Originally posted by jjimm
Fine. I’ll go for it.
btw: If you want to see something more shocking: Mo - with everyday products.
The Imams that toured the Middle East trying to stir up trouble for Denmark, are for the most not Danish citizens - but only in Denmark as guest. As guest they have behaved very disloyal, and are probably going to be expelled when the worst of the noise has died down. This should not raise any grief in the Middle East, as the most prominent of those Imams Abu Laban has already been expelled from UAE and Egypt for being to radical. Incidentally, re. the antisemitism: here’s a choice quote of Abu Laban: asked whether he supported the Algerian terrorist organisation FIS (GIS?) beheading of foreigners. “Well… You know, perhaps the foreigners are spreading diseases in Algeria just like the Jews are spreading AIDS in Egypt.”
Here’s Radio Islam. A Swedish site. One of the most vile places on the Internet I’ve come across. It has the whole of Mein Kamp in there somewhere.
The Danish editior of the newspaper says censurship has won. When all this has died down, no newspaper are going to dare publish images of Muhammed for half a century. And when they can’t bring satire on one religion, I suppose they’ll find it hard to bring satire on any other religion. Still the satire is going to continue on the Internet. Perhaps this is just another indication of the growing irrelevance of traditional media.
There is little debate that the Islamic reaction to this particular cartoon is extreme and misguided. At least misguided from the POV of anyone who is interested in having Arab society become part of the rest of world’s community of communities. And that plenty of hate speech saturates Arab media, which is much more controlled by governemntal powers than the West’s.
The result has been greater polarization between the Arab and Western world with less sympathy for the Arab/Islamic perspective in Western countries (particularly the EU where Arab sympathies have run high in recent years), even bordering on making Moslems a minority that it is okay to stereotype in polite company (previously a position held longest by the Jews, although less so since HaShoah, and still held by the Romani in most of Europe) and with Moslems developing a greater sense of distrust of the West and of feeling disrespected by the West as well.
So why are Islamist leadership fomenting this bizzare situation? Because that result is exactly the result the Islamists are looking for! The Islamist fundamentalists do not want to see integration with the West and those who use Islam as a tool to oppress do not want to see an Arab world that accepts Western secular values. Anything that widens that chasm is in their interest.
Of course the Western message must be that this is how free press works, that the press is given a wide berth of freedom from governmental control, and that this does not quite reach the level of hate speech that would be regulated. And to leave it at that.
It does ring a little hollow though, honestly, when the speech that follows comes closer and closer to hate speech, and when the same EU countries that trumpet free speech blaspheming Muhammad (from the Islamic POV) are regulating action freely expressing the Islamic faith, such as in prohibiting Moslem females from wearing the head coverings in public. That does give the appearence that everyone has freedom of expression, but some have more freedom than others.
Yeah… yeah… yeah… and the sky is going to fall, right?
You know if you hate Muslims so much just go… Fight them. Come on, go. Start right now. Please, don’t waste another second of your time typing on some internet message board.
Jeez… There is gotta be some place where all the hothead doomdays can meet up and settle their burning passion once and for all. Me, on the other hand, I’m gonna go log off and tease my roomate Kareem for spending the entire night playing world-of-warcraft? The poor bastard is addicted to that stupid game.
March on soilder!
Nicely put, DSeid.
Those bastards!
[QUOTE=gumSince Jesus is a minor prophet in Islam, an offense unto him is now apparently grounds for for a Muslim death decree.[/QUOTE]
Nitpick: My understanding is that many Muslims consider Jesus a major figure in their religion, apparently second only to Mohammed himself. (If anybody thinks I’m wrong, feel free to correct me, but let’s try not to hijack the thread too badly.)
I understand that in some local communities in central European countries such as Rumania or Hungary, there are statues or monuments to local men who served with the German army and even the SS during the Second World War. Apparently the locals don’t care much about the Holocaust but take great pride that one of their own had the courage to fight those whom they considered enemies–even if it meant associating themselves with the Nazis. Seems bizarre, I know, but it doesn’t look any stranger to me than the naive, young idiots who went to harvest sugar cane for Castro or insisted that Ho Chi Minh was the George Washington of southeast Asia and not a hard line Stalinist at all.
Maybe the newspapers, all of them, in the intersest of free speech should have a “cartoon friday” each week and publish cartoons offensive to ALL religions (and let’s get the athiests in there too) until all of this looses steam.
And to keep this from being all negative, maybe the newspapers should throw in some positive cartoons for each religion (and the athiests).
That’s what the French newspaper did. But it’s different where it comes to Islam, since all the others don’t find portrayal of their prophet/s blasphemous.
Now if you suggested blasphemy Friday, I’d be on.
(Though if you depict atheism as some kind of religion I’ll do a little non-violent riot all on my own in the street, and perhaps I’ll burn something. Like a cigarette.)
hehehehe, jjimm 
Originally posted by bottomgun
What makes you think I can’t do both?
Isn’t this the problem? The “regulating” of hate speech.
This is one of the real divides that the atlantic brings.
Germany, of course, and now even britain, routinely criminalize certain IDEAS (as opposed to criminal solicitaions, which are criminal everywhere.)
The very model of a slippery slope…
Once you agree t criminalize some kinds of ideological speech, you cannot well be heard to argue with at least the concept that muslims might demand the danish government stomp on the newspaper,
To me, the reactions of these Muslims serve to support my belief that Islam is an intolerant, violent religion whose very principles seem to drive followers to acts that I would consider to be the sign of an unsound mind. I think Islam is evil and shouldn’t be tolerated. These people shouldn’t even be given the time of day. I’m not saying we should commit genocide (far from it, that would make us like them), but dammit, they shouldn’t be given the importance that people seem to give them. These people are insane, with mentally unsound ideas and borderline inhuman societal practices. In my opinion, they should be treated like children who don’t know how to behave. I think the US shouldn’t even be supporting Muslim leaders of any kind. These people hate unconditionally, consider us to be infidels worthy only of contempt if not killing. Now go ahead and pit me and call me names but I honestly think that Islam does no good in this world anymore.
Also, there are plenty of blasphemous images of Jesus. Hell, I saw a cartoon in Hustler showing Jesus jacking off through the holes in his hands. If that’s not insulting, nothing is. And while I’m sure there are plenty of people who were not happy about it, nobody bombed the Flynt headquarters. I may not like any religion but I can respect a religion that tolerates other ideas. Islam simply does not allow that.
What are you advocating, exactly? Okay, no genocide, no support for Muslim leaders. (I presume that includes no more alliances with Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, and no troop presence to defend the fledgling governments of Afghanistan and Iraq?)
Other than that, how exactly do you suggest that we avod “tolerating” or “giving the time of day to” about a billion people, or start “treating them like children who don’t know how to behave”?
How about not pandering to them and not recognizing Muslim governments? How about withdrawing aid? Why should they get any benefits at all from Western (for lack of a better term) society? Yes, I do think we should have no alliances and no troops supporting a fledgling muslim government. Boycott their oil and and use reserves until they’re bankrupt, maybe (a nice idea but little chance of that happening.) Keep them out of the UN. Execute spies and terrorists. Don’t grant them visas. No access to IMF. Disarm them as much as possible. Put an embargo in place. Basically, let them live in their own mess.
How would that work, exactly? Like Cuba, only with about a sixth of the total global population?
Very little, considering that the US uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day, while our strategic petroleum reserves contain about 720 million barrels, or about five weeks’ worth. With China and India consuming ever more oil, I don’t see the Muslim oil-producing nations going bankrupt even if we never buy a drop of crude from them again.
Very interesting. Please, tell us more.
Hi Kimstu
Sorry for the lateness of this reply. Been busy. Anyway…
Your suspicion is misplaced. Jyllands Posten made no secret that the intention behind the publication of the cartoons was to test the extent to which the concept of free speech is compatible with Islamic dogma. Being unable to speak Danish, I’m afraid I can’t supply any direct cites for this. However the BBC, in a Q&A page giving a brief lowdown of the whole farrago, published the following:
Judging by what I’ve read elsewhere, I believe this to be a fair summary of both the events to date and the background issues informing them. The debate over the detrimental effect of fundamentalist Islamic activism on free speech in secular nations had been raging for quite some time prior to the publication of the offending cartoons. The catalyst for their publication was the inability of an author to commission artwork for his book on Islam. This was, it seems, the proverbial straw that broke the camels hump.
The defense for the cartoons was always that “…they were supposed to be gratuitously insulting and offensive, to demonstrate how intolerant you people are about freedom of speech! So there!”
Well…perhaps not in so many words, but you get the idea.
I don’t really think so either, to be honest. I certainly don’t agree with the decision of other European papers (such as France Soir) to republish the cartoons. The point had already been made. The only thing republication achieved was to piss yet more people off for no good reason.
Still, we can’t turn back the clock. The cartoons are here now and their existence, along with the right of every citizen to reproduce and disseminate them, must be defended without reservation.
I think we may be using slightly different definitions of the word ‘tolerance’ and, consequently, may be talking at cross purposes. To simplify things I’m going to state, for the record, that in order to be said to be tolerant of something, one need only object to its prohibition. One may be grossly offended by certain art or certain books. That’s fine. Everyone’s offended by some stuff. One may even protest and/or boycott the products of those responsible. Nothing wrong with that. So long as those offended acknowledge the legal right of the offenders to produce objects of offence, I have no problem. It’s when the urge to censure mutates into the urge to censor, that one crosses the line between tolerance and intolerance.
You, by contrast, seem to be equating one’s ability to tolerate an objectionable piece of art with the extent to which one is offended by it. I believe that the extent to which one takes offence to a piece of art is irrelevant to the question of whether one is tolerant or not. The only thing that matters is whether or not one is willing to allow objectional art to be produced and disseminated through society.
My mother is a devout Christian and was very offended Scorcese’s ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ (oddly enough, she’s seen the orgy of flagellation that is ‘Passion of the Christ’ about two hundred times ). I, by contrast, think ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ is a great film. So does my dad. To me, we’re all equally tolerant, as none of us would presume to censor Scorcese or forbid others from enjoying his film.
Now, using what I think is your definition of tolerance, I completely agree that it is not a binary concept. However, using my definition, tolerance is a binary concept because a man who is willing to tolerate some things but not others is still a censor at heart. It just so happens that certain things don’t offend him. It isn’t to his credit that he is willing to tolerate those things which don’t spur him to violent protest. Indeed, we cannot expect anything less from him. His tolerance can only be measured by his willingness to support the legality of any and all artistic and political statements.
The whole shebang seems to be about respecting each others cultural conventions.
The Danes value the idea and practice of free speech. The Muslims are catagorically against depictions of the prophet as heretical, valuing a more abstract philosophical position regarding human representations of divinity. I think that Danes thought knew what they were doing in Denmark, but perhaps did not think it all the way through for the rest of the world. Since cartoons are the lingua franca for most of the world these 12 cartoons spread like wildfire. Much like the Abu Gharib photos. Images are the words and sentences now. The Danes wanted to provoke a response, they got one, and now it is a clash of the cultures?
“Sow wind and reap the whirlwind”
Gad, what a bunch of nuts we all are…
:smack:
This comment irritates me, because it appears couched in ignorance.
Sure, there are a hell of a lot of intolerant Islamic arseholes around. More than anyone representing any other idea or faith at the moment. It’s a major problem.
But firstly, let us just establish that this kind of behaviour is not unique to that particular faith:[ul][li]In 1994, a play critical of the Catholic curch incited the following reaction: “a collection of irate nuns, Opus Dei, and the Church Council of Great Britain complained that it was ‘offensive and blasphemous’. After a spate of death threats the production was closed after just ten performances.”[/li][li]In 2004, Sikh rioters caused the closure of the play Behzti in Birmingham, England: the author had to go into hiding, following death threats. Here’s Salman Rushdie on the subject.[/li][li]In 2005, the BBC showed Jerry Springer the Opera: “reports of death threats against TV execs and an email campaign which opened with the line ‘The Sikhs have made a stand - but will Christians?’ - a reference to the Behzti riots.”[/li][li]In 2006, Gary Mitchell, a Northern Irish playwright has his house firebombed and is forced to go into hiding by members of his own Protestant community, because they don’t like what his plays say about that community.[/ul]At no time am I denying the volume of this kind of behaviour is way greater from Islamic fundamentalists, nor do I respect the Islamic governments that have grabbed onto the political bandwagon. [/li]
But political bandwagon it is: a few years after the death fatwa against Rushdie, the British folk singer Roy Harper released a song called “The black cloud of Islam”. The whole thing is, you might agree, fairly inflammatory. Here are the lyrics, including:
(Similar sentiments to your post, I note.) Know what happened to Harper? Nothing.
Secondly, please can somebody apart from Kimtsu acknowledge that “Islam” is not confined to jabbering Arab Sunni hotheads or posturing Iranian Shi’a clerics. Stop condemning the whole lot because of the arseholes.
I live in a street right next to the local synagogue, which is directly opposite Al-Shami, a Lebanese restaurant, round the corner from a corner shop run by Pakistanis. No antagonism. No graffiti. No intimidation. Indeed, Jews regularly eat in the restaurant after attending the synagogue.
I was in a major Muslim part of China last year. I saw no riots; I saw no oppression beyond that meted out by the Chinese governemnt. I visited the Xi’an mosque. Apart from a few Qu’ranic verses on the walls, it was nothing more than a peaceful Chinese temple. I didn’t even see any women wearing headscarves, nor walking behind men: they were running businesses, shopping, going about their daily lives the same as any other Chinese.
I was also in Thailand last year helping with tsunami relief - and I didn’t even know my hosts were Muslim for a couple of weeks. Hell, a few weeks later an Israeli guy there didn’t know they were Muslim. I got nothing but warmth and friendship from those people, who respected our drinking and swimsuit-clad ways, and the only stipulation they placed on our behaviour was that we didn’t bring alcohol into their homes.
I am not denying that Islamic extremism is a major problem. By all means condemn those who act with barbarism - I’ll join you. But as with many of the hysterical in threads about Islam, the Muslim population of the world turns out to be way, way bigger, with many more shades of tolerance and behaviour, than you appear willing to acknowledge.