jorgelito

But this wasn't being released in Saudi Arabia, it was for Germany.

Muslims in the millions? I thought it was around a billion. It's a big demographic.

This kind of reminds me of the South Park episode from a while back about Mohammed on the Family Guy.

I find it detrimental that this type of "censorship" makes everyone look bad whether real or imagined. It becomes a lose-lose proposition. The self-imposed censoring makes the producers etc look like cowards and giving in to fear and terrorism, and it make muslims look bad too as if they all would object to this opera and automatically react violently. The article mentioned that an Islamic Association in Turkey acknowledged it was time to accept free expression in art and another mentioned that this was not a good way to start dialogue. It must be tough to be a moderate Muslim.

Someone mentioned that they wanted to discuss the issue of freedom of expression in art.

Well, I think that in this case, it was definitely ridiculous to cancel. art needs to be the preserve of crazy stuff, to push the limits and borders of our humanity. I also think there is a big difference between freedom of expresson in art and political provocation or encitement of violence. EX: If someone thought it would be cool to burn an effigy in front of a Mosque and call that art I would think that would be rather controversial. However, the major flaw with this is that it is rather subjective and open for debate. art for some is politics for others. Still, aside from safety reasons, is this type of censorship called for? I would assume that Germany is a civilized and stable country. Does it live in that much fear that putting on a Mozart opera would encite violence? I think that is truly sad.