Danish Cartoon - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Ustwo · 02-04-2006, 07:16 PM

This is funny at first....

Its in the Koran

Then its scary, because its 100% true.

clavus · 02-04-2006, 08:11 PM

I could do a cartoon about Jesus Christ fucking Robert E Lee in the ass on the steps of Radio City Music Hall and nobody would burn a building.

Stop with trying to say that an offended Western Society would react like these crazy, murderous motherfuckers. We wouldn't.

Aladdin Sane · 02-04-2006, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clavus

I could do a cartoon about Jesus Christ fucking Robert E Lee in the ass on the steps of Radio City Music Hall and nobody would burn a building.

Stop with trying to say that an offended Western Society would react like these crazy, murderous motherfuckers. We wouldn't.

I agree. But if you have Jesus Christ fucking Robert E Lee in the ass on the steps of Radio City Music Hall while singing "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You," I'll cut your nuts off!

karsey · 02-05-2006, 01:18 AM

Whilst for many people this matter might seem a fuss over very little, I think that it represents very well the situation that we find ourselves in post-9/11, and it is a worrying sign for things to come, for two reasons. Firstly, the argument over these drawings cannot be seen in isolation. For many, these drawings appear as yet another attack among many upon the Muslim people since September 2001. Denmark in particular has been the setting for much hostility in recent years. Secondly, the publication of these drawings represents the confused and conflicting values of Western media, particularly its much-championed yet hypocritical usage of ‘free speech’.

Returning to the issue in Denmark, since 9/11 in particular there has been a series of actions by the Danish government and others that could be accused of victimising Muslims. I will briefly mention a few of these. For three or four years now, the Danish immigration system has become much tighter and discriminative.5 In September 2004, a new immigration act was passed specifically in order to limit the ability for Muslims to enter into Denmark.6 In the same month, the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard appeared in the Copenhagen Post, under the headline, ‘Party's call-to-arms against Islamism’:

Kjærsgaard compared Islamism with Nazism and Marxism, and issued a rousing call-to-arms to party members against this new "world revolutionary" movement, which she said was aiming to impose "Sharia" around the world. Kjærsgaard cited an article appearing in daily tabloid B.T. which put the number of Danish immigrant children sent on "reconditioning" trips at Muslim schools - "Koran prisons," as Kjærsgaard called them - at 5,000.7

This came only a few months after a poll was published in the same newspaper, claiming that one in four Danes believe that there will one day be more Muslims in Denmark than non-Muslims.8 Though Muslims currently only make up around two percent of the Danish population.9 In April last year, Queen Margrethe of Denmark in an authorised biography argued that Danish people should stand up to Islam, and that Muslims should learn to speak Danish properly.10 A few months later in October, Danish Member of Parliament Louise Frevert, a member of the nationalist Danish People’s Party, was severely criticised for anti-Muslim statements that appeared on her website.11 These included the claim that young Muslims believe that it is their right to rape and assault Danish people. A 2004 political pamphlet by Frevert also claimed that Muslims secretly planned to takeover Denmark. Frevert pleaded ignorance and claimed that her webmaster, Ebbe Talleruphuus was responsible for these remarks. Talleruphuus later accepted responsibility and resigned.

This is just a small sample of a few of the negative Muslim stories that can easily be found through a quick search through any of the major media outlets. And this is the climate in which these sacrilegious drawings of Mohammed appear. Given this climate and the tense post-9/11 and Iraq War global atmosphere, even the most ardent defender of Jyllands-Posten’s actions must accept that the publication of these drawings was, at the very least, extremely naïve.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...articleId=1870

DJ Happy · 02-05-2006, 02:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clavus

I saw this on FARK today. Draw your own conclusions (and draw your own cartoons!)
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

* Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslim officials block the exit where school girls are trying to escape a burning building because their faces were exposed. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged girls on their way to school in Indonesia. A Christian school. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage.
* A Muslim attacks a missionary children's school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Muslims shoot children in the back. No Muslim outrage.
* Let's go way back. Muslims kidnap and kill athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims fire rocket-propelled grenades into schools full of children in Israel. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims murder more than 50 commuters in attacks on London subways and busses. Over 700 are injured. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims massacre dozens of innocents at a Passover Seder. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims murder innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons. No Muslim outrage
* Muslims are involved, on one side or the other, in almost every one of the 125+ shooting wars around the world. No Muslim outrage.
* Muslims beat the charred bodies of Western civilians with their shoes, then hang them from a bridge. No Muslim outrage.
* Newspapers in Denmark and Norway publish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslims are outraged.

To say that there was no Muslim outrage at these events is simply untrue. How many of you watch Arabic media, read Arabic newspapers? How many of you will have seen the GM of Al Arabiya condemn those who commit these acts in the name of religion? How many will watch the religious programming that comes from even Saudi Arabia, condemning those who kill in the name of Islam? Just because the West chooses not to report it and you can't be bothered to research it yourselves, don't just assume it doesn't exist.

Stupid lists like these serve the same purpose as the cartoons - intentional baiting. I doubt those that fought and died to ensure we had 'free speech' would be proud to learn that we are using it as an excuse to intentionally provoke religious groups and nothing more.

DJ Happy · 02-05-2006, 02:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevie667

Thinking about it further, if someone had just written a letter, then the Danes would have probably said oops, our mistake, we'll be nicer next time. The muslim world pushed the west with violence, and the west pushed back by publishing more cartoons.

This whole thing started in the beginning of January, with letters and meetings. Denmark's response was basically that they'll do what they want. Then it slowly escalated to what it is today, when the US media decided to start covering it.

Actually, it all started in September of 2005 when the Danish paper first published them and was reignited when a Norwegian magazine decided to reprint them in January 2006 because not enough people had complained about them yet.

AngelicVampire · 02-05-2006, 04:36 AM

DJ, the Danish government basically did apologise, they said that they could not apologise on behalf of a privately owned newspaper. The Norwegians etc got it right, freedom of speech should allow me to offend anyone I feel like (and they have the right to be upset or disagree), promising violence, direct threats etc is wrong but if I say in jest "lets kill all muslims" thats free speech, if I hold a rally which intends to disseminate information on and support the killing of muslims then that is probably not free speech covered.

There are many enlightened muslims, there are many enlightened christians, however it seems as a whole that Islam tends to produce more fanatics per worshiper than other religions. This is problematic in a world access to weapons, technology to produce weapons and transport is easy to acquire. The Clerics and suchlike calling these images distasteful but calling for rational discussion from the Islamic world I support however there are many clerics and governments instead either sitting back or "supporting" these actions. Attacking an Embassy is imo an act of war, for a goverment to sit back and allow its people to assault a soverign nations representatives in your country is outrageous (you might not like them but they are there for diplomatic reasons and as such should be protected).

How about the next time I am offended I declare a crusade and go wipe out or at least threaten to wipe out some civilisations, racial groups or religions? Doesn't really seem sensible now does it... I think the Bible got this one right, an Eye for an Eye, so they can reprint some cartoons mocking our faiths, but to take actions far beyond that?

The vatican support of this (and Jack Straw's) annoys me, religious taboos for members of that religion are for them not anyone else, sure I can be respectful however I am not forced to... Can I form a religion saying that beer is taboo, women should be naked and guys totally covered up and then complain when everyone else either disagrees with me or thinks I am a nutcase? I don't think I really have a case here.

thingstodo · 02-05-2006, 05:10 AM

For something that's supposed to be so good for people, religion sures creates a huge mess with the world.

Hanxter · 02-05-2006, 05:32 AM

classic...

Quote:

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair

and speaking of vain...

An old man was sitting on a bench at the mall.
A young man walked up to the bench and sat down.
He had spiked hair in all different colors:
green, red, orange, blue, and yellow.

The old man just stared.
Every time the young man looked, the old man was staring.

The young man finally said sarcastically,
"What's the matter old timer, never done anything wild in your life?"

Without batting an eye, the old man replied,
"Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock. I was just wondering
if you were my son."

we are all different and we may all have our opinions how the world should flow...

i just don't understand how some people that raid villages, embassies, burn down neighborhoods or bomb cafes are any better than those that looted new orleans except for the fact they're doing it in the name of their god with his blessing...

bring him down here, i wanna ask him that myself

DJ Happy · 02-05-2006, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelicVampire

DJ, the Danish government basically did apologise, they said that they could not apologise on behalf of a privately owned newspaper. The Norwegians etc got it right, freedom of speech should allow me to offend anyone I feel like (and they have the right to be upset or disagree), promising violence, direct threats etc is wrong but if I say in jest "lets kill all muslims" thats free speech, if I hold a rally which intends to disseminate information on and support the killing of muslims then that is probably not free speech covered.

The Danish government said it condemned the newspaper. It did not apologise. The newspaper apologised for causing offense (which I find strange as that was the reason they published the cartoons in the first place) and then said they would do it all again if they had the choice.

It is the most childish exertion of 'free speech' I have ever witnessed, akin to a 4 year old poking his sister until she gets so angry she lashes out at him and then gets blamed for starting trouble. Expose the truth, express an opinion, make yourself heard, but hiding behind a provilege as fundamental and important as free speech just to see how far you can provoke a billion people is truly shameful.

Having said that, the Muslim response is completely over the top, or at least has gradually become so in the month that Denmark has been running and hiding behind the 'free speech' wall. But the newspaper must take its share of blame for the mess this has become.

AngelicVampire · 02-05-2006, 08:49 AM

Was their initial reason not to see if the artists would self censor themselves? Something that a lot of people seem to do in relation to Islam far more than they do for say Christianity (just look at the GIS I posted, imagine "Muhammed Lol" as a picture series?).

The Danish government can condem the newspaper however they are right that they cannot apologise on behalf of an independent entity. As for the paper printing these was an issue of free speech based on a "good" reason. Imagine if I asked for images Jesus following the Catholic Priest + "small children" season? I would imagine that I would get a lot of really quite distasteful pictures however the point of the asking is a valid one (to see if people will censor themselves).

Its hardly a childish example. Is printing images of the Japanese/Chinese war offensive (lots of corpses, mass graves etc?), its a historical fact which the Japanese basically say didn't happen... am I offending them? Or perhaps we should ensure that all Western women wear Burkhas outside for fear of upsetting Islam?

Everything you do can cause offense to someone (in Britain for example myself and my Black friends can walk down the street calling each other Nigger and Ho and not offend ourselves, however if someone else believes this to be racist it becomes a racist incident) despite the fact that they have nothing to do with our conversation/arguement). To monitor everything for offense is silly, heck I find PC terms very offensive (Horizontally challenged? Deferred success?---- special?) Lets call a spade a spade here and get over ourselves, no matter what we do we can offend others... the paper wasn't looking to offend Islam it was looking at an interesting article... if they were delibrately trying to offend thats a different story but they have taken this way too far, attacking Embassies? Threatening Terrorist attacks? Offering to exterminate us... arrest them all and let Justice decide.

cyrnel · 02-05-2006, 09:36 AM

The old adage comes to mind:

Don't wrestle with a pig.
You both get dirty.
He enjoys it.

Not to call religious extremists pigs in any way, but they do have many large, poorly balanced chips on their collective shoulder, and killing seems to be in fashion.

Nor am I suggesting the non-fanatical roll over and be walked upon, but this cartoon exercise seems like a pointless mud-pit.

roachboy · 02-05-2006, 09:41 AM

a recap of this hullaballoo, from this morning's guardian:

Quote:

How cartoons fanned flames of Muslim rage

Embassies burning. Riots and demonstrations across the globe. Journalists in hiding. Presidents and preachers joining the furious debate. But just how did a series of second-rate cartoons buried deep inside the pages of a small Danish newspaper produce such an incendiary dispute?

Jason Burke in Paris, Luke Harding in Berlin, Alex Duval Smith in Copenhagen and Peter Beaumont in Ramallah
Sunday February 5, 2006
The Observer

If the consequences are global, the source is almost farcically local. You reach number 3 Grondals Street by taking the number 9 bus to the outskirts of the Danish city of Aarhus and getting off by the red post box half way up the hill. The modest single-story yellow brick building is the head office of Jyllands-Posten, a national newspaper with a circulation of 150,000. It is where Flemming Rose, the arts editor, decided that publishing a page of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad would provoke a debate on multiculturalism and spice up a paper whose daily highlight for many readers is the diamond wedding listing on page 18.

This weekend, the fallout from that editorial whim six months ago has left half the globe reeling. A week of violent rhetoric and action, of statements by scores of heads of states, of commercial boycotts and diplomatic intervention, of strife and anguish and emotion, has exposed deep tensions and fissures at the heart of the modern world, tensions between the Islamic world and the West, between religion and secular society, between journalists and politicians, between different conceptions of the role of faith and a free press in society, tensions that look unlikely to disappear soon.

Jan Lund, the Jyllands-Posten's foreign editor, said there was little discussion when the decision to run the cartoons was taken. 'I don't remember anyone raising any objections. The idea seemed good. The intention was to provoke a debate about the extent to which we self-censor in our coverage of Muslim issues.'.

Rose said the exercise had been inspired by a conversation with Danish comedian Frank Hvam, who said he did not dare make fun of the Koran. Rose added that children's writer Bent Blüdnikow, who had written a book about the Prophet Muhammad, had lamented the fact that all the illustrators he approached wanted to work anonymously.

Rose said that last autumn's Danish theatre season included three productions in which President George W Bush was either criticised or ridiculed, but not one featuring Osama bin Laden.

The result was 12 cartoons published on 30 September on page 3 of the second section of the paper. One showed the prophet with a bomb as a head, another with either horns or half a halo growing out of his head, a third showed a ragged line of suicide bombers arriving in heaven to be greeted by an anxious-looking prophet telling them: 'Stop stop, we ran out of virgins!'.

Crude in execution and thought, the cartoons offended not merely because they breached the Islamic prohibition of representations of Muhammad, but because they depicted the prophet, seen as a man of peace and justice by Muslims, as a man of terror and violence.

It is unclear whether Jyllends-Posten journalists recognised the significance of their act, but in an editorial Rose invoked the highest of justifications. 'Among writers, artists and theatre people, there is a trend for self-censorship,' he wrote. 'This means artists are avoiding the major issue of our time: the meeting of secular and Muslim cultures.'

Yet Rose's use of words - surely, one analyst pointed out last week, he meant 'secular' and 'religious' - was revealing. In a continent struggling to integrate large Islam minorities, his designation of 'Muslim' as the 'other', the opposite pole to European secularism, expressed a growing sense that the world is confronted by 'a clash of civilisations'. Such sentiments, stoked in the Netherlands by the stabbing of a Dutch film director by a Muslim militant, in Britain and Spain by bombings in London and Madrid, and in France by recent riots, blamed erroneously on Islam by many people. They are also on the rise in countries, such as Denmark, known for their tolerance. For many commentators 'Muslim culture' is the opposite of the progressive, secular heritage of European 'Judaeo-Christian' Enlightenment. Denmark has, like other countries, been marked by a xenophobic backlash against moves towards greater inclusivity.

If Rose's aim was indeed to provoke debate, he succeeded. The initial publication of the cartoons brought no response other than some angry letters. But when in mid-October two of the artists received death threats, the menaces were widely reported and rekindled debate, prompting vicious, anti-Muslim comments on Danish talk shows. Coming soon after a series of new, strict laws relating to marriage and citizenship, enforcing obligatory Danish lessons and clamping down on imams, the row plugged straight into pre-existing tensions. A minor storm was on its way to becoming much bigger.

First came a demonstration by 5,000 Muslims in Copenhagen. A week later, diplomats from Islamic states complained to the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. A group of ultra-conservative Danish imams set off for a tour of Saudi Arabia and Egypt with a dossier of the cartoons and several other cartoons, unrelated to the Jyllands-Posten drawings, showing Muhammad with the face of a pig and as a paedophile.

A flurry of diplomatic activity ended in an 'explication' by the Danes to the head of the Arab League which was to be distributed throughout the Middle East. Then on 10 January a Norwegian Christian publication, Magazinet, published a selection of the cartoons. More diplomatic protests ensued, and Saudi Arabia and Libya recalled their ambassadors from Copenhagen. Suddenly, Danish goods were being boycotted and its national flags burnt.

Though still restricted to Scandinavia, the row was getting vicious enough for Prime Minister Rasmussen - who had earlier refused to meet ambassadors from 11 Islamic nations - to perform an abrupt U-turn, expressing his regrets and admitting the caricatures had hurt the sensitivities of Muslims worldwide. Separately, Carsten Juste, the editor of the Jyllands-Posten, issued his own apology. His paper had 'indisputably offended many Muslims', he admitted. If either of them thought his action would defuse the row, he was mistaken.

For Roger Köppel, the cerebral, 40-year-old Swiss-German editor of the Berlin-based Die Welt newspaper, the Danish apologies amounted to a capitulation. Instead of standing up for the right to freedom of expression, Denmark had timidly succumbed to bullying, Köppel felt. He decided it was time for the rest of Europe to stake a stand.

'The fact that a European country - 'one of us' - had caved in was for us the trigger to say that this is a really important story,' Köppel said . 'It is at the core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire. We also know that moral double standards sometimes guide certain reactions in the Arab world. If we start to stop using our right to the freedom of expression within our legal boundaries then we start to develop an appeasement mentality.'

The row now moved up a gear. With the re-publication of the cartoons, European newspapers were drawing a line in the sand, resisting the theoretical extensions of strictures in the Islamic world over the West- and what they felt was their own governments' weakness in the face of intimidation. If the 1988 Rushdie affair had been, at least in part, the attempt by a radical regime in Iran to extend a hypothetical authority over the West, the controversy over the cartoons could be seen as a similar exercise, on a bigger scale.

Köppel ran the story on Die Welt's front page under the headline 'Protests against Mohammad pictures successful', together with a blown-up version of the most provocative of Jyllands-Posten's cartoons, the one showing the prophet with his turban as a fizzing bomb.

There was little dissent among his staff. Next to it was Köppel's front-page commentary, asking: 'Is Islam...capable of satire?' This was not a 'clash of civilisations', Köppel argued. The Arab world couldn't have it both ways. Anti-semitism is rampant in much of the 'hypocritical' Middle East, the editor wrote, with Jewish rabbis depicted on prime-time Syrian TV as cannibals. In this context, he felt poking fun at Muhammad was fair enough. Three other newspapers in Germany also published the cartoons.

Analysts in Germany noted the rare consensus to publish on the left and right, explaining the nation's solidarity with beleaguered Denmark by pointing to an institutional pro-Israeli bias among German newspapers dating back to the post-Second World war era. Earlier this year the Christian Democrat-run state of Baden-Württemburg introduced what has been known as a 'Muslim' test, where Muslim applicants for German citizenship are questioned about their views on 9/11, gay relationships and whether their teenage daughters should be allowed to take part in swimming lessons.

In Paris, as their counterparts at Die Welt were planning their own pages, journalists at the offices of France Soir, an ailing tabloid based in an industrial estate in the north ofthe city, were also deciding that the cartoons should be published - for somewhat different reasons.

Arnaud Levy, 41, a senior editor, had realised from wire agency reports that the row over the cartoons was building into a major crisis - and a major story. Working late last Monday night, Levy mentioned the story to the foreign editor of the paper. Very soon, the two were deep in a discussion about the issue of liberty of expression and religion, recalling a series of other contentious cases in Europe such as the 2001 film Amen, by Costa-Gavras, a thriller which was highly critical of links between the Catholic church and the Nazis and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ.

The French approach was subtly different from that of the Germans. 'We recognised immediately that it was very sensitive,' Levy said. 'We knew we had to see the cartoons themselves before making any decision and we wanted to know more about the newspapers that had published them so far.'

At no time, Levy said, did the France Soir staff have any contact with anyone at any other newspapers also planning to publish the cartoons.

By the afternoon news conference last Tuesday, presided over by Serge Faubert, the paper's editor-in-chief, the background of the row had become clearer, though still no one had seen the cartoons. The debate between the half dozen men around the table was heated. Several journalists emphasised that extreme caution was required. Others said that though they understood the dogma prohibiting the representation of Muhammad, they did not live in an Islamic society. One pointed out that there were different interpretations of the dogma even within the Islamic world.

'If for the most rigorous, images of all humans are forbidden, should we follow that injunction too?' asked Levy. Without sight of the cartoons, no decision was taken, and France Soir's own artist set about preparing a cartoon showing a variety of deities saying that 'we've all been caricatured'.

Then, at 5.30pm, the picture desk announced they had finally got the cartoons. The senior staff crowded around and, after further discussion, Faubert decided to publish. 'This was a considered, thought-out, informed decision. Freedom of expression was at stake and though we know people might be hurt by what we were doing, we felt it was worth it,' said Levy yesterday.

The front page was cleared for the newspaper's own cartoon and the headline: 'Yes we have the right to caricature God.' The 12 Danish drawings - carefully framed by comment from a cleric and a campaigner for freedom of expression - ran across two pages. Soon editions of the paper, like those of Die Welt and several other publications in Italy and Spain, were on their way to the newstands.

Across Europe, dozens more newspapers, though none in Britain, prepared to republish some or all of the cartoons and scores of TV channels, including almost all the major French stations and the BBC, to broadcast images of them. What had been a relatively localised crisis was entering its final stage.

The reaction was immediate. As the news spread of the re-publication of the cartoons, a wave of anger rolled across the Islamic world. Gaza and the West Bank saw the biggest protests, as crowds organised by both Fatah and Hamas turned out en masse.

An imam at the Omari Mosque in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that the people behind the drawings should have their heads cut off. 'If they want a war of religions, we are ready,' Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon. In Ramallah, protesters burnt a Danish flag, chanting: 'Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up.'

'These countries claim that they are civilised and that they are democracies,' complained Anwar Muhammad, 30, a fruit seller, 'yet they do not reflect civilised values. This is pure racism.'

Yesterday the German flag was also burnt. Other groups took to the streets, from the Middle East to the Far East, from Indonesia to North Africa, often bending the offence to their own agendas.

In Pakistan, hundreds of activists from Islamic political parties set fire to French and Danish flags. Hundreds of Indonesian Muslims belonging to a hardline political group went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta. In Turkey, amid protests, a programme of Western opera was cancelled. In London, angry crowds demonstrated outside the Danish embassy with women in burkas shouting that '7/7 was coming again'.

If the question of the cartoons split the West, pitting partisans of freedom of expression against those favouring a more nuanced approach, many in the Islamic world were divided, though it was not immediate apparent from television broadcasts that spliced together all the most violent images.

In France, worshippers at mosques spoke of their hurt and, crucially, their hope that the laws of the French Republic should protect them. Leaders at all major mosques called for calm and 'dignity'. A Jordanian tabloid Al-Shihan chose to publish three of the images, a move that led to all copies being removed from the newsstands and its editor, Jihad Momani, being fired. 'Muslims of the world, be reasonable,' he had written in an editorial.

Most intriguing was the reaction of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shia cleric, who, while condemning the 'horrific' images, took time, in a posting on his website, to criticise those who had 'darkened' Islam's image.

'The problem with this issue,' said a Palestinian former European Union employee who asked not to be identified, 'is that... we should be demonstrating that we are strong and that this cannot damage Islam. Instead what we are showing is a sign of our extreme vulnerability.'

But such voices, even if more common than many think, are being drowned out by those who shout louder. A leading preacher in Saudi Arabia proclaimed: 'A great new spirit is flowing through the body of the Islamic nation... this world can no longer ignore this nation and its feelings,' Saleh bin Humaid said in a televised sermon at the Grand Mosque in the sacred Muslim city of Mecca.

Yesterday everyone - except those militants with a vested interest in keeping the controversy boiling - was trying to calm tempers. In France, President Chirac and Prime Minister de Villepin tried to tread a careful middle path, talking of the right of free speech and respect for religious belief. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, strongly condemned the re-publication of the cartoons, as did the American State Department.

'These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,' State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said. 'We all fully recognise and respect freedom of the press and expression, but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.'

In France, leaders of both the Catholic and the Jewish communities condemned the publication of the cartoons. 'Freedom of speech is never absolute. It entails responsibility and judgment,' said Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general. At last the peak of anger seemed to have past.

But even if this week does see a gradual lessening of tension, too many deep and troubling questions have been askedfor calm to return easily. For newspapers, there are questions over the new responsibility bought by an interconnected, broadband world - where no images anywhere are without consequences.

For broadcasters, there are questions about whether the representation of 1.3 billion Muslims by a few violent images taken from international agency reports is fair. For Western nations such as France, Germany and Britain, there are questions again about how the fundamentals of secular liberal democracy can be reconciled with religion and with large - and growing - minority communities for whom religion is a crucial part of their identity.

In the Muslim world beyond the West, there are profound questions, too. For regimes that routinely endorse anti-Semitic propaganda and which play on anti-Zionist sentiment, last week's events show the risks of demagoguery.

More broadly, it is clear that the correlation of the prophet and terrorism touched a raw nerve, exposing a profound sensitivity at street level regarding Western societies that are economically, military and politically more powerful and an ambivalent mixture of shame and pride in the young men who blow themselves up in Islam's name.

The profound sense in the Muslim world that the West is essentially anti-Islamic - which is a key recruiter for terrorism - has been reinforced. The controversy has also revealed to the growing role Islam plays in giving a voice to any sense of grievance, whether political, social or cultural.

But the real message of last week may be directed at moderates, at those without strong feelings either way, at those who believe that compromise and rationality solve most problems. And the question posed to these people is perhaps the hardest: how can one ensure that one's own voice is heard in a world where, increasingly, it is the provocative, the strident and the angry voices that dominate?

What they said...

'I have been hurt, grieved and I am angry.'
Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf

'There is freedom of speech, we all respect that, but there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory... I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong.'
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

'We'd take Muslim protests more seriously if they weren't so hypocritical... The imams were quiet when Syrian TV showed Jewish rabbis as cannibals in a primetime series.'
Berlin's Die Welt which republished one of the cartoons

'We didn't think the cartoons had crossed any line... We are the biggest newspaper in Denmark. We have always been the enfant terrible of the Danish press. Our cartoonists have made fun of politicians, Jesus and the Virgin Mary.'
Jan Lund, foreign editor of Danish Jyllands-Posten

'As much as we condemn this, we must have, as Muslims, the courage to forgive and to not make an issue... between religions or cultures.'
Afghan president Hamid Karzai

'This plays into the hands of Muslim extremists. Many people at Friday prayers will want to express their anger, but we say do it within the law.'
Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain

'If someone said something offensive about my mother, I would deal with it, but if they insulted the Prophet it would be worse.'
Abdullah Wahim, teacher, outside the Danish embassy in London

source: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus...702538,00.html

Craven Morehead · 02-05-2006, 10:16 AM

The cartoons can be found on this blog

About an hour ago, Wolf Blitzer showed the Saudi ambassador to the US several cartoons published in a Saudi neswpaper that portrayed Isreal and Jews very badly. The ambassador of course said he objected to them.

I have a bad feeling about this. If a group of people want to get upset and retaliate, they will be able to find enough to get pissed at.

Charlatan · 02-05-2006, 10:30 AM

Too me, this isn't really about the cartoons. Rather, the cartoons are a match in a pile of very dry tinder.

To point to the hooligans pictured above with signs calling for beheadings and the like, is like using pictures of neo-nazis protesting to sum up the feelings of the white majority. They are idiots who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No question.

Regarding the cartoons directly, yes you can cry freedom of speech, but was this an example of a responsible use of freedom of speech? I think Jack Straw has summed it up nicely: 'There is freedom of speech, we all respect that, but there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory... I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong.'

These cartoons only served to further divide an already divided community.

james t kirk · 02-05-2006, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlishsguy

james t kirk

since i am a muslim, i find your comments quite offensive. your stereotypical comments that paint all muslims with the same brush hardly seems like you put much thought into your words. you obviously dont have many muslim friends.

and for your information.. "muslims are a primitive culture" wtf???.. islam is not a culture, its a religion.. muslims happen to be followers of islam. get off whatever your on buddy.

seeing that tfp is such an open and liberal forum to voice one views, i find some membes comments quite disturbing.

No offense, but your religion needs a little work on the issue of tolerance.

Better yet, an entire reformation in order to lessen the locks on the way that so many (mind you not all) muslims think.

raeanna74 · 02-05-2006, 11:51 AM

After looking at those toons I cannot understand what about them warrents anything more than a complaint letter to the editor. Even a public protest seems outrageous. I don't care if you are an extremist Islamic or a moderate, you should not be condoning the actions of these protestors, let alone defending them. If anything you should be criticising them because they are protraying a worldwide image of a violent, intolerant religion. If Islam is not violent and intolerant then why am I not hearing any criticism from the islamic world over the protestors actions?

ktspktsp · 02-05-2006, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Too me, this isn't really about the cartoons. Rather, the cartoons are a match in a pile of very dry tinder.

Agreed. You know, the closer you are to an area where stuff like that is happening, the better you can see the different factors at play.

I woke up this morning to see that the Danish embassy in Beirut (my original hometown) was burned down. After the initial shock, and reading up on this demonstration-turned-violent, I can see the different aspects of it:

1) Fringe extremist groups (mostly from outside Beirut) were bused in.
2) 2/3 of those arrested (basically the ones that were agitating things) were Syrian and Palestinian (though probably the majority of those demonstrating where Lebanese Sunnis, not Shias (i.e. not Hizbullah at this point)).
3) Rocks were thrown at a nearby church.

So, analyzing that, I can tie it to the troubles we've had since the Syrians were forced to withdraw; the fact that they still have agents in Lebanon trying to forment troubles (and that they are locked in a conflict with Western powers at this time), the fact that Palestinians are still mostly-unwelcome-guests, many of them with weapons. There's also the crossing of a red line by throwing stones at a church which very few groups would actually do in Lebanon, there's the situation of the fringe religious groups in economically deprived areas of the country, who have had clashes with the government before, etc..

So, basically, there's a lot more at play here than just cartoons -> burnt embassies. I only know this much detail about Lebanon, but I can imagine there are complexities like those in every country where this is happening..

Simplistic analysis, such as "Damn Muslim world, hating the freedom of the press, fighting the West because of some cartoons" is not useful.

Charlatan · 02-05-2006, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74

After looking at those toons I cannot understand what about them warrents anything more than a complaint letter to the editor. Even a public protest seems outrageous. I don't care if you are an extremist Islamic or a moderate, you should not be condoning the actions of these protestors, let alone defending them. If anything you should be criticising them because they are protraying a worldwide image of a violent, intolerant religion. If Islam is not violent and intolerant then why am I not hearing any criticism from the islamic world over the protestors actions?

I don't think most moderates would defend the violence... Protest, yes but not the violence.

Think about the protests in Seattle, not too long ago. There were many who supported the protests in principle but not the violence the ultimately errupted.

Again, this isn't just about the cartoons. There has been a lot more leading up to this... the cartoons are just an excuse to release the pressure that has been building up. Remember that freedom of press and speech do not exist in many of these nations. As a result, there isn't room for moderate dissent in the press. In many cases, the only place where dissenting voices are allowed to be heard are in the Mosques. The moderates have been largely marginalized while the more radical elements have been allowed to fourish.

As ktspktsp points out, the situation is not as simple nor as cut and dry as a similar set of events would play out in the west.

canuckguy · 02-05-2006, 12:15 PM

i think some of this is just an excuse to cause violence. I don't think there is anything you could write or draw in the paper that would drive me to burn down buildings and call for peoples heads. although i'm not fucking insane either.

xepherys · 02-05-2006, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlishsguy

james t kirk

since i am a muslim, i find your comments quite offensive. your stereotypical comments that paint all muslims with the same brush hardly seems like you put much thought into your words. you obviously dont have many muslim friends.

and for your information.. "muslims are a primitive culture" wtf???.. islam is not a culture, its a religion.. muslims happen to be followers of islam. get off whatever your on buddy.

seeing that tfp is such an open and liberal forum to voice one views, i find some membes comments quite disturbing.

While I agree that a more in-depth understanding of Islam would be a good groundstone for james t kirk, I also have a tendancy to agree with a lot of the points in this thread that have been posted by, AFAIK, generally white westerners. So, here are the facts as I see them:

Let's take iraq alone, for a moment, as that seems to be where Americans focus most of their distrust of Muslims lately. First, while Muslims are the majority remember that there are different backgrounds and cultures within that, and that there are also Christian religions and religions that are neither Muslim or Christian. You have Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs. You also have Shi'ite and Sunni Kurds. These peoples, even where a religion is shared, generally do not like each other. The Arabs feel the Kurds are an inferior people. The Kurds feel the Arabs oppress them unneccesarily. Then you have the Christian and Jewish Kurds... who generally also get along (within the tolerance of any social group) with Muslim Kurds and face the same persecution from Arabs (that is more racially based rather than religiously). Then you have Assyrians... some of whom speak Arabic, and some who speak Kurdish and some who even speak, if you can believe it... Aramaic. Some Jewish Kurds also speak this language. Now language, in and of itself, can be a huge marker for distaste and intolerance in the regions of Northern Iraq. You have Yazidis, which come from Kurdish stock and speak Kurdish, but are of a quite different culture and religious group (neither Muslim nor Christian). If this is confusing, there's more... There are two distinct dialects of Kurdish that are different enough to prevent fluent conversation (similar to Mandarin and Cantonese). There are also various madhhab (four I believe) of Sunni Muslims, Arabs generally belonging to Hanafi (stemming from the time Iraq was ruled by the Ottoman empire) and Kurds are generally Shaf‘i (which is futher broken down into two mystical sects that equate to something akin to Western political parties, but in a religious sense). Now mind you there are also additional religious, linguistic and cultural groups and sub-groups not listed here. The fact that the region is still populated at all shows that tolerance IS POSSIBLE within these vast groups of people.

So what was the point of all of the above? It is this...

There is certainly war and trouble within Christian countries, both between Christians ans Christians and between Christians and non-Christians. They are not a 100% peaceful people either. HOWEVER, historically speaking, there is a larger sheer number of occurances of extreme violence within the Muslim world, and to the same point, involoving the Middle East as a whole. Outside of the Crusades, Christians have never gone into a "holy war" and declared that God Himself dictated that rape and slaughter of the innocent was not only acceptbale, but part of their path to Heaven. Even during the Crusades, this type of practice, while it occured, was generally frowned upon. In the Muslim world, this type of thing is ALSO generally frowned upon, but the extremists have a much higher fervor regarding their religion than Christian extremists.

The end result of all of this is my opinion... which is that I do believe that military action to stop the slaughter of the innocent at the hands of Saddam Hussein was acceptable. I also believe that military force to stop Al Qeida in Afghanistan was acceptable. HOWEVER, I believe (even as a soldier) that the on-going war in Iraq is bullshit. It may, however, be partially nessecary bullshit, as many Iraqis truly DO want to have a more democratic nation. I don't, however, support George W. Bush as our President and/or Commander-in-Chief. I think he's a pompous ass, and that his outright lying does nothing but embarass us in the world's eye view. So... less tolerance for extremists... more tolerance for non... better understanding (all the way around) of everyone else's position, and less political bullshit.

How's that for a long-winded post?

DJ Happy · 02-06-2006, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelicVampire

Was their initial reason not to see if the artists would self censor themselves? Something that a lot of people seem to do in relation to Islam far more than they do for say Christianity (just look at the GIS I posted, imagine "Muhammed Lol" as a picture series?).

That was their reason for asking people to submit the cartoons. Their reason for publishing them was to see how far Muslims could be provoked, to "test the limits of acceptance," as they put it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelicVampire

Its hardly a childish example. Is printing images of the Japanese/Chinese war offensive (lots of corpses, mass graves etc?), its a historical fact which the Japanese basically say didn't happen... am I offending them? Or perhaps we should ensure that all Western women wear Burkhas outside for fear of upsetting Islam?

It is a very childish example. There are no truths here. This is not historical fact. We don't even know if this is a standpoint shared by the newspaper. All they were interested in was to offend and gauge reaction.

DJ Happy · 02-06-2006, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74

After looking at those toons I cannot understand what about them warrents anything more than a complaint letter to the editor. Even a public protest seems outrageous. I don't care if you are an extremist Islamic or a moderate, you should not be condoning the actions of these protestors, let alone defending them. If anything you should be criticising them because they are protraying a worldwide image of a violent, intolerant religion. If Islam is not violent and intolerant then why am I not hearing any criticism from the islamic world over the protestors actions?

Because the Western media can't be bothered to report it and because you're not looking hard enough.

A Saudi newspaper published in English

AngelicVampire · 02-06-2006, 06:45 AM

Wow, thanks DJ, that truly was enlightening... the whole west is weakening and a neocon said 'lets put a small country up against the wall and slap it around'. Ohh and the lovely non-insulting cartoon (obviously the west are uncaring business men simply throwing their money around at the aid machine).

Now let me go get my crusade hat, I feel a slapping around coming on.

percy · 02-06-2006, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clavus

Stop with trying to say that an offended Western Society would react like these crazy, murderous motherfuckers. We wouldn't.

If this has so lttle importance as you and others have suggested and since you can draw, why don't you do a caricature of God sitting next to a comatose Ariel Sharon saying, " Damn it, I wasn't aiming for you. My global tracking is on the blink again." Then take that to the World Jewish Congress or a syndicated paper for print and see if you get a laugh.

It seems most people have missed the point. These cartoons were purposely commission to spark outrage which it has done. But since we aren't offended means that those offended shouldn't be either. It's just a cartoon right? If anyone of you had your mother in a cartoon with two big black guys banging her senseless while a rabbi is charging admission and the caption stated your mother saying, "I can just imagine how much of a turn on this must have been before desegregation" would you just say it's a cartoon? Who other than you might be offended? Would anyone have the right to be offended?

The cartoons were unprofessional, ignorant and immature. So is the reactionary violence. Condemning one without the other is juvenile.

roachboy · 02-06-2006, 08:28 AM

i would like to point out something rather depressing--and dangerous if this thread represents anything like an index of how folk are thinking about this extended donnybrook over the cartoons.

this is not so much about the positions one could take relative to the cartoons/reactions as it is about recurring structural features of the reactions here to the protests triggered by the cartoons.

on the controversy itself, none of it surprises in principle (in fact it does a bit)--i only wish that the cartoons had been smarter so that debate over questions of free speech vs. racism could be played out on better grounds.

what is clear is that these cartoons have been instrumentalized by all sides: the various demos over the weekend in particular are obviously motivated by a wide range of broad political agendas that are understood to dovetail with reaction to this matter: that regimes like syria, for example, leans heavily on the discourse of the "infidel" to prop itself up is evident. same with iran. same with the saudis. the mirror image of this operates in western contexts, however---in the states, the bush administration has trafficked in the same type of racist nonsense dressed up in elements drawn from religious discourse since 9/11/2001--in europe, you have a longer-term mobilization on parallel grounds undertaken by neofascist organizations (the relation between european neofascism and mainstream republican ideology is interesting...and it is no surprise that american conservatives "deal with it" by refusing to look)--the problem is the racist content itself--but more so that it is not socially marked as racist, and so operates as a prefabricated discursive structure that folk can adopt in particular situations. this adoption triggers a repetition of the central features of the discourse, which results in racist interpretations--regardless of the personal committments of those who adopt it.

in 2006, it is quite easy to avoid antisemitism because one knows that it is bad. it has been coded as bad--the sorry experience of the 20th century demonstrated its dangers by pushing the reaction to a very old discourse within euro-christianity to its horrifying conclusions. but apparently this coding of antisemtism as bad applies only to its surface features: when it comes to the type of argument, operating in a different context, aimed at another group, the problem is not evident.

in many of the posts above, you find an image of "radical islam" or "jihadists" which function as a stand-in for islam as a whole.
this signifier in turn defines muslims as the enemy within and without, powerless and all powerful, distant and an immediate threat...it is the signifiers around which reactionary notions of community have been posited: if the Enemy is muslim and, in the main, brown, then it follows that the community threatened is also defined on religious and racial lines.
so the "them" is some hallucinatory image of militant fundamentalists that stands in for anything like coherent thinking about a religion that encompasses about 20% of the earth's population.
and the "us" by default is white and christian.
the conflict is then religious war.
the triggers are double: in particular "random" acts of violence; in general fear of "invasion" of the "us".

in the states, the first is dominant--in western europe, amongst those influenced by neofascist discourse directly or indirectly the second is dominant (the scope of that discourse is much wider than is the support for neofascist organizations--try to think of how chirac's law banning the wearing of the veil in schools could have been promulgated except in this kind of discursive context--an action that "protects" the secualr french state from invasion by the muslim hoardes....)

in ths states,a reductive and basically racist image of islam has been central to the bush administration's policies and marketing of those policies since it was handed what can only be seen as the gift of 9/11/2001. the central operational trope is obviously the "terrorist"--a fiction the content of which is filled in via television imagery (decontextualized, arbitrary images of violence) and fleshed out via the vast range of mediocrities who dominate conservative punditry--from the "respectable" version (huntington's "clash of civilizations" model) to the inane (the ann coulter school of thinking religious warfare)----this signifier has been central to the bush administration's marketing of itself and its republican supporters to the public--vote kerry and die, remember?---its logic is repeated endlessly, drifting in and out of "news" as the set of framing conceits around footage, for example, surfacing as a central line of demarcation between far right and everyone else, in speeches by dick cheney during the last campaign in particular...

you get the entire range of possibilities recycled above in this thread---it is a "respectable" form of racism, pre-articulated and available that folk can reproduce explicitly (pace ustwo or the lovely "diaperheads" crack above) or implicitly). and it operates despite superficial denials.

it is racist, but we dont call it that so...well....we dont have to exercise circumspection.
this is how it has traditionally worked, folks: racist pseudo-explanations knit themselves into the "common sense" of people who experience anxieties about a range of factors (economic stability, social position in a changing world, "the war on terror" particularly in the way the bushpeople stage it--that is as unmotivated politically, as a conflcit between good (white christians) and evil (brown muslims) etc. etc. etc.). it functions to shape projections based in these anxieties onto others in the world. it is an example of the usage of racism as a kind of collective therapy, a way of avoding political dimensions, of displacing it onto a different register.

it is most strange to see folk who i do not imagine to be racist as human beings using this kind of logic to unfold fundamentally offensive interpretations of this controversy over the cartoons. if you want to defend press freedom against these protests, then there is no need to move from that into projections about the "enemy"--but since there is no social sanction that accompanies this move, folk do it.

so it follows that, apparently, racism that is not coded as such is ok.

Astrocloud · 02-06-2006, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AngelicVampire

Wow, thanks DJ, that truly was enlightening... the whole west is weakening and a neocon said 'lets put a small country up against the wall and slap it around'. Ohh and the lovely non-insulting cartoon (obviously the west are uncaring business men simply throwing their money around at the aid machine).

Now let me go get my crusade hat, I feel a slapping around coming on.

My favorite is if you follow the link in the bottom right corner of the newspaper... They boldly ignore the facts on 9/11 and publish their own.

http://www.arabnews.com/9-11/

At some point we are going to have to admit that they hate us because they are ignorant. More-over they have their own Supremacist views. We aren't worthy of having a dialogue with them -because we are on a level so beneath them.

So what is the solution? Move the dialogue into a more mocking tone. Our freedom MUST exist unchecked by their hatred. Remove our reliance on any part of their economy ie. stop the oil based economy. Let their economies suffer while ours thrive.

Maybe, it's just a dream.

Charlatan · 02-06-2006, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

My favorite is if you follow the link in the bottom right corner of the newspaper... They boldly ignore the facts on 9/11 and publish their own.

http://www.arabnews.com/9-11/

Can you post some specific examples? I took a cursory glance and didn't find anything overly outrageous (no more than some of the exagerations I've seen in western publications about the middle east).

Astrocloud · 02-06-2006, 10:46 AM

I found a translation of the original complaint made by a group of Danish Muslims that toured muslim countries looking for support. The translator makes comments in red. I have found the three original pictures which were not included in the newspapers -but which the Danish Muslims used as examples to incite the world's muslims.

The translation is here
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the...ish_letter.pdf

The Extra photos are from Wikipedia

Quote:

Here is what the Danish Islamic priest told religious and political leaders of the Middle East. This is the first pages of a 40 page case file compiled by the Danish Imams. It contained the 12 cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten, plus 30 more drawings, of much more severe character, unknown origin, which has never been published in Jyllands-Posten. Remember, that this was they said in writing. We don not know what they spoke, but within Arabic tradition, they probably did overdo it a lot, hence the fierce reactions in the Muslim world.
Please note: The following translation was first made from Arabic to Danish by the Danish daily Ekstra Bladet, then translated from Danish to English. I’m not a translator, nor skilled in English. My remarks to the lies of the priests are put in ITALIC types.

Background. The Imam Abu Laban was the architect behind the delegations to the Middle East. Abu Laban is well known to have widespread contact within terrorist circles in the Middle East.
The Muslim felt overlooked, because their sue against the Jyllands-Posten for blasphemy failed, and deliberately set out the teach secular Denmark and Europe a lesson the would never forget. This it typical aggression policy, and the end goal was to change legislation towards implementing Sharia law in to European communities.

Case file about support for the prophet Muhammad (PUHB)

I the name of good the merciful
Start:
Thanks to good, the ruler of the worlds, and may peace be with the last prophet, etc, etc,etc….
We, Muslims living in the kingdom of Denmark, we present our conditions in this country, which are situated in the northern part of Europe, and is one of the Scandinavian countries, to whom it may concern and to each and every Muslim.
This country has it own language. The rule is constitutional Monarchy. The country consists of a number of islands, the capitol is Copenhagen, the number of citizens a 5 millions and most of them are protestants (Christian). Even though they belong to the Christian faith, the secularizations have overcome them, and if you say that they are all infidels, then you are not wrong.
Muslim emigrants (Turks) and refugees from countries crushed by wars (Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon) has migrated to this country, and thus is Denmark’s interaction with foreigners, and especially those who have an other religion, something rather new, which has happened through past 20-30 years, well knowing, that the number of Muslims possible is 170.000
The faithful in their religion (Muslims) suffer under a number of circumstances, first and foremost the lack of official recognition of the Islamic faith. (This is not true) Which lead to a lot of problems, especially the lack of right to build mosks (Another lie, everybody is free to build, when municipal rules are followed), and the true believers are forced in to converting former business building and warehouses to place of worship.
Among these conditions you find an atmosphere, which nourish a growing racism, which grow worse after the 9/11 incidents. And it, the racism, has many different expressions, but common for them all is that they speak badly about Islam. (Sometimes the talk of the veil, circumcising etc.) Speaking badly here, is raising our voice in being critical of Islamic values in Denmark

The crown of the works was the pictures of so-called drawings, which shows the prophet (PUBH) in a disgusting and outrageous way. The circumstances of this case is, that after many artist, out of fear from Muslim reactions, has declined to draw the prophet to the cover of a book about Islam, the Jyllands-Posten objected to this reluctantly to make the drawings, and as they deliberately wanted to challenge. An other lie, the did not want to offend anybody, and is was not a competition, and the cartoonists was asked to draw what their feeling of Islam was. The feelings of the Muslims then did the following covering up behind the excuse of free speech and democracy. They wrote to 40 cartoonists and challenged them to compete about the best drawing. Not a competition – a requestMost of did not respond; only 12 did. Next they (the paper) published those drawings (on September 30. th 2005). The pictures was accompanied by the editors remarks, which in short was about, that Muslims should accept this kind of satire, because this is one of the cornerstones in democracy, which ensures the freedom of speech. They therefore have not to feel offended, on equal terms of others who are being subject of satire.
Because of the seriousness of the situation, most Muslim unions and centers called for a meeting on Sunday 2. October to agreed upon number of actions to counter the hard attack, (from the newspaper) which had the intention of degrading the most glory full of persons in life (The prophet PUBH).
- The gathered agreed on forming a committee for support of the prophet Mohammad (PUBH) and announce Sheik Rais Huleihil to chairman of the committee.
- The criticism of what was said in the newspaper is represented by a statement of the wise, which was translated to Danish, but only fragments of it was published.
- A call to Muslims on participating in raising their voice to the newspaper in their own way, and to the medias at hand, to tell them that this cause represent a red thread for all Muslims, and not only the wise.
- Direct demands for an apology from the newspaper, and promises of that is would never happen again, and in future to respect all that is holy to the Muslims.(Follow sharia law)

- Collecting signatures among the Muslims against the newspapers actions on one side, and furthermore for support of the Muslim unions initiative to counterattack this and other attacks.
- Sending letters to political persons and political parties, to inform them of the seriousness of the situation, so that they can do their duty.
- Contact local and global medias, especially because they ignored the issue so far.
When we did not get the wanted response from the responsible persons at the paper, and after the Danish PM on purpose ignored the Islamic ambassadors request for at meeting with him,(the ambassadors requested the newspaper to be punished, therefore the PM rejected the meeting) we asked for a second meeting at October 9 th 2005, from which a statement was issued to local and global medias.

After the al-Djazira TV channel had broadcasted this news, the newspaper stepped up the conflict be reserving extra space on its homepage, with the headline “The pictures of the prophet” In additions the newspaper, very unusually, wrote an article in Arabic with the headline “The free word”, (Where the paper tried to explain what democracy and freedom of speech means) and it presented what al-Djazira had broadcasted, but insisted on their standpoint and stepped up the number of pages to cover this subject, with the purpose of giving space for them who were in support of the paper, and they presented the case as if it was freedom against suppression. (In reality, the paper called for Muslim views on the subject and reserved 1 – 2 more pages daily for Muslim readers to express their view. Many came forward, and never have we in Denmark head this much from the Muslim community, but the debate and the letters of opinion wan not on the side of the mullahs)

Among the noteworthy developments is the European Unions support to the Danish PM’s standpoint on not to meet with the Muslim ambassadors, because he claim not to interfere, due to his claim of that constitution does not allow this. (Indeed it doesn’t. It is put in the constitution that the government cannot interfere in what the free press writes)

On this background the Islamic organizations released a new statement, which demanded the Muslim world to intervene, now that the issue had become international, and because the issue had to do with our prophet (PUBH), and this concerns all Muslims in the world not only the Danish Muslims, because we can not allow any form of slogan, or apology, in this kind of insult of our prophet.
The case was dealt with at state leadership level in the Muslim world, as shown in the following argument.
Several conditions made our pain and anger greater:
1. The ridicule of Islam and its followers has become an easily distributed commodity, thus an almost closed newspaper published pictures which were much more offending at November 11, probably to regain its popularity, and this paper is the “Weekendavisen”.
(These was clippings from various satire columns, and in fact a lot milder that the Jyllands-Posten drawings)
2. Muslims in this period received, and especially those who participated in protest of the printing of the drawings, different letter which in subject differed between threads and degeneration of Islam itself through attack on the Koran, as the claimed that it was invented, and they repeated the attacks on the prophet (PUBH) by sending animated pictures which was much more offending, and which can only come from a deep hatred to Islam itself as a religion. (The drawing show a praying Muslim being raped by a dog, Mohammad as a pig ect. Those pictures had not been in the papers, their origin is unknown)

3. Denmark greeted the Dutch author of Somali decent, who is the author of the film, that degrades Islam, and whose producer was killed recently in Holland. The reception for her was a continuation of the aggression especially because she gave an interview to Danish television where she talked about Islam in a degrading way. And the most strange is, that the prime minister, which said no to meet with the ambassadors, welcomed her and awarded her with a price, just as he showed his approval of her courageous points of view, and that he supported her fee opinions. So now you se how it is….(Yes – Denmark decided to award her, as a tribute to the free right of artists expressing themselves)

Because of this, the organization called for a new meeting, where it was decided to put together several delegations, which should visit the Islamic world, with the intention of informing them about the danger of the situation, and get them to participate in the defense of support of our prophet (PUBH)
Our delegations visited the Republic of Egypt, and held a number of good and very positive meetings:

A meeting with the ministry of foreign affairs, whose minister declared to the press, that this insult of Islam from the Danish press, is a scandal, and the promised to take up the matter at the Arabic Conference and with the Arabic Leque.
- A meeting with the general secretary for the Arabic Leque, which was very positive
- A meeting with al-Azhar’s sheik, whom reacted to the issue, and demanded a priority meeting at al-Azhar’s research center, to stop the attack.
- A meeting with the Egyptian Grand Mufti, which resulted in issuing a fatwa about boycotting Denmark, if the country did not, redrew its actions.
The meeting at the research center resulted in a statement on January 8 Th, which condemned these actions, and described it as an attack on Islam, which broke all borders for acceptable communications in dialogue. The statement made it clear, that they would take contact to relevant committees at the United nations, and to human right organizations in the defense of the right of the individual, and the protection of the cultural diversity, because one doesn’t want to promote the culture of hatred, and the demise of other people.
In the end we ask upon everybody that is eager to join the defense and support of the prophet. Seeking by all means which are available to establish a legislation, which guarantied the respect for all that which is holy in particular the Muslims holy places in a time where it has become easy to hit their holy places in cover of the fight of terror.
(This head towards implementing the Sharia law in Europe, especially Denmark)

And finally the pictures which were not included in the Danish Newspaper but were claimed to have been printed by this group:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Can you post some specific examples? I took a cursory glance and didn't find anything overly outrageous (no more than some of the exagerations I've seen in western publications about the middle east).

Um, sure. Although I don't have a lot of time to read something and cherry pick what I think will be offensive to that person... Try this:

Quote:

Dr.S.Amin, Dear Mr.Rashed, The 9-11 was a long pre planned event by an Israeli & a US task team.They did plenty of blunders and this event can not be swallowed through media propaganda alone.If the US Task teams can kill their own president Kennedy,if they can sink their own ship to attack Cuba,if they can plan with Israel to sink US Liberty to attack Egypt,If they can arrange attack on US Cole, US Embassies in Tanzania & Kenya to attack their targets,if they can kill their own diplomats in Warsaw to lodge Sanctions & offensive on the USSR,if they can lodge a bio powder attack on their own senator who was a sore in the A & THEN SHUFFLE THE game around,if they can instigate Japan through trap to enter into a nuclear offensive in the WW-II,if they can bring Saddam to attack Kuwait as the Desert Storm was being perfected in the US deserts 17 years before Saddam's offensive,if killing of millions in Hiroshima-Nagasaki & then without a remorse in Veitnam soonafter,then in every part of the world in every dispute in every genocide was a hidden agenda,destroying of USSR No 2=Yugoslavia through Bosnia drama,co- planned and assigned to MI-5 UK, April meetings in Europe with Afghan lords, A.Shah Masood with Abdullah Abdullah sitting next to him photograph saved in my P.C Lost to P.C virus & the agenda points even made me store it, as it was some thing fishy & serious,a planning later i' realised was a prep class for 9-11,even getting rid of A.Shah Masood as he was not so fit for the Afghan plan.The Sudan -Darfoor,Venezuela,Iran,N.Korea,Syria grudge cramps,AND THE LIST WILL NEVER END TILL THE US WILL END ,NOT THROUGH ISLAM,BUT THROUGH ITS OWN BLUNDERS,FOLLIES,MEDIA & ZIONIST HIJACKING,USSR STYLE BULDOZING,DOUBLE STANDARDS OF DEMOCRACY-JUSTICE-CIVILISATION-FOREIGN POLICY... Please be Aware & make no mistake about it that ISLAM DOES NOT PREACH OR APPROVE ANY OF THE MODERN DAY TERROR ACTS.THese are the Israeli -US models paid and organised by them in various settings to spread hatred against Islamic Symbols of KALIMA,MUSLIM DRESSES,BEARD,CAPS,SLOGAN OF ALLAH HO AKBAR, SELECTED STAGE SHOWS.ISRAEL EXPORTED IT TO INDIA FOR THEIR INDIAN-PARLIAMENT 9-11,which the Indians don't wan't outside help to investigate into.The Israeli's after a couple of friendly exchanges helped them to forge their own 9-11 in Beslan. The US Uses the Chechnians to pinch the russians when the dont liston to Israel or the US.The UK's Govt still wants to play evil but majority of the non-elite public is fed up of the war crime,genocide,blood for oil & minerals games eg in Nigeria,Ivory coast,Angola... I urge you to either write for the Arab News or Al Shaq Al Awsat or present for Al-Arbia & please kindly not for the Us-Israel's present BUNDLE OF LIES-PROPAGANDA PLATFORM & NEITHER TO SACRIFICE THE WHOLE ISLAMIC WORLD & THE RELIGION-ISLAM TO PROOVE YOUR STAY & EDUCATION IN THE WEST INDEMNIFIES THE WEST FOR THEIR MISTAKES. Finally Islam & The Muslims Condemn The Present wave of Terrorism.Which is a WAR against Islam by its enemies.The whole ISLAMIC WORLD KNOWS WHO ARE BACKING THESE TERRORISTS.NEITHER WILL THE 9-11 DRAMA BE EVER BELIEVED AS SUCH & these events being repeated time after time after time again.THE US

trickyy · 02-06-2006, 10:59 AM

thanks, i posted something about this 2 pages ago and no one had any more information.

abaya · 02-06-2006, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeanna74

Hey, let's not forget that those buildings held several thousand CIVILIANS doing their daily paper pushing jobs. It wasn't a symbol, it wasn't a picture, it was innocent people.

I have been at ktspktsp's all weekend and unable to answer posts (from his computer); see his posts for a more detailed treatment of the topic than I can offer.

I am not sure if it is doing any good to post here anyway, since this has long since turned into a thread worthy of the Politics board rather than General Discussion...

I will, however, address the last posts addressed to me. Do not get me wrong: I do not minimize the attacks of 9/11. However, do you think the reaction of the American people would have been any less severe if the attacks had happened in the middle of the night, and very few people had actually been killed? Probably not. We would have reacted the same way regardless of numbers dead, *because* of the symbolic value. The attackers knew how to push our buttons; the Danes and other Europeans certainly know how to push theirs.

Before we go counting the numbers of *our* innocent dead, how about those dead in the Middle East as a result of the West fumbling around there for god knows how long? The role of the British Empire? Israel? "Collateral damage" of the war in Iraq? How many dead brown people count for one dead person in the WTC? We may like to say that "it wasn't a symbol, it wasn't a picture, it was innocent people," but who is to say that the Muslim fanatics can't see themselves saying the same things, and feel justified?

As I have said before on this thread, I am NOT advocating the use of violence as a viable form of protest, by any means. HOWEVER: instead of polarizing ourselves with simplistic statements, I believe it would do us well to see how goddamn complicated this whole situation is, and that people on BOTH sides believe they have entirely valid reasons for what they are doing.

Now, whether or not those beliefs are correct, is something else. I'd rather condemn the actions of both than say that one is morally superior, however.

P.S. Free press? How would any of you respond to someone publishing child pornography on the front page of the NYTimes? We censor that kind of thing, but why should we, since that's limiting the right of the press (using many people's arguments here)?... I hope you see my point.

Charlatan · 02-06-2006, 11:12 AM

Astro... that is a letter from a reader, not something published by the newspaper itself. The whole point DJ Happy was trying to make was that there are moderate points of view in the Arab press and populace.

The article in this publication are decidedly moderate. To get irate about letters to the editor is kind of pointless, I can point to any number of similarly held conspiracy theories held by people in the west (some even posted on this website).

Charlatan · 02-06-2006, 11:19 AM

Another point to consider about many of the protests over the weekend. Most were peaceful. Some were not.

Let's have a look at the protests that have occured in the US, UK, France, Spain and Canada over the past 10 years... how many of these protests were hijacked by idiots who then proceeded to get violent. Some, not all.

Should we say then that all those who would protest Globalization (for example) are violent? That all people living in countries that have had protests like these are uncivilized barbarians? The answer is no (in case you couldn't do the math).

What the media shows us is a couple of shots of peaceful protest followed by inflamatory scenes of violence. The violence is way more titilating and therefore it is "the story to follow".

Astrocloud · 02-06-2006, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Astro... that is a letter from a reader, not something published by the newspaper itself. The whole point DJ Happy was trying to make was that there are moderate points of view in the Arab press and populace.

The article in this publication are decidedly moderate. To get irate about letters to the editor is kind of pointless, I can point to any number of similarly held conspiracy theories held by people in the west (some even posted on this website).

Repeat (since someone didn't read it the first time around)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

Although I don't have a lot of time to read something and cherry pick what I think will be offensive to that person...

Charlatan · 02-06-2006, 12:16 PM

I must be missing the point you are trying to make...

Quote:

My favorite is if you follow the link in the bottom right corner of the newspaper... They boldly ignore the facts on 9/11 and publish their own.

http://www.arabnews.com/9-11/

Here you seem to be indicating that Arab News is boldly ignoring the facts about 9/11 and publishing their own.

Then when I asked you to point to an example of this you posted a letter to the editor.

What am I missing?

I've now read more than a few articles from the Arab News, including a few in the area dedicated 9/11. Their articles are quite reasonable and spend time shooting down the kinds of conspiracies that your letter to the editor espouses.

If your beef is with the publication, please show me the article that pissed you off, as I can't seem to find it.

If your beef is with the readers who are posting replies to the articles, then I agree. Many of these letter writters are off their nut. But again, I can find just as many nuts in the west with bad information and an axe to grind.

The point DJ Happy was making was that Arab News is a moderate publication.

Astrocloud · 02-06-2006, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I must be missing the point you are trying to make...

Here you seem to be indicating that Arab News is boldly ignoring the facts about 9/11 and publishing their own.

Then when I asked you to point to an example of this you posted a letter to the editor.

What am I missing?

I've now read more than a few articles from the Arab News, including a few in the area dedicated 9/11. Their articles are quite reasonable and spend time shooting down the kinds of conspiracies that your letter to the editor espouses.

If your beef is with the publication, please show me the article that pissed you off, as I can't seem to find it.

If your beef is with the readers who are posting replies to the articles, then I agree. Many of these letter writters are off their nut. But again, I can find just as many nuts in the west with bad information and an axe to grind.

The point DJ Happy was making was that Arab News is a moderate publication.

Dude, you are baiting me. This is off topic. Start a new topic and debate me there.

abaya · 02-06-2006, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanxter

i just don't understand how some people that raid villages, embassies, burn down neighborhoods or bomb cafes are any better than those that looted new orleans except for the fact they're doing it in the name of their god with his blessing...

They're not any better. But nor are they any worse. It is precisely because of the material conditions of both groups that any ideology of violence or looting becomes justifiable, not the other way 'round. I ask people on this thread to carefully examine the infrastructure (material conditions), NOT the superstructure of the cultures involved (e.g. religious/free press ideology) for answers to this debate.

Most social science issues come down to material conditions and inequality; everything else grows out of that, including religion.

I am a cultural-materialist anthropologist to the core, and this Danish cartoon issue has only confirmed this stance.

abaya · 02-06-2006, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by karsey

This is just a small sample of a few of the negative Muslim stories that can easily be found through a quick search through any of the major media outlets. And this is the climate in which these sacrilegious drawings of Mohammed appear. Given this climate and the tense post-9/11 and Iraq War global atmosphere, even the most ardent defender of Jyllands-Posten’s actions must accept that the publication of these drawings was, at the very least, extremely naïve.

... did anyone even notice Karsey's response to the thread, quoted above? (#84, on this page). It is very helpful for understanding the Danish side of things.

And please see ktspktsp's posts to understand the complexity of the other side (at least, the Lebanese one). These and other intelligent responses are getting pushed aside by all the shouting in this thread...

FoolThemAll · 02-06-2006, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by percy

The cartoons were unprofessional, ignorant and immature. So is the reactionary violence. Condemning one without the other is juvenile.

Yes.

But there is a very large difference in magnitude. Condemning them equally is insane.

Ustwo · 02-06-2006, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

They're not any better. But nor are they any worse. It is precisely because of the material conditions of both groups that any ideology of violence or looting becomes justifiable, not the other way 'round. I ask people on this thread to carefully examine the infrastructure (material conditions), NOT the superstructure of the cultures involved (e.g. religious/free press ideology) for answers to this debate.

Most social science issues come down to material conditions and inequality; everything else grows out of that, including religion.

I am a cultural-materialist anthropologist to the core, and this Danish cartoon issue has only confirmed this stance.

This is utterly wrong.

Most of the terrorists do not come from poverty, and many come from very well off families (Osma being the very classic example).

Its not poverty that makes one a violent asshole, its culture, be it the culture of the ghetto in New Orleans, or the death cult that is modern Islamic thought.

02-04-2006, 07:16 PM	#81 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	This is funny at first.... Its in the Koran Then its scary, because its 100% true. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

02-04-2006, 08:11 PM	#82 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	I could do a cartoon about Jesus Christ fucking Robert E Lee in the ass on the steps of Radio City Music Hall and nobody would burn a building. Stop with trying to say that an offended Western Society would react like these crazy, murderous motherfuckers. We wouldn't. __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

02-05-2006, 05:10 AM	#88 (permalink)
thingstodo A Storm Is Coming Location: The Great White North	For something that's supposed to be so good for people, religion sures creates a huge mess with the world. __________________ If you're wringing your hands you can't roll up your shirt sleeves. Stangers have the best candy.

02-05-2006, 09:36 AM	#92 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	The old adage comes to mind: Don't wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty. He enjoys it. Not to call religious extremists pigs in any way, but they do have many large, poorly balanced chips on their collective shoulder, and killing seems to be in fashion. Nor am I suggesting the non-fanatical roll over and be walked upon, but this cartoon exercise seems like a pointless mud-pit. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

02-05-2006, 10:30 AM	#95 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Too me, this isn't really about the cartoons. Rather, the cartoons are a match in a pile of very dry tinder. To point to the hooligans pictured above with signs calling for beheadings and the like, is like using pictures of neo-nazis protesting to sum up the feelings of the white majority. They are idiots who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. No question. Regarding the cartoons directly, yes you can cry freedom of speech, but was this an example of a responsible use of freedom of speech? I think Jack Straw has summed it up nicely: 'There is freedom of speech, we all respect that, but there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory... I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong.' These cartoons only served to further divide an already divided community. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

02-05-2006, 01:18 AM	#84 (permalink)
karsey Upright	Whilst for many people this matter might seem a fuss over very little, I think that it represents very well the situation that we find ourselves in post-9/11, and it is a worrying sign for things to come, for two reasons. Firstly, the argument over these drawings cannot be seen in isolation. For many, these drawings appear as yet another attack among many upon the Muslim people since September 2001. Denmark in particular has been the setting for much hostility in recent years. Secondly, the publication of these drawings represents the confused and conflicting values of Western media, particularly its much-championed yet hypocritical usage of ‘free speech’. Returning to the issue in Denmark, since 9/11 in particular there has been a series of actions by the Danish government and others that could be accused of victimising Muslims. I will briefly mention a few of these. For three or four years now, the Danish immigration system has become much tighter and discriminative.5 In September 2004, a new immigration act was passed specifically in order to limit the ability for Muslims to enter into Denmark.6 In the same month, the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard appeared in the Copenhagen Post, under the headline, ‘Party's call-to-arms against Islamism’: Kjærsgaard compared Islamism with Nazism and Marxism, and issued a rousing call-to-arms to party members against this new "world revolutionary" movement, which she said was aiming to impose "Sharia" around the world. Kjærsgaard cited an article appearing in daily tabloid B.T. which put the number of Danish immigrant children sent on "reconditioning" trips at Muslim schools - "Koran prisons," as Kjærsgaard called them - at 5,000.7 This came only a few months after a poll was published in the same newspaper, claiming that one in four Danes believe that there will one day be more Muslims in Denmark than non-Muslims.8 Though Muslims currently only make up around two percent of the Danish population.9 In April last year, Queen Margrethe of Denmark in an authorised biography argued that Danish people should stand up to Islam, and that Muslims should learn to speak Danish properly.10 A few months later in October, Danish Member of Parliament Louise Frevert, a member of the nationalist Danish People’s Party, was severely criticised for anti-Muslim statements that appeared on her website.11 These included the claim that young Muslims believe that it is their right to rape and assault Danish people. A 2004 political pamphlet by Frevert also claimed that Muslims secretly planned to takeover Denmark. Frevert pleaded ignorance and claimed that her webmaster, Ebbe Talleruphuus was responsible for these remarks. Talleruphuus later accepted responsibility and resigned. This is just a small sample of a few of the negative Muslim stories that can easily be found through a quick search through any of the major media outlets. And this is the climate in which these sacrilegious drawings of Mohammed appear. Given this climate and the tense post-9/11 and Iraq War global atmosphere, even the most ardent defender of Jyllands-Posten’s actions must accept that the publication of these drawings was, at the very least, extremely naïve. http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...articleId=1870

02-05-2006, 04:36 AM	#87 (permalink)
AngelicVampire Insane	DJ, the Danish government basically did apologise, they said that they could not apologise on behalf of a privately owned newspaper. The Norwegians etc got it right, freedom of speech should allow me to offend anyone I feel like (and they have the right to be upset or disagree), promising violence, direct threats etc is wrong but if I say in jest "lets kill all muslims" thats free speech, if I hold a rally which intends to disseminate information on and support the killing of muslims then that is probably not free speech covered. There are many enlightened muslims, there are many enlightened christians, however it seems as a whole that Islam tends to produce more fanatics per worshiper than other religions. This is problematic in a world access to weapons, technology to produce weapons and transport is easy to acquire. The Clerics and suchlike calling these images distasteful but calling for rational discussion from the Islamic world I support however there are many clerics and governments instead either sitting back or "supporting" these actions. Attacking an Embassy is imo an act of war, for a goverment to sit back and allow its people to assault a soverign nations representatives in your country is outrageous (you might not like them but they are there for diplomatic reasons and as such should be protected). How about the next time I am offended I declare a crusade and go wipe out or at least threaten to wipe out some civilisations, racial groups or religions? Doesn't really seem sensible now does it... I think the Bible got this one right, an Eye for an Eye, so they can reprint some cartoons mocking our faiths, but to take actions far beyond that? The vatican support of this (and Jack Straw's) annoys me, religious taboos for members of that religion are for them not anyone else, sure I can be respectful however I am not forced to... Can I form a religion saying that beer is taboo, women should be naked and guys totally covered up and then complain when everyone else either disagrees with me or thinks I am a nutcase? I don't think I really have a case here.

02-05-2006, 08:49 AM	#91 (permalink)
AngelicVampire Insane	Was their initial reason not to see if the artists would self censor themselves? Something that a lot of people seem to do in relation to Islam far more than they do for say Christianity (just look at the GIS I posted, imagine "Muhammed Lol" as a picture series?). The Danish government can condem the newspaper however they are right that they cannot apologise on behalf of an independent entity. As for the paper printing these was an issue of free speech based on a "good" reason. Imagine if I asked for images Jesus following the Catholic Priest + "small children" season? I would imagine that I would get a lot of really quite distasteful pictures however the point of the asking is a valid one (to see if people will censor themselves). Its hardly a childish example. Is printing images of the Japanese/Chinese war offensive (lots of corpses, mass graves etc?), its a historical fact which the Japanese basically say didn't happen... am I offending them? Or perhaps we should ensure that all Western women wear Burkhas outside for fear of upsetting Islam? Everything you do can cause offense to someone (in Britain for example myself and my Black friends can walk down the street calling each other Nigger and Ho and not offend ourselves, however if someone else believes this to be racist it becomes a racist incident) despite the fact that they have nothing to do with our conversation/arguement). To monitor everything for offense is silly, heck I find PC terms very offensive (Horizontally challenged? Deferred success?---- special?) Lets call a spade a spade here and get over ourselves, no matter what we do we can offend others... the paper wasn't looking to offend Islam it was looking at an interesting article... if they were delibrately trying to offend thats a different story but they have taken this way too far, attacking Embassies? Threatening Terrorist attacks? Offering to exterminate us... arrest them all and let Justice decide.

02-05-2006, 10:16 AM	#94 (permalink)
Craven Morehead Custom User Title	The cartoons can be found on this blog About an hour ago, Wolf Blitzer showed the Saudi ambassador to the US several cartoons published in a Saudi neswpaper that portrayed Isreal and Jews very badly. The ambassador of course said he objected to them. I have a bad feeling about this. If a group of people want to get upset and retaliate, they will be able to find enough to get pissed at.

02-05-2006, 11:51 AM	#97 (permalink)
raeanna74 I'm not a blonde! I'm knot! I'm knot! I'm knot! Location: Upper Michigan	After looking at those toons I cannot understand what about them warrents anything more than a complaint letter to the editor. Even a public protest seems outrageous. I don't care if you are an extremist Islamic or a moderate, you should not be condoning the actions of these protestors, let alone defending them. If anything you should be criticising them because they are protraying a worldwide image of a violent, intolerant religion. If Islam is not violent and intolerant then why am I not hearing any criticism from the islamic world over the protestors actions? __________________ "Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

02-05-2006, 12:15 PM	#100 (permalink)
canuckguy I read your emails. Location: earth	i think some of this is just an excuse to cause violence. I don't think there is anything you could write or draw in the paper that would drive me to burn down buildings and call for peoples heads. although i'm not fucking insane either.

02-06-2006, 06:45 AM	#104 (permalink)
AngelicVampire Insane	Wow, thanks DJ, that truly was enlightening... the whole west is weakening and a neocon said 'lets put a small country up against the wall and slap it around'. Ohh and the lovely non-insulting cartoon (obviously the west are uncaring business men simply throwing their money around at the aid machine). Now let me go get my crusade hat, I feel a slapping around coming on.

02-06-2006, 08:28 AM	#106 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i would like to point out something rather depressing--and dangerous if this thread represents anything like an index of how folk are thinking about this extended donnybrook over the cartoons. this is not so much about the positions one could take relative to the cartoons/reactions as it is about recurring structural features of the reactions here to the protests triggered by the cartoons. on the controversy itself, none of it surprises in principle (in fact it does a bit)--i only wish that the cartoons had been smarter so that debate over questions of free speech vs. racism could be played out on better grounds. what is clear is that these cartoons have been instrumentalized by all sides: the various demos over the weekend in particular are obviously motivated by a wide range of broad political agendas that are understood to dovetail with reaction to this matter: that regimes like syria, for example, leans heavily on the discourse of the "infidel" to prop itself up is evident. same with iran. same with the saudis. the mirror image of this operates in western contexts, however---in the states, the bush administration has trafficked in the same type of racist nonsense dressed up in elements drawn from religious discourse since 9/11/2001--in europe, you have a longer-term mobilization on parallel grounds undertaken by neofascist organizations (the relation between european neofascism and mainstream republican ideology is interesting...and it is no surprise that american conservatives "deal with it" by refusing to look)--the problem is the racist content itself--but more so that it is not socially marked as racist, and so operates as a prefabricated discursive structure that folk can adopt in particular situations. this adoption triggers a repetition of the central features of the discourse, which results in racist interpretations--regardless of the personal committments of those who adopt it. in 2006, it is quite easy to avoid antisemitism because one knows that it is bad. it has been coded as bad--the sorry experience of the 20th century demonstrated its dangers by pushing the reaction to a very old discourse within euro-christianity to its horrifying conclusions. but apparently this coding of antisemtism as bad applies only to its surface features: when it comes to the type of argument, operating in a different context, aimed at another group, the problem is not evident. in many of the posts above, you find an image of "radical islam" or "jihadists" which function as a stand-in for islam as a whole. this signifier in turn defines muslims as the enemy within and without, powerless and all powerful, distant and an immediate threat...it is the signifiers around which reactionary notions of community have been posited: if the Enemy is muslim and, in the main, brown, then it follows that the community threatened is also defined on religious and racial lines. so the "them" is some hallucinatory image of militant fundamentalists that stands in for anything like coherent thinking about a religion that encompasses about 20% of the earth's population. and the "us" by default is white and christian. the conflict is then religious war. the triggers are double: in particular "random" acts of violence; in general fear of "invasion" of the "us". in the states, the first is dominant--in western europe, amongst those influenced by neofascist discourse directly or indirectly the second is dominant (the scope of that discourse is much wider than is the support for neofascist organizations--try to think of how chirac's law banning the wearing of the veil in schools could have been promulgated except in this kind of discursive context--an action that "protects" the secualr french state from invasion by the muslim hoardes....) in ths states,a reductive and basically racist image of islam has been central to the bush administration's policies and marketing of those policies since it was handed what can only be seen as the gift of 9/11/2001. the central operational trope is obviously the "terrorist"--a fiction the content of which is filled in via television imagery (decontextualized, arbitrary images of violence) and fleshed out via the vast range of mediocrities who dominate conservative punditry--from the "respectable" version (huntington's "clash of civilizations" model) to the inane (the ann coulter school of thinking religious warfare)----this signifier has been central to the bush administration's marketing of itself and its republican supporters to the public--vote kerry and die, remember?---its logic is repeated endlessly, drifting in and out of "news" as the set of framing conceits around footage, for example, surfacing as a central line of demarcation between far right and everyone else, in speeches by dick cheney during the last campaign in particular... you get the entire range of possibilities recycled above in this thread---it is a "respectable" form of racism, pre-articulated and available that folk can reproduce explicitly (pace ustwo or the lovely "diaperheads" crack above) or implicitly). and it operates despite superficial denials. it is racist, but we dont call it that so...well....we dont have to exercise circumspection. this is how it has traditionally worked, folks: racist pseudo-explanations knit themselves into the "common sense" of people who experience anxieties about a range of factors (economic stability, social position in a changing world, "the war on terror" particularly in the way the bushpeople stage it--that is as unmotivated politically, as a conflcit between good (white christians) and evil (brown muslims) etc. etc. etc.). it functions to shape projections based in these anxieties onto others in the world. it is an example of the usage of racism as a kind of collective therapy, a way of avoding political dimensions, of displacing it onto a different register. it is most strange to see folk who i do not imagine to be racist as human beings using this kind of logic to unfold fundamentally offensive interpretations of this controversy over the cartoons. if you want to defend press freedom against these protests, then there is no need to move from that into projections about the "enemy"--but since there is no social sanction that accompanies this move, folk do it. so it follows that, apparently, racism that is not coded as such is ok. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 02-06-2006 at 08:32 AM..

02-06-2006, 10:59 AM	#110 (permalink)
trickyy ►	thanks, i posted something about this 2 pages ago and no one had any more information.

02-06-2006, 11:12 AM	#112 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Astro... that is a letter from a reader, not something published by the newspaper itself. The whole point DJ Happy was trying to make was that there are moderate points of view in the Arab press and populace. The article in this publication are decidedly moderate. To get irate about letters to the editor is kind of pointless, I can point to any number of similarly held conspiracy theories held by people in the west (some even posted on this website). __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

02-06-2006, 11:19 AM	#113 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Another point to consider about many of the protests over the weekend. Most were peaceful. Some were not. Let's have a look at the protests that have occured in the US, UK, France, Spain and Canada over the past 10 years... how many of these protests were hijacked by idiots who then proceeded to get violent. Some, not all. Should we say then that all those who would protest Globalization (for example) are violent? That all people living in countries that have had protests like these are uncivilized barbarians? The answer is no (in case you couldn't do the math). What the media shows us is a couple of shots of peaceful protest followed by inflamatory scenes of violence. The violence is way more titilating and therefore it is "the story to follow". __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke Last edited by Charlatan; 02-06-2006 at 12:43 PM..