I’m quite capable of speaking my mind without being circumspect. If I had meant to say Muslims were scum, I’d have said “Muslims are scum”. But I didn’t. What I did say, was that the issue here is not the quality of the play, but the censure.
You’re welcome. You deserved it.
100 percent? I doubt that. It’s in the same ballpark as the chance of your random ethnic restaurant owner has of a bunch of skinheads harrassing him.
I’m not going to deny that there is a problem with Muslim extremism, and our societies have their work cut out in assimilating immigrants. However, I will not go painting bogeymen behind every corner nor will I ever agree with xenophobic tirades of how they should all go back to where they came from.
The point remains that you were in error regarding Muslim participation in this latest fiasco. For the record, I’m as much against censorship as you are. I thought that one of the Muhammed cartoons (M. wearing bomb with shahada for a turban) was vile racist filth, but it excused nothing except angry letters and properly targeted boycotts.
Finally, you probably should note that we’re in Great Debates.
Amen to that. I can’t see why anybody would want to live some place that revolts them.
Then try reading it and the posts leading up to it again. As a hypothetical theater owner I’m perfectly willing to toss a group a bone if it’s no skin off my ass. Beyond that the nutters can get fucked. If somebody wants to impose sharia law here he has to follow the same time-honored methods used by the Christian Right.
And still as that hypothetical theater owner, I am interested in artistic freedom only to the point where it starts affecting my bottom line or stomping on my own values. I don’t like the current tendency to substitute shock value for creativity so it was a no-brainer to dump that opera production when the producer refused to drop a scene I found offensive, inappropriate, and only tacked on with the trollish intention to offend. It’s my theater and I can do with it what I want, within the limits of the law. That I get all this free publicity is a bonus.
It is true that radical-Muslim homophobia and homophobic violence is a real problem in the Netherlands, and that it’s indefensible and evil (the violence part, at least; I may disagree with faith-based opposition to homosexuality, but I’m not prepared to call it evil per se unless it’s expressed by evil acts like hurting people).
Almost everything else you said in the above quote was wrong, though. Van Gogh was widely known as a womanizer (and was the divorced father of a young son); I know of no evidence that he was gay. As jjimm pointed out, you seem to have van Gogh confused with the other recently-assassinated Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn, who in fact was gay but was not murdered by a Muslim.
And although the Netherlands is indeed one of the most socially tolerant societies in the world these days, that’s a fairly recent development. The Netherlands executed people for sodomy up to the early nineteenth century, and social condemnation of homosexuality and other “deviant lifestyles” continued long after that, especially among the Christian political parties. Twentieth-century laws ostensibly against public indecency (men were forbidden to stay longer than 5 minutes in public restrooms, for instance) and gender-inappropriate behavior (women were forbidden to wear men’s clothing, for instance) were designed largely to crack down on homosexual activity.
The major successes of the Dutch homosexual-rights movement didn’t come until the 1970’s and after, with gays being admitted into the Dutch armed services in 1973, officially granted equal rights and protection from discrimination in 1993, and permitted to legally marry in 2001. (These developments were not welcomed by all Dutch people, either; conservative Christian gay-bashers attacked gay-rights paraders in Amersfoort as recently as 1982, so your statement that Dutch gays are now facing homophobic violence “for the first time in a couple of generation [sic]” is inaccurate.)
The statement that the Netherlands “started naiively [sic] letting Muslims immigrate” is also misleading. In fact, significant immigration from Muslim countries into the Netherlands began in the mid-twentieth century with the Dutch government actively seeking “guest workers” for cheap labor, without setting adequate policies either for the guest-workers’ repatriation or their assimilation. The Dutch didn’t just “start letting Muslims immigrate”; they deliberately brought foreign Muslim workers in without really knowing what to do with them, hoping to get cheap labor without spending a lot of money on social integration or social services for them.
Nowadays, Dutch immigration policies are much stricter and their “inburgering” (assimilation/citizenship) procedures are more comprehensive. But a lot of the current unassimilated, disaffected Muslim-immigrant population in the Netherlands is the fault of the short-sighted, self-interested policies of earlier days. “Naively” benevolent welcoming of immigrants didn’t have a lot to do with it.
I most explicitly did not say ‘go back to where they came from’. I said ‘f**k off and live in some place that shared their bestial values’.
I have no obligation whatsoever to tolerate their stupid and dangerous beliefs let alone respect them. They have no place in a liberal secular democracy and there are plenty of places where they’ll fit in quite nicely. Places that don’t extend the tiniest shred of tolerance to any other belief but the hand-chopping women-oppressing kind.
And as I’ve mentioned before i’m speaking as a man who had to move through Birmingham when changing trains looking over his shoulder because the family of the woman he was with at the time were looking to kill her (and me for just being there.)
My own friggin’ country and multi-culturalism be damned. I’m not tolerating it.
Where should we send the neo-Nazis though?
I assure you I have never shrieked about Islam or anything else in a long time.
I think you misunderstand my point. I’m not complaining about Islamic fanatics (not Islam in in general BTW), I’m complaining about Westerners who are so cowed by Islam they self-censor automatically.
I think you also misunderstand my point. Of course it’s your right as a theater owner not to show a given work. If you don’t like a work because it relies on shock rather than creativity by all means don’t show it. That’s not what happened here. The play wasn’t stopped because the theater owner found it in bad taste, the play was stopped because the theater owner was afraid of muslims. That’s what troubles me.
A better example is the recent South Park episode I referred to earlier. South Park had an innoffensive image of Muhammed handing Peter Griffin a football helmet. Shortly after on the same episode they had an image of Jesus and George Bush shitting on each other. Guess which scene Comedy Central censored? Clearly this was about fear, not good taste.
You say you’ll throw the fanatics a bone here because it’s such a trivial issue. But that’s how bullies and intimidators work. They start with small demands, demands that even seem reasonable. You obey those demands because, well, why not? Why put your employees at risk because of a stupid play, or some dumb cartoons? Then the demands start to escalate. Maybe the fanatics find a poster to sexy or maybe they go after a better play. After a while the theater owner is so used to obedience that they think nothing of firing their Jewish employees or mandating Islamic dress for their female employees.
The proper place to stop intimidators and bullying fanatics is at the beginning. If you wait till the demands are unreasonable, it’s just that much harder.
Jakonovski, if you have an actual argument, I’ll respond to it.
Nah, they’d be misunderstanding me if they thought because I made a tiny concession I’d keep caving further on. I once asked my daughter, if I were captured by terrorists, how long it would be before they beheaded me. She figured about three hours, max. And I’m not bragging about how well I think I’d stand up under torture. She assumed I’d piss them off from being obnoxious, uncooperative, and sarcastic LONG before they got their torture gear set up.
OTOH, that theater owner in Berlin is just a wuss. Or maybe he’s a good Cherman who automatically does what the cops ask him to do.
IF you come back, do not bring insults to other posters.
[ /Moderating ]
To your house. They can sleep in the basement. The Klan can have the attic. Myself, I’ll just slip a six pack out of your fridge and be gone.
To whatever country they came from if they are immigrants or hold dual nationality.
Eastern Europe hold more than its fair share of violent neo-nazi’s and as these countries join the EU and their workers acquire rights it could be a problem. But so far that is just a distant hypothetical and as guest workers rather than dual citizens easier to deal with.
As for our own neo-nazi’s, I’m thinking deserted islands - preferably one of those scottish ones used for testing anthrax during WW2.
Can anyone find a quote from an Imam denouncing violence done in the name of Islam? Someone I know claims that no muslim cleric has done that, only scholars. Is this true?
No - this is not true. That you should even believe such a notion is a cause for seriously questioning your judgement?
I
Apart from the fact that Iman’s are two a penny in Islam and if one of them denounces acts of terrorism it is unlikely to be headline news in the West. In the UK Imans and other Muslims are constantly on TV denouncing terrorists.
No religion ‘renounces violence’, except maybe buddhism.
Now if you were to argue that Islam is a supremacist religion and that some sects that countance violence as a means to that supremacy you could make a good case. The concept of jihad requires a lot of liberal hand-waving to rid it of its violent connotations. Muslims are called upon to take up arms in support of Islam when it is under attack.
But like everything that is open to nuance and interpetation. Clearly Wahhibism is not much into nuance.
I’m absolutely no fan of Islam and I don’t make the mistake of many here in believing Islam is just Christianity in a different guise, happy to co-exist with other faiths and grant them equal status because it clearly is not. ‘Tolerance’ of other religions in Islamic history has always had more to do with retaining a tax base of dhimmi’s than anything else and ‘freedom of religion’ is an alien concept in places like Saudi.
Yet it was Christians that herded Jews into gas chambers not 70 years ago and Iran has the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East.
I do think at root Sharia Law is fundamentally incompatible with secular liberalism and that the Koran and the life of Mohammed unequivocally support an attitude to women that is unacceptable and that any attempt to conjure up a nice and cuddly Islam along the lines of the Church of England requires torturing the words and deeds of M beyond all recognition.
But to state no Iman has spoken out against violence is absurd.
Thanks for the info. Didn’t say I believed it, did I?
Nice dodge but you’re still winged. 
you might like this article
Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam
I won’t quote anything lest I be accused of hijacking or being beastly to a religion that wouldn’t even begin considering the idea of using violence.
I like Harris. He’s prepared to call a spade a spade.
A “religion” can’t consider anything. Some adherents of Islam do use completely unacceptable violence.
I don’t see a problem comparing Islam to Christianity. Christianity is both older and richer, and many differences between them can be explained in economic terms. I don’t believe that at their core the religions are particularly different.
But that’s a conversation for another thread–a thread I’d be happy to participate in.
A religion based on the idea that the Koran and the life of the prophet as an interpretative guide can easily be considered ‘something.’ I’m baffled by your notion it cannot. And the Koran is as full of calls for violence and M’s life is as full of justified and shocking violence as it is of what is to us, completely unacceptable views on women.
We’ve had this argument before but in my not completely uninformed opinion (i’m no expert but I have read the Koran and read widely around the whole subject so I’m not just venting) it is those who want to make a nice cuddly Anglican Islam who have their work cut out straining at gnats.
It’s the wahhabists who are closer in spirit to original Islam IMHO, particularly as the concept of abrogation suggests that the peaceful nice bit of the Koran are negated by later verses. Thankfully not all scholars accept that doctrine so they can still mimic pick and mix Christians and point to the nice bits they like and ignore things like:
And more power to them. Meanwhile those who like their koran straight and bloody are blowing themselves and others up and a much wider set are out to abrogate liberal secular freedoms in the name of Sharia Law.
Note the spectrum with Malaysia being at the most ‘liberal’ end of the scale. (Paging Arthur Dent.)
In the real world Islam is a religion that encompasses a spectrum of intolerance from relatively liberal so long as you’re a Muslim and not a woman to murderoous no matter what liberal fantasy Islam games people play with Koranic quotes.
Just like Christianity was for most of its history in contradiction of any possible sane reading of the words and message of Jesus.
If people like me distrust and fear Islam it is because we’re looking at what it is now, in the real world, where ‘somewhat oppressive’ is the best face it can put forward, not what might be conjured up some way down the line when rose coloured reading glasses are made general issue.
Hmm. I said a religion can’t consider. Just like I would think it strange if you said something about “beauty” considering using violence, or “blue” considering using violence. So when you sarcastically say that Islam wouldn’t even consider using violence, it strikes me as odd. Islam is an abstract noun.
I don’t think Islam is warm and fuzzy. But, you see, I am a pissed off atheist, and I don’t see Christianity as warm and fuzzy, either. The difference in degree is huge right now, but I do see it as a difference in degree and not a difference in kind.