Supporters of Draw Mohammed Day=Free-Speech Fundamentalists?

Great Debates
1

I was just reading the syllabus for a Media, Religion and Globalization course here in Paris and one sentence really rubbed me the wrong way.

I’ll post the whole thing below for context, but the sentence then I believe is invalid (though I’m not entirely certain why) reads as follows: "Free-speech fundamentalists insist on publishing provocative cartoons, while religious fundamentalists exaggerate the provocation."

On the off chance anyone is not familiar with everybody draw mohammed day, which was certainly the most resent example of so-called ‘free-speech fundamentalism’, wikipedia has some basic info here.

To lump violent extremists in with free speech advocates just seems unbalanced. I mean sure both sides are taking a stand on a somewhat superficial issue, but I just don’t think they should be categorized as belonging on different ends of the same spectrum.

Perhaps I’m wrong though, what do you think?

This course studies the mediation of religion and the global distribution of belief. Judaism rejected graven images. Christianity popularized the codex. The rise of Protestantism is directed linked to printing. A peddler of religious trinkets invented the printing press. The muezzin summons the faithful to prayer over a loudspeaker and Muslim sermons circulate on You Tube. One element of our course is to understand the relationship between media and the circulation of religion, how technologies are used by religions and how religious practices are linked to technologies.
Free-speech fundamentalists insist on publishing provocative cartoons, while religious fundamentalists exaggerate the provocation. It is impossible to write the history, understand the present, or imagine the future of religion without thinking about its fraught relationship to the global circulation of media technologies and forms. This seminar will investigate this fraught relationship by investigating a series of case studies from the recent past.

Part of the course will also cover how religion represents itself and is represented in the urban space of Paris and in its public memory of museums. The globalization of religion cannot be separated from the global trauma of colonialism and post –colonial immigration. This course will also examine these issues. This course will also cover contemporary theory and the way media enters into debates about the secular and the post-secular.

2

It’s the Golden Mean fallacy. They’re trying to look evenhanded in their judgement by blaming both sides.

3

I think the contrast is fair enough. The “free speech fundamentalists” publish the cartoons because they provoke – the demonstration would lose all significance if it consisted in publishing inoffensive material – while the “religious fundamentalists” look for provocation. Both extremes are united in the pursuit of provocation.

The piece you quote refers to “religious fundamentalists”; you render this as “violent extremists”. But of course not all religious fundamentalists are violent. If you want to say that those who embrace violence are off the scale, fair enough. But even after you exclude them you will find plenty of religious fundamentalists seeking to be provoked whose interests coincide neatly with the interests of those who seek to provoke them.

4

Where are the cartoonists that shoot Muslims?:dubious:
Nowhere.

The parallel is false.

The ducks in the shooting gallery do not return fire.

5

“Free-speech fundamentalists insist on publishing provocative cartoons, while religious fundamentalists exaggerate the provocation.”

As far as I can see, the word “fundamentalists” is used incorrectly in both instances - it’s not nearly only the fundamentalists who seek to provoke or exaggerate. Otherwise, I’ve got no objections to the sentence as an illustration of some of the issues wrt free speech and religion.