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

this is sort of ridiculous to point out to a dude as well-versed as you, but it's rather presumptuous to presume that it's only the west that's capable of self-reflection. several centuries of islamic scholarship and revision certainly suggests otherwise.

not so much what made it "worthwhile" as just what prompted it. i think there's still some confusion on that (i.e., it was "just to offend muslims"). and i don't think it's really fair to say they knew what the results would be. i think they probably anticipated angry letters, and maybe some muslim delegations demanding to meet with the editor. maybe even some calls for local boycotts. i very, very much doubt they expected anything like what's happened, and i think it's unreasonable to expect them to have. the editor has even said that if he had anticipated that, he wouldn't have printed them.

but see, i don't distrust their motives because they seem pretty clear. i think they intended to be provocative on an issue they thought was important, and i'm sure there was some kneejerk we'll-print-what-we-want-to thinking -- which maybe i'm more sympathetic to than some people, having been there myself in various forms. (granted, mine more took the form of, "we'll use profanity in the paper when appropriate, and put gay-rights stories on the cover, even if both of those things might lose us advertising and get us kicked out of some distribution points," both of which happened.)

but i don't think the newspaper's intent was to "denigrate islam." that's not the call they put out to cartoonists. the intent was to assert that freedom of the press wasn't subject to anyone's religious codes. and remember that they ran a whole range of cartoons, including one that criticized the paper itself, which seems perfectly in keeping with the stated purpose of the exercise. as has been noted elsewhere, the same paper apparently has printed caustic cartoons about christian religious authorities, and presumably would do so again if it felt like those authorities were intimidating people into not criticizing them.

and i admit that part of my take on this, as i've said, is that i'm just not very sympathetic to religious taboos. i don't mind people having them -- don't eat pork if you don't want to, don't work on saturdays, don't take the lord's name in vain, fine -- but i do mind them being imposed either by law or by some kind of threat. and my own experience plays into that too, because i grew up in a religious-minority family (parents are zen buddhists, of all things) and i've been very aware all my life of just how much the majority religion permeates even a society with constitutional protections against religious discrimination. of course, that also makes me sympathetic to religious minorities, but it's hard for me to see this particular conflict as just a minority-vs.-majority one when so much of the pressure and anger is coming from muslim-majority countries. (countries which, obv., have much less protection for religious minorities than the offending country does.)

so anyway, that's the thing: as an agnostic newspaper guy with a religious-minority background, the freedom of expression/freedom of religion angle is the one that most immediately jumps out at me. i do believe in the need for mutual respect in a pluralistic society (or pluralistic world), but i think that's something that comes after those basic freedoms are established.

also, i wouldn't use kansas as a place to test whether religious freedom or ethnic/cultural acceptance gets compromised first. that's a state that keeps trying to dump evolution from the curriculum, and where the attorney general is currently on his own little jihad against teenage fornicators.

xxpost

yes, *rolls eyes*, all of us are hypocrites but this is is just too much.

not to mention how kansas actually came into being, dudes.

m. white, wasn't sure, seemed outta your character, tho it's certainly not beneath others on this thread to pretend that islam is some big unchanging-through-time monolith.

not to mention how kansas came into being, dudes.

if only these people could show just as much anger when christian school girls are beheaded or when innocent people are slaughtered in terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. surely that should be much more offensive? but no! it isnt! instead going after ONE little newspaper in denmark is the way to go.

1. roffle "these people"
2. how do you know about "anger" towards innocents killed in the name of islam? how do you know that doesn't piss other muslims off?
3. awww one poor widdle danish newspaper! roffle again!

c'mon now, anybody whose met more than like 3 muslims from 3 different places can answer this question.

i said "just as much anger", and I haven't seen any. have you? you know there hasn't been any so don't try to make that case.

call 'em whatever you like but don't be surprised when you get called out for sounding like my dead southern grandma re: "minority groups."

i said "just as much anger", and I haven't seen any. have you? you know there hasn't been any so don't try to make that case.

poll one entire "muslim world" then get back to us, pls.

maybe people should just stop referring to them as Muslims if they are going to exhibit what is surely non-Muslim behaviour such as this? the same would apply to people who purport to be of any other faith who then exhibit behaviour contradictory to what that religion teaches or suggests.

That's fine, frankly. Going after Denmark as a nation is either disengenuous or hypocrtical or just stupid bordering on malevolent.

Who gets to define true Muslim behavior?

certainly not the western news media!!!!

I don't know that I am with you at all in this whole idea that we in the west must engage in some sort of "transformational diplomacy" with the Muslim world.

Off to a faux pluralist food court.

"poll one entire "muslim world" then get back to us, pls."

that's pathetic.

I generally think it's presumptuous if not fruitless to immediately go after someone's purported motives when their actions will usually suffice, but in this case, I thought that the administration (which I generally think of as among the most inept and bungling in American history) caught exactly the right balance in its statements regarding the publication of the cartoons.

yes, this makes me laugh. there are many interpretations. i do like it when blair and bush go on about how certain people or actions arent the behaviour of 'true muslims', its very silly, who made them scholars all of a sudden? i think this sense of muslims as a monolith with no internal differences, reminds me a little of...threads about pitchfork/nme actually! (the reviewer hated their album but yet it made their top10 of the year, wtf? i thought they all had the exact same opinion?)

The true Scotsman, who is appalled by all of this.

having said that, there is definitely a perception, in england at least, that the muslim community is in denial about extremists within their midst.

indeed, so why do people keep saying 'the muslim world'? it just perpetuates an idea of absolute division and contrast.

I liked the point about Islam vs. Nationality up thread. I think one of the interesting and commendable things about Islam is its absolute call for brotherhood between (Muslim) nations. Without even making reference to sectarianism, there are considerable differences in practice, approach, etc... between Philippinos, Malays, Yemenis, Lebanese, Tunisians, et al to Islam. I point this out because as much as the fundy gadflies like to talk about the 'Crusaders and Zionists', this doesn't really apply wrt to the cartoons. The cartoons were published by a Danish not Christian paper and in response not to a clash of religions but a clash of religious vs. secular values.

On a slight tangent, did anyone catch how protective Hamas was about the small Christian Palestinian community in Gaza?

not all islams = everyone offended and rioting!

that's pathetic.

compared to branding an entire religion of "those people" with a western media stereotype? hardly.

lemme spell it out for you: all this reminds me of lazy racists i've known growing up in the south that assumed since, ya know, the local tv station only shows black people involved in crimes, that therefore all black people = criminals. the western news media, even "credible" outlets, are getting to be more and more the "cops" tv show of now wrt islam. it would be laughable if it wasn't so frightening and stupid.

xpost gareth you are a lot nicer and more patient than me, thank you.

i'm going by the assumption (having not read it) that the over-riding empthasis in the Koran, as with the Bible, is on 'loving your neighbour', 'do unto others...', 'turn the other cheek' etc. i.e. tolerance paramount.

2: Again, where did I brand an entire religion of "those people"?

You see things that aren't even there.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU make me sad.

no, since he ain't one.

and, actually, yes, when there looked like being b n p activity in bradford, i felt a responsibility about that. that as a city we shouldnt be letting that happen.

no, since he ain't one.

This is slippery territory -- there has been some major political coalition building between Christian faiths in the past decade or so, and leaders like Robertson and Dobson increasingly speak for, and are supported by, staunch Catholics.

With or without fluorescent paint, few
things are as quintessentially kitschy as black velvet paintings. But many
political leaders in Europe and the United States seem to agree with the Pope
and the Islamic community that free speech is what's truly out of style. In
response to this officially endorsed cultural intimidation, an international
group of brave human rights activists, known as the Velvet Prophet People,
have created the Velvet Muhammad to demonstrate that "free speech is never in
poor taste."

. . . The Velvet Prophet team is giving
original, hand-painted Velvet Prophets to several of the groups inciting rage
in Muslim communities. Gift recipients include Jamaia Islamiya, Arab European
League, Muslim Council of Britain, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Islamic Defenders Front,
Islamic Circle of North America and the Organization of the Islamic
Conference. These organizations, which were appalled by a few cartoons, will
see for themselves that the Prophet looks much more dignified on black velvet.
The Velvet Prophet is also available to mere infidels. Global citizens
who support freedom of expression and oppose the spread of culturally
oppressive forms of Islam are hanging their very own Velvet Prophets in homes
and businesses. If some true believers wish to murder us all for the sin of
being human, we'll exercise our freedom to laugh about it.
All profits from the sale of Velvet Muhammad paintings, shirts and prints
go to non-profit organizations that either support free speech or work against
the growth of radical Islam.

. . . ABOUT VELVET PROPHET:
And what of the team behind Velvet Prophet? We like our heads attached to
our bodies, thank you very much. Art and social commentary should not meet
with threats of violence. We'll keep painting the Velvet Prophet until this
insanity ends. As Matthew Parris wrote in The Times of London, "Structures of
oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield
to derision."