I found this next article from the Guardian to be balanced. It wasn't the only one on there, not surprisingly:

Link

I agree with the notion that with the right to free speech comes a certain duty. Oughtn't free speech serve truth? Who are Jyllands-Posten to teach freedom of speech anyway?

This is the part that upsets me and that those who cry foul and hide behind, "freedom of speech". As spiderman says, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

Just because you have freedom of speech doesn't mean you have to be an asshole.

I would like to see the reaction. I seem to doubt the jewish population of the world would react in the same way.

I say the moderate muslims are just as guilty as the radicals for not speaking out against the violence. This talk of not branding the entire herd because of the actions of a few doesn't wash with me. What needs to happen is that the majority need to somehow reign in the minority, because it is the minority that are causing the problems for everyone. It is the minority that make the frontpage headlines every day. It is the minority who are causing the violence and attracting the attention.

So while the majority sit on their hands, the minority continue to draw everyone into the fire. Silent majorities have never started wars to begin with -- it has always been the ideologically outspoken minority that have been the catalyst for war. So saying that not all muslims are terrorists is saying the obvious but misses the point. Of course they aren't. But until the majority take a stand (which is usually impossible in the islamic world because dissent is violently suppressed), it is the minority who run the show.

The point is that they would be upset. They would protest.

The whole point of the Danish cartoons, as stated by the editor that commissioned them, was to provoke a response.

It was a very ignorant thing to do. Let's put out fires with gasoline while we are at it.


Powerclown: In the past few days, I have seen quite a few so-called moderate muslims speaking out against the violence of the various protesters. In the same breath they have also condemned the Danish paper for their irresponsibility.

I have also seen a few pictures of peaceful protests... multi-faith protests condemning the violence and condemning the further printing of the cartoons.

Sadly, these voices are not really heard above the din.

My thoughts exactly. Do they have the right to publish them? Abso-fucking-lutely. It's free speech, clearcut. Should they have published them? Abso-fucking-lutely not. They knew it was going to be inflammatory, and regardless, it's just disrespectful.

I do think the whole thing has gotten way out of hand though. Burning embassies over a cartoon? Thats ridiculous, and makes me more than a little scared for the future of the Arab middle east...

We will all recognize sincere condemnation when we see it, as it will be on the front page of every major world newspaper, on every world radio and tv news program, and the subject of discussion for every major politician involved.

The official slogan the world continues to hear from the islamists remains:

"DEATH TO THE INFIDELS"

I disagree. Was there ever an organization set-up by Americans to explain to the Japanese that not all Americans supported the bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki? You assume that the "majority" feels a kinship with the "minority." I don't go around feeling I have to answer for the decisions of George W. Bush or Stephen Harper. Even closer to home, as an improvising musician, I don't feel like I have to answer for the actions of Kenny G.

This isn't the first time I've heard the "majority must reign in the minority" argument, and it's attitudes like these that show how little of an understanding is being shown about Muslims.

This infuriating idea of "they" is ridiculous: There are over a billion Muslims on earth. How can they possibly share the same ideology, even if they tried??

I don't think they would. Someone figure-head would issue a statement or speak out against it, but I seriously doubt there will be organized protests. Whatever cartoons are drawn and published in the State-run Iranian newpaper will be no worse than what are published on a daily basis in the islamic world. Most jews would just roll their eyes, its only more of the same.

Then you had better start writing some letters to the editor of those papers to start publishing these words of condemnation that I have seen...


The fact is that the voice of moderation has been systematically crushed in the middle east. The regimes in power are largely not democratic and do not have provisions for free speech. In fact it is these regimes that control much of the debate (such as it can be called a debate) in the local media.

As these regimes cracked down on the moderate and censored any attempts at free (or freer speech) the only place where dissent was allowed was in the Mosques and largely in mouths of Fundamentalists... fundamentalists who see moderates as soft and ineffectual in bringing about change.

Ironically, a lot of this situation has come to pass due to Western intervention either in the guise of propping up regimes like the Sauds or instigating coups like in Iran that ousted Mossadegh and re-installed the Shah.

Where are the moderates now? Largely they do not have a public voice. Largely they have immigrated to the west.


So no, you are not likely to see the moderates splashed across the front pages of the western media... you will find them in most stories but you probably didn't notice them for the splashy violence that keys into our ADD addled brains.

I agree that more of the same from Iran is just that.

I was envisioning this as something done in the west. Let's say, The New York Time or the Washington Post ran anti-Semetic cartoons.

I think there would be an outcry and protest.

:lol: Great analogy.

Protesting is cool. Protesting things you don't agree with is very important.

Killing people, threatening to kill people and burning down embassies is ridiculous, savage and not to be defended in any way.

the basic rule of news coverage is:
if it bleeds it leads.
given the choice between footage of a bruning building and that of a panel of moderates holding a news conference to denounce violence, which do you think would get more play?

you react to the play of images, powerclown. and not to what is happening in any more complex sense.

given that most reactions to this cartoon farce are predicated on the play of images and arbitrarily cut-up "context" the question of interpretation becomes central--whence the outline of what deleuze would probably call a "machine" for processing factoids i tried to outline in no. 106, and its centrality/importance.

smooth:
nice to run into you here as well.
the argument i was making against ustwo is basically one of sociological profile of these "fundamentalist" groups that constitute the signified (referent?) that organizes the notion of "terrorist"....the trick in the post against ustwo's characterization of "terrorist" as "middle class" was that it was directed mostly against his absurd claim to universal knowledge about class background of this phantom he refers to as "terrorism"--all that was required was to juxtapose a vast body of work that argues precisely the opposite, and that based on various types of close research on communities (mostly in french banlieux and north africa, particularly morocco and egypt) that show--clearly, obviously--the intertwining of economic position, social and political marginality and generational factors in the populations that identify as being part of these various "fundamentalist" groups.

i wasn't making a reverse variant of ustwo's claims. if it came across that way, then it was a function of my not being adequately clear.

what i was saying links to post 106 in that assumptions about the class position from which draw the various small groups that constitute the curious, multiple phemomena that are lumped together as "fundamentalism" (the quiescent--like a popsicle--version of "terrorist" in the parlance of our times)---are elements of an ideologicl image of the "terrorist" and/or "fundamentalist" that is false empirically (in that there are different vectors of tension that play into different patterns of engagement in different places)

given this, the assertion that all "terrorists" are somehow "middle class" seems to me to lean on some strange ideological distortions---the claim reflects an image constructed without the slightest concern with who these folk are empirically and why they do what they do---rather, this image is an aspect of the selling of reactionary responses to the threat posed by the image itself to a credulous media audience--the function of it seems to be to set up an immediate identification between the audience and agents responsible for particular actions--that "they" are somehow also "us"---which positions the signified "terrorist" precisely in a space of the enemy within and without, all powerful and powerless, a kind of persecuting double--and from this follows a logic of unlimited war--no enemy less likely to be stopped by security measures than the double of those who put them in place----no-one more clever at trapping you than yourself---no-one more dangerous than your personal evil twin---no fear more total than that of self-erasure---reaction to an image predicated so thoroughly on setting up identiciation as a preliminary step toward structuring a particular delinieation of that which is Other is support for any and all responses, no matter how violent, not matter how self-defeating.

it is a logic of hysteria.

another way: given the following:
if it bleeds it leads (basic media select criterion for determining newsworthiness)
and
the route chosen by the bush administration since 9/11 (at the levels of ideology and policy)
on their own
it is pretty obvious that the image of islam presented in the american mass media is at best fragmentary.

because of the political context, people seem to be particularly compelled to assemble these fragments into something that passes as a coherent image of islam.
almost all the links between fragments are rooted in dispositions that are, here as elswhere, funnelled through particular ideological filters--discourse--which stages both meanings (the content attributed to particular signifiers) and posits a logic for combination (the derivation of broader implications from assemblages of signifiers)
post 106 argued that this filter is evident, highly structured--it is also racist through and through---but it is not socially coded as racist, and so appears neutral (if you dont think about it at all, which it appears that folk often dont) and because it appears neutral, it is available for appropriation--and the features of this filter reproduce themselves in the interpretations of folk who use it--in ways that cross political positions that operate on other grounds, it seems---and so the conclusions it makes available to folk are as the filter itself is--that is racist through and through.

the post against ustwo was about the other side, the lack of correspondence between the elements within this filter/framework and the empirical world.

this one tries to connect the two.

i gotta go.



o yes: there are few eternal mysteries in this fallen world: why kenny g has a career in music is one of them.

I don't think anyone here is defending those actions. I think most can agree that like most protests that turn violent, it is a minority that turn to violence.

Abaya and Ktskpt (or however you spell it :lol: ) have pointed to the local politics of Lebanon as a way of understanding what is happening there (i.e. Palestinians and Syrians with issues that have little to do with the cartoons and much to do with stirring up shit).

Some here are upset that there are even peaceful protests about the cartoons. I disagree with this. I defend both the right to print the images (as misguided as it was) and the right to peaceful protest.

Then who/what is the moral authority of the Islamic religion?

Agreed, which is part of the problem, and a reason why I support what the Americans are trying to do in Iraq for example. /threadjack

I am able to read and listen, too.

most likely

no doubt, powerclown--but the point remains....

No, I gotcha on many of your points and I definately didn't think you making a facile reverse argument of his.
I also don't know how he conceptualizes what he was trying to convey...or how he got that data. Nonetheless, enthnographic and demographic data from at least the last 10 years are available showing that the people who actually act on certain fundamentalist ideoologies are not the poorest and most marginalized, but are coming from what used to be a middle class. Upon reflection, we ought not to be surprised (although I was when I read the data). I mean, if you and abaya and myself sat down over a beer, isn't it a fair statement that we would agree that the person most likely to feel the pain of marginalization and powerless is someone who previously thought he or she had some atual stake in the process?

I think here I'm going to have to go off to class but come back later with a couple of citations for you to peruse at your leiser. Because the inability of us to see eye to eye with one another is due to my inarticulate conveyance of the position I'm trying to relay. I best just leave it to the authors to explain and then perhaps pick it up thereafter.

But suffice to say, and Ustwo may just be quoting some comment I made a century ago, that his factoid is correct. But I'm unimpressed with his tendency to contextualize such factoids. And it shows in this kind of a discussion where a number of sociologists and an anthropologist would discuss the notion of material conditions as an impetus for change and behavior, and his retort is that ah but hese people are middle class, as if the middle class he refers to are happily milling around. Such statements don't seem to take into account what happens when the mills shut down. And they don't seem to recognize the effect the "West" has had in relation to those sectors and ways of life shutting down (and for more people than 'middle class' muslims).

I don't need to tell you that all of this is more complex than any of our comments do justice. I guess I just wanted to engage you in conversation ;)

i still haven't heard a good explanation of the pamphlet distributed by Imam Abu Laban. if anything can incite the types of riots we have seen over "just a cartoon," perhaps it is his arguably skewed view of Denmark coupled with the blatantly offensive cartoons that are obviously manufactured.
Wikipedia says on KCRW's To The Point 2/6/05, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was asked about these shoddy fakes, but claimed to know little about them and dismissively noted that they have been featured on right-wing blogs. this is not really true; the first place i saw the fake cartoons was on a website that also has a lot of left-wing, Berkeley, & anti-war protest photos.

anyway, i wonder what's going on with the people who organized these violent protests. (i really appreciate ktspktsp's post on pg. 4 about the complexities in Lebanon.) so far i haven't seen evidence that separate the fradulent pamphlet from Imam Abu Laban and the resulting angry anti-cartoon movement. if i were to hear about Denmark from this man, i'd probably be pretty angry. again, i'd really like some details, because it seems that he may be more to blame for the violence than the European newspapers repeatedly mentioned in coverage of this story.

Considering the cartoons ran in September with very little protest, I think it is safe to argue that Akhmad Akkari and company, are a big part of why there are protests.

He wasn't satisfied with the level of outrage so he went on tour to kick it up a notch.

Reading the pamphlet he spread about already shows that it was full of misinformation. If it is shown (which is likely) that he also added the additional (and way worse then the Danish original) works I hope he is seriously taken to task for this.

Like I said earlier. You don't throw a match into a tinder box and not expect it to explode.

Some people will stoop to anything to stir up shit.

And some people have WAY to short a fuse. As soon as I hear more 'moderate' muslims rise up against this crap, I may think there is hope. Saddly I know these moderates, and they are only moderate in that they want someone else to do the suicide bombings, they don't really care beyond that.

If I answered this question I'd have about as much success as if I answered "The Pope" if the question referred to Christianity.

Out of the Christians you know, who takes anything the Pope says seriously?

This next paragraph from Wikipedia only begins to scratch the surface of divisions within the Muslim world:
Remember when Madonna was Christian? Heck, why not even use a current example!? How many Rabbi do you think would acknowledge Madonna's religion? I could go on with a list of different Jews who are worlds apart in thought. The key to understanding this situation lies in understanding differences.

Again...please prove there is an onus on "moderate Muslims" to explain and apologize for the actions of the extremists. Must I repeat my Kenny G or Madonna analogies?

Imagine if a member of the TFP committed a capital crime and we were all held accountable by the media!

If Kenny G and a large group of improv artists started bombing music companies who weren't purely improv, I think those who were heavily into both should stand up and say that there's more to life than improv and that they don't support Kenny G's actions, especially if he claims to be acting in the name of pure and true music.

Though, comparing a music artist to a chunk of people who are voicing death wishes to the whole western civilization is a poor argument and analogy if you ask me.

The moral authority over Muslims is supposed to be the Koran. That's why it's there. Same with Christians and the Bible. Obviously Catholics have Pope Whoever the Fuck, but nobody outside of Catholicism gives two shits about his wrinkled ass.

As far as this cartoon bullshit goes, the vocal, stupid few always screw it up for the many.

I'd venture to say that most Muslims don't care enough about the cartoon to burn down an embassy. All it takes is a few dumbasses though.

As with the Bible there are a multitude of interpretations... the Koran is no rock and neither is the Bible.

Very true.. Hell, it's all about people. They just don't agree.

And a lot of people are dumbasses.

If Kenny G started bombing anyone, then my analogy wouldn't exactly be an analogy anymore would it?
:rolleyes:

You misunderstood my analogy, which remains sound: if two groups of people share a religion, it doesn't follow that one should have to answer for the other.

True, you don't have to do anything, but you only hurt your own reputation when you allow people to negatively act in your name.

If the reputation of Muslims has been tarnished, it is only in the eyes of those too ignorant to understand the difference between the extremists and the moderates.

The same could be said of peoples of western nations
who disagree about the actions of their leaders
but never take to the streets in protest
which could be said of most of us at one time or another.

...or Christians who sit silently while Pat Roberston spews his garbage.

I know there's a completely different mindset with these people, but I see Jesus portrayed badly everyday.

My friends went to go get a tatoo; there's a tatoo of Jesus getting high. I want to watch Family Guy; Jesus is portrayed doing stupid tricks any third grader could do.

You know what I do? Laugh. I disagree, but I'm not going to kill someone for it. I love Family Guy,and I want a tatoo. (one day) It's not that big a deal. I just wish everyone could see that.

Even if only 1 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims were to end up being seduced by the global jihad, the West and moderate Muslim regimes would still have to deal with some 12 million jihadists spread across more than 60 countries. And if only 1 percent of these 12 million were to opt for “martyrdom operations,” the West would still have to deal, for a generation at least, with some 120,000 suicide bombers.

To some degree groups need to be proactive. Marginalize the extremists. Too much assumption by moderates that they obviously disagree with the nutballs in their crowd can lead to assumptions by we ignorant folk. It's in their interest to speak out, as many western figureheads finally do with Robertson when he goes off the deep end. (not that the West or Christianity have a perfect record by any means) Some Muslim leadship make a point of denoucing their nutballs, and that's great, but I wish we saw more of it. Whether the scarcity of denouncements is the fault of media or the leadership itself and politics I don't know.

Eventually, when survival becomes the question, it shouldn't be surprising for the masses to lose whatever refined reasoning and diplomacy skills they possess and resort to us-vs-them mentalities. It's happened throughout history, and if we aren't careful - if we don't set boundaries and just assume tolerance protests will take care of everything - this thing will get worse. As things get worse and people don't speak, to some extent it confirms the worst of fears in the healthy but fearful mind.

I'd be more concerned with the leaders of western nations denouncing the actions and voices of the extremists on the nation (i.e. moveon.org, Pat Robertson, etc.) than the people of western nations protesting the leadership.

I've never noticed a shortage of criticism of the western nation's leadership, be it the war in Iraq (which there were massive protests against) or against abortion. Even when there is, it's rare to have militants shouting for the beheading of the president, the senate, or all of those who stand for a certain way of life.

Yes I was putting on my suicide vest right now at Pat Robertson's bidding and will blow myself up in some Vezuelian school so I can get my 70 houris.

Pat was forced to appologize for his last outburst and did. I don't hear ANYTHING like that from the RoP :rolleyes:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...Pakistan01.jpg Obviously....

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...ndonesia01.jpg Ah, a moderate Muslim nation.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...05Turkey01.jpg This one is from Turkey and is really great, shows that we Christians and Muslims alike should attack the Jews.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...05Beirut01.jpg Take that Danish Embassy!

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...lsDanish01.jpg Seems the Danish are controlled by Sharone!

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...hMuslims05.jpg Another fine upstanding member of the Religion of peace!

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl...hEmbassy01.jpg Time to torch another Embassy!

Keep making excuses or wake up, take your pick.

Well, you've had at least one muslim post in this thread who clearly said "not all muslims are the same" (way back on page 2)

I have more respect for humans as a whole to use any kind of stereotypes like "muslims are all in favour of suicide bombings". Any time people make a blanket statement like that they just make their own arguments look stupid.