see the reaction you get. It will not be a robust discussion of free speech.
From the perspective of religious people, it’s considered quite an inherent part of them (yes, yes, I know… it isn’t genetic and one can switch). So that may be why the reaction of offended religious people can feel similar to offended racial minorities. My parents are Muslim - they consider themselves Muslim almost equally, if not more, than being Pakistani. (And the following may confirm but also counter your point at the same time) I’m a Lutheran Christian and I consider that an essential part of my identity - as much as being South Asian.
Though, saying all that, a lot of times Islamophobic depictions are racist as well as being anti-religion. Lots of turbaned Arabs (even though the turban is usually worn by Sikhs… who are not Muslim nor Arab).
Even if we were to revisit the recent French history regarding Jews, along with the whole Holocaust unpleasantness, I doubt very much you’d find Ultra-Orthodox Jews out trying to murder people.
Yeah, the thought experiment is ineffective.
Perhaps the point he was making was that you’d immediately be shunned, shamed, boycotted, online “cancelled”?Well, it so happens those are acceptable reactions to offensive expression. That nobody would be out there saying “oh but he should be able to do that”? I don’t get it.
The discussion in the French case happens because of the material fact that there’s a faction seeking to impose actual deadly force as the way to dissuade that to which they take offense, and most people are insisting that freedom of expression means you DON’T use deadly force to counter expression that bothers you, however much it may bother you and however much an ass the expresser may be.
In our Western cultures, if you want to stop someone saying something hateful, you do not kill them, you seek to make it socially unacceptable.
You would find that the government’s commitment to free speech is not actually existent in that instance.
It is so acceptable that the French government is demanding that other nations use state power to stop boycotts of French products.
Then it’s a fine thing that none of us, here is a member of the French Government, isn’t it?
And are they being taken seriously, by any of these other nations?
Racist caricatures of Jews are published all the time by Muslim governments as well as by the extreme right and left in the West and not only is no one killed over it, nobody really cares enough to notice. I don’t know why people think this is some magic gotcha.
No one cares enough to notice but somehow everyone knows all about it.
Do you really think that Jews generally believe that anti-semitimism is no longer an issue around the globe? They do not. They simply don’t believe that it justifies murdering people over it. It is not a doctrine of the Jewish religion to kill apostates and infidels for insults.
There should be no issue with so called provocative speech. At some point adults need to show some emotional maturity. Again we used to expect more from 5 year olds than we do from current so-called adults. Allowing or even encouraging a heckler’s veto, while of utility on message boards, is not compatible with liberty.
You ought to be a free speech fan. Is it not in your best interests to live in a world of freedom and rational thought?
These things aren’t uncontroversially linked.
I encourage you to read the intro at the link.