Agreed. But what gum asked in the post that I quoted was not whether the “threat levels” of Muslim and non-Muslim protests were the same, but whether there were any murders or bomb scares or death threats as part of non-Muslim protests.
And as far as bomb scares and death threats go, at least, the answer is certainly yes.
I don’t think that’s the fundamental question, simply because the answer is trivially “yes”. After all, I personally know quite a few Muslims who have very successfully integrated into western democratic society, so obviously it can be done.
The questions that I think are really at the core of this issue are, “Can non-democratic, repressive Islamist societies co-exist with (or in) democratic nations that maintain free presses and secular governments and so forth? And if so, how?”
Not that I ever heard. However, as I said before, I don’t think it’s okay to go around issuing threats of bombing and murder as long as you stop short of actually offing people. Threats of violence aren’t as bad as acts of violence, but they’re still completely unacceptable as forms of protest in a free society.
Well, I’m not much of a thread-starter, and I was simply responding to Lochdale’s opinion as to what the crux of the issue is here. However, I don’t mind at all if somebody else wants to use my questions as the basis of a new thread.
It seems that some Muslims are speaking out against the threats of violence, and (unlike the French) here in Canada we didn’t even need to insult thier holy Prophet for them to do it too. See how nice we all are here.
Good grief, no the moslem community in Europe has not taken the place of the Jewish community in early 20th century Europe. This was not an action taken in concert with the government. It was satire. So even while they allegedly disavow violence they are claiming victimhood.
Also: If we’re going to Godwinize…
There are more mutual goals between the Nazi’s and Islam.
You know,
Hatred towards the Jewish and the wish to kill them all, hatred towards the homosexuals, the certainty that they - the muslims - are the übermenschen and we, the unbelievers, are just untermenschen and therefore of no value at all, etc. etc.
Btw: Did you know that ‘Mein Kampf’ is a bestseller among muslims?
In other news, New Zealand:
Wellington newspaper The Dominion Post will publish one of the Danish cartoons.
Dominion Post editor and chair of the Commonwealth Press Union, Tim Pankhurst, told Radio New Zealand that while a final decision was still to be made, the paper would probably print at least one of the cartoons tomorrow.
He said it was an issue of solidarity and supporting press freedom.
No, I did not know that. Do you have a cite? Since MK is under the copyright of the Bavarian State for a few more years, I find that hard to believe. I have never seen a translation of MK into Arabic. I have never heard any Arab discussing MK in Arabic or English (of course, they might have been reading and speaking in German to throw me off).
Really? MK is a bestseller here? Do tell! I am always eager to learn about the country I live in.
Anyway. I’m personally willing to go to the largest Christian church in Saudi Arabia and issue an apology on behalf of all Denmark (or at least Faroe Island).
I started a long discussion of copyright law on this subject. I regret to report that the copyright seems to have fallen into limbo of late due to an obscure court ruling. That is educational.
Well, Paul in Saudi, I meant Turkey as well, but while Googling for ‘muslim mein kampf’ I found some interesting cites.
“Middle East Media and Research Institute <www.memri.org> has just released more details on the sale of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomy. The Arabic translation is being distributed by Al-Shurouq, a Ramallah-based book distributor, and is now in 6th place on the Palestinian best-seller list. The cover of the book shows a picture of Hitler, a swastika, and the title in both German and Arabic.”
&
“Mein Kampf was translated into Arabic (and many other languages) in the 1960s and has been popular for decades in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, the Palestinian terrorities - even in Indonesia and the Muslim far east.”
&
"By showing that Mein Kampf and the Qur’an were authored by the same spirit, and that their motives, mission, and means were indistinguishable, I will have made exposing and rebuking Islam relevant, as Mein Kampf led to the Holocaust and the brutal death of 55 million people.
Mein Kampf and the Qur’an were comprised of the same raw material and crafted in the same fashion."
These and other facinating facts about that badly written, filled with the author’s selfpity, hatemongering book, you’ll find here: http://www.factbites.com/topics/Mein-Kampf
Since I’m also Danish, I might as well chime in… (even though my comments seem insignificant compared to others in this thread).
For the record, what I’ve seen on the news, people in some arab countries do not even have the choice to boykott or not - the stores have done it for them. So the “look, our people are boykotting you because you offended them” doesn’t ring as true to me as it would, if the population had an active choice.
Plus, boykotting back would not get us anywhere (in my mind).
I do think it’s time someone did a reality check and calmed down. I’ll admit I’m dumbfounded by the large differences in mentality, just a few thousand kms’ apart. This is 2006, right?
I’m not all that political, but these cartoons were published in the fall - and only now, after Danish Imams travelled to muslim countries to raise a stink do we have this crisis. Thanks a lot, guys. Guess you don’t like living in Denmark, what with it’s free press, free choice of religion and welfare and everything…
I guess what sums up my feelings on the subject is that it’s very surreal.
Mein Kampf is also a bestseller in India, but not specifically among Muslims: rather, it’s promoted by some of the Hindu-nationalist organizations that approve of Aryan-supremacist theories about the natural superiority of the Indo-European “race”. (It probably also has something to do with general anti-British sentiment.)
You can go into the most respectable, ordinary, tourist-guides-and-fluff-novels bookstore in almost any major Indian city and find a big old copy of Hitler’s book sitting right out there on a prominent shelf. Very odd experience. Just shows you that what seems to us in the West like a natural, universal loathing and rejection of everything Hitler ever said or did is not necessarily reproduced in the rest of the world.
I’m not going to comment on the shitty book, the person who wote it, nor who reads it, but do want to point out that gum’s quotation was copied from a site called phrophetofdoom.net, a site that:
And therefore might not be the most impartial of websites.
Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta.
Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest), they smashed lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag. No one was hurt.
Palestinian gunmen seized and later released a German on Thursday, and a hand grenade was thrown into the compound of the French Cultural Centre in the Gaza Strip.
The editor of a Norwegian magazine which reprinted the Danish cartoons said he had received 25 death threats and thousands of hate messages.
A Jordanian editor was sacked for reprinting them, despite saying his purpose had been only to show the extent of the Danish insult to Islam. “Oh I ask God to forgive me,” Jihad Momani wrote in a public letter of apology.
:rolleyes: