Cartoon Clash of Civilizations

Re #72

(However, one suspects there would be a wider and more emotional response were Jesus to be disrespectfully depicted in a Muslim or a Jewish publication. )

Dear Mr. Quresihi,

I am afraid a bad depiction of Jesus in Muslim publication would cause a fair bit of chaos in Muslim countries too. I understand Jesus is a prophet to Muslims also
Regards

``This is like saying ``I put my hand in front of a massive Doberman that was growling and slavering just because I wanted to see if it would bite.`` ``


Absolute nonsense...........everybody knows that the Islamists are violent imbecile...........the test would be for the moderate muslims who are not afraid of submitting their faith to such provocations.....................and it shows the amount of support these Islamists have amongst the `moderate` muslims of Europe.............

http://www.dawn.com/2006/02/08/ed.htm#4

Nothing to kill or die for



AT the start of this week, the death toll stood at five and the situation seemed likely to deteriorate, even as commentators throughout Europe tried to hose down suggestions that what we have been witnessing is a clash of civilizations. It is harder to allay the impression that it is a clash of cultures, exacerbated by inordinate degrees of obduracy on both sides.

Simplistic views of the dispute reduce it to a contest between two absolutes: immutable religious beliefs and uncompromising freedom of speech. And never the twain shall meet, goes the argument, which is often deployed in defence of the stance that Islamic and European value systems are inherently incompatible. Invariably, the implicit or explicit corollary is that most Muslim immigrants will never really fit into Europe.

There is no incontrovertible evidence that this is what the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten set out to illustrate late last September, when it decided to publish a dozen third-rate caricatures of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). It had apparently commissioned the drawings as a sort of test case after hearing from comedian Frank Hyam that he was scared of satirizing the Quran, and after learning that children’s writer Bent Bludnikow, who had written a book about the Prophet, couldn’t find any illustrators who were willing to put their names to their work.

Neither the poor quality of the caricatures, nor — more significantly — the fact that at least a few of them were explicitly racist deterred Jyllands-Posten from publishing them. The newspaper reputedly has a history of extremist inclinations, including support for Mussolini and Hitler back in the 1930s. More recently, Denmark has been among the European countries where xenophobia has been whipped up by right-wing forces. The conservative government of Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen depends for its survival on the parliamentary support of the Danish People’s Party, one of whose MPs has publicly likened Muslims in Europe to “a cancer”.

This context is obviously not irrelevant to the publication of the cartoons, which was followed by angry complaints from Danish Muslims, protest marches and, deplorably, death threats against journalists and cartoonists. After Rasmussen refused to receive a delegation of Muslim ambassadors, some local imams decided to go on a tour of the Muslim world with a dossier containing the offending drawings and their correspondence with the authorities, along with three further caricatures considerably more obscene and inflammatory than anything published by Jyllands-Posten.

The provenance of these supplementary drawings is uncertain: they are said to have been received in the mail by unnamed Muslims in Denmark. It is not clear whether the distinction between the two sets of cartoons was clear to all those who saw the dossier.

Was parading the sketches through the Muslim world such a a terribly good idea? Having made clear how hurt they were, it may have been wisest for the concerned Danish Muslims to leave it at that.

It would, no doubt, have helped if Jyllands-Posten had promptly apologized for its indiscretion and if Rasmussen had at least lent an ear to the protesters. The apologies came only after a boycott of Danish goods in the Middle East threatened to hurt Denmark’s economy, which raises doubts about their sincerity. Jyllands-Posten, incidentally, has expressed regret for injuring Muslim feelings, not for publishing the caricatures.

In retrospect, would it not have been best from the Muslim point of view if the matter had been restricted to Denmark? Among other things, that would probably have prevented the cartoons from being reproduced in newspapers throughout western Europe, as they were last week (with the notable exception of Britain). More important, that may also have kept the issue from being adopted by the international brotherhood of extremists.

Small bands of British Muslims, for instance, have chosen to express their anger through vows of further atrocities along the lines of 9/11 and 7/7. That’s precisely the sort of emotional bluster that feeds into the consciousness of those who, in turn, might choose to condemn all Muslims as terrorists or endow a representative figure with a fuse-bearing turban. Nor has the torching of embassies in Damascus and Beirut done wonders for the image of the followers of Islam.

It could be argued that even the commercial boycott and diplomatic ruptures have implicitly been based on the misapprehension that European governments exercise the sort of control over the press that is more or less mandatory through much of the Middle East. A plea to the Vatican by the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, also hints at a naive misconception of the church’s role in Europe.

Europeans are justifiably proud of their right to free speech, won during a long struggle against the power of the very church that Prince Nayef appealed to, plus various other vested interests. However, it is not a right that has consistently been honoured during the past century. Even now, there are limits to free speech, some based on custom and common sense, others enshrined in legislation.

For instance, in Germany and Austria, Holocaust denial — that is, to contend that Nazis did not conduct a campaign of Judaeocide — is punishable by imprisonment. Whether or not this is justified, the point is that it is clearly a curb on the freedom of expression, in a country — Germany — where newspapers seemed a bit too keen to reproduce the Danish drawings, using the argument that to refrain from doing so would be tantamount to self-censorship. Other European papers contended that republication of the cartoons was necessary in order to show their readers what the fuss was all about. But would they have been quite so eager to go down that road had the story — and illustrations — in question related to, say, graphic child pornography or paedophilia?

Most probably not. Why? Obviously, in the interests of good taste, and in order not to offend public sensibilities. Does this mean Muslim sensitivities somehow matter less than those of other sections of the public?

Another argument that has been trotted out by numerous western commentators is that all sorts of satirical and sometimes even derogatory references to biblical luminaries are commonplace in their culture, so why should Islamic figures merit a different approach? There is some validity in this point. Depictions of Jesus Christ, for instance, that would once have invited charges of blasphemy and harsh punishment now generally elicit no more than a few polite protests, if that (although there are occasional exceptions).

However, one suspects there would be a wider and more emotional response were Jesus to be disrespectfully depicted in a Muslim or a Jewish publication. And, while we’re on the subject, it’s probably also worth pondering whether Jyllands-Posten’s efforts would have been reproduced quite so widely across Europe had the object of derision been Jews rather than Muslims.

Some European writers have compared the Danish caricatures to the open slather against Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Others have noted that they would have sympathized more readily with the Muslim outrage had anti-Semitism not been so rampant in the Islamic world. Neither of these views seems altogether unreasonable.

Meanwhile, there are various other pertinent questions that need to be raised, and directed at Muslims — predominantly those who are always on the lookout for any opportunity to take up arms (metaphorically or otherwise) in the face of perceived insults to their faith, rather than the less excitable sorts whose moderate voices tend to be drowned out amid the cacophony.

The most obvious of these is, which of the following has lately contributed more towards reinforcing Islamophobia: the stupid cartoons, which in the normal course of events would have vanished from the consciousness of most Jyllands-Posten readers within a few days, or the violent protests in the Muslim world, the instances of arson, the unambiguous death threats and invocations of terror and hellfire on the streets of London and elsewhere?

Then again, is it reasonable to expect secular societies to abide by Islamic strictures against iconography (which aren’t accepted by all Muslim sects anyhow)? Besides, isn’t it sometimes wiser — and braver — to let sleeping dogmas lie? Furthermore, regardless of their validity, don’t Muslim complaints of victimization in Europe ring a little hollow when so many Islamic countries go out of their way to discriminate against religious minorities?

Echoing Oliver Wendell Holmes, Noam Chomsky argues: “If you’re in favour of free speech, then you’re in favour of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.” It is also widely accepted that cartoons that don’t give offence to some section of the population are generally ineffective. It is important, nonetheless, to know where to draw the line.

Editorials in much of the British press have been at pains to point out that whereas Jyllands-Posten — and, by extension, Le Soir, Die Welt and all the rest of them — had every right to publish what they did, they were certainly under no obligation to do so. In other words, they ought to have known better. The same could be said of those Muslims whose reaction to what they saw as an unreasonable provocation has facilitated the further demonization of Islam’s adherents.

Sometimes the thoughts and actions of the supposedly ultra-devout hint at a cerebral malfunction.

Email: mahirali1@gmail.com

raw moron -- actually i live in reality and must accept, whether i like it or not, that freedom of speech is not absolute and comes with limitations -- you on the other hand live in your cubby or is it shitt hole on chowk -- and you can believe whatever you may -- including that the next few years will be agonizing for me and mohd`s soul -- sheesh what a loser hahaha

and oh by the way , no one is denying that neo nazi speech and actions do not constitute hate speech -- the point, which one is now repeating ad nauseum but is clearly lost on morons like you, is that there are limitations in europe on some kinds of free speech but not on others -- the word for that in the dictionary, moron, is `double standard`

now go shoo


arey arjun jee aap kahan hain -- still defending that paper`s right to free speech eh?

In the past, toilet seats, footwear, and even lingerie have carried images of Hindu gods. There were protests, but nowhere did Hindus burn embassies, kill and get killed, or boycott western products.

Bina Shah wrote [What astonishes me is that in a time when relations between the Western/European/American world are so delicate, people would want to do something to fire up Muslim sentiment against Europe....]

I don`t remember the Taliban showing any such sensitivity to Buddhist opinion when they blew up the Bamiyan Buddha statue. Nor were you out there decrying their lack of sensitivity.

[....For France to follow the Danish example and publish the cartoons out of spite seems also extremely foolish given that they`ve not yet cleaned up the ashes of the last Paris riots.]

The right way to clean up the ashes of the Paris riots would be to deport every single Muslim back to his home country and to deny landing rights in France for Air Morocco, EgyptAir, Air Alegeria, Qatar Airways, Saudia, Middle East Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, Emirates Air, Kuwait Airways, Iranian Airlines, Malaysian, Garuda Indonesian or any other airline with the slightest connection to a Muslim country. All passenger lists for planes arriving in France should be vetted before the plane leaves its point of origin (like the US requires for its war on terrorism) and the plane should be denied even overflight rights should there be a single Muslim on board. All Muslims should be quarantined in their home countries or should be permitted to mingle with other Muslims only. They don`t have to read Jyllands-Posten but if they do and are offended by the cartoons of Mohammad, maybe they can show their contempt for the cartoons by using them as toilet paper.

A few strategically dropped H-bombs ought to do wonders to improve Muslim sensitivities to other people`s rights to express themselves. If not, at least we would have an abundance of glass (fused silica) that might come in handy for bottling beer, wine and other haram stuff.

Re: # 16

Raw_Dust

``nasah sahib:
the answer is in mohammad` grotesque and indefensible Sunnah which needs a cover of Blasphemy law or else the whole intimate-church of Islam will come crumbling down. we are living in interesting times``.

But the Blasphemy law imposes deah sentence only on Paky citizens of any faith so as to terrorise them to submit to the Mullah. For the world at large we cn only protest and be killed unless we have an international blasphemy law to take care of the `freedom of expression` of the west. But then the sectarian mullah may be considered its worst violator by the international court.

BTW, the cartoon is now appearing on the internet and saved on millions of computers. What will become of them?

RE: omar_r_quraishi:

``so raw moron, you`re saying that moses and muhammad arent given the same protection, or shouldnt be given the same protection, as given to messrs bush and blair?``

nope. my position is absolute (as an Individual) on freespeech. i oppose all kinds of censorship that includes censorship on holocaust denial.

by the way, you sure you wanna equate censorship tactics to deflect criticism on Bush and Mohammad in the same sentence? not to mention equating a major plank of NeoNazism and Islam to oppose freespeech? think again.

``and another thing raw moron -- by your own logic, then those who published the cartoons against Muhammad, it could be argued, are racists against Muslims``

You in your infantile rage equated gemran position with my position. I made an aside on german position in #46.

Please, do accept my sympathies in advance as next few years will be even more agonizing and deeply disappointing for you and Mohammad`s soul.

Ayan Hirsi Ali is working on another movie project. :-)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to caricatures of the Holocaust.

Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?`` Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, in a short article on its back page.


Source:-

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/07/iran.cartoon.ap/index.html

bears repeating..

Tolerance Toward Intolerance

By Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff

It`s worth remembering that the controversy started out as a well-meaning attempt to write a children`s book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. The book was designed to promote religious tolerance. But the author encountered the consequences of religious hatred when he looked for an illustrator. He could not find one. Denmark`s artists seemed to fear for their lives. In turning down the job they mentioned the fate of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist for harshly criticizing fundamentalism.

When this episode percolated to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the paper`s cultural editor commissioned the caricatures. He wanted to see whether cartoonists would self-censor their work for fear of violence from Muslim radicals. Still, the European media ignored this story in a small Scandinavian country. It took months, a boycott of Danish products in the Arab world and the intervention of such champions of religious freedom as the governments of Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya (all of which withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen) for some European papers to reconsider their stance on the cartoons. By last week it was not an obscure topic anymore but front-page news. And it wasn`t about religious sensibilities as much as about free speech. That`s when the cartoons started to show up in papers all over Europe.

Much of the U.S. reporting about the fracas made it appear as if Europeans just don`t get it -- again. They struggle with immigration. They struggle with religion. They struggle with respect for minorities. And in the end they find their cities burning, as evidenced in Paris. Bill Clinton even detected an ``anti-Islamic prejudice`` and equated it with a previous ``anti-Semitic prejudice.``

The former president has turned the argument upside down. In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe`s supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules. Does Bill Clinton want to counsel tolerance toward intolerance?

On Friday the State Department found it appropriate to intervene. It blasted the publication of the cartoons as unacceptable incitement to religious hatred. It is a peculiar moment when the government of the United States, which likes to see itself as the home of free speech, suggests to European journalists what not to print.

The writer is Washington bureau chief of the German newsweekly Die Zeit.

This whole episode is very funny..

I`m waiting for videos next.. starrring Muhammad and Ayesha.. :-)