I pop into BT this morning to see if I can find out when the spying hearings are on and I find an endorsement by SusanHu and others of the completely offensive portrayal of the prophet Mohammed. How utterly disappointing and devastating.
Does the issue deserve discussion? Absolutely. Does that image deserve to be reprinted on a progressive, left-wing blog? Absolutely not.
Is this a free speech issue? Definitely. Are there acceptable limits on free speech? Absolutely. Free speech laws exist not only to provide people with the opportunity to voice their opinions, but also to protect those whose voices/opinions/beliefs may be marginalized to such an extent that they are then placed at risk. I’m proud to live in a country (Canada) that has hate speech laws so that those who choose to defame others to the extreme have no public voice. Let their hatred fester in their sick minds. It doesn’t deserve a public forum.
Liberals constantly berate right-wing extremists like Pat Robertson for his insane rantings because you know that his dangerous ramblings attract eager followers, yet it’s okay to support this portrayal of the prophet (remember this – Islam does not allow any images of Mohammed) by stating that it’s just some right-wing propaganda trick to garner support for a war on Iran? What kind of rationalization is that?
The fact that some Muslin extremists are reacting with violence ought not even be a factor here. This is offensive to all Muslims. Those extremists are just using this opportunity to cause violence. This is about the broader picture and I think it’s more than appropriate to recall the sick characterizations of Jews that fostered Hitler’s murderous campaigns when considering this issue.
This isn’t the free speech hill to die on. This is about understanding that respect for all people, regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, social status, disability etc is a core belief of liberals – at least it is for this liberal.
Since 9/11, the Muslim community and community leaders of all stripes have sought to foster understanding in the world of the real aims of Islam. It seems that some have yet to learn those lessons, despite years of education. Sadly, I find some of those people here.
Don’t respond with something like: ‘this has nothing to do with Islam; it’s about the protection of free speech’. That’s simply choosing denial over reality and if you claim to live in the ‘reality-based community’, take those blinders off because you have totally missed the point. This is about spreading yet another ugly and abhorrent distortion of the Muslim religion and that’s all it’s about. And if you believe that Muslims should give up their right to be protected from hate speech, then you must be prepared for your rights to be stripped away as well. Haven’t you had enough of that already? Or, will you simply just sit back and take it?
Many of you know what it’s like to feel utterly powerless in the face of those who seek to destroy your beliefs – no matter which category they fall into: abortion rights threatened? same sex marriage crushed by a constitutional amendment? racial status marginalized? privacy invaded? You fight against every effort to take away your equality. Why would you lay down and surrender when others rights are at stake? Is that what it means to be a liberal? That definitely is not what it means to this liberal.
Today, I find myself deeply saddened by these developments. Having listened to the incredibly inspirational speakers at Coretta Scott King’s funeral this week, I was struck by the fact that greatness is a calling that we are all born to hear. Only a few actually heed that call and take up the extraordinary challenges that greatness demands because the responsibilty is overwhelming. Greatness, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It must be surrounded with the love and support of others who are like-minded and equally bound to the cause. Humility ensures that we seek those people out and challenge those who would choose to set us back – always acknowledging that truth and an understanding spirit must be the ultimate goal.
The timing of the outrage is suspicious as a reason for my claiming it to be war drive propaganda. Where has this discussion and civil unrest been since last September?
Perhaps our leader needs to take a consistent stand on this issue. In October of 1999, Mr.Bush advocated public defunding of an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum that include a painting of the Virgin Mary done, in part, with fecal material. Link
Now, he is advocating “tolerance and understanding”. Link
Which is it, George?
What caught my attention (2nd link) was the similarity between Bush’s phrases and the debate here and on dem/progressive blogs that said the same things. I walked into the Twilight Zone and my peers had all become pod-people.
The frogpond was shut down and then replaced with an exact replica. I tried to mention this to someone here and they asked, “who are you?” (with apologies to Steve Wright).
This gives new meaning to terms like mirror site doesn’t it?
When I was a kid, I had a quicksand box in the backyard to play. I was an only child, eventually.
Once in a blue moon and usually far, far less than that, Bush actually says something that has merit. Yes, that’s right. He does. If you can’t allow for that, then you’ve been taken in by extremist leftist propaganda. Ironic, isn’t it?
with elephant dung which just happens to be a pigment in Africa. Most natural pigments are made from the earth. This is another story where ignorance has been exaggerated in order to inflame outrage.
The point is that Bush is much more accomodating when his religion isn’t involved.
Yes I got the point but I sure am tired of hearing about that VM image done using local pigments.
Besides, I have doubts about the sincerity of Bush’s faith.
I would agree about Bush and his “faith”.
Baby elephants eat their mothers’ feces in order to obtain the microbes necessary to digest the tough fiber in their diet. If they didn’t, they would die.
So there was far more symbolism in that art than an ignorant person would ever realize.
I agree. I’m glad to see this posted here, saved me the trouble of writing something similar. It’s not a “free speech” issue. What crap. I’m rabidly offended by “art” that directly seeks to defile Christian images and to provoke offense, and I feel exactly the same about “art” that directly seeks to offend other religious sensibilities. The newspapers and magazines that are continuing to add fuel to this fire (such as the French magazine that just put a Mohamad picture on its cover) are horribily irresponsible.
The governing principle is not the First Amendment.
It’s the Golden Rule.
be offended by it, fine. but don’t tell other people they don’t have the right to say it.
I do agree, however, that some of the reprinting and such have been irresponsible and openly baiting Muslims.
In December 2004, an Argentine painter/writer/poet was in a similar position, only that he was going to have an exhibit and this piece was to be shown
[I’m having problems to post the photo, so you can go see it here ]
He also stated that eternal damnation equated eternal torture. Being the atheist that he is, he strongly criticized that concept, and those who maintained it, the Church. At the same time, he also said that one of the purposes of art is to produce a strong emotion, whatever it might be.
The religious right was highly offended, and the exhibit was cancelled. There was a very strong counter-protest, demanding that this artist should not be censored and the issue was taken to court. The decision was that the exhibit should not be censored. There was however, an order that there those doing the expo, should place a sign notifying the public that the images there could be offensive to some.
So, while in the one hand, there is an issue of freedom of expression, there is, on the other hand an issue with censorship. In this case, I will side with the artist. Within their borders, the Muslims can do what ever they want. But they should not be so ethnocentric to force their believes and values on the rest.
Indeed.
As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the Koran – which in mainstream Islam is regarded as literally true from beginning to end – has a lot to say about the posthumous fates of my family, friends, and self.
2:39
Those who reject faith shall be the companions of the Fire.
4:55-4:56
Those who deny Our revelation We will burn in fire. No sooner will their skins be consumed than We shall give them other skins, so that they may truly taste the scourge. God is mighty and wise.
5:10
As for those who disbelieve and deny Our revelations, they are the heirs of Hell.
21:96-21:101
…The unbelievers shall stare in amazement, crying: “Woe to us! Of this we have been heedless. We have done wrong.” You and your idols shall be the fuel of Hell; therein you shall all go down.
22:19-22:23
Garments of fire have been prepared for the unbelievers. Scalding water shall be poured upon their heads, melting their skins and that which is in their bellies. They shall be lashed with rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they try to escape from Hell, back they shall be dragged, and will be told: “Taste the torment of the Conflagration!”
44:40-49
…The fruit of the Zaqqum tree shall be the unbelievers’s fruit. Like dregs of oil, like scalding water, it shall simmer in his belly. A voice will cry: “Seize him and drag him into the depths of Hell. Then pour out scalding water over his head, saying: ‘Taste this, illustrious and honourable man! This is the punishment which you have doubted.'”
52:1-52:15
…On that day they shall be sternly thrown into the fire of Hell, and a voice will say to them: “This is the Fire which you denied…. Burn in its flames. It is the same whether or not you show forbearance. You shall be rewarded according to your deeds.”
55:41-52
…That is the Hell which the unbelievers deny. They shall wander between fire and water fiercely seething. Which of your Lord’s blessing would you deny?
56:52-56
Ye shall surely taste of the tree Zaqqum. Then will ye fill your insides therwith, and drink boiling water on top of it. Indeed ye shall drink like diseased camels raging with thirst. Such will be their entertainment on the day of Requital!
69:30-37
We shall say: “Lay hold of him and bind him. Burn him in the fie of Hell, then fasten him with a chain seventy cubits long. For he did not believe Allah the tremendous, and urged not on the feeding of the wretched. Today he shall be friendless here; filth shall be his food, the filth which sinners eat.”
73:12
We have in store for the unbelievers heavy fetters and a blazing fire, choking food and harrowing torment: on the day when the earth shall quiver with all its mountains, and the mountains crumble into heaps of shifting sand.
76:1-5
For the unbelievers We have prepared chains and fetters and a blazing Fire….
77:20-77:50
Woe on that day to the disbelievers! Begone to the Hell which you deny! Depart into the shadow that will rise high in three columns, giving neither shade nor shelter from the flames, and throwing up sparks as huge as towers, as bright as yellow camels…. Eat and enjoy yourselves awhile. You are wicked men….
Now, that’s what I call hate speech. Am I offended? Yes, actually, I am. Do I want this speech to be stifled?
Of course not. That would contradict the freedom of religion, a founding value of any decent society which evolved in Europe when, after decades of valiant attempts, religious zealots were unable to slaughter each other in sufficient numbers to convert the survivors with the sword. And a requirement of freedom of religion is freedom of speech.
In Saudi Arabia there is neither. In Syria and Egypt, a little of both. But in Denmark and Norway there are lots of both, because their citizens want it thus and have the power to get their way.
So that the devout can condemn me to eternal hellfire for guessing wrong in the Great Cosmic Quiz. That is their right, and entirely consistent with peaceful coexistence in a free and democratic society, as fellow citizens and even friends.
And so that I, in turn, get to say they are full of shit.
are there not parts of the old testament that say pretty much the same thing about non-believers?
Yeah, absolutely. What’s your point?
But I guess that’s an unfair question, as it assumes you have one.
How many Bible quotes do you need and what specific keywords do you want?
Excuse me, but what the fuck are you talking about?
Would you mind making an actual argument? You remember argument, right?
What’s your point?
Assuming you have one, that is.
What good does argument do? That comes into a discussion with an unnecessary prejudice. That’s about the same as jumping in with an unproductive smartass attitude to be disruptive. We can all do that.
The Bible is similar in perceived hateful rhetoric that is thrown about by our political leaders in ways as damaging as is being claimed against Islamists. A top level judicial representative has been quoted as ranking a peace protestor slightly below a terrorist. This guy writes regularly for Christianity Today and his biased views have exposure to millions, worldwide.
Is the discussion comparing the negative influence of different Holy Book passages? I saw a post withseveral from one source. Does someone need references from Christian groups, politicians, the Bible?
With all due respect, are you an idiot?
The context here is global outrage among muslims caused by perceived offense to Islam. That’s why I’m not quoting offensive passages from the Tora, or the Revelation, or the Upanishads, or the founding text of Manicheism, in this particular case.
Understood, or is further spoonfeeding required?
I rest my case.
Yeah, you have that hate speech down to an art. It seems to be effective. It does have a universal distribution.
I may not suffer fools gladly, but that’s not hate speech, as you’d know if you weren’t a fool.
It’s noteworthy, I think, that four people – these being Planet B, rumi, and their upraters Mattes and Brinnaine (back from the temper tantrum, Brin?) were so choke full of political correctness as to assume I am some sort of Islamophobe just for quoting the Koran without also citing all other known religions. I am in fact an atheist who considers Islam a far lesser insult to reason than, say, Christianity.
But that doesn’t matter one whit to the point I was making. Sorry, though, for extending you some credit of intelligence.
hey, do I have your operational email? It seems to change all the time.
Still the same old G-mail below!
my point is that one can select things in alot of religions’ texts that paint them as purveyors of death – as well as of love. it’s certainly not unique to Islam. it seemed possible to me that your quotes were meant to imply that Islam is somehow different than Christianity or Judaism in this respect. I could not disagree more, if that is the case. they all have believers who justify all sorts of hatred and murder because they take their texts as infallible.
also, I think this is a myth that has been blowing around the US since 9/11 that Islam is somehow different from other religions in its outlook on “infidels”. as such, it seems important to point out that fundamentalists of all types use literalism to justify some F-ed up beliefs.
Thanks for a serious reply. No, I wasn’t implying that. I was simply making the point that revealed religion, Islam in this case, can also give offense by its very doctrine, so that it is nonsense for religious believers to demand a right not be offended.
As to literalism, since you bring it up, Islam actually has a special status in this respect (though this, again, is incidental to the point I was making). Islam is the only religion where literalism is mainstream. Both in Sunni and Shia Islam the Koran is standardly viewed as literally true in its entirety, although there are rules for which parts take precedence in case of conflict, and of course scholarly disagreement as to their application. This is different from Christianity where the biggest sect, Catholicism, rejects literalism and many smaller sects do as well. However, within Islam the Sufi traditions can be seen as exceptions, having an idea about esoteric messages that only the initiated can access. A useful introduction is this NYRB essay by Max Rodenbeck.
The status of infidels in Islam vs. other religions is a complex issue that I’d rather not go into right now. But we’d probably not agree much.
Edit: …we’d probably not disagree much.
If I wanted to take offense from the Muslims, I wuld only have to visualize the events post 911, or remember my fellow workmates commenting:”we are so smart” (in teference to the destruction of the WT). Or, I culd take offense at the posting of beheadings on the internet.
They also have their freedom of speech. They can write anything they want in the Koran or elsewhere. This is not about religion, or violence. This is about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, censorship, and respect for other’s believes.
Finally, we must strive to achieve a peacefull coexistence and a friendlier relationship. But just like in any relationship, it is a two way street, and not a do as I say.
You could, but these actions and attitudes are not based on conventional Islam. The doctrine that infidels belong in Hell is very much conventional Islam, just as it used to be conventional Christianity (and to some extent still is).
Whatever they are based on, the fact is that it was widely approved by middle esterns. They were jumping up and down of joy. They said it to my face: We are so smart!
Nough said!
Muslims in Northern California spoke to the press about the cartoons and the reaction today. I took pictures and added a few thoughts in this post for what it is worth. Seeing some of the people effected makes a difference, at least for me.
I am sorry to say that, but if I am to be honest, if the front page featured an anti-Semitic cartoon, I would feel obliged to think hard about whether I had any business being here, and I cannot in good conscience concur with the prevailing western view that one is acceptable while the other is not.
I recognize that the author probably is not old enough to remember those Nazi posters, what their purpose was, or what they led to, but I do not have that excuse.
So I find myself in something of an ethical dilemma. I enjoy the site very much, but do I have a right to put my enjoyment over a principle?
On the other hand, the argument could be made that any site that has such material, in any context, on its front page, needs me worse than Mr. Danger needs a brain transplant.
Read your last sentence over and over. đŸ™‚
.
Damnit J – did I miss cartoons on BooMan’s Place?
DTF I always read the `toons on the backpage – bood abides as my favorite. I agree it is more than foolish, to republish such insulting drawings. This is not an issue about free speech, but rather about responsibility.
DTF, inside the pages of BooTrib, I find and read the finest diaries and comments. I do see a gap growing with the writing community and the frontpagers. It’s a valid discussion how the community evaluates this initiative to post the image, because it did upset me too. I missed any arguments and discussion in the diary why it was necessary, and a lack of facts when a judgment was made.
DTF, I’m glad you are an insider¹ with plenty of knowledge to share.
Note¹: antonym to being a frontpager – lol.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
from the entire blogosphere. I haven’t decided if I have anything helpful to offer for an explanation, but the better sentiments in this diary are part of my feeling.
…now is not the time. Our voices need to be heard.
I am re-evaluating my participation here
If folks like you leave than so will the other folks with simular clarity of both thought and heart. So, if you leave please say where you’re going. You’re one of the people I come here to read.
I was personally offended by the ‘we’ liberals must join with that good guy, Andrew Sullivan stuff. It was insulting. I will not be part of Andrew Sullivan’s Crusade. It’s like asking me to vote for Casey or John McCain.
That said, Booman, who owns the blog recognises this for the psy-ops that it is.
Hum…trying very hard to not speak of the widespread and accepted practice of bannings in the ‘liberal’ blogosphere but I must say that everytime I think about it I wonder, ‘WTF?’.
me too. me too.
I have been for a while now and the latest posts about “the” Muslims needing to learn to get along with the rest of the world and the posting (and the fact it’s still there) of the prophet are just beyond the pale. I would feel the same way if it was about Jews, Christians, Hindu, etc. And I am an atheist. But I’m also a liberal and I know better.
but please stay. Your work is appreciated at least by a large minority, and more work is needed.
even when it comes to douchebags like Pat Robertson, I’ve got to agree with Voltaire on this one:
The other interesting aspect I’ve seen bandied about is that the same newspaper would not take cartoons aobut Jesus a few years prior. So there is a double standard just based on what they themselves have done.
Is it my imagination or does most of this problematic speech come from fundamentalists of all stripes?
Yes. The only way to deal with hate speech is to keep it legal and confront it head-on in public. Outlawing it only adds to its power – “The government doesn’t want to let you hear the truth.”
what’s that maxim, the only way to confront bad speech is with more speech?
which I think is what is eventually coming out of this whole thing (I say as I just spotted the story about the Dutch newspaper refusing to run anti-Jesus cartoons on the top of the Yahoo newswire).
Yes. Censoring the speech is the wrong reaction. Making the speaker look like a bloody fool is the right reaction, and is usually really easy. And if you can’t make them look like a bloody fool… You’re in serious trouble, and hauling them off to jail won’t help.
i’m with Voltaire on the issue of free speech. At the same time I see the need to address the broader and more active elements involved in the weaponization of ignorance and the propagation of violence.
I’m categorically opposed to laws governing so-called “hate speech” for the simple reason that a such a wide spectrum of speech is always going to be able to be defined as “hateful” by someone, that the problem of defining the exact parameters of what constitutes the “hate” in hate speech at best relies on empowering someone’s arbitrary judgment as the foundation of the law, and this very arbitrariness by it’s nature will exclude restraints on speech deemed to qualify as hateful by many others. I’d prefer to rely on those other foundations upon which free and enlightened and humane societies depend, education and philosophy; vehicles of learning through which the ideas of mutualrespect and the strength of cooperation with each other can be taught, and where it’s recognized that there is a price, a trade-off, so to speak, for individual freedoms, and that price is tolerance; that we cannot expect to enjoy freedoms for ourselves unless we accord those freedoms to others. I don’t believe you can legislate against the existence of hate any ore than you can legislate good taste or mutual respect.
At the same time again, I recognize no arbitrary authority of any religion to impose it’s judgmentalism or traditions on me or on anyone else who doesn’t themselves voluntarily submit to that arbitrary and self-appointed authority.
I accord no weight to the concepts of blasphemy, sacrilege, holiness, (whether it be holy people, land or texts).
And yet I will relentlessly support the freedom of anyone to believein and uphold those beliefs for themselves and others who wish to adopt them in their own lives unless and until those who entertain those beliefs feel entitled to impose or otherwise enforce adherence and obedience to those beliefs on others.
I have found nothing outrageous said by anyone on this blog about this, and I am frankly quite amazed at the visceral vehemence expressed in the coments on this diary.
Me too. In fact, I changed my homepage last night because of it. This is not a black and white issue (no pun intended), hence the conflicting emotions. But for me, when push comes to shove, I refuse to endorse inflammatory and racist imagery that has the sole aim of whipping up outrage from the targeted group.
The targeted group is the average democrat/progressive group, isn’t it?
Yes, ManE. “the sole aim of whipping up outrage.” Indeed. Let us keep saying that and saying it and saying it.
Not to mention that inflammatory posters of dark-skinned men may endanger people who are dear to us right here on this site.
I too am entirely, vigorously opposed to using incendiary and insuting material with the “sole aim of whipping up outrage”.
Having said that, is there direct confirmable evidence that this was in fact the case with respect to the publishing of these images in the Danish newspaper? Can anyone here claim with certainty that such intent was present?
It seems to me, according to what I’ve learned, (and I sincerely hope I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong), several Danish imams took it upon themselves to propagate these images throughout the broader geography of the Muslim world in with the “sole aim of whipping up outrage”.
If this is true, I would be just as against that as I would be against the newspaper editors if they were similarly seeking to provoke outrage.
Maybe someone here on this thread could compose the language of some sort of law that would actually address the problems created by hate speech equitably for all. I’d be very interested in seeing such a draft.
And one that hasn’t really been addressed here. Yes, the Danish publisher was trying to stir things up. And yes, extremist clerics took the cartoons, added a bunch of others that were from all accounts, really heinous and vile (featuring bestiality and the like) and circulated them throughout the Mideast, making no distinction between the cartoons that were published in a Danish paper and the more incendiary ones that were added by the clerics.
Another thing that hasn’t been discussed here – a part of this discussion was among Danes, about what sort of country Danes wish to have, about what is tolerated and what isn’t in Danish society.
These kinds of discussions all too frequently are a cover for immigrant-bashing and the worst kinds of prejudices. But not solely. Look, I want to live in a secular, tolerant society. But my tolerance, as I’ve said elsewhere, stops at the place where, for example, women are oppressed and treated as property. “Honor killings,” female genital mutilation, and so on, have no place in a secular democracy, regardless of our degree of multi-culturalism and tolerance. Hell with it, I’ll argue that these kinds of things are universal crimes and have no place anywhere.
Are the riots going on in the Middle East about more than offensive cartoons? Undoubtedly. Are they an expression of abused, oppressed, poverty-stricken and desperate people, driven to rage and fury by their circumstances? Yes again. Are these incidents being used to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and Europe, for the purpose of further driving our war machine on to its next target? I’d have to agree.
But I can’t get past the part of me that thinks all religions that emerged from patriarchal desert tribal societies are a dangerous relic, a tool of manipulation and a form of oppression. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, in their extremist iterations are the same at their heart. I have no doubt that all three religions contain great beauty and wisdom that can serve people in today’s world. But what we’re seeing now, in the Middle East, in George Bush’s America, in the Israeli “settlements” – aren’t exactly sterling examples of that notion.
I’m reminded by your commentary of another aspect of all this.
Regardless of what any of us might think about the relevance or efficacy of any of the “Abrahamic” religions in the Midle East or the degree of their culpability as to the degree of violence that seesm to coalesce around their perpetual internecine fighting with each other, we need to distinguish between speech and action as far as how we envision the “liberal” freedoms we claim to support. By this I mean the following.
Can we legislate against the feeling of hate? Can we pass laws making itilegal to speak disrespectfully to or about each other without, in passing such laws, contravening the very fouindation of our beliefs in the fundamental liberty to think what we want and to have the freedom to express ourselves as long as we are not infringing directly on another?
If some of you here insist that we can pas laws denying the freedom to express offensive opinions and beliefs, does this then mean that, for instance, if our neighbor is an ignorant, hate-filled redneck who expresses his loathing for black and brown and Jewish and Asian people, does this mean that we can take some action against this person before he actually commits an act against someone? And could we do the same against a priest we are certain is a pedophile, (even if we can’t prove it), or a violent youthful drug user who we know in our little minds is going to grow up one day and kill someone? Can we legitimately eliminate a putative criminal before he commits the crime?
If we agree we can act in these ways, then we are effectively agreeing to the legitimacy of the (now) Bush doctrine of pre-emption; that we are fully entitled to assault anyone before that person attacks us.
I am very sorry to say that if there are many here who believe in this, then the society we profess to want doesn’t deserve to exist and will, by it’s own aggression, self-destruct itself into oblivion.
I finished writing, the phone rang, and in all the excitement I made the “post instead of preview” boo-boo, so apologies for the profusion of typos. Also, (for you OtherLisa), where I say; “If some of you here insist…”. I wasn’t referring to you personally, but to the plural you, addressing other commenters here who seem to be supportive of remedies for problems that involve a kind of pre-emption that I personally see as catastrophically destructive if followed out to their logical extension.
Er, what? Now I’m confused…
confused because i’m on the free speech side of things, more or less, as opposed to ‘pre-emption.’ maybe there’s another Other Lisa?
maybe there’s another Other Lisa
Where in the world do you keep all of the Lisas?
There was this HUGE Lisa surplus dating to the early sixties…every other girl-child was named Lisa…we are everywhere…
Didn’t that result in a generation of identical nonconformists with children unable to spell their own name before 3rd grade? đŸ˜‰ Lisas rock.
and then make some of them left-handed – oh, the humanity!
Sorry for the confusion. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t implying the wrong thing to you when I said this;
I didn’t want you to read the word you in the sentence above and think I was referring to you when I noted those who did think we could pass laws denying freedom of speech.
I’ve seen your comments and noted your having been following this conversation closely and there’s no doubt in my mind that you are firmly supportive of freedom of speech and recognize the illegitimacy of religious extremists’ expectations and demands that secular authorities should be required to observe their customs.
Thanks – I didn’t interpret what you said that way but I do appreciate your attempts to clarify!
I could just write “what SBJ says” for practically this whole discussion – you’ve said it a lot more eloquently than I have…
Are the riots going on in the Middle East about more than offensive cartoons?
According to one of the Imam’s responsible for adding the 3 offensive cartoons and for disseminating all of them in the Middle East, this is about all the exploitation and bloodshed taking place in Muslim countries. He repeated that over and over on CNN this afternoon.
To reduce these global demonstrations to the debate between ‘freedom of the press’ and religious intolerance is to ignore the wider picture.
Inflammatory it was, but I fail to see how it was racist. Is Islam a race? Is social and political ideology above criticism because it uses gods as a human — er, divine — shield? That is really what we’re talking about, as religion is nothing more than political and social ideology with a thin veneer of unsupportable cosmological assertions layered on top.
It seems to me that most of our press freedoms have been won precisely by whipping up outrage, often deliberately. The current range of freedoms is much wider than what was possible before authors with a wide variety of motives, both noble and base, challenged the repressive obscenity and blasphemy laws that were used to suppress a great many publications, some of which were arguably neither obscene nor blasphemous.
Political and social leaders are often lampooned in outrageous ways. Can they now seek protection from criticism simply by declaring themselves prophets? Can the authors of books ban criticism by claiming that God wrote them? Baloney.
I think Susan was spot on. So much so that I feel it’s worth posting after leaving BooTrib over the prohibition on criticism against DailyKos — which I felt (and still feel) pretty strongly about.
On utility poles, maybe, or ask around and locate like-minded businesses that will be happy to put one up in their window. Just to show solidarity. And get to know folks with similar views.
No. I don’t like offending people, personally.
cultural aspect to this whole thing that is being ignored. Islam is more than a religion, it also defines a culture.
This whole thing hits home for me. I understand it because I live it from a Roman Catholic standpoint. As a Mexican American, my immediate area’s culture is intertwined deeply with the church. There is no separating it from my identity.
These cartoons have inflamed all of the underlying xenophobia from every direction. Putting that image on the frontpage here did nothing but throw gasoline on it.
Disagree with me, that’s fine, but that’s how I feel.
It hits home for me, too. I am surprised at how hurt, how shocked it has made me feel.
Although as I said earlier, it is not my site, and I have no right to feel this way, I feel as if my home has been defiled.
Because I had come to think of this place as my cyber home, and feel such affection for so many of you, that it is extremely difficult to decide what I should do now that there is effectively a sign on the front door saying something I never thought to see here.
Well DF, do you like this place because everyone agrees with you all the time, or do you like it for the variety of posters with different personalities and opinions? There are lots of ideas expressed here that I disagree with and I either ignore them or I try to change their minds. For the record, I totally agree with you on this one and I, for one, would be devastated if you felt unwelcome here and decided to leave. We need your voice here.
You and anybody else who even lurks here should know that I do not by any means shy away from disagreement, and frankly, most people here, including you, disagree with me about some things, but I feel the affection despite the wrongness of your opinions.
This, however, while it contains an opinion, also contains something much larger, much uglier.
Maybe it is one of those things that if one does not feel it, it cannot be explained, and yes, this is a thing of feelings, a feeling that may begin as shock and disbelief, almost a numbness, that slowly sinks in and turns to a very large feeling of sadness. And yes, rage and fear. Sadness and rage and fear that words cannot express.
And no, these emotions do not give the feeling of welcome.
I live my life almost entirely on feelings. Sometimes I wish I could use my head more or adopt a more pragmatic approach to life, but intuition has served me pretty well over the years, despite a few glaring examples to the contrary.
If you care about this place I hope that you will try to make it better for those of us you feel affection for, as your presence surely does that for me.
I find many forms of religious expression personally offensive. And frightening. And threatening. I am not a religious person. I don’t believe in monotheistic religion. I don’t understand it either. Being told I’m ungodly or going to hell or inferior because of my gender, I don’t like any of this very much.
But it’s one of those things I sort of have to live with, because I’m in a minority, I gather.
I hope you have seen Susan’s FP post on this. Apparently, she did not realize that the poster was one of the cartoons in question, that it was a depiction of Mohammed, or that there was a bomb in the turban.
As for the text of the poster, I, like Susan, wholeheartedly agree.
I think this has been largely a misunderstanding.
here
I do not believe it is a misunderstanding at all. On the contrary, I understand very well.
Well, I had that same exact feeling… “as if my home had been defiled”, when I came across not one, but two posts one right after the other, on the front page, that I personally found appalling.
Not for the first time, either… as I’ve mentioned before, it’s become very clear to me, over time, that many people on even the leftiest blogs have little or no experience at all with anyone outside of their own culture. So, sometimes things are said and done, not out of any sort of malicious intent, but basically through a sort of privileged ignorance, I guess one could call it.
Anyway though… home being the place where they have to take you in, warts and camels and all, I think you have every right to feel as you do, as Susan and others have every right to feel as they do. And each of us has the right to express our disagreement, distaste, disappointment and so on with what is said and done.
I really hope that you don’t go anywhere… this place wouldn’t be the same without you, and I know that you personally have contributed to the growth of any number of people here, myself included, by offering non standard responses and views, and gently asking people to consider… what if this is actually that?
Which is something we need now more than ever :/
You nailed it.
I’ve missed you, catnip!
Good to hear from you catnip. Sorry it’s under these circumstances. Please do drop in again soon. đŸ™‚
As far as the cartoons, I’m with those who say they’re a ploy to gin up European support for W’s next “excellent adventure” by pushing exactly the hot buttons sure to get a reaction from extremists in the Muslim world, and now in America and Europe as well.
I’m not going to play the game they want us to play, other than to pose a question. Consider it the Zen Koan of Elevator Etiquette:
When someone farts in a crowded elevator, what is the appropriate response?
To pointedly ignore such boorish behavior?
To say loudly, “Eeeew! Who did that?”
To shove someone and say “How dare you?”
To quip “Well, that should promote ventilator sales?”
To giggle and point?
To defend someone’s right to eat beans and pass gas?
How about: To smell the fart and realize, “We’re all gasbags full of shit, really.”
To take a page out of J.P.donleavy’s hilarious book on etiquette, as regards farting in elevators;
“Always look around as if seeking the source of the noxious odor, as if it originated with someone else, even if you’re the only one in the elevator.”
Welcome back Catnip. I missed you.
And I’m dubious about reprinting it when a link would have achieved the same result. However, I am now more informed about the controversy than I was before I saw the cartoon so perhaps its republication was merited.
A few jumbled observations and then some more coherent thoughts:
The matter of whether the carton is an insult to the Prophet is the more significant one, although to my understanding that charge should fall to the same analysis as the charge of creating a prohibited icon. I had, before seeing the image that was posted here, assumed the illustrations to be more offensive than I found the example to when I saw it here. Other than the bomb in the Turban, I see no poison caricature in the image- it is a relatively handsome gentleman illustrated in a South Asian Muslim graphic tradition. Even the bomb is subject to interpretation, sans the facial features, this cartoon could have appeared in a mainstream Pakistani publication as an editorial cartoon about how crazies like Bin Laden are poisoning the poplar understanding of the Islamic faith.
Nevertheless, the folks who published it (more accurately those who spitefully republished it as an intentional provocation) are total asshats and should be treated as such by their fellow humans. However, they should not be subject to legal sanction, free speech and all. But they’re still asshats.
But the BMT isn’t a bunch of asshats- though some reflection on Rumi’s recent, cryptic and wholly accurate diary on the subject is worthwhile.
There was a guest on CNN that appeared to be knowledgeable in Islam and said that the prohibition of images of the Prophet is not based in the Holy Book and has developed as more of a myth.
But, IIRC, that fellow on CNN was quite right. Just around the time you start finding prohibitions on images in Islamic traditions, the iconoclasts were at the peak of their power in the Byzantine Empire. It has been theorized that the tradition emerged as a way to demonstrate that Islam was a “civilized” religion like Christianity- remember that at the time (Umayyad Caliphate) most of the inhabitants of Syria and Egypt were Christians.
This was a woman about an hour ago. I didn’t catch her name. I caught that bit through the noise.
The Christian Evangelicals believe the Catholics and others who have icons are unable to gain eternal salvation, don’t they?
iirc, it is something that comes from one of the secondary books of Islam. also, isn’t the point of it to prohibit idolatry of the prophet? doesn’t really seem to apply here, but that’s not why people are pissed off either way.
Do you remember the protests generated by the Newsweek story? That outrage was not about the incident in Gitmo or the subsequent story. It was generated by injustice toward Afghan residents and then exploited by handlers to create a foreign policy marketing edge in the public.
As if that would not be enough, which for men and women of good will, of all faiths, it would be, but it is not just that.
It is an insult to every Muslim, every Arab, yes, every human.
The Prophet said, to kill one innocent is to kill all mankind, and I do not think that the individuals who made the decision to define the site with that cartoon have ANY idea of the hurt and shock and fear that it engenders in its target audience, but of the harm they do to THEMSELVES.
Maybe it seems like the cool and fashionable thing to do. One person, I believe it was susan, has already expressed a desire to post it up around her town.
Maybe she does not think of a misguided youth who will see in it a reflection, a solidarity, with his own very popular beliefs, and decide to engage in a little freedom of expression on the next old man in a turban he happens to see.
Maybe she does not know that these things happen EVERY DAY and they are almost never reported. Why? Because that has more risk of another attack!
If you do not believe me, put on eastern dress and go for a walk in your local mall. Or down a busy street.
If needed, darken your skin and wear a wig, and then come and talk to me.
and when I say something is an insult- I mean what you’ve elucidated. However, I also think that the poster in question is certainly distinguishable from a Willie Horton ad or a Judenrat poster- the message is not contemptible, nor is the image per se inflammatory.
However, you make an interesting point and one with which I agree- a popular American audience will probably not take away the right meaning and instead as you say, take out their inferiority complex on a scapegoat.
So how much responsibility does an author bear not to produce easily misused or misinterpreted work? I honestly don’t know but it does open a whole can of worms that goes beyond this issue- e.g. Bill Cosby’s comments about some aspects of African American popular culture have been criticized, not just for their substance, but also because however true- when phrased as Bill Cosby phrased his comments, they provide fodder for racists.
I have nothing to elaborate but some things stink.
disproportionate to the offense, in my opinion. The cartoons were a spark which has been fuelled now by religious extremists even after the belated apology from Denmark. Whatever the extremists’ motives for the present rioting, there is more fuelling them than an insult to their religion.
It’s been a long time since I actually logged in and did more than lurk, but this is an issue I feel too strongly about to let it pass.
I, for one, am glad that the United States is substantially freer than Canada, the UK, and several other western countries when it comes to freedom of speech. It spares us, among other things, the spectacle of people seriously discussing oxymoronic terms like “acceptable free speech”.
It is amazing to me that many liberals can compartmentalize their thinking to the point that they can easily recognize the absurdity of Dubya’s “free speech zones” yet simultaneously argue for that ideological free speech zones should be carved out for the sacred cows of one religion or another.
Religion, like any other belief system, deserves toleration. It does not, however, warrant automatic respect. Respect must be earned; it cannot be compelled. Compelled respect is not respect at all; it is only deference to superior force, which is not part of a free society at all. Freedom of religion, moreover, means that as you are free to practice your faith, I am free not to. That means that I should be free to draw a picture of Mohammed without having to give a second thought to the extralegal religious prohibitions of Islam, and certainly without worrying about my physical safety which, lest we forget, is the root issue that started the current brouhaha. As repugnant as things like this are, freedom of speech for more noble expressions cannot long endure without letting the idiots and the haters speak their piece as well.
Criticism of religion, and that includes quite pointed criticism of religion, is essential to freedom. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have long traditions of political oppression. In no orthodox version of the monotheist faiths is it possible for gender equality to exist, or freedom of religion, or freedom of expression. Islam explicitly authorizes execution for attempting to leave the faith and mutilation as punishment for minor crimes. Christianity and Judaism have some equally ugly aspects in the letters of Paul and horrifying texts like the books of Judges and Numbers. These are not beliefs worthy of respect, in my opinion, and I am more than willing to fight for my right to publicly disrespect them.
There is a gigantic gulf between saying that Muslims should be rounded up and killed and simply drawing a picture critical of Mohammed. There is an equally gigantic gulf between advocating a repeat of the Holocaust and arguing that many of the “virtues” espoused in the Book of Judges are inhuman and depraved. Another vast gulf lies between advocating violence against Christians and expressing the opinion that Pauline Christianity is incompatible with an egalitarian society.
And there is an awe-inspiring level of irony involved in Muslim protestors in London carrying signs saying “FREEDOM GO TO HELL” and “EUROPE YOUR 9/11 IS COMING” when it is the very freedom they are condemning that makes it possible for them to do so.
You don’t like what I have to say about your religion? You don’t like that I don’t obey your religious laws? Tough noogies. Try being grateful that you are allowed to have a religion and to obey its laws and to verbally condemn blasphemers and heretics like me because both your freedoms and mine rest on the same bedrock. You cannot long have one without the other.
Feel free to take all the offense you want. There is no right not to be offended. The mere existence of open religious display of any kind, luring people away from the light of reason, secular liberty, and scientific progress, is deeply offensive to me. Do you really want to create a society in which some of us are shielded from such offense? And if you do, what makes you think that your faction is the one that will receive shielding instead of suppression?
The talk of responsibility is a red herring. It might be relevant if there was an incitement to violence in the Danish cartoons, but there was nothing of the sort. The question of responsibility might better be directed at the radical Islamic religious leaders who have whipped up the ugly mob violence of the last couple of weeks and the participants in the Muslim mobs who have destroyed property, injured people, and threatened others with death for the “crime” of speaking their minds. That’s beyond offensive — it is outright criminal.
There’s an unstated form of religious bias here, so let me come out and state it so it can be debated honestly instead of hiding in the rhetorical shadows. The people who are advocating the curtailment of press freedoms in the name of mandatory respect for religion are essentially arguing that Muslims are not capable of engaging in civilized debate in a free society and are too prone to violence for the press to treat them like members of other religions. That, ultimately, is what the call to “responsible” use of press freedoms implies. I call bullshit on that.
is more free in the USA than in Canada. We do have laws regarding hate speech but I doubt we would be handcuffed and arrested for wearing a T-shirt listing the number of war dead.
Outside of the State of the Union speech, I doubt any of us would be, either. No one debates that playing chicken with the fascist-in-chief is dangerous. It is however a bit unfair to compare Canada-at-peace with the US-at-war unless you want to trot out press restrictions in Canada during WW2.
Canadian reporters and whistleblowers are subject to arrest under the dangerously vague Security of Information Act. Under similar circumstances in the United States, the risk of official reprisal is much lower. Canadian obscenity laws are also overbroad by US standards, which is a fight that was largely settled here in the case over Burrough’s Naked Lunch.
is a Repub talking-point. The Bush administration invaded Iraq and are involved in a military occupation of that country and Afghanistan. The USA is ‘not at war’ in the sense of WWII.
I think that distinction would be lost on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan who are very distinctly at war with the United States. The “War on Terror” is a GOP talking point; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are real, honest-to-god bloody wars, and the US is definitely at war there.
being attacked by the USA and thereafter occupied by the US military are at war.
Like the cartoon where the Cambodian farmer was asked about the Secret Bombing of Cambodia. “Oh no,” he tells the reporter, “It was no secret, we knew they were bombing us.”
The US could end the occupations at their convenience, therefore they are not ‘at war’ in the conventional sense of a defensive war, in my opinion.
Try being grateful that you are allowed to have a religion and to obey its laws and to verbally condemn blasphemers and heretics like me because both your freedoms and mine rest on the same bedrock. You cannot long have one without the other.
Right. And I forgot that I should be grateful, since I’m a woman, that I actually have the right to exist, to vote, to get out of the kitchen etc etc. Right?
I’ll tell you what: if you value your rights, is it such a stretch to value others’? Isn’t that what being a member of the liberal community is all about?
The mere existence of open religious display of any kind, luring people away from the light of reason, secular liberty, and scientific progress, is deeply offensive to me. Do you really want to create a society in which some of us are shielded from such offense?
Do you support the suppression of the viewing of the 10 commandments in public facilties? If so, why?
And if you do, what makes you think that your faction is the one that will receive shielding instead of suppression?
Which faction ought not be shielded? Do you want the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater too? Do you want the right to slander and libel others in the name of free speech without consequence? Can I post a nude picture of you on every telephone pole and billboard I see? Can I post pictures of your children? Your mother? How about a picture of you with a bomb so the FBI will be at your doorstep within 24 hours to arrest you as a suspected terrorist? Is that fair game? While we’re at it, what’s really wrong with Bush’s illegal spying? Who cares? He has rights, doesn’t he?
The talk of responsibility is a red herring. It might be relevant if there was an incitement to violence in the Danish cartoons, but there was nothing of the sort.
Fine. If some don’t want to take responsibility to ensure others’ rights are protected, I have no problem stepping in for them. If the litmus test is only “incitement to violence” then I guess we sure have a lot of leeway in what we say and do, so who cares – really?
The question of responsibility might better be directed at the radical Islamic religious leaders who have whipped up the ugly mob violence of the last couple of weeks and the participants in the Muslim mobs who have destroyed property, injured people, and threatened others with death for the “crime” of speaking their minds. That’s beyond offensive — it is outright criminal.
You don’t think they’ve been held up in order to take responsibility already? That’s not what I’ve seen and read.
The people who are advocating the curtailment of press freedoms in the name of mandatory respect for religion are essentially arguing that Muslims are not capable of engaging in civilized debate in a free society and are too prone to violence for the press to treat them like members of other religions. That, ultimately, is what the call to “responsible” use of press freedoms implies. I call bullshit on that.
No one is saying that – except perhaps those who advocate denigrating Muslims even further.
It is amazing to me that many liberals can compartmentalize their thinking to the point that they can easily recognize the absurdity of Dubya’s “free speech zones” yet simultaneously argue for that ideological free speech zones should be carved out for the sacred cows of one religion or another.
Newsflash: there are protections for groups and individuals and rightly so. If that means my thinking is compartmentalized, I don’t have a problem with that. There are sacred cows in civilized society. Without them, societies cease to function.
Right. And I forgot that I should be grateful, since I’m a woman, that I actually have the right to exist, to vote, to get out of the kitchen etc etc. Right?
This is a non-sequitur, to say nothing of being a cheap shot. Womanhood is not an ideology; it is an inalterable physiological fact. It is also quite frankly bizarre to trot out women’s rights in defense of radical Islam.
I’ll tell you what: if you value your rights, is it such a stretch to value others’? Isn’t that what being a member of the liberal community is all about?
Certainly. But no rights have been violated by publishing offensive cartoons, unless you are postulated a right to restrict the expression of others to only those things you find inoffensive. The right under consideration is freedom of expression. There is no freedom to be a violent reactionary.
Do you want the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater too?
Again, not a valid comparison. Reasonable people are expected to rush out of a burning theater. Reasonable people are not expected to burn embassies and make death threats. Being religious in general or Muslim in particular does not exempt one from the requirement to behave in a civilized and peaceful manner.
Do you want the right to slander and libel others in the name of free speech without consequence?
Of course not. If I am slandered, and I deem it worth the effort, I can seek damages in a civil court. There was no slander committed here, and in any event, no one is suing. Instead, the aggrieved parties are calling for everything from censorship at best to massacres at worst.
Do you support the suppression of the viewing of the 10 commandments in public facilties? If so, why?
I do not, and I disgree strongly with the dishonest argument that this is in any way “suppression”. It is instead opposition to the expenditure of public funds and public facilities to promote a particular religion. And for similar reasons, I object to the law being used to enforce religious prohibitions, whether that’s Sunday blue laws or Islamic prohibitions on the depiction of famous dead people.
Can I post a nude picture of you on every telephone pole and billboard I see? Can I post pictures of your children? Your mother? How about a picture of you with a bomb so the FBI will be at your doorstep within 24 hours to arrest you as a suspected terrorist? Is that fair game? While we’re at it, what’s really wrong with Bush’s illegal spying? Who cares? He has rights, doesn’t he?
You’re being obtuse here. In every case — except for Bush’s overstepping of rights he most definitely does not have — you are talking about potential violations of civil and criminal law that have remedies within the legal systems of free societies. There is no parallel with state-sponsored and church-dictated censorship, nor with violent civil unrest and armed reprisals.
Fine. If some don’t want to take responsibility to ensure others’ rights are protected, I have no problem stepping in for them.
Or, apparently, fabricating new “rights” for them that strip inalienable rights from others.
If the litmus test is only “incitement to violence” then I guess we sure have a lot of leeway in what we say and do, so who cares – really?
That is exactly the litmus test. But our vast leeway is in what we say, not what we do. The Danish newspaper produced speech in questionable taste. The people burning embassies and threatening people’s lives are criminals by their actions. The difference is as clear as the difference between saying “bang” and pulling the trigger of a real gun, unless you want to reify speech in order to obscure the reality of bona fide armed violence.
No one is saying that – except perhaps those who advocate denigrating Muslims even further.
Right, so either I agree with your position, or I’m a religious bigot. That indirect implication is a nice rhetorical touch worthy of Karl Rove. I think I need to go bathe now.
Newsflash: there are protections for groups and individuals and rightly so. If that means my thinking is compartmentalized, I don’t have a problem with that. There are sacred cows in civilized society. Without them, societies cease to function.
Societies cease to function because of sacred cows. The idea that majority religions like Christianity and Islam, which dominate the societies of the greater portion of the world, need protection from criticism is utter nonsense. The upward curve of civil liberties has grown almost in direct proportion to the degree that open criticism of the dominant religions has been decriminalized. I for one am not willing to retreat back into the living hell of either medieval Christianity or modern Islamic society. And it is not out of lack of concern for the rights of the people but instead out of the utmost concern for the rights of the people that I oppose the reactionary, oppressive religions which are their enemy.
something to ponder. Do read
“The misplaced defence of free speech”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB07Ak03.html
repeat the quote:
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
–19th century Danish Christian philospher Soren Kierkegaard
Thanks Catnip for this diary.
Anybody here watch “The Simpsons”? Note their treatment of Christianity…some take offense. I’m still laughing over Jesus on the swing=set though…
It took more than cartoons for the rise of Hitler, it all began with the Treaty of Versailles but we won’t go there.
If cartoons were that powerful, Bush would have been impreached long ago.
I’m glad Susanhu posted that diary. In the intense discussions that have followed, I’ve learned a lot about this whole issue from all sides. I regret that people choose to personally attack Susan, a person for whom I have deep respect. A lot of the discussion has included veiled and not so veiled insults from both sides of the issue and that turns my stomach. Especially from posters whom I have come to know and respect. I guess when people speak from passion rather than intellect they start to talk down to others.
I’m not changing my homepage, I’m not quitting the blogosphere and no way am I turning my back on Bootrib. Everybody’s feathers are ruffled and everyone is insulted or offended. If this subject can create such turmoil here, no wonder the world is exploding. Jeeze, people, take a deep breath and tone it down, will you?
Let me make this very clear: this is not a personal attack on Susan or anyone else. This is a diary in reaction to opinions and responses on the subject. It’s those opinions and actions that offend me – not the people involved.
I’m very glad to hear you say that, Catnip. As thrilled as I was to see your name on a posted diary, I was heartbroken when I thought that you came back to fling invectives at Susan.
I’m serious when I say that I’ve learned a lot from the discussions here, but only the calmer more rational discussions. At first I didn’t know what to think about this whole thing. Now I know a bit more about Denmark’s right wing hate speech, for example. I also realize that those cartoons were just the spark that triggered all that Muslim anger to burst into the open and explode.
I hope that we will see you here often. I’ve missed you.
Frankly, I find it odd that anyone would have thought this was a personal attack. I don’t care who posted it. My opinions would be the same. This is about a call to liberals to be mindful of everyone’s rights – not just those that affect each person’s circumstances. That’s a universal, liberal belief. At least, I thought it was.
I’m not “back” per se. I doubt I’ll write another diary on this site since I’ll be starting my own blog soon. I could not, however, let this go without commenting on it. Other than Daily Kos, where I don’t post anymore, any other blog that I have a membership on that had the same type of article posted would have received my attention. As I said, I came here looking for information on something else.
Please do us the favor/favour of dropping by to let us know when the new blog is up and on line. Some of us have been wondering what you’ve been up to…
It took way too long for way too many people after Rodney King to hold three thoughts simultaneously: the beatings were wrong & reflect greater societal problems; it’s wrong to riot; there is a groundswell of legitimate outrage at huge injustice, prejudice & racism which ordinary people feel incapable of changing and THAT is the real story.
Pointing the finger at violence in the street to obscure an issue is a tactic we should all recognize, whether we’re talking about civil rights, anti-war dissent, Seattle WTO protests, environmental “terrorists” & on & on & on.
Not to equate the situations & reactions, only the gut outrage felt by the faithful: how quickly people seem to have forgotten <iThe Last Temptation of Christ</i>
In fact, I can’t think of any writer who is more diplomatic.
Actually I thought the cartoon was Ali Baba, but what do I know.
with the cartoonist and his beliefs.
As an administrator of the site, she sets the tone, and it is her prerogative, and BooMan’s, what sort of material they wish the site to be associated with, and what sort of participants they wish to attract or discourage.
And that would be my opinion were the cartoon in question a reprint of a Nazi poster, a depiction of pedophilia, or the anti-Muslim sentiment currently popular in the US.
My dilemma therefore is one of personal ethics, but also prudence and courtesy đŸ™‚
See there DTF, I told you that you ought to get busy and write that ethics diary!!!! :o) It might have save us all this bru ha ha here today. I go to work and look at what I come home to…my friends and buddies coming out of their shells to actually discuss something. I know what it is like to be shown the door and not have a right to say my thoughts on things. That is why I came here, to have a voice. I came here to be around friends so I could gather my thoughts and make them more reasonable for me to think about, too. I think, if we sacrafice one for all, we are going to regret it. If we sacrafice all for one, we will live to regret it, too. What we need now is a Martin L. King, Jr. and his wife to carry us through time in our lives.
Frankly, I think, if we all got our heads together, we could actually find an answer to this whole thing. YOu ppl are smart..try to find a way to make things right for everyone.
I will not give up my voice for anyone..but I do intend to let others talk too, even if that means I have to not let my voice still for a while. I never have regreted listening to anything to make up my mind on anything.
NOw hugs to everyone here. NO matter what race, creed or color you are. I consider each of you my friends and I wish each of you well. Help me to find the right answers to which I search for…
Look at you! Always the Healer! đŸ˜‰ I just wanted to say that I love you Brenda.
Where’s the outrage? the marching in the streets?
Excellent point.
Hate begets hate. Love begets love.
Tin foil hate going on now. This has Rove written all over it. Has anyone ever wondered why so many seasoned intelligence agants are leaving their posts whether it be the FBI or the CIA or the NSA or Homeland Security? I believe it is because they do not want to be comlicit with this administration when World War III blasts off. IMHO this was an intentional swipr at the perverbial hornets nest that Bush started banging on and look folks because the shit is hitting the fan. Maybe I am nuts but do we want to wait to find out. The Fascists are out to take out the region and own the oil. Shouldn’t we be starting at the Danish cartoonist and working our way back from there?
The bloodthirsty Armageddon enthusiasts masquerading as pious Christian evangelicals are no different from the war enthusisasts purporting to lead Muslims with extremist and violence inducing rhetioric. These crazies, no matter what religion they claim to represent, are all reading from the same hymnal, so to speak and it is a song of war, a paen to war to mask their own insatiable lust for power. Zawahiri or Dobson, Falwell or a violent Islamic cleric, they’re drinking the same kool-aid and they are willing to spill the blood of as many innocents as required to achieve the power they seek.
And Cheney and his neocons are laughing at them all, because the sees them doing most of the work for him and his warmongers. He can sit back and claim respect for Islam, blah blah blah, knowing all the while that the powermad religious zealots are doing the work for him.
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In multiple comments after cross-checking, analysis and research in the BooTrib community ::
There are the original 12 drawings, later 3 drawings were added and published in Ekstra Bladet. Please read through my comment Xenophobia and Racism in Denmark – for translation.
● Thor Thunderbolts @dKos.
Latest diary — ● Flemming Rose the man behind the Mohammed bashing cartoons ◊ by StrayRoots
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
I so agree with you on this one!!!!!!!!!!!
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Compliments for the original designer of the compass, for all Americans – except Alaska and Hawaii – it points to the most logical escape route for all liberals when fascism overruns our nation.
Catnip, thank you for showing up and being a guide on this issue.
I must make compliments to the pond and its members, there have been great diaries and comments in a moderate manner. Many have quickly debunked the fury to show what it’s really about. As comparison, who have been pushing the First Amendment issue in the past decades, time and time again. You’ll find more extremists than moderate persons to lead the way.
The Pat Robertsons, GOPUSA Robert Eberle and WH shill reporter JG, all religious fundies, the SBVT groupies, all Rovian links and the McClellan Family, the Chenies, the Bushies, Bruce Eberle & Club for Growth, the Tom DeLays, Grover Norquist, and Richard Viguerie. All 10 Commandments issues are run in court through the 1st Amendment – Religion and Expression.
Excellent diaries in the pond —
● Free Speech vs. Responsibility ◊ by DuctapeFatwa
● Religous Sensitivities – Double Standards ◊ by Londonbear
● Muslim Cartoon Controversy: What the Media Isn’t Telling You ◊ by soj
● Muslim Cartoon Stirs No Laughs or Riots from Christians ◊ by bood abides
Latest diary — ● Flemming Rose the man behind the Mohammed bashing cartoons ◊ by StrayRoots
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
As comparison, who have been pushing the First Amendment issue in the past decades, time and time again. You’ll find more extremists than moderate persons to lead the way.
You’ll only find that if you deliberately ignore all of the leftists and moderates who have been fighting for lifting press restrictions. William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg, just to name two, were hardly neo-fascist extremists.
The cynical and deliberate misreading of the First Amendment to support violating the First Amendment by people like Roy Moore is hardly an example of someone pushing for greater freedoms; it is an example of Orwellian doublespeak in action.
But this is beside the point. What is at issue here is who gets to decide what “moderate” means. You? Me? Opinion polls? The courts?
Thanks, but I’ll stick to free speech as free speech, not free speech when it’s judged to be moderate and temperate and responsible and respectful by some arbitrary authority, much less frothing wild-eyed religious fanatics wearing masks and brandishing AK-47s on the streets of Gaza. If I’m not pissing those people off, I’m doing something wrong.
I mean, really, what’s next? It’s offensive to many (possibly most) Muslims to depict a woman in a skirt working as a corporate manager. Playing rock music (or any music at all, depending on the location and the sect) is offensive. Women laughing in public, unattended by a male caretaker is offensive to many Muslims.
Why can I draw a picture of Americans bombing children in Iraq and receive accolades from the left, but provoke a hissy fit from the same people if I draw a picture of an Islamic terrorist walking into a wedding party with an explosive belt. Both are depictions of real-world events, but one of them is prohibited because the miscreant hides behind religion? Why can I decry the misogyny of the Republican Party and, for that matter, the Christian religious right, but find that I’ve stumbled on sacred ground when I decry the misogyny of most of the Islamic world?
It’s one thing to demonize the Other. But idolizing the Other isn’t any better.
Destruction of 1,500 year old Buddha colossus.
This made me cry!
…but again, we can’t demonize a whole group of people.
If I believed in demons, I would “demonize” murderous fundamentalist extremists of whatever religion or cause.
from A Brit on b3ta.com, kindness of Jerome and GW Chimpzilla.
I was actually thinking of this just this morning. This is what I think actually started the whole thing off.
You could be right. If you mean the destruction of the Buddhas, I think it will be remembered as a pivotal point in history.
yup! exactly what I was thinking when the Taliban was doing this shit. And the two young girls who were taken in for apostatizing (sp). The religious thing is getting way out of hand in ALL religions, if one should ask me. Seems as if everyone thinks their religion is the only one! So sad!
I don’t want to seem provocative, but I’d be interested in where you got the idea, where it might be written, for example), that anyone anywhere has the “right to be protected from hate speech”, to use your words from the diary.
They have that right in Canada and, frankly, it ought to be a universal human right.
And how is hate speech defined so that the law works for all?
How about when the words that are said provoke the reaction damn, now I really hate that fucker as a standard?
Isn’t that the purpose of hate speech? Isn’t the desired effect to get the subject of one’s hatred to hate back with the same intensity so the original hatred is justified?
The discussion here @BooMan’s Place did NOT start today, but has covered a week. Some of comments seem to miss the background of Danish and European politics. Therefore I have cross-posted this from an earlier diary.
Strength of a democracy is where people have their freedoms, act responsibly in society, care for their brothers and sisters, and create living space for minorities and personal freedom. I use the word care for, to differentiate from large groups in society who offer compassion by voice only. Care in a manner of touching, emotion and reaching out by offering an escape from poverty, illness and poor education. Exchange the Danish and Dutch word of xeno- into homo-phobia, and it touches closer to home in the greatest democracy of the world.
All elements involved with the Danish cartoons, I have witnessed in the Netherlands with the murders of politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo van Gogh, complete with the ugliness of Dutch mob out of control and loss of their senses. The freedom of speech of Pim Fortuyn, running for parliament in national election, inspired a left-wing, vegan animal-rights campaigner van der Graaf to execute Fortuyn in Mediacenter Hilversum, minutes after a hours long live radio interview. The supporters of Pim Fortuyn gathered and demonstrated in The Hague outside the parliament buildings that same evening. Scared politicians hid themselves in small attic space when the mob threw rocks, shattered windows and set fire to cars in a underground parking nearby. Extremists gained in the following election, an upheaval in Dutch politics.
Imprisonment for 12 yearsThe murder of Theo van Gogh was inspired by his film Submission , depicting the suppression of women and wife beating specifically within Dutch Muslim society. The short film was produced in combination with a script written by Dutch politician Hirsi Ali of the center-right Liberal Conservatives VVD. The attacker Mohammed Bouyeri was a self-taught Islamist, focused on the Sharia punishments for heretics, cutting off limbs and heads. Mohammed practised with the slaughter of animals, in the latest 2-hour presentation in court it became clear MB is a nut case and was not positioned in the Dutch Muslim community. The result of the van Gogh murder was a rise of xenophobia and extremism from both sides. White teenagers torched Muslim grammar schools and mosques, a very ugly mob scene that surprised people throughout Europe and the World.
Sentenced to life imprisonment, no probation possibleIn my opinion, by reaching out to the Muslim community in Amsterdam by mayor Job Cohen, and across the country by PM Jan Peter Balkenende, has prevented further escalation in Dutch society.
The tinder box in the Middle East and the Clash of “Civilizations” offers extremism further gains after 911 and the illegal invasion and occupation of an Arab country Iraq. Combined with occupation of Palestinian territory by Israelis, the warmongering against Syria and Iran has led to the explosion of anger, violence, destruction and killing of innocent people. The Westerners must understand how the masses can be manipulated and used by agent provocateurs for a goal not intended by the demonstrators. Every totalitarian state is well versed in the strategy of provocateurs used to perfection in the Soviet era of communism, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. It is clear to me and confirmed by analysis of ME experts, the Lebanese demonstration in Beirut was hijacked by agent provocateurs, which led to fire bombing of the Danish embassy and a Christian church nearby. Syrian supporters of Hezbollah and Palestinians were the cause of the excessive violence in Beirut, to provoke sectarian division in Lebanon.
In Irag you will find the protest demonstrations are confined to the Al Sadr militia and its supporters in Kut and southern cities of Iraq. The large demonstrations in Afghanistan in the cities of Herat, Kandahar, Kabul and at the NATO base in Maymana, were staged by Taliban supporters and the conservative Islamists. In Pakistan there were large demonstrations in Peshawar and in India in the region of Kashmir.
It’s all very predictable, and under the false pretense of freedom of speech, politicians and journalists were carried by this wave of a violent tsunami. No one knows how to calm the eruption in the oceans of a world population.
The reaction in the Netherlands is very clear, xenophobic fear has won. The right-wing 1-seat party of politician Geert Wilders has published the despicable cartoons on his website, which led to retaliations by Islamists with anti-semitic expression. A war of words has led to bloodshed and a further division in European society, the future consequences no one seems to care about.
I just heard a report on Dutch radio from the ruling right-wing party of Ms Pia Kjaersgaard of Denmark, where she calls for prosecution of the imams in Denmark with the charge of treason and calls all his Muslim supporters traitors. I suppose scholar Kjaersgaard has taken lessons from RW republicans in the States.
● DTF Thought Provoking
● The Populist Deficiency of European Social Democracy
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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One can’t escape writing about this sad story in the Western media, but I believe the assumption of the Saudi link for the inflammation is not very likely. I would be interested to know how such a theory is developed, especially in the triangle Lebanon-Syria-Saudi Arabia and the Hariri assassination.
I recall a journey made by Danish Muslim activists to Arab nations, to spread the anguish over the Danish cartoons, after the Danish PM was unwilling to apologize for the insulting expression published in Denmark. The following is very interesting article ::
The anger in the Arab and Islamic World about the cartoons is remarkable, because the Arab media publish cartoons depicting Christian or Jewish symbols (see the cartoon posted in the Palestinian paper Al Quds).
A Palestinian crucified by Israelisettlements nailed to his body.
(Nasser Al-Ja'afari, Al Quds, 22 02 2004)
Through our own investigation, it is clear a group of Danish Imams made a journey throughout the Middle East at the end of last year, with the original 12 cartoons, plus an additional three. The source of these 3 cartoons remained unknown. On these three drawing is the prophet Mohammed shown with the face of a pig, as a homophile and while praying raped by a dog. The Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet recently published a report what the Imams took along on their journey.
Viste pædofil Muhamed Imamer rejste rundt i Mellemøsten med langt mere provokerende billeder end Jyllands-Postens tegninger. Se dokumentation her
This report contained not just the 12 cartoons, but 15 drawings, including the three just described. As a check by the newspaper, it seems the three drawings were delivered anonymously to the Islamic organizations. The Imams took the three drawings with them to explain the atmosphere in Denmark, where the 12 cartoons were published in Jyllands Posten. The additional drawings must have increased the anger in the Islamic countries.
See my comment in diary by John Stuart Mill
● Comments @BooMan Are Spot On!
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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Interfaith group slams caricatures
A group of religious Zionist rabbis has said that Israeli media reprinting of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad oversteps the bounds of journalistic freedom.
Reprinting the caricatures hurts Israeli Arabs’ feelings, said Rabbi David Stav, one of the heads of the Petah Tikva hesder yeshiva and a Tzohar rabbi.
“Freedom of speech does not include the right to hurt the feelings of another,” said Stav, who represents a group of 14 Orthodox rabbis who belong to Kedem, an interfaith group that includes Muslim and Christian clerics. Other members are Baruch Gigi, one of the heads of Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shvut, and Rabbi Shmuel Reiner of the Religious Kibbutz Movement.
Xenophobia and Racism in Europe or Freedom of Speech?
Is it just by accident the Danish cartoons happened in Copenhagen, or is the RW government and Danish support of U.S. in Iraq War a concern for Islamists in the Middle East? The US and UK coalition have killed journalists and bombed TV stations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the name of democracy and freedom of speech.
translation of the Ekstra Bladet article:
Showed Pedophile Mohammed
Imams toured the Middle East with far more provoking images than Jyllands-Posten‘s drawings.
See the documentation here …
By Allan Larsen and Kåre Quist – 9:55 – 12. jan, 2006
When a group of Danish imams recently toured all around the Middle East to gather support for their criticism of the much debated Mohamed-illustrations in Jyllands-Posten and of prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the drawings was apparently not provoking enough for the purpose.
Ekstra Bladet can now document, that the delegation also brought pictures and drawings, that among other things show the prophet Mohamed depicted as both pedophile and equipped with a pigs snout – and there is also one controversial picture of a praying Muslim, who is being raped analy by a dog …
by BobFunk (bobfunk@clanwhiskey.net)
on Sun Feb 5th, 2006 at 05:15:36 AM PDT
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Extreme right to serve the masses. In the land of Hans Christian Andersen — Ms Pia Kjaersgaard of Denmark.
The Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet.
The date of publication, January 12, is most important, as this is also the impulse for protest by ME governments, by chance the date of the Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Muslim pilgrims walk across the Jamarat bridge in Mina.● Muslim Group Asks Los Angeles Radio Host to Apologize
The group quoted Handel as saying: “This is Mahmoud Nolan. Hajj in the Sky. There is an accident. … Ali lost his sandal on the on-ramp to the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway.”
In March 2004, KFI issued an on-air apology after the group filed a complaint with the FCC following a skit that claimed Muslims have sex with animals, don’t bathe and hate Jews.
≈ Cross-posted from Soj’s diary —
Muslim Cartoon Controversy: What the Media Isn’t Telling You ≈
Caricatures Roil Muslim World Beirut Embassy Torched
Iraq Demonstrations, Threats against Danish Troops
Dutch F-16 at Baghram● Dutch F-16’s Used To Disperse Angry Crowds in Afghanistan
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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By: JAN M. OLSEN (Mon, Jan/09/2006)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark – A regional prosecutor said he would not file charges against a newspaper that published contentious caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, and Danish Muslim groups said they would appeal.
“We cannot understand the decision,” said Ahmad Akkari, a spokesman for a coalition of 11 community groups, adding that they would take their complaints to Denmark’s top prosecutor.
He said the 12 caricatures, published Sept. 30 in the Jyllands-Posten daily, were a “clear offense to Islam.”
State prosecutor Peter Broendt Joergensen said the drawings were protected by Denmark’s freedom of speech laws and did not violate bans on racism and blasphemy.
Egypt has been spearheading foreign criticism of Denmark over the cartoons. While Egypt “respects freedom of opinion and expression, we also realize the borders which must never be crossed,” Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency quoted Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit as saying after he was informed of the prosecutor’s decision by his Danish counterpart.
Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.
AP Story
Conclusion – Soj’s position in his diary was a slanted view towards Saudi Arabia :: SOURCES filled with disinformation, mischief and treachery is clearly a trade on all sides in the Middle East.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
catnip’s back!
It occurs to me that the fundamental disconnect at work here is that one side of this debate regards religion as a special category and equates it, essentially, with personal characteristics like race, gender, and origin, and the other side regards religion (IMHO, correctly) as just another ideology, like being a Republican or a modernist painter or a member of the Moose Lodge.
I believe the latter approach is the correct one because all sorts of irresolvable contradictions arise if you treat religion as something more than just another ideology, and among the victims of those contradictions are most of our freedoms, including freedom of religion. When religious belief is granted the force of law, either de jure through the formal union of church and state, or de facto through the sort of self-censorship some people have proposed, then it is only a matter of time before competing religions clash in the arena of law, and only one can emerge supreme.
The core issue here, really, is separation of church and state. The moment the state gets into the business of protecting people’s religious sensibilities, that separation has been dissolved. Given the choice between permitting the inevitable rudeness of free discourse and taking a giant step on the road to theocracy, I know which I prefer.
There are a cross-section of arguments on both sides of this debate. For myself, the fundamental issue has nothing to do with separation of church and state, which I support fiercely, nor is it really all about free speech.
What it’s about is the most powerful culture on earth pissing on the symbols and associated self-worth of another culture, which is defined in this instance by a shared religion, not race. This is about kicking people while they are down, and more to the point, while we are bombing them, and harrassing them, and discriminating against them, and racially profiling them, and denying them access to our countries even as we continue to make life unbearable in their own.
This is about western arrogance and a deliberate vice-like grip on wilful cultural insensitivty. This is the modern-day equivalent of bear-baiting, pure and simple, and now the bullies with the hooks and whips want to use the fact that the bear is biting back as a reason to put it down.
The difference, which seems to be either misunderstood or just plain ignored, is that hooks and whips are weapons and a cartoon is just ink on paper. There is no equivalence between the two, just as there is no equivalence between printing a cartoon and throwing a molotov cocktail into an embassy.
What I cannot understand is why, firstly, there is such sympathy for fanatical religious mob violence from people who would be the first to condemn the comparatively tame tactics of anti-abortion protestors in the United States. Secondly, I cannot understand why there is such seething outrage at a handful of European newspapers publishing cartoons that, while moderately offensive, are vastly less offensive than the cartoons that are published almost daily in the newspapers of the middle east. Why is the West being held to such impossibly high standards while the Islamic world is held to no discernable standards at all?
recommend that you look into western activities in the region for the past 80 odd years or so, right up to the present day.
I am personally aware of many westerners whose understanding of the question you ask has benefitted greatly from such an endeavor.
Number one: NO ONE, repeat: no one here has endorsed the violent reaction. You keep bringing it up to justify your argument for free speech and it’s a non-starter.
Number two: No ONE has said that similar offensive cartoon depictions of other religions are appropriate. Everyone is held to the same standard.
Perhaps if you’d stop making fantastical arguments, you’d understand the situation more clearly.
over and over; – I quote:
…I cannot understand…
Your answers show over and over that you simply aren’t in a position where you either intellectually understand or emotionally can empathise with Muslims over this issue. Perhaps doing some more reading will help, and seeking out some views on the web – I haven’t looked at Baghdad Burning for eg, but even if she hasn’t posted on this particular issue, her insight into what people in Baghdad are suffering right now, alone, is worthwhile to get a handle on the depth and breadth and historic scope of this entire issue – within this context, the cartoons are the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Until you can see the camel and the rest of it’s load, you are never going to move beyond your lack of understanding of why the straw – so small, seemingly light and surely trivial – is producing the reaction it is.
that goes, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Several years ago, there was a famous art work that had a crucifix sitting in a glass of urine, titled “Piss Christ”. Those on the Christian Right were outraged…and the Republicans seized on the opportunity presented to slash support for the National Endowment for the Arts and other so-called “liberal” arts organizations. As a Christian, I found the art piece to be in poor taste, but hey, I’ve never claimed to be an art critic; if anyone wants to see that sort of thing, so be it. And when people put down Christianity (or other religions) in the liberal blogosphere (as has happened often at the Orange Empire), I simply choose not to read those writings; I’m not calling for those writers to be banned, or launching DNS attacks against the website.
My brother always said that he worried more about me when I was quiet than when I was screaming and shouting, because he didn’t know what was going on in my mind. I would rather have these portrayals out in the open, where they can be discussed and people can be educated, than to be circulated amongst a small select group that might start coming up with even more destructive ideas…it’s a small step from cartoons of Muslims with a bomb on their head to “kill them before they kill us”, especially amongst a small circle of friends…
(it’s only a photograph) in real life. It is quite beautiful. There is cow’s blood in the container also, giving it an orange glow. The container is side lit and photographed. It’s the title that shocks. Andres Serrano is a photographer who turned to photographing the Klan and homeless people after the Piss Christ controversy.
Link
Here’s what he says about the work:
Here is an even more shocking example.
I never think that making fun of people is a good idea. I always think that making fun of institutions is a good idea. And laughing at ourselves is the best idea yet! We are called homo sapiens. Totally stupid idea since we are capable of such gross stupidy. Somebody suggested homo stupids or something close and I have to agree. RELIGION always is represented by institutions complete with all the ramifications of having more than 2 people involved giving rise to politics and power politics. However, if I aspire to a spiritual life or want to connect with my spirituality, that effort can be helped by others but in the end it is my internal reflections and my personal choices in life that reflect my spirituality. Those choices, of course, could include becoming a nun, preacher or hermit or just living with integrity in whatever I choose to do. But if I listen to others – leaders, preachers, parents, etc. and let them make my choices for me my spiritual experience may not be as deep, might not be as complete, might only connect with the outer and not the inner.
My own personal philosophy is that laughter comes from God and not just tears. Laughter enables us to crack open that rigid pov and just for the moment allows a new pov to enter into our existence. Just as a broken heart can allow us to find new ways of loving, as it is said that a heart needs to break in order to open and become wider.
Nor am I blindered (yes “blindered).
Nothing profound from me, only two points of an observational nature.
Just because you can do or say something doesn’t mean you should. Bandying free speech arguments in this case is a waste of breath because of my second observational point.
There is no value placed on free speech in countries that are predominantly Islamic. Therefore, for the West to argue that the anger and violence exhibited by Muslims who claim to be offended by these cartoons is just too bad because Western countries believe in free speech and all right-minded people should too is as useless an argument as trying to convince a Ferengi that gak is good eating.
The “stink” over these cartoons is illustrative of the apparently unbridgable gap between Western culture and Islamic religion. What do you think is behind the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist movement? In this Samuel Huntington is correct; there is a culture war — a war of civilizations — going on. Islam does not share our Western values. To argue our point as if it did is absurd.