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

because at this point the cartoons in one danish newspaper are just standing in for a lot of things. that should be obvious.

all these "starting fights" and "throwing gasoline on fires" arguments presuppose that the newspaper could have in any way anticipated the events of the last few months, and i think that's ridiculous. especially because the events of the last few months have been largely the product of determined efforts by various groups of people to stoke outrage, for their own religious/political purposes, which i am largely unsympathetic to.

like i said, my concern is that the message that comes out of this is, don't talk shit about people's religions. (because, you know, you might "start a stupid fight.") when i see no particular compunction on the part of assorted religious authorities -- christian and muslim -- in talking shit about everybody else. talking shit about people's religions is a pretty goddamn important thing to be able to do.

i don't see in terms of intention how this is different from the newspaper's action. in terms of size and effect, sure it's much different, but even if the cartoons weren't intended to "stoke outrage" in muslims (as if intentions really count), weren't they intended to "stoke outrage" (of a different sort) in westerners?

but i got no problem saying that one cartoon or even, if you like, the whole page of them wasn't "intelligent and useful." fine, that's an opinion, we can all argue about what constitutes intelligent and useful speech. not that any of us always live up to those standards, but they're fine standards to aspire to. but i do have a problem "blaming" the cartoons for what happened afterward. i think that's a dangerous road to go down.

xpost: re: stoking outrage -- well, but to what end? i think the newspaper was trying to raise an alarm about artists being intimidated by religious zealots. which, when it comes down to it, is actually something i find kind of alarming. i don't think the point was, "throw these brown savages out on their turbans," although i guess if you ignore the majority of the cartoons and the actual context of their publication and squint hard enough you can kind of see it like that.

i dunno. i don't think that it could be said that the way this has gone has been exactly the intentions of the initial objectors (ie. i doubt they wanted to see other muslims die in rioting), but i have no idea.

I realize a lot of the racist stuff is probably not the intention of the cartoon, but I do think it's available to be read into it. (there's a whole complicated post to be written about the nonidentity but weird intertwining of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment, but I'm not calm enough to do it right now. maybe nabisco will show up again.) I should say I keep imagining how people I know would react to the cartoon (like, say, my mom, who's not about to burn anything down), and I can't imagine them being anything but offended, and sort of perceiving the cartoon as willfully mean. They may not be right, but it's an understandable reaction.

that said, I'm not even sure what I'm arguing anymore. gypsy, you're making a lot of sense, and I do think the history of the past, say thirty years in the Muslim world has involved a lot of people getting played. Juan Cole's comments on the whole thing are good to keep in mind, I think.

yeah, we're talking mostly a matter of degrees here, since as m.white said a long time ago a lot of the people on this thread agree on the basics. (i'm not including the send-em-back-to-the-desert brigade.) and like i said a while ago, i think criticizing the cartoons is fine just like criticizing ted rall is fine, but i'm only comfortable with it in a context where their RIGHT to say the things they say is taken as a given. and in the broader debate around this thing (broader meaning "outside ilx"), i don't think that's being taken as a given -- even by a lot of ostensible liberals -- and that kind of alarms me.

and by "right," i don't just mean the literal legal right (although that's fundamental) but also the social and cultural right, the understanding and acceptance that in a free society these things are part of the dialogue. because as soon as people start buying the idea that there are things you shouldn't even though you theoretically can, then you're taking a step toward not actually being allowed to say them. which, not coincidentally, was what prompted the actual publication of the cartoons.

xpost: this is also repeating something said earlier (although at this point what isn't?), but there's a big difference between self-censorship out of mutual respect and self-censorship out of fear.

Yes, it becomes commentary on the fact that Islam was founded by a murderous barbarian who urged his followers to emulate his example, hence the problems we're facing now.

But that doesn't mean it's a commentary on *muslims* full stop. It's pointing out the religious source of the extremists' violence, not saying that muslims are necessarily violent.

If you were saying that understanding the motivation of violent jihadists isn't worth alienating the 'moderates' that would be bad enough, but you're world-view won't even allow you to countenance the fact that Mohammed & the doctrines based on his words and deeds *is* the source of all muslim violence!

that's because I don't believe that they are. I don't understand the first part of the sentence that came from, so I can't comment on it.

In any case, I'd prefer that this thread didn't wind up making me racist toward white people, so I'm trying to keep uninvested in it.

It's also easy to tell the difference between (a) people who are offering valid critiques of Islamic theology in practice and how it can breed extremism, and (b) people who are tying extremism to basic Islamic theology for the sole purpose of allowing them to assault the religion and not just the extremism. (You can tell this in part because the people of the second group totally forget that just about every major world religion has its start in a context of violence, and most of them have at some point expanded from there to do political violence on the surrounding world.)

I think this mostly stems from a frustration at being criticized by people who won't criticize themselves first. I mean, Americans could talk about how guns, loosened environmental laws and lax enforcement, and obesity or whatnot will kill X number of us per year or we could obssess about diabolical foreigners, which is sadly, sexier to most people. Muslims can go on about how a Danish newspaper in a non-Muslim country has offended them (I think their rage is really about their impotence to do much about it) or they could look at their own, often vile press. They could compare the free press of Denmark with their own censored press and worry about their own house before casting stones. And if there's a frightening example of group thinking, it's one that will impose a boycott/call for apologies from an entire country for the actions of one newspaper. It shows an ignorance of the West that equally matches our ignorance of Islam.

Having said that, many religions do justify barabarous acts in the fundamental texts. We can elide that so as not to offend, but the Koran and the Old Testament do have some rather firece things to say at times.

As for the second post: that's precisely the point. Most major religions have some component of violence and triumphalism, to whatever degree. Most have undergone a process of refining their practice and letting those components drop, for a whole lot of practical reasons. It's one thing to note that that strain is more alive in modern-day Islamic theology than in a lot of other places. It's another thing to pretend that Islam is irrevocably by-the-letter tied to that strain, and more than Christianity is irrevocably by-the-letter tied to, say, imperialism. Religions in practice are extraordinarily mutable, though it can indeed take quite a while.

and right, i know, these cartoons don't help either. but where i make a distinction is that i think the cartoons were part of a different but related conversation, about the protection of free expression in a pluralistic society. that it spilled over into other adjacent issues is not i guess surprising (although the extent and form of the spillover is shocking). but i think that conversation is important to have too, and i don't like the idea that it should be somehow muffled or contained because of the ways it might ricochet. because once you start muffling that dialogue, then you're giving up ground that i don't think is nearly as secure as maybe other people do.

so many of these arguments about the "responsibility" of having "useful" dialogue echo things i've heard in other contexts, working at newspapers, and they're almost always said by people who are trying to control the discussion of some issue or other for their own very narrow interests. one public official who i had a kind of mutually respectful antagonistic relationship with once asked me if i was more interested in "making a point" or "making a difference," and i told him it kind of depended. sometimes you have to make a point before you can make a difference. sometimes doing the one is also doing the other. i'm all for "constructive" conversation, but not if it's mandatory by either law or cultural fiat.

gypsy, prior restraint, no?

Saturday, 11, February, 2006 (12, Muharram, 1427)

Punish Mockers of the Prophet: Makkah Imam
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News —

JEDDAH, 11 February 2006 — An influential imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah yesterday called for the imposition of stiff punishment on those daring to mock the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Delivering his Friday sermon, Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais also emphasized the need to activate international resolutions that condemn and punish such crimes as defamation of religions and prophets.

“All Islamic countries have condemned this act of crime,” Al-Sudais told the faithful who packed the large mosque complex, referring to the blasphemous cartoons published by Western newspapers.

“We make a call from the podium of the Grand Mosque and the birthplace of Islam, on behalf of Muslims all over the world, that tough punishment should be imposed on those who make a mockery of the Prophet,” the imam said.

Sudais said Western countries and organizations were adopting double standards on the issue of Danish cartoons allowing abuse of Muslim sanctities and their Prophet.

“The repulsive cartoons depicting the Prophet have violated the sanctity of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world and their feelings.... This has exposed those who are actually promoting extremism, violence and hatred between peoples,” Sudais said.

He praised Muslims all over the world for standing up to the challenge and protesting the publication of cartoons.

Sudais told Islamic scholars and intellectuals to do more to spread the message of the Prophet and his noble qualities and ideals. “We must seize this opportunity to spread the correct perspective of his noble life through publications and programs in various languages,” he added.

The imam called on wealthy Muslims to use their money to confront the smear campaigns against Islam.

xpost: this is also repeating something said earlier (although at this point what isn't?), but there's a big difference between self-censorship out of mutual respect and self-censorship out of fear.

You've nailed it, gypsy.

"Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths. I have argued elsewhere that the ascendancy of Christian conservatism in American politics should terrify and embarrass us. I have argued that the religious dogmatism of the Jewish settlers could well be the cause of World War III. And yet, there are gradations to the evil that is done in name of God, and these gradations must be honestly observed. So let us now acknowledge the obvious: there is a direct link between the doctrine of Islam and Muslim violence. Acknowledging this link remains especially taboo among political liberals. While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing and teach it equally well. This is one of the many delusions borne of political correctness. Rather than continue to squander precious time, energy, and good will by denying the role that Islam now plays in perpetuating Muslim violence, we should urge Muslim communities, East and West, to reform the ideology of their religion. This will not be easy, as the Koran and hadith offer precious little basis for a Muslim Enlightenment, but it is necessary. The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence. Unless the world’s Muslims can find some way of expunging the metaphysics that is fast turning their religion into a cult of death, we will ultimately face the same perversely destructive behavior throughout much of the world. It should be clear that I am not speaking about a race or an ethnicity here; I am speaking about the logical consequences of specific ideas.

Anyone who imagines that terrestrial concerns account for Muslim terrorism must answer questions of the following sort: Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal, and far more cynical, than any that Britain, the United States, or Israel have ever imposed upon the Muslim world. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against Chinese noncombatants? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam. This is not to say that Buddhism could not help inspire suicidal violence. It can, and it has (Japan, World War II). But this concedes absolutely nothing to the apologists for Islam. As a Buddhist, one has to work extremely hard to justify such barbarism. One need not work nearly so hard as a Muslim. If you doubt whether the comparison is valid, ask yourself where the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers are. Palestinian Christians also suffer the indignity of the Israeli occupation. This is practically a science experiment: take the same people, speaking the same language, put them in the same horrendous circumstance, but give them slightly different religious beliefs--and then watch what happens. What happens is, they behave differently."

Is this unreasonable?

that's why, for example, you can find some middle eastern practices that western liberals find abhorrent -- "honor killings," for example -- that are traditional in the christian tribal cultures of the middle east as much as they are in the muslim tribal cultures. (they have no basis i know of in the quran, although like anything i suppose an imam who wanted to find a justification for them could.)

what i'm saying is that isolating a religion from its cultural, political and economic circumstances and pretending that the religion is the cause of everything you see in the culture is a disingenuous and not very helpful way to look at things. not that specific religious doctrines don't have cultural effects, they do. but what you find if you look at the history of religions is that different aspects of the faith are emphasized at different places and times, and the reasons for that have a lot more to do with contemporaneous politics and economics than anything "inherent" to the religion.

ascribing "inherent" traits to peoples, cultures, races and religions has a long history, but not a pretty one.

I'm still seriously shocked that anyone finds this a laudable thought. It makes me wish there were words that were fundamentally hurtful to heterosexual white men, so I could post them, over and over, and ask some of you whether you thought that was a good thing for me to do.

but see, my feelings about all this would probably be different if it were some clear-cut thing like "nigger," "kike," etc. not that i think those words should be outlawed, but it would change the discussion a little. the fact that what's at issue is outrage over the violation of religious taboos -- and that at least some of the reaction, including from moderate voices, has been this emphasis on the need to "respect" religion -- is what really trips my "danger! warning!" sensors.

because, i mean...what if i don't really respect religions, per se? and what if i, as secular liberal, am feeling just a little big beleaguered and marginalized myself these days? why am i supposed to cede ground to people who get outraged by a couple of pictures, just because some holy book says so?

You can call me every name in the book, nabisco, and I'll get offended, but I'll be damned if I claim you have no right to hurl those insults.