Response to the cartoon argument

[allanb]

The idea of banning something because it offends religious sensibility is not confined to Islam; it's the basis for the law of blasphemy, which is popular among Christians as well. What distresses me is the feeble response of people in government. I just wish that some politician would have the guts to point out that an omnipotent god (no matter which brand) should not need human laws to protect himself and his prophets. In fact, when you think about it, it's a kind of insult to suggest that the poor old chap is in need of protection.

 

[Charlie in Dayton]

I will refrain from commenting on the uproar the cartoons have generated. Let the viewer judge for themselves.

The Danish Mohammed cartoons

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Amazingly enough, the situation was best summarised on the www.fark.com news aggregator site.

"Muslims offended by caricatures proceed to act them out".

Edited to put an s where it was needed. And again to fix tags. Obviously I suck at this.

 

[jjramsey]

"Muslims offended by caricatures proceed to act them out".

Apparently, it's a bit more complicated than that.

If people in the West are having a hard time understanding why Muslims are so angry, the public -- and journalists -- in this part of the world see yet another example of Western double-standards.

Europe has laws against anti-Semitism and a writer who denied the existence of the Holocaust was recently put on trial, yet newspapers claim free speech is at stake in the cartoon controversy.

"What is allowed for Jews is not allowed for Muslims," Muhammed Al Musfir, the former chief editor of Qatar's al Rayah newspaper told the al-Jazeera conference, referring to Western media "anger" over Hamas' election triumph in Palestine and media "celebration" of earlier Likud victories. "It's a double-standard," said another reporter in the audience, referring to the cartoons. "If this is freedom of expression, why can't the same standard be applied to the Holocaust?"

From http://www.cjrdaily.org/behind_the_news/western_arab_journalists_miles.php

As usual, there's the boiled-down popular version of the story, and then there's the messier reality.

 

[Wheezebucket]

I don't know how comparable those two events are though. One group is denying the deaths of 6 million Jewish people in a world war. The other wrote a comic strip about a fictional character. As for the case involving the denial of the holocaust, it was defended in court (Mr. Death lost his career over it, and Errol Morris gained a great documentary) and they lost. They were unable to prove that it didn't happen against the overwhelming evidence that it did, and so it was defeated.

I won't say that I can comment on the whole thing since I'm well aware there are angles I'm most likely not aware of, but I think that argument doesn't really stand up.

 

[JamesM]

a writer who denied the existence of the Holocaust was recently put on trial

What trial is being referred to?

 

[Wheezebucket]

I don't know if it's the same one, but the famous trial I'm familiar with involved a man named Ernst Zündel.

 

[brodski]

What trial is being referred to?

David Irving was tried in Austria towards the end of last year.

 

[Ryokan]

jjramsey, have you seen the drawings? I can promise you, if there had been drawings of similar strength that were anti-semitic, there would most likely only be mild protests.

The pictures are not that bad, IMO. Only one of them were somewhat critical of Islam.

And most of the Muslims protesting/rioting/looting say it's because we've blasphemed by drawing Muhammed, not because the pictures are critical of Islam.

 

[jjramsey]

jjramsey, have you seen the drawings?

Yes, I have, but I am not a Muslim, so I can't expect to get the same visceral reaction that a Muslim would.

And most of the Muslims protesting/rioting/looting say it's because we've blasphemed by drawing Muhammed, not because the pictures are critical of Islam.

That in itself skews what "drawings of similar strength" might be.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

As usual, there's the boiled-down popular version of the story, and then there's the messier reality.

I'm not sure the comparison with anti-semitism is legitimate, unless I have missed some aspect of the cartoons which is specifically racist, or which is historically associated with racially-moticated crime.

It seems reasonable to me to take the cartoons solely as a comment upon that subset of Islamic people that blow things up in the name of their religion, and if such behaviour is not a legitimate subject for political discourse I am not sure what is.

Bear in mind that I'm usually one of the people here who is against the kind of simple-minded stereotyping beloved of the US right wing. I can sympathise to a certain extent with people who protest because of alleged Koran-flushing if it is in the ongoing context of US extralegal detention and torture. I can't agree with people who protest over the kind of political speech whose protected status is one of the better aspects of first-world society, however.

I think the principle that all religions and political ideas are fair game for the political cartoonist is one worth standing up for.

 

[Iacchus]

The idea of banning something because it offends religious sensibility is not confined to Islam; it's the basis for the law of blasphemy, which is popular among Christians as well. What distresses me is the feeble response of people in government. I just wish that some politician would have the guts to point out that an omnipotent god (no matter which brand) should not need human laws to protect himself and his prophets. In fact, when you think about it, it's a kind of insult to suggest that the poor old chap is in need of protection.

Yet if God could be purported to be just "anything," then there's no need to have a God. In which case it may be possible to "corrupt" people into believing this ... that there is no God or, the wrong idea about God. If someone stopped and asked me directions, and I told them something to the contrary, what would you make of that? Sure, it doesn't change the fact that the destination exists (and doesn't affect God in that respect) but, how does that help anyone get there? So in that sense I would suggest that anything which can be construed to the contrary, is blasphemy.

 

[jjramsey]

I'm not sure the comparison with anti-semitism is legitimate, unless I have missed some aspect of the cartoons which is specifically racist, or which is historically associated with racially-moticated crime.

I think what is happening is that from the perspective of the Muslim who made the argument is that race and culture and religion are all being bound up. In his mind, anti-semitism is an attack on Jewish religion and culture, not just an attack on them happening to have a family tree that supposedly goes back to the twelve sons of Jacob. As he sees it, the double standard is that his religion and culture is fair game, but that of the Jews is not. That may not be a correct understanding, but that's what he sees.

It seems reasonable to me to take the cartoons solely as a comment upon that subset of Islamic people that blow things up in the name of their religion, and if such behaviour is not a legitimate subject for political discourse I am not sure what is. Bear in mind that I'm usually one of the people here who is against the kind of simple-minded stereotyping beloved of the US right wing.

One of the cartoons has a depiction of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, which suggests that Islam is inherently violent, so arguably that is stereotyping. Another shows Mohammed in heaven in front of a line of suicide bombers saying "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins!" Still another depicts Mohammed with his scimitar drawn and ready to stab somebody. (Yes, stabbing someone with a scimitar is probably impractical, but that's what the cartoon looks like. Go figure.) Some of the cartoons are arguably stereotypical.

I think the principle that all religions and political ideas are fair game for the political cartoonist is one worth standing up for.

Fair enough, but some of the cartoons do look like cheap baiting, which is not helpful.

 

[kmortis]

There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism: at most there is a difference of degree but not of kind. All the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism are derived from the Qur’an, the Sunna, and the Hadith – Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian construct derived by Muslim jurists from the fundamental and defining texts of Islam. The fundamentalists, with greater logic and coherence than so-called moderate or liberal Muslims, have made Islam the basis of a radical utopian ideology that aims to replace capitalism and democracy as the reigning world system. Islamism accounts for the anti-American hatred to be found in places far from the Arab-Israeli conflict, like Nigeria and Afghanistan, demonstrating that the Middle East conflict cannot legitimately be used to explain this phenomenon called Islamism. A Palestinian involved in the WTC bombings would be seen as a martyr to the Palestinian cause, but even more as a martyr to Islam.

From here

Sorry, JJramsey. Islam IS an inheirantly violent religion. If the more moderate portions want to change this and pull then entire belief system (BS) out of the middle ages where it's been stuck all these years, then let them. Don't come crying crocodile tears to me when they're made fun of because of the actions of a, admittedly few, VERY vocal parts of the religion. Just like the Christians can expect to be tarred when Robertson and Swaggart say something stupid; or Jews when...when...when Isreal does something.

Fer crying out loud, Mapplethorpe put on a display with a crufix in a jar of urine, and no one lost a life. I don't care that Xians don't have the prohibition against imagery, that's a touch offencive to most people. No one burnt down embassies over it, did they? Raging Christian Hordes^tm didn't run through whatever city was hosting the exhibit, did they? No. A vocal, heated exchange occured. Many bad words were thrown both ways, but no one lost a life over it.

Islam needs to grow the eff up. Let them join the rest of the world in the 21st century.

 

[tsig]

The idea of banning something because it offends religious sensibility is not confined to Islam; it's the basis for the law of blasphemy, which is popular among Christians as well. What distresses me is the feeble response of people in government. I just wish that some politician would have the guts to point out that an omnipotent god (no matter which brand) should not need human laws to protect himself and his prophets. In fact, when you think about it, it's a kind of insult to suggest that the poor old chap is in need of protection.

test

 

[kmortis]

test

Did you pass?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I think what is happening is that from the perspective of the Muslim who made the argument is that race and culture and religion are all being bound up. In his mind, anti-semitism is an attack on Jewish religion and culture, not just an attack on them happening to have a family tree that supposedly goes back to the twelve sons of Jacob. As he sees it, the double standard is that his religion and culture is fair game, but that of the Jews is not. That may not be a correct understanding, but that's what he sees.

Then surely the appropriate course of action is to explain the basis of this misunderstanding?

One of the cartoons has a depiction of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, which suggests that Islam is inherently violent, so arguably that is stereotyping.

I have seen depictions of a gun-toting, beer-drinking, "redneck" Jesus. It's my belief those images were a comment specifically about redneck christians, not a suggestion that all christians were rednecks.

By the same token, it's far from unreasonable to take a cartoon showing Mohammed with a bomb in his turban as a comment specifically about Islamic people associated with bombs.

There's also an "if the shoe fits, wear it" element here in that people are burning down embassies to protest these cartoons. It is hard to imagine a more hypocritical form of protest.

Another shows Mohammed in heaven in front of a line of suicide bombers saying "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins!"

What's so deeply offensive about that?

Still another depicts Mohammed with his scimitar drawn and ready to stab somebody. (Yes, stabbing someone with a scimitar is probably impractical, but that's what the cartoon looks like. Go figure.) Some of the cartoons are arguably stereotypical.

I'm not sure how that is possible avoidable, nor how it is necessarily offensive.

Here in Australia it was and is routine to show stereotypical caricatures of aboriginal people in straightforwardly pro-aboriginal cartoons.

Fair enough, but some of the cartoons do look like cheap baiting, which is not helpful.

While I agree, I'm sure that's not the criteria for what should be published or defended.

 

[jjramsey]

Fer crying out loud, Mapplethorpe put on a display with a crufix in a jar of urine, and no one lost a life. I don't care that Xians don't have the prohibition against imagery, that's a touch offencive to most people. No one burnt down embassies over it, did they? Raging Christian Hordes^tm didn't run through whatever city was hosting the exhibit, did they? No. A vocal, heated exchange occured. Many bad words were thrown both ways, but no one lost a life over it.

There is one BIG way in which that is a dubious analogy. The Christians here did not have a history of being dominated and meddled with by foreigners of which Mapplethorpe could be considered a member. The cartoons were much less "salty" than Mapplethorpe's work, but rubbed into much deeper wounds. That doesn't justify the extremists' behavior, of course, but it explains some of its background. For the Muslims, the cartoons were a display of arrogance by imperialists.

 

[epepke]

There is one BIG way in which that is a dubious analogy. The Christians here did not have a history of being dominated and meddled with by foreigners of which Mapplethorpe could be considered a member. The cartoons were much less "salty" than Mapplethorpe's work, but rubbed into much deeper wounds. That doesn't justify the extremists' behavior, of course, but it explains some of its background. For the Muslims, the cartoons were a display of arrogance by imperialists.

Well, if that be the case, then it's at least a change of scenery for Denmark, Norway, and France to be blamed for imperialism.

 

[Kopji]

The 'empire' notion seems really weak considering that the Muslims were as much empire builders as anyone else. The Ottoman empire ruled for a long time, and non Muslims were delivered as human taxes (yeah, sometimes gladly) for not being Muslim.

http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lecture3.html
...In 1055 Turks captured Baghdad and created the Seljuk Empire, which remained Islamic but was no longer Arab-ruled. When the Mongols destroyed the Seljuk state in the 1200s, Turkish tribes scattered West into Anatolia. One of them came to be named for Osman, its leader. They became involved in the wars of the Byzantine Empire against Bulgaria, Serbia and the Crusader states that had been set up in Greece after the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Ottoman Turkish soldiers first entered the Balkans around 1345 as Byzantine mercenaries and later returned to conquer it. They soon defeated the Bulgars and the Serbs...

...In 1444 at Varna Sultan Murad II crushed an intervening force of Hungarian, Polish, French and German crusaders. In 1453, scarcely 100 years after the Turks entered Europe, Sultan Mohammed II (known as "the Conqueror") took Constantinople by siege with an army of 100,000 and some of the world's most modern artillery. In taking the city, Mohammed II erased the last remnant of the Roman Empire and subjugated the Greek world. Symbolizing the transition, the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, became a mosque.

After conquering Syria, Egypt, parts of the Arabian peninsula, Mesopotamia and North Africa as far as Algeria, Sultan Suleiman "the Magnificent" overran Moldavia and Bessarabia (in today's Romania) in the 1520s. At the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, his army killed 25,000 Hungarian knights and their king. The Ottoman forces reached their European high water mark in 1529 when they failed to take Vienna by siege (although they repeated the siege in 1683).

So I am skeptical of any attitude that 'western' people are some kind of historic oppressors of Islam.

How do they account for voices of moderation and reason being arrested? Of all the violence going on, the arrests of these two men seem very unjust.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4680948.stm

Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been arrested.
Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law.

Mr Momani's paper, Shihan, had printed three of the cartoons, alongside an editorial questioning whether the angry reaction to them in the Muslim world was justified.

"Muslims of the world be reasonable," wrote Mr Momani.

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

Mr Khalidi, whose al-Mehwar newspaper had also reprinted the cartoons, was detained late on Saturday. Al-Mehwar had reproduced the cartoons over a week ago to accompany an article on the condemnation they had sparked.