In Support of Muslims: Denmark Cartoons

This was about censorship being imposed by vigilantes, in violation of danish law.

Many Muslims think the West is corrupt, evil, and bent on taking over/ eradicating Islam. A lot of current events lend themselves to that interpretation -- invasion of Iraq on flimsy pretenses and what has happened since, etc.

They faced the same choice when offered cartoons of Jesus, and they explicitly said: no we wont run them because we would be offending the feelings of the Christians among our readers, and we dont want that. That consideration apparently was brushed aside when it came to the cartoons of Mohammed and the offense those would predictably cause to Muslims.

Being offended and being a complete nutcase are two different things.

When I am offended, I don't threaten to kill the person.

Its Islam not Christianity that is at issue here.

Religions should not and must not be allowed to censor the spoken or written word.

Not so the Islamists. They go looking for trouble. They feed on any example of western insult or injustice against the muslims. They love it! Without it they couldn't keep the fires of jihad burning.

Anyway I have the answer to all this. Its called a compromise. The muslims accept that newspapers have the ABSOLUTE RIGHT to publish cartoons featuring Mohammed, and the newspapers accept they have a duty not to cause gratuitous offense.

Okay, the Muslim reaction to the cartoons of their prophet isn't good. But, and this is where I am on their side:

Although the cartoons were published months ago, it wasn't until other countries-- France specifically, decided to publish the cartoons in the name of free speech.

France outlawed, a while ago, any form of traditional dress among all races that would indicate their religious affiliation. That meant Muslims had to dress their way-- or pay. Okay, that's their squashing of freedom of speech, freedom of dress, etc. Now they turn around and publish the cartoons and say it's freedom of speech.

Granted, Islam has not caught up with the modern world, however, a bit of sensititvity to their plight is in order.

What are your opinions about this?

People desecrate crucifixes on a daily basis. I distinctly remember an artist that had an opening depicting the cross covered in cow excrement

Einherjar wrote:

This was about censorship being imposed by vigilantes, in violation of danish law.

It wasnt yet at the moment the editors of Jyllands Posten had to make a decision. Had to decide whether to commission those cartoons, or publish the ones they did.

They faced the same choice when offered cartoons of Jesus, and they explicitly said: no we wont run them because we would be offending the feelings of the Christians among our readers, and we dont want that. That consideration apparently was brushed aside when it came to the cartoons of Mohammed and the offense those would predictably cause to Muslims.

There's the double standard; the moment they made those two decisions, there was no vigilante action yet at all, no antidemocratic fervour they had to act against; it was purely their decision of running cartoons that would offend readers, or not. The argument that they would offend them was apparently valid where it concerned Christian readers, but no longer where it concerned Muslims.

No surprise there.

McGentrix wrote:

Now is the time for the moderate, level-headed Muslims to come out of hiding.

They're not hiding, #3, #4 and #5:

Quote:

British Muslim groups however appealed for calm, saying the demonstrations and violence had gone too far.

Britain's leading Muslim body, the Muslim Council of Britain called for the protesters to be prosecuted. Inayat Bunglawala said: The "police should now consider all the evidence they have gathered from the protests to see if they can prosecute the extremists. Ordinary Muslims are fed up with them."

Kurshid Ahmed of the British Muslim Forum, which represents more than 600 British mosques, said: 'The reaction and demonstration by some elements within our community are not reflective of who we are."

Azhar Ali, of Labour's National Policy Forum, said: 'My fear is .. militant organisations will use this incident" and it will serve "to act as a recruiting sergeant for their causes."

(link)

They're not hiding, #6:

Quote:

In Denmark, a network of moderate Muslims condemned the attack on the Danish embassy and urged restraint: "the situation is out of control," said spokesman Naser Khader.

(link)

They're not hiding, #7:

Quote:

[Jordan newspaper] Al-Shihan published the cartoons in an article headlined 'Intifada against the Danish insult', which invited Muslims to be "reasonable". The editor asked readers: "What brings more prejudice against Islam, a foreigner's depiction of the Prophet, or a suicide-bomber who blows himself up at a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

(link)

They're not hiding, #8:

Quote:

I'm quite troubled over the cartoon controversy in Denmark, not because of the cartoons themselves, which I agree are offensive, but rather, because of the absurd overreaction of Muslims worldwide. We haven't learned from the Rushdie affair - this is yet another instance where we've gone out of our way to make ourselves look stupid.

(link)

"We're dealing with two types of ignorance, about Islam and about the freedom of speech," Sohaib Bencheikh, a prominent Islamic theologian, said of the Middle Eastern protests. "I'm surprised by the over-reaction of my fellow Muslims." [..]

"Frankly, that shows that the idea of genuine free speech has not taken root in Muslim countries," he said, adding that the Qatar-based Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi -- one of Islam's leading preachers -- was wrong to join the call for apologies.

Rachid Benzine, a leading young Muslim intellectual, bemoaned the fact the protesting Arabs thought their faith gave them the right to use violence.

"We're witnessing the theologisation of international relations," he said. "Some say we're heading toward a clash of civilizations, but it's more like a clash of ignorances on both sides.

Lebanese papers condemn the sacking of the Danish embassy in Beirut and accuse their government of failing to take responsibility. [..] Many Arabic commentators agree that the protests have gone too far. [..]

Lebanon's Daily Star: "The damage that the rioters did - both to Lebanese property and to the image of Islam - was far worse than that done by the cartoons."

Nabil Abu-Munsif in Lebanon's Al-Nahar: "The attack was simply an advanced attempt to blow up Lebanon and set it on fire."

Abdelkrim Ghezali in Algeria's La Tribune: "It is no coincidence that it is only in Damascus and Beirut that the embassies of Denmark and Norway were set ablaze ... Syria has every reason to want to divert the world's attention... It is time to stop exploiting the anger of the masses to achieve political goals such as saving a party or regime. Such action can also be viewed as another form of blasphemy."

nimh wrote:

They faced the same choice when offered cartoons of Jesus, and they explicitly said: no we wont run them because we would be offending the feelings of the Christians among our readers, and we dont want that. That consideration apparently was brushed aside when it came to the cartoons of Mohammed and the offense those would predictably cause to Muslims.

Cause they were making a point about lunatic imposed self censorship.

Also, the Mohammed cartoons had been comissioned by the paper, the christian stuff hadn't, that does make a difference.

Some leftwing professor had written a childrensbook on islam, for indoctrination purpouses, meaning a very sympathetic outline of islam. When he went to have his book ilustrated however, and naturally you can't have a childrensbook without illustrations, he ran into trouble.

If you look at the original cartoons you'll see that a number of them are poking fun at the topic dealt with by the paper, such as the "easy my friends, after all it's just a drawing made by a non believing dane" one, and the one with the cartoonist nervously looking over his shoulder while making his contribution.

So as you can see, this was about supression of speech from the get go.

OK, so when a paper decides not to run Jesus cartoons because doing so would "provoke an outcry" among readers who would not "enjoy the drawings", that is not lunatic imposed self-censorship.

But if a paper is confronted with the question whether or not to publish Mohammed cartoons, deciding not to do so would suddenly be a case of dangerous, lunatic self-censorship.

Sorry, I fail to see the distinction.

Yup. Depicting Mohammed is considered, rationally or irrationally, blasphemous by many Muslims. So if you write a childrens book about Islam, you're going to have trouble finding illustrators willing to do so.

I realise that must have irked the childrens book writer. I dont see the elevated Cause of Overriding Political Acuteness in it, however, that would justify an editor (or whoever) to offend thousands of readers (and thats even without taking the international impact into consideration).

Every newspaper, in the West, is (or should be) free to offend. But I think it's part of an editor's responsibility to only do so when there's an overriding urgency to do so - something important that needs to be tackled through it.

The trouble of finding an illustrator for a childrens book somehow doesnt cut it as rationale, to me.

Note also, however, that one of the cartoonists depicted a schoolboy in front of a blackboard, writing down (in Farsi) ""The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs."

I guess that's pretty much my position , too.

So as you can see, this was about supression of speech from the get go.