Einherjar wrote:To me this is pretty much the same situation as with skimpily clad women and rape, I think focusing on the attire in that context is reprehensible even if one does add the disclaimer that the attire could in no way justify sexual assault.
This one I'll still expound on, though, because I think the rape analogy is starkly misguided.
For one, there is nothing the "skimpily clad woman"
does to insult, ridicule or attack her agressors, in any way - on
her part, she enters in no interaction with them. Even if she did, it still wouldn't justify any violence toward her, but the fact that she doesn't, whereas Jyllands-Posten went out of its way to do something it knew would deeply aggrieve even mainstream Muslims, specifically addressing them in order to "test" how far they could go, makes the comparison invalid.
Secondly, even a lesser, hypothetical charge that, ok, she didn't insult them but she "tempted" them or something, doesnt hold up. I'm no expert on the topic, but I believe that it's been shown that rapists do not actually act on attraction or temptation, but on a need to intimidate, dominate, oppress. How the woman is dressed usually plays no role whatsoever. So there's no analogy with what was definitely a deliberate move of Jyllands-Posten to gauge the expected reaction.
I think a better analogy, if one does want one, is the one that dlowan proposed in one of the other threads. She compared the cartoons hubbub with what happens if you, a white person, walk into Compton and start calling people "nigger" left and right -- and end up being beaten up. The beating up remains inexcusable, and those who did it must be arrested and prosecuted. But it nevertheless remains stupid to have walked into South Central and call people nigger.
And I think that, in an equivalent situation, it
is up to us to observe both things (the inexcusability of the violence and the stupidity of provoking it, in arguably needless fashion). I don't buy the argument you suggest that we shouldn't talk about the stupid part because it would be disloyal. Critical self-reflection is what European journalists are supposed to have
over the religious zealots. If anything, in times of crisis we should remain true to ourselves and our own principles, rather than adopting their logic of closing ranks and admitting no fault. I think that the logic of remaining silent about half the story because it would somehow be disloyalty in the face of the true enemy does nothing to solve the issue.
As for hidden agendas, it is easy to see that many of those who are most strident and indignant about the cartoons, most insistent in publishing and showing them wherever possible, have one of their own. The now resigned Italian Minister Calderoli, of the vehemently anti-immigrant Northern League, is a classic example; so are the Dutch politicians who've been most strident about it, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Everyone has a right to his or her personal crusade against Islam, but the protestations that this time, they are merely fighting for free speech, often sound hypocritical at best. (Again Calderoli is a good example, posturing about his fight for freedom and against fundamentalism while simultaneously demanding his government coalition parties to ""defend Europe's Christian roots".)
