Muslim boycott of Danish goods

Great Debates
161

Sorry about that, DSeid. I wasn’t trying to call you a liar, I just initially thought your last paragraph was a mistaken interpretation of the 2004 law on religious symbols in France, since I wasn’t aware of the recent Dutch development, which, if those news are to be believed, does indeed target the full veil specifically. Additionally, there are now stricter immigration laws in many European countries, designed to stop the influx of Muslims, although this discrimination is probably needed to curb the extremism, and does of course not fall under the freedom of speech.

Anyway, the Dutch government rationalizes their ban on burqas also for the reasons that people must be identifiable on public places. Many other countries have long had such laws forbidding the hiding of one’s face. They see such ban as a prevention of crime, there are no religious issues involved, and so far no Muslims protesting against such laws that I have heard of.

What I was trying to say above, is that during the history of Islam most Muslims living in a non-Muslim country (and some Muslim countries too, like Turkey) have been perfectly fine adopting to the society’s standards of what is proper and what is not, as long as they’ve been reasonable. Their holy book calls for modesty in clothing for both men and women, but so do laws, regulations and ordinances in most non-Muslim places, too. You probably can’t go for a promenade on your city’s main street stark naked as you’ll offend someone, even though no one’s actually harmed by your little walk. That’s already limiting people’s freedom of expression. And certain places are either more strict or more relaxed on what consists an acceptable streetwear.

Some group took the Turkish law on hijabs to the European Court of Human Rights a few years ago, and the court upheld those laws, stating that they don’t violate the freedom of religion. From this it follows that the more minor prohibitions in EU are acceptable by the European standards. The freedom of religious expression of some is violated, but for many of the women in question their freedom of wearing a burqa is really their parents’, husband’s or other relatives’ freedom to force them to do so. And for others, burkha is their own choice, however weird it may seem to us. And all that is an entirely another debate.

As you said, those laws do have the side effect that they are perceived by extremists to be targetting and discriminating Muslims, which perception they can then use for their advantage to prove the more fundamentalist masses that the Westerners really do hate Islam, just like they did with the Danish cartoons. But as shown by the above links other posters provide, these radical imams are always looking for such excuses to incite hate, and if there aren’t enough of those they’ll just invent some.

162

My Saudi Co-workers were crouched around the computer with the office door closed. A sure sign they were sharing pornography. No such luck, they somehow got copies of the Dutch cartoons. I was in a hurry and did not have a chance to talk to them about it.

163

Not terribly different from Jack Chick, though …

164

Jack has yet to resort to fire, as far as we know.

165

There are Dutch cartoons too?

166

Point taken. It was just an off-the-cuff remark anyway …

167

One man’s reasonable …
Would it be reasonable to say that a Hindu must eat beef in order to fit in with Western mores? An Orthodox Jew to not wear a kippa? A Sikh to shave his beard? The only purpose of the French law is to restrict religious expression because they are uncomfortable dealing with diversity and would like to pretend that it does not exist.

Still, it is apparent that the controversy is being created by forces whose intent is to drive the Arab populus away from moderation and towards greater fundamentalism. A Russian news source has an interesting analysis. They see this as orchestrated by Iran and see its timing coincident with the referral to IAES as no coincidence. Iran’s interest is in polarizing the West and Europe and diminishing the influence of moderate Arab forces. This created controversy, and Europe’s reaction to it, plays exactly into their hands.

168

I do not believe it is fair to call the protests disingenuous if they honestly believe lies told them about the Danish government. That leads to an interesting thought though: would the protests, trade embargoes, etc be justified if it was a governement owned newspaper?

Oh , and on the lighter side.
http://www.brokennewz.com/displaystory_static.html

169

More information regarding the false added images:

http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/fabricated_cart.html

I do believe on being specific when bile is thrown, and this imam deserves that and more. How strong are the libel laws in Denmark?

Late warning: the *gninger39sm.jpg * image posted by **Rune ** is not safe for work.

170
  • other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet*

While I share the outrage that false images are being added to the real ones for purposes of cranking up popular fervor, I submit that in a weird sense, the inclusion of “over the top” offensive stuff places the argument on firmer ground.

That is to say, unless we completely abjure a jurisprudence that grants one person a vindicable interest in preventing himself from being offended by any form of speech.

Rather than try to draw a line between the pig faced cartoon (too harsh) and the bomb-turbaned cartoon (not too harsh?) ought we not be fighting this out on a first amendment absolutist ground.

I referenced earlier the problem inherent in the European willingness, (in situations which can only evoke profound sympathy for the aims of the law involved, eg. Holocaust Denial, Display of Nazi insigia, ) to criminalize some speech as too offensive to tolerate.

Having made such a decision, one is open to the argument from unprotected hate speech victims that their sensibilities ALSO deserve protection.

In other words,

“sticks and stones…”

171

If they fabricated the cartoons and said the Danish government owned the newspaper thus resulting in this big hubbub, could the government itself sue the Imams for libel and damages resulting?

172

I’m not aware of any 1st world country that has ‘governmental’ libel laws… much like public figures are more or less free game (you have to tell an out right lie that can be PROVEN to be a lie… that also defames that person…) so are governments…

It would be difficult that you actually changed the opinions of others with your statements (as opposed to satire which is meant to NOT change the over all opinion, but rather lampoon an existing sentiment)… of a government

173

Forget suing the Imams… If the Imam had these extra images of Muhammed made, then isn’t he just as guilty as the originaal cartoonists? Or does he get a pass because his reason for making it was to incite violence against the west? Isn’t there a big double-standard here on the part of the Muslims protesting this?

174

Of course there’s a HUGE double standard Sam. It has very strong 1984 overtones you know. “We’re all Muslim oh brother, it’s just that some of us are more Muslim than others…”

I know, I know… a very cynical POV on my part - however, it’s not an unearned degree of cynicsm because ever since Iran in 1979, the face of Islam has openly exposed itself for what it truly is - namely, a political movement first which nominally refers to itself as a religion.

Whilesoever you have a political environment where the Church and State are NOT separated, you’re forever going to have corruption of power, and rampant censorship and thought policing left right and centre. That’s what the calls for banning of Danish goods is all about. It’s a form of blackmail.

175

I don’t know how the laws on libel work in Europe, but I doubt that a government, as opposed to a specific member of the government can successfully bring such an action;

That said, the facts seem to fit the “actual malice” standard that one would need to meet in the US if, as a public figure, he/she wished to recover for falsehoods.

176

Of course it wouldn’t be reasonable to coerce someone to eat food they don’t want to. But it’s an absurd comparison as no democratic nation would ever do such thing. As for the other, clothing-related questions, then yes, in certain cases such restrictions would be reasonable. It’s just that neither Orthodox Jews or Sikhs are using kippas or beards to commit gender oppression, and besides that neither group is trying to expand their agenda into Europe, unlike Islamists do. Also, it’s certainly reasonable that a public school that forbids its students to cover their heads should not make an exception for religious reasons.

To restrict religious expression in public schools and workplaces, where it doesn’t belong anyway. It’s people that are important for diversity, not the clothing pieces they may or may not wear. And, there is a genuine concern for the veiled women’s rights - if a democratic society has a reason to believe some of its citizens are oppressed, its duty is to do something to correct the situation.

That sounds very likely. In the light of this state-led violence in both Iran and Syria, it’s not hard to guess what was under discussion when Iranian, Syrian and Palestine’s Hamas leaders met just two weeks ago in Damascus. Though Iranian freedom movement notes that while Iran has been moderately successful inciting hate and violence abroad, it’s own folks haven’t been too interested in protesting.

Still, Iran’s and Syria’s tireless work for spoiling international relationships would not be this easy if it was not for the Denmark’s extremist imams like Ahmed Abu Laban, who take every opportunity to declare to the Muslim world that the “West doesn’t respect them”. Like BBC now notes, this includes fabricating pictures. While alaricthegoth is right in saying that even the most “offensive” depictions of Muhammed are certainly protected by free speech as they should be, it doesn’t really matter in this point what the oh-so-evil images are. This whole mess stems from imams and lately also governments feeding their masses propaganda and then telling how angry they should now be for all that. When Doug Marlette drew Muhammed as bomber in 2002, and American newspapers published it, he got thousands of angry letters and some death threats from Muslims, which is to be expected. But no US embassies were burned and no apology was demanded from the US government. Why, then, demand apologies from Danish government now, as the “offense” is in no way different? Because they’re a small nation which can be bullied more easily?

And rest assured that others have also had guts to draw Muhammed before. This massive picture-heavy site shows only some of them.