quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I don't recall anyone saying the newspaper should be forced to apologize.
People get their "freedom of the press-speech" danders up in a hurry, man. It's pretty irritating. Freedom of the press and speech does not mean you get to say anything you want anytime and eveyrone else has to shut up about it.
Yes, editorial cartoons usually offend someone. But when the cartoon is saying, "Muslims are terrorists, Mohammed was a terrorist, and we're going to publish this image knowing it'll piss off Muslims and accomplish nothing else," well, that's asserting a right that was never truly under threat.
No, freedom of the press and speech means you get to say anything you want anytime and everyone else can say something back.
"The cartoons include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle." Gee, that would almost seem to be commenting that Muslims...are...committing...terrorism.
Yes, it's racist. Yes, it's stupid beyond belief to portray an entire religion based on a few extremists. But it's relevant (if wrong, imho) to world affairs -- and looking at the wide-ranging calls for death, damn, I'm finding it harder and harder to disagree with the cartoonist. Gunmen? Over a cartoon?
Not to play the usual I-have-a-black-friend card, but one of my closest friends is a Sunni Muslim from Mozambique, and a cultured gentleman like no other. He'd probably be offended by the cartoon, and almost certainly label the cartoonist and publishing editor morons, but I know he'd find more shame in the Muslim reaction. The magazine has every right to publish material, even if some find it offensive to their religion. Muslim extremists have no right to threaten lives.
This is a sickening backlash. Lisa has it right -- lord knows there are enough Jewish jokes running around in the world, and if Israel called for the murder of critics of Judaism, can you imagine the international backlash? I'm not quite racist enough to think poor backward Muslims deserve more slack.
quote:Muslim extremists have no right to threaten lives.
Of course they don't have that right. But, the bad behavior of aligned interests cannot make an otherwise moral exercise of free speech immoral.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:No, freedom of the press and speech means you get to say anything you want anytime and everyone else can say something back.
No it doesn't. There are laws against inciting a riot, inciting a hate crime, inciting a murder.
It's oversimplified, obviously, but it's meant as a direct response to Jeff's "Freedom of the press and speech does not mean you get to say anything you want anytime and eveyrone else has to shut up about it."
Also, if you want to get semantical, freedom of speech does mean you can say whatever you want. Restrictions on inciting violence is censorship on free speech, however reasonable one finds it. This isn't an argument I particularly want to pursue, but let's at least get our definitions right.
quote:
quote:quote:Muslim extremists have no right to threaten lives.
Of course they don't have that right. But, the bad behavior of aligned interests cannot make an otherwise moral exercise of free speech immoral.
I'm not nearly advanced enough a creature to understand that sentence, but if I'm interpreting it correctly... yes. Isn't that what I just said?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
It means that the fact that some extremist puts out a death threat against the cartoonist doesn't suddenly make the publication of the cartoon moral or right.
The fact that there are muslims that overreact to a cartoon doesn't change my view of the world or generate any concerns that didn't already exist. I've known this since at least '89, and the reaction didn't surprise me at all.
It doesn't mean I excuse it. It means I don't spend energy condemning it. Mainly because there's no intellectual debate here about whether the death threats are acceptable. There not. Everyone agrees.
The fact that some people are trying to use this overreaction to further marginalize religious speech does raise concerns that I need to pay more attention to.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
That depends on whether or not you believe death threats qualify as religious speech.
The cartoon's stupid and racist, but also fairly relevant to global affairs -- the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim, and a cartoon that points the fact out is hardly committing a punishable offense, if a tactless and broad insult. Yes, it's stupid, nobody's debating that. In fact, we're reading different articles if you think the controversy's over the cartoon rather than the Muslim backlash.
My problem lies with intolerant fundamentalists decrying death to any who criticize their religion. This doesn't describe you, nor my Muslim friend, nor the vast majority of people in the world. I'd be (and often am) just as repulsed by Pat Robertson calling for God's vengeance on towns that don't bend to creationism -- this doesn't mean I'm trying to "further marginalize religious speech," it means I think Pat Robertson and these extremist Muslims are particularly vile examples of the dangers of religious fundamentalism which preys on critics and dissidents.
posted
If I ask myself which would be better, whether it would be better for those against, what, Muslims? to boycott products produced by Muslims/Syria/whatever, or would the best reaction in all of this be for both parties to have dialogue, isn't the answer clear?
Further, if it's o.k. to boycott products and people because you find the idea offensive, then is it o.k. to not hire people who do not agree with you as another kind of 'speech'? edit: In this instance, say, employers in Europe ask Muslims how they feel about the cartoons, and if they don't like the cartoons, then they don't hire them.
While boycotting is certainly legal, I don't understand how it really does much useful in this instance, since it replaces constructive dialogue with what seems to me to be the equivalent of throwing rocks at the opposite party.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:That depends on whether or not you believe death threats qualify as religious speech.
No, I don't. Which is why I don't want the death threats to be used as a reason to restrict religious speech.
quote:this doesn't mean I'm trying to "further marginalize religious speech,"
I get that. Others are, though, and that's what I consider the part that needs discussion.
Perhaps you should elaborate on what religious speech is being marginalized, and who the "others" are who are trying to restrict it. I don't see that censorship has been a response to the fury over a cartoon -- if anything, Europe's re-affirming its (sadly tenuous history of) commitment to free speech.
Or am I missing something?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Perhaps you should elaborate on what religious speech is being marginalized, and who the "others" are who are trying to restrict it. I don't see that censorship has been a response to the fury over a cartoon -- if anything, Europe's re-affirming its (sadly tenuous history of) commitment to free speech.
Or am I missing something?
Probably. In one of these threads on the subject, there was a quote about how religious dogma has no place in a secular society.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
So you feel that since somewhere, someone criticized religious dogma, outrage at the vicious counterattack launched by Muslim fundamentalists is an attempt to restrict religious speech? I don't follow.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The French newspaper may have broken French law in printing the cartoons. I can certainly think of one of them in particular that might run afoul of those regulations.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Are you saying that you don't think they broke the law, that you think the law is wrong, or both?
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just can't believe how stupid any newspaper can be to print that. You just don't take one of the most important people in a major faith and degrade them like that. The fact that there are Muslim extremists is not a good enough reason. How would Catholics like it if the paper ran a cartoon of Jesus with little boys?
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Stephan, the whole point of the exercise was to make a stand against the Islamic culure's fatwahs, death threats, and murders against those who offend them. A point lost on the Islamic extremists now ransacking hotels for Europeans to kidnap in protest.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Ah yes, Sweden. Thanks.
Look, Dag, it's very simple. Sweden is the big slow country on the right, full of people who 'talk... like... this'. Norway is the clever rich one on the left. Mix them up again and I'll start confusing Catholicism and Satanism in retaliation.
Besides, even the Swedes got there eventually and freed comrade Green.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Are you saying that you don't think they broke the law, that you think the law is wrong, or both?
The latter.
I didn't bother to evaluate whether they broke the law (would have required a lot more research).
Yeah, that's what I figured, but I wanted to make sure I was interpreting your post correctly.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Edit: To clarify, I don't oppose all those laws in that link. Just ones that could punish publishing a cartoon.
Okay.
I'm not sure if any suits have been filed or charges laid, I was just curious about the law in France and how free their press actually is in comparison to the Canadian press (we do have hate speech laws here) and the American press.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Stephan, the whole point of the exercise was to make a stand against the Islamic culure's fatwahs, death threats, and murders against those who offend them. A point lost on the Islamic extremists now ransacking hotels for Europeans to kidnap in protest.
I'm not so sure that's the case, actually. As I said before, I think this is part of the European backlash against increasing Muslim (predominantly but not exclusively Arab) immigration.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
This issue certainly highlights the faults of the certain extremist parts of Islam and its contrast to the more tolerant believers. Consider this response:
quote:"Those who have published these caricatures must have their heads cut," exhorted the preacher at Gaza's main mosque.
Do you think that might be a bit of an overreaction? Then consider these views...
quote:In Teheran veteran revolutionary cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani condemned the European press, but urged the faithful to respond calmly.
"We need to put forward our calm and compassionate side, our gentleness. It is enough to look at the Koran," he said.
And in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said: "We are people who by the instructions of religion are bound to take the course of forgiveness ... we must have as Muslims the courage to forgive and not make it an issue of dispute between religions or cultures."
Influential Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who has a large following among young European Muslims, said the reaction in the Islamic world was "excessive" and that Muslims should take a more detached view.
"Muslims must absolutely learn to keep a critical distance. They have to get used to living in a global world. Their consciousness must be sufficiently robust to master their hurt feelings," he told AFP.
Truthfully, it would be nice if the more extreme could learn a lesson from this, but given how extreme religious conservatives and extreme liberals even in America tend to react to offense with a similar zeal, I think we may just have to come to expect that when people get offended, some will overreact.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: 'm not so sure that's the case, actually. As I said before, I think this is part of the European backlash against increasing Muslim (predominantly but not exclusively Arab) immigration.
I think that might influence it, but I largely agree with Morbo in this case. It seems to me that the cycle was that the Danes published it,there were threats, then other papers stood up for the Danish paper, so to speak.
I'm pretty sure there have been political cartoons with Jesus. Certainly in America and Britain, there have been comedy skits with Jesus. So, this isn't just the Muslims being picked on.
Thanks for the links, Tres. It's important to remember that there are reasonable Muslims out there.
It is inaccurate to compare derogatory cartoons of Jesus etc. with cartoons of Mohammed. For Muslims, any picture of Mohammed, even a nice one, is considered blasphemy. The reaction is possibly as much about the fact that he was pictured at all as about how he was pictured. Just something to keep in mind.
This is not an excuse for the reaction.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm aware, Kate. I just don't necessarily see that the distinction between 'is offensive because of the way something is depicted' and 'is offensive just because it's offensive' is really that important in this case. In both instances, it's because the something being depicted is sacred to a certain group in society with the end result being that that group finds that depiction offensive.
On a different note, check out this article. I think it nicely sums up the positions in the debate. Makes you appreciate real journalism.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree that a picture of Christ and little boys isn't comparable. The context is very different. The problem is not the depiction of Allah in a cartoon in itself, but the fact that it is a symptom of what has become increasingly common, accepted anti-Muslim racism. These cartoons were published in major newspapers, not fringe extremist papers.
Can you imagine picking up the biggest papers in the US and seeing a cartoon of a caricatured black man with huge lips and mongoloid features breaking into a white man's house and upstairs a white man says to his wife, 'what do you think that is', 'just them niggers at it again.'
What would be the reaction be to that? Wouldn't people protest like crazy and wouldn't people get fired?
That's not even an equivalent because one has to consider the powderkeg context. A closer example would be if in the US, after the beating of Rodney King, the New York Times published a cartoon which celebrated a return to niggers being treated as they deserved.
An action like that might have provoked the riots even before the policemen involved were acquitted.
Posts: 39 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It wasn't a cartoon of Allah, it was the prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him.
To revise your example, suppose blacks had a belief that pictures of their leaders should not be photographed or portrayed, and backed it up with death threats. Then after the Rodney King incident, a caricature of Dr. King appeared.
Would anyone be surprised at the turmoil that followed? No.
But that wouldn't mean the paper had neccesarily overstepped the bounds of discourse in a civilized society nor is it automatically racism. All of us do not have to accept the arbitrary rules of offense that some do.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Can we dispense with the idea that anyone here is excusing any Muslim reaction beyond outrage and things like boycotting or angry messages from governments?
Obviously things like death threats, physical threats, physical intimidation, to say nothing of kidnappings, beatings, murders, and attacks on property are totally unacceptable reactions and I cannot imagine anyone on Hatrack seriously saying that such a response is acceptable in this situation-or almost any other, really.
But if Morbo is right-if this is a response by Danish newspapers against the murder of Theo van Gogh-then the reasoning would have to be something akin to throwing rocks at a wasp's nest after a wasp stings you.
You killed one of ours for insulting you, so in retaliation we'll...insult you more? (And attack Islamic sites throughout the area) I am again baffled at the criticisms and outrage flowing from Europe about how we treat Muslims in America.
We're not the ones debating whether or not they get to wear burkas outside their homes, ever. We're not the ones who say, "No religious symbols in schools for your kids." And so on and so forth.
Maybe this incident will serve some purpose, though. Maybe Europe will finally grow to realize something that's been said in America for quite awhile now. You're next, when it comes to fanatical fundamentalist Muslims.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have little sympathy for the Muslim people. When was the last time we saw worldwide outrage and protest over Muslims declaring fatwas when they aren't supposed to be allowed to, such as Osama, who according to the Koran is not a religious figure and cannot issue religious fatwas or jihads. Where is the outrage over Muslims committing vile acts of terrorism that are against the teachings of the Koran?
They call for the death of Denmark over a freaking political cartoon whose subject matter is about Muslims being violent, and they answer by GOING ON A STREAK OF VIOLENCE! I don't understand these people, and I don't have any sympathy or understanding for them.
A this point, I don't even think this hullabaloo is about religion.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
This sort of reaction out of the Muslim world is certainly nothing new. It seems that when they're calling for "Death to America!", the outrage is muted somewhat.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I see it as frustration of intolerance, not racism. But it's subjective.
Lyrhawn, one problem is that moderate voices in Islamic society are afraid to speak out against extremists, because of all the things we've discussed in this thread:fatawahs, assassinations (the very word comes from a ancient cult of Islamic assassins!), threats, intimidation etc. Look at how all the moderate Palestinians were marginalized over the past decades. Who's left? Corrupt Fatah and extremist Hamas.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, Tres and I provided links to Muslims who are speaking out, at least in the West, but I think you're correct that moderate Muslims who aren't protected by the law are afraid to speak out in other parts of the world.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't understand these people, and I don't have any sympathy or understanding for them.
Ooo! Racism. This thread needed more of that.
Well there isn't a race of Muslim people, but I suppose that's a matter of semantics.
But more to the point, don't be an idiot. My point is completely valid. I don't hate Muslims, but I suppose anything critical of them as a religion counts as automatic out and out racism? I suppose I was one step away from advocating the eradication of the entire religion wasn't I?
I feel no sympathy for their complaint, and why should I? It's purely arbitrary. They apparently get to pick and choose which affronts to Islam they really get angry over. Muslim leaders mess up, or any Muslim at all messes up and oh well, they overlook or, it hell, they EMBRACE it. But one newspaper in Denmark puts a picture of Muhammad up and all of a second it's time to burn a trail of hellfire across Europe. It's crap.
These:
quote: Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, suggested militant Muslims were partly to blame. He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."
are the people that should be standing up more often. Militant Islamic fundamentalists pervert the faith and threaten the real faithful into silence. Maybe it's time one of those real Muslims stood up and starting retaking the faith and take it away from the REAL infidels.
Otherwise, the more I hear of this:
quote: In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, more than 150 hardline Muslims stormed a high-rise building housing the Danish Embassy and tore down and burned the country's white and red flag. The government ordered police to upgrade security at embassies across the capital.
Pakistan's parliament unanimously voted to condemn the drawings as a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign" that has "hurt the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world." About 800 people protested in Islamabad, chanting "Death to Denmark" and "Death to France." Another rally in the southern city of Karachi drew 1,200.
Fundamentalist Muslims protested outside the Danish Embassy in Malaysia, chanting "Long live Islam, destroy our enemies."
the less I'm going to pay any attention to them throwing hissy fits. It's not racism. Calling it racism is the product of a mind lacking in intelligence. Or a desperate mind who again reads more into words than is there to try and appear witty.
It's either that or you're just an idiot.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Heh, the last thing anyone would call Tom is an idiot. He's wrong, I believe -- I agree with you on this issue -- but there's no reason to resort to insults, particularly ones as painfully erroneous as that one.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hey, I gave multiple options. "It's either that or you're an idiot." So I guess he fits one of the other options, either he's lacking in intelligence, or he is purposely stating something in a misleading fashion to attempt to look witty at the expense of myself. He's done it before, I imagine he'll keep doing it in the future.
Calling me a racist however, is much more offensive than me floating the idea of him being an idiot.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just ignore him. He does it to provoke people. You just spent however many minutes composing your reply because you somehow think it matters to him, but it doesn't, trust me. He's only going to take five seconds to type out one sentence to further goad you on and rattle your cage, but he's not going to respond because he actually cares about your response, so just save your time and energy for those that do care.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:While boycotting is certainly legal, I don't understand how it really does much useful in this instance, since it replaces constructive dialogue with what seems to me to be the equivalent of throwing rocks at the opposite party.
If you're going to apply the standard of constructive dialog, you have to apply it to all speech, including the cartoons. Constructive dialog was thrown out the window when the newspaper published the cartoon. This:
quote:Just ignore him. He does it to provoke people.
post could easily be applied to the cartoonist who drew the cartoons.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't hate Muslims, but I suppose anything critical of them as a religion counts as automatic out and out racism?
It depends. How many more comments are you going to make about Muslims as a "people," as if they were one coherent blob that could be addressed -- or vilified -- as a group?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Back to the issue of the French editor, a right-wing Italian newspaper has apparently offered to hire him as their Paris correspondant. The article mentions that a Jordanian editor who printed the cartoons in a tabloid weekly has also been fired.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just read in the BBC that "Syrians have set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus to protest at the publication of newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad."
One good thing that might result from this incident is that Muslims are getting to view Muslims responses to offenses to the Muslim religion.
Already there are Muslim leaders who are condemning the violent protests more then the cartoons. Hopefully this affair will open more dialogue within the Muslim community about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior--and the extremists will loose more power.
One of the beautiful things about the freedom of the press is that you get to practice restraining or productively addressing your responses to offense.
We may be looking at a good thing.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:I don't hate Muslims, but I suppose anything critical of them as a religion counts as automatic out and out racism?
It depends. How many more comments are you going to make about Muslims as a "people," as if they were one coherent blob that could be addressed -- or vilified -- as a group?
Why are you more bothered by treating Muslims as a group than you are by the fact that the vast majority of terrorists are Muslims?
There is a death cult in the world that calls itself Islam. And they have much to base themselves on in Islam.
There are Muslims who aren't entirely onboard with the whole "murder death kill" thing. There are even some who condemn it publically. But there's no excommunication-type reaction going on. And please, don't tell me about how they're afraid to because the death-cultists might kill them. That just makes it worse. There are what, a billion Muslims in the world? Don't tell me they can't stomp out the death-cultists if they want to.
This "Kill for the love of Allah" insanity is monstrous. And trying to change the subject by complaining about treating Muslims as a group is just as monstrous. Muslim countries run cartoons that make Der Sturmer look tame by comparison. They run documentaries supporting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and blood libels about Jews killing children for their blood. They are the last people in the world who have a right to complain about cartoons that offend them.
What do they have to do in order to convince you that the Islamic cult of death isn't some sort of minor bubble in the Islamic world, but is a major wing of Islam itself?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
So, this isn't just the Muslims being picked on.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
