The thing about the cartoon seems to show the great differnces in our culture and that of the Muslim countries. I wonder if all the protesters are that offended or just like an excuse to protest.
I do not believe in making fun of any religion,and if a person already knows that some are super sensitive why do it?
I do not know any Muslims, but they seem to be very passionate about most things. In Muslim countries it seems like some one is shooting off a gun for some reason or the other.
I do not think that Christians would riot all over the world if there was a picture of Jesus printed the same way. They may voice their anger, but I doubt they would riot and kill over something they thought was sacrilegious. I am not Christian, Muslim or Jewish but I wouldn’t make fun of any of them.
From what I have heard through the press etc. Islam is a very strict religion and the Muslims find our whole culture to be offensive.
Many people seem to be saying that Arab or Iranian press continuously publishing their rampant anti-Israel stuff and European newspapers publishing a few drawings of Muhammed are moral equivalents, and that if the Western media now doesn’t publish this Muslim-approved “art”, they have somehow shown their hypocrisy. But context matters. In the September 30th Jyllands-Posten the cartoons were shown in the culture section of the paper as a part of an article discussing the fears of even non-Islamic countries’ artists to depict Muhammed in any way. That context is very appropriate, and guess what: Danish Muslims didn’t get violent. There were some complaints, just like if you depicted something holy to Christians unfavorably.
What happened then was Ahmed Abu Laban and his ilk travelling to Middle East to raise some havoc. They presented the J-P cartoons, not in their original context, but they created a new context that included other non-related drawings, stories about how Danish Muslim population was badly repressed, and so on. It took a few months, but finally last month the pot was stirred enough, and Middle East Muslims were presented a nice work of lies and hate speech, including a widespread rumour that the Danish PM was habitually burning Koran in public. In that context it’s no wonder that some of the M-E mob start rioting.
Here some artist brought up a claim that J-P didn’t accept some rather innocent drawings of Jesus a few years ago, and people say this shows the paper’s hypocrisy. But let’s ask why the paper should have published these Jesus cartoons. Is it Jyllands-Posten’s policy to regularly publish freelance artists’ cartoons (because some papers do that all the time, some others never)? What was the relevance of these cartoons? Did any recent political, cultural, economical etc. development require the paper publish a few cartoons showing a resurrecting Jesus? If not, then what’s the point of publishing them? In such situation it becomes relevant for the paper to consider its readers and advertisers: why waste paper to print some quite pointless cartoons that might be offensive to some, and risk your readers cancelling subscriptions and advertisers withdrawing their support? Many like to describe J-P as a right-wing publication; if so, quite a few of its subscribers just might be conservative Christians, and they could’ve get a modest loss of revenue. That’s basic business logic for you, maybe it’s hypocritical then, but who wouldn’t be. Compare this to Muhammad cartoons, who are in every way relevant to the current world situation, as the fanatical reaction shows.
Now the Iranian defenders of freedom say that European papers would never print their clever anti-semitic cartoons. I wouldn’t be so sure. Again, context matters. Some paper might very well take that challenge and run an article along the lines “Muslims in the Middle East complain of our blasphemous drawing of their prophet. Let’s take a look on Arab and Iranian cartoons and their subjects…” and then present some of the drooling hatred that Middle Eastern papers like to fling towards Israel, accompanied with explanations of why they feel the need to show this shit. Or maybe not. In any case, Iran is not in a position to call anyone a hypocrite.
I don’t care if Jyllands-Posten’s “business logic” requires them to be somewhat hypocritical in making their publishing decisions about items that will offend different religious groups. But they have to be prepared to be called on their hypocrisy. Especially when they start making noises about standing up for the principle of freedom of speech and refusing to self-censor out of fears of offending people.
Similarly, Muslims must be prepared to be called on their hypocrisy when their media overflow with venomous hate propaganda against Jews and Americans while at the same time demanding that EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WHOLE FREAKIN’ WORLD must *never, ever * say anything about Muslims or Islam that might even remotely be interpreted as negative.
And Western liberals leave themselves wide open for a charge of hypocrisy when they go tsk, tsk! over these Danish cartoons but tell Christians that they mustn’t take offense at *Piss Christ * or The Last Temptation of Christ. It’s also rather hypocritical to tell us that we mustn’t get upset over the word “jihad” because it’s really very innocent, you see, but we must never, ever use the word “crusade” because it offends and upsets Muslims. When they do things like that, it looks an awful lot like they’re more concerned with showing off their supposed moral and intellectual superiority than with what’s fair or what’s true.
Frankly, I can’t help wondering how many of our “progressive intellectuals” are using buzzwords about tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions to cover up their own abject cowardice.
I think there is a general misunderstanding in the west on the Muslim reaction too the cartoons. It does not come from western liberal tradition of mutual or general respect of others and their culture and religion. Rather it is based on religious laws that demands respect for the prophet Muhammed. But respect for other religions is not mandated, so for them it is not hypocrisy to one day rage at portrayals of Muhammed and the next ridicule, insult or destroy religious symbols or holy places of other faiths, like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism (statues). As was also witnessed in the whole desecration of the Koran case - where a country like Saudi Arabia routinely burn and destroy any Bibles they get their hands on, yet still saw no problem in demanding the Koran be respected. What they’re calling for is respect for Islam, not some universal respect or equality for all religions.
And how many right-wing media sources are courageously posting the cartoons? Right wing leaders encouraging their media to do it? The fact is we’re all censoring ourselves all the time because we know there are maniacs who will threaten our lives if we exercise free-speech about Islam.
It might be politic not to say such things to avoid trouble like this but no-one is shutting up ‘out of respect’.
As Rune says in this thread I think. This isn’t about a liberal respect for all religions. It is fanatic followers of the one true, superior religion demanding the rest of us kow-tow to it. Or else.
It’s great that Muslim organisations are speaking out against the violence but ‘free speech’ and ‘respect for religion’ do not go hand in hand.
Might as well fight the battle now and make it clear that free speech entails criticising and mocking religions and religious figures and no amount of embassy burning is going to stop it.
I hope the media world-wide prints the Holocaust cartoons in copious articles concerning the unlanced boil of anti-semitism in some Islamic states and the ludicrous, in the light of it’s Prophet being a charming cross between Genghis Khan and Charlie Manson (like so many of the Old Testament ‘Good Guys’), self-aggrandising claims of Islam to superiority.
Speaking as a progressive liberal type I say, scew that shit.
No, they don’t have to be called on it. They can make editorial decisions and choose to print whatever they want. For example, they may have made the deccision that a cartoon of Jesus was offensive and not print it, simply because they felt that there wasn’t a compelling reason to be offensive in that case (i.e. there was no ‘larger issue’ that would be illuminated). Then they could have easily made the editorial decision that in this case, the offensiveness was justified because in their opinion the issue warranted it.
For example, they could decide that there might not be a good editorial reason to show a Buddhist Monk leering at a child, and therefore reject cartoons that so depict, while at the same time publishing a cartoon that shows a Catholic priest leering at a child. That’s not hypocrisy or bias, it’s an editorial decision that balances the potential offensiveness of the cartoon against making a point relevant to current world issues.
In any event, they have the absolute right to decide what they will print, as I think we all agree. And even if they are being hyporcrites, I don’t think they have to ‘answer for’ their decision to publish, especially in the face of violence and threats. There may be a legitimate debate about the responsibility that goes with the freedom of expression, but it can not be held in an atmosphere of intimidation and fear. So at this time, such arguments should be rejected out of hand.
As for the Muslim riots, [url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007934]Amir Taheri* has an interesting article today that basically shows the riots are not based on Islamic principles, but are essentially an outburst of fascist fury, substantially abetted by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the governments of Syria and Iran.
Looking around my bedroom this morning, I found a month-old New York Times article about this controversy and about Denmark’s ‘unlikely status as a front in a culture war.’ I’ll post some excerpts later because it’s interesting for several reasons - the situation hadn’t exploded by that point - but a Dane quoted in the article says that papers there have run potentially offensive cartoons about Jesus in the past.
Not this this is a subject that calls for levity, but have a look at the following NY Times site. Scroll down a bit, under the picture of people in moon suits. It looks like the NY Times is having a Holocaust cartoon contest!
Very true (as I already pointed out in my post #53).
Sure, but in that case, they’re ultimately not refusing to print it because they’re trying to avoid offending Christians, but because they simply don’t think it’s worth printing.
If something’s simply not worth printing, then (as I remarked in my post #55) you shouldn’t be offering “well, but we don’t want to offend the readers” as an excuse for not printing it. That suggests that you would be willing to print things that aren’t worth printing, as long as they’re inoffensive.
If you want to avoid offending people, then choose your material accordingly. If you want to publish what you consider the most important material irrespective of whom it offends, then go ahead and do that, but don’t pretend you’re making any of your choices based on the offensiveness of the material. If you want to avoid offending certain readers and don’t mind offending others, then you’re a hypocrite. If you have compelling business reasons for making hypocritical choices about what you publish, that’s understandable and I’ll not lose any sleep over it, but you’re still a hypocrite.
No, they may have decided that it’s not worth printing something offensive given that the issue it illuminates is not important enough.
For example, I might not print a cartoon of Jesus killing someone for gambling money, to make the point that Christians are hypocritical because they play bingo. The issue is to small to warrant such an offensive and bold statement. On the other hand, I might agree to print a cartoon of Jesus killing someone for money if Christians were invading countries and pillaging them.
That’s what editorial decision-making is all about. It’s not just, “Is this cartoon drawn well? Is it funny? Is it offensive?” It’s alll about deciding whether what you publish has the right balance to warrant publishing it.
In any event, this is all irrelevant. The fact is, they made their own editorial decision, and it isn’t up to some maniacs with molotov cocktails to decide whether their judgement was correct. They have the absolute freedom to make whatever publishing decisions they have to make, for whatever reasons they choose to employ.
Again, all it means is that in this case, the offensive nature of the cartoon is not warranted by the issue it is attempting to satirize or expose. In the case of the Mohammed cartoons, they came to a different conclusion. This does not imply hypocrisy in the least.
We make choices based on the offensiveness of the material all the time. Take Piss Christ for example. Serrano chose a provocative image because he felt it accurately portrayed what he felt to be serious problems in his faith. Thus it was not gratuitously offensive. The strength of the message matched the severity of the problem. Had he taken that picture to say something mundane or trivial, then the offense would have been excessive.
What if you decide that some readers need offending to wake them up, and others don’t? Are you still a hypocrite for treating the two groups differently?
Are you saying that someone who publishes a picture of Castro that is offensive to Cuban communists is a hypocrite if he chooses not to publish an equally offensive picture of Mother Theresa because he doesn’t want to offend Catholics? Is not choosing who to give offense to ALSO a valid editorial judgement?
Is Ted Rall a hypocrite for choosing to only draw offensive cartoons of right-wing subjects?
Well but heck, Sam, if the only criterion is “whatever reasons [the publishers] choose to employ”, then nobody’s a hypocrite. Everybody can always come up with a reason why a particular issue is important enough or not important enough, from their particular viewpoint.
For example, radical Islamists could argue that the political issues represented by scurrilous anti-Semitic cartoons make it appropriate to publish them despite their offensiveness, while sacrilegious cartoons about the Prophet are politically less important and therefore don’t warrant being published. See, no hypocrisy! Pure freedom of speech!
The way you’re countering the accusation of a double standard here is to deny that there are any standards at all. Essentially, by refusing to acknowledge any criteria that have to be consistently applied, you’ve just defined hypocrisy right out of existence.
Well, you would have to say “no”, because by your criteria there’s no such thing as hypocrisy in publishing. I, on the other hand, would say that of course he is, if he pretends to be observing the political scene fairly and evenhandedly. On the other hand, if he openly acknowledges that he caricatures only right-wingers because that’s what he likes to do, then he’s not so much a hypocrite as a partisan.
A partisan might be defined as a “candid hypocrite”: somebody who only tells one side of the story but freely admits that that’s what they’re doing, instead of pretending that they’re being in any way objective or fair.
You know, I never said that. For example, I gave the standard that “potential offense must be balanced against the seriousness of the issue”. Is that not a perfectly good standard to employ? There’s a big difference between offending a lot of people just for yucks, and offending them to make them wake up and face a serious issue.
Another standard I offered is the standard of ‘offending that which is offensive’. i.e. drawing an offensive cartoon of Hitler, and refusing to draw an equally offensive cartoon of Mother Theresa.
It seems to me that YOU are the one, with your claim that all offense must be offered equally, who is refusing to consider any sort of editorial standard.
Of course they can argue that. And it’s up to an editor to decide whether that’s valid or not. And if he consistently chooses poorly, no one will read his publication anymore, or at least his publication’s audience will dwindle down to whatever population matches his particular editorial slant.
Did not. For example, if an editor said that he employed my standard of proportional insult to the seriousness of the issue, and THEN published an offensive caricature of Jesus doing heroin just for yucks, while refusing to publish those pictures of Mohammed, THEN he would be a hypocrite. Or if he publically stated that under no circumstances would he publish anything offensive to a major religious group as an excuse to refuse to print a cartoon of Jesus, and THEN published the pictures of Mohammed, he would be a hypocrite.
Hypocrisy is when you violate your own stated rules of conduct. You can not declare someone a hypocrite until you understand those
You can be fair and evenhanded, and still treat the religions differently. For example, if there is an epidemic of Catholic priests molesting boys, what does the concept of ‘fair and evenhanded’ do to your editorial decisions? If I publish a cartoon of a priest leering at a boy, am I now obligated to print one of a Rabbi doing the same, even though there’s no evidence that Rabbis are particularly guilty of this? Or do I have to find some other offense I can pin on them to maintain my ‘fair and balanced’ street cred?
Fair and evenhanded could simply mean, “We won’t publish any offensive religious cartoons unless we decide that the severity of the issue warrants it.”
Sure, but you’re saying that everybody gets to decide for themselves how to interpret that standard, which makes it essentially meaningless, as a standard. According to you, the “seriousness of the issue”, and what sort of publication is “warranted by it”, is whatever the editor decides it is.
Hitler? When did Hitler come into it?.. Oh I see, I think you mean Castro. But when everybody gets to be their own judge of “that which is offensive”, there’s simply no way to enforce this standard either.
That sounds as though you’re saying that hypocrisy is determined by whether or not your editorial choices drive away readers. So, say, the Iranian Islamists who publish scurrilous cartoons about Jews but refuse to touch a satirical cartoon about Muhammad aren’t being hypocritical, as long as their readers like it? That just seems bizarre.
Okay. Then I guess Lonesome Polecat and I have to withdraw our condemnation of those radical Islamists as hypocrites, since they haven’t stated their own “rules of conduct”. That seems pretty bizarre too.
And that’s exactly right. That’s the very definition of editorial control. The editor decides, based on the values of the magazine he works for. And he’s answerable to the editorial board, or to the stockholders, or to his reporters who may up and walk out if he disagrees with him.
Are you suggesting that every newspaper should have an editorial policy so detailed and exact that it takes away all editorial decision-making? If not, then at some point the editor’s judgement enters into it.
I was just making the point that a magazine’s policy could be that they will print offensive cartoons against people or things that they deem to be offensive.
Look, the press is free to do whatever they want to do. If they want to print nothing but pictures of Mohammed picking his nose, that’s their right. Ultimately, they are responsible to their readers, their owners, and their staff. Editors exercise judgement every day. This is nothing new.
WHAT? You can condemn them whether they meet their own rules of conduct or not? Your reasoning is bizarre to me. They can publish a mission statement on gold leaf that says its their job to kill every heretic on the planet if they want, and it won’t make them any more moral, or lessen my condemnation of them one bit.
But I can offer you an example of hypocrisy that they are engaged in: They claim that the mere act of portraying the Prophet is offensive, and yet the cleric that took the cartoons to the middle east created or had created three more images of Mohammed, and they were much more offensive. If Muslims won’t condemn that, then they are being hypocrites.
So we’re supposed to ‘enforce’ editorial standards? That’s news to me.
Look, a newspaper can set up an editorial policy. Then they can follow it or abandon it at their whim, if they so choose. There is no law (or shouldn’t be) that tells them what they can or can’t print, including overtly hypocritical stuff. The ultimate judges are their readers. And that’s as it should be.
No. But what you’re saying implies that unless they do, we always have to reserve judgement about whether they’re being hypocritical, because they haven’t fully “stated” their own “rules of conduct”. Whenever they seem to be violating their own rules, perhaps it’s because there’s an unexplained minor clause that allows the editor’s judgement to make the call.
Maybe, maybe not. Arguing along the lines you’ve adopted, maybe the cleric used his “editorial judgement” to decide that the “seriousness” of the situation “warranted” the offensiveness in this case. Maybe there’s a detail in the “stated rule of conduct” about not portraying the Prophet that wasn’t explained, which actually justifies such an action in this case. Since you’re not fully conversant with all the details of the policy, you can’t call them hypocrites—not according to your own rationale. As I said, you’ve pretty much defined hypocrisy out of existence with this argument, at least in practical terms.
Of course not. None of my comments about hypocrisy here have been any way meant to suggest that there ought to be an actual law against it.
Hitler? When did Hitler come into it?.. Oh I see, I think you mean Castro. But when everybody gets to be their own judge of “that which is offensive”, there’s simply no way to enforce this standard either.