I don't think we have any discussion about the Danish Muhammad cartoons....

I do, but that's another thread, or another bunch of threads, and I don't actually feel like fighting that on this one.

x-post:

I think I've seen these photos on BBC, Reuters, etc. so pretty valid. I can't promise that, since I haven't been keeping track of every page I've checked out, obviously.

i dont believe the danish producers deserve to be hurt either, but, that doesnt change the fact that it is logical

(Apologies for the jingoistic site source.)

i dont agree with this, but i still think its logical!

That, of course, goes for both parties, here.

its still inflammatory, and unhelpful, but...its not quite the same. a different way of making a point?

see, that's the kind of false equivalency i've been afraid of all the way through this thread. when you consider what is being reaped, not just by the newspaper but by denmark as a whole, you would have to argue that what denmark sowed was the right for the newspaper to publish the cartoons. that's certainly the argument being made by the protesters, and it's one that i find alarming.

I was not arguing this upthread!

Muslims must honestly examine why there is such a huge gap between the way we imagine Islam and our prophet, and the way both are seen by others. Our offended sensibilities must not be limited to the Danish newspaper or the cartoonist, but to those like Fadi Abdullatif, whose actions should be regarded as just as offensive to Islam and to our reverence for the prophet. Otherwise, we are all responsible for those Danish cartoons.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-mona_05edi.ART.State.Edition1.3ed14a8.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/06/international/middleeast/06cartoon.html?hp&ex=1139202000&en=d7fd387b0985d049&ei=5094&partner=homepage

http://retecool.com/comments.php?id=13539_0_1_0_C

Here’s another American website making complete fun of Christians:

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

(Notice, no one is threatening hostage taking over this one.)

Here's a couple bits of writing from our American founding fathers two hundred years ago- they had more sense:

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)

Benjamin Franklin

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it." -- Benjamin Franklin, _Articles_Of_Belief_and_Acts_of_Religion_, Nov.20, 1728

(Obviously I don't count ideas like Rockist Scientist's as anywhere close to that, given that he seems basically spot-on about the political/theocratic bent of Islam, and that he has more than a shred of a clue about the mutability of religion as lived and in practice.)

but can't we/shouldn't we also acknowledge that an intolerant, violent streak of fundamentalist islam has seized the international stage and has to be confronted one way or another? in the same way that intolerant fundamentalist christianity needs to be confronted? the confusion here is that the newspaper pretty clearly was aiming at the former group, but was perceived and/or portrayed as aiming at the much larger mass of muslims. you can blame the newspaper for its broad brush and rhetorical cluster-bombing, but that doesn't mean its actual target didn't deserve the targeting.

The US, Britain, France and Iran were represented by caricatures of Bush, Blair etc. Israel was represented by a hook-nosed claw-handed shylock-like Jew.

The Board of Deputies has complained, but has yet to march on Regent's Park mosque demanding beheadings.

Oh, and over on Indymedia they've decided that Friday's protest was OBVIOUSLY just organised by neo-cons to discredit Islam and encourage an invasion of Iran.

I have absolutely no time for the first arguement, and very little for the second — had 500 people marched through London to the US embassy demanding an end to the "occupation" it would at least have made some sense, but screaming about death to those who mock Islam and protesting against a government because an independent newspaper printed something you don't like is just absurd, and no different to the BNP marching on a mosque in protest at the 7/7 bombings.

-- Matt DC (runmd...), February 3rd, 2006.

when the new statesman printed an anti-semitic image on the front page, was there a baying mob? the pic of a naked child would be outrageous *because it involved the exploitation of a child*. it's not a free speech issue.

actually, even this isnt true. we're talking about printing images of muhammed being a taboo that european society may or may not do well to gradually adopt. but paedophilia isnt an absolute, and is arguably a taboo introduced by the victorians (or gradually in the hundred or so years before the victorians). its actually not a bad comparison, because this is something that is seen as totally unacceptable in europe today, and not a free speech issue. but in the 1300s the imagery of children was quite different, not the appolonian innocent view of the last few hundred years.

so thats a great example of how free speech incorporates taboos.

A very fair point, and I'll concede I made my sarky edit not realising it was a muslim who'd written that article - I didn't read it properly.

xpost

actually, even this isnt true. we're talking about printing images of muhammed being a taboo that european society may or may not do well to gradually adopt. but paedophilia isnt an absolute, and is arguably a taboo introduced by the victorians (or gradually in the hundred or so years before the victorians). its actually not a bad comparison, because this is something that is seen as totally unacceptable in europe today, and not a free speech issue. but in the 1300s the imagery of children was quite different, not the appolonian innocent view of the last few hundred years.

so thats a great example of how free speech incorporates taboos.

-- terry lennox. (...)

i'm not sure how the fact that the taboo on paedophilia 'not being an absolute' is relevant. as things stand, it *is* a taboo -- and how do you feel about that? as things stand, the law is not subservient to the prohibition under islam against producing images of the prophet -- and how do you feel about *that*?

how do i feel about paedophilia being a taboo? im glad! but i still realise that it is a social construction, and not a particularly old one. but, in relation to muhammed, we're talking about 'only images', and it strikes me that there is some disingeneousness about this, so im just comparing to 'only images' which are also a social taboo, but one accepted by the british people

glad also! i'm not arguing for censorship. saying the paper was inflammatory and stupid for printing them*, and saying they should be banned are two different things

*we're only talking about some of the cartoons here anyway, i think some of them are fine

its only become considered as mistreatment over the last few hundred years. and, who is harmed by the taking of a photograph (if nothing is happening in the photograph but it is presented in a certain way?)

but the 'it's okay to mistreat a child in 1700' and the 'it's okay to publish pictures of same in 1700' things are still different -- the argument for free speech is one thing and the argument about mistreating children another, even if our attitudes to both do change over time.

if mistreatment of children is tolerated, so is the publication of photographs of their mistreatment. but it will never be the case that drawing a cartoon can harm someone; the *only* question there is of freedom to publish it.