Kudos to The Stranger

[JayB]

Just saying the context is critical to understanding the difference between the publication of the cartoons targeting people who use Islam to inspire violence and terrorism, and whatever the cartoon involving Jesus was supposed to accomplish. I'm not sure how far you're willing to go to demonstrate your sensitivity here, but given your comments, it seems as though you haven't actually taken a good look at them, so perhaps you are preemptively censoring your own reading to avoid giving offense?

[Jim]

You're using unethical events to justify another. And you forgot the

Edited February 15, 2006 by Jim

[foraker]

I think we should make fun of all religions and political parties equally without fear of being labelled a blasphemer or unpatriotic and threatened with violence, investigation, government harassment, or deportation. Seems only fair since they tend to make fools out of most people anyway.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Shut the fuck up, you godless-heathen claymation ecoterrorist pinko!

[cj001f]

That's part of it - the other part being that part of what motivated the publication of these cartoons was the editor's sense that the death threats and assasinations that had been directed at anyone critical of Islam in the previous months and years had created an unhealthy climate of fear, where people were reluctant to criticize even the most objectionable behavior amongst the Islamists.

 

17 years and 1 day

 

[JayB]

There's also the fact that had the paper's only goal been to give offense to Muslims, I suspect that the images would have been rather less mild than the cartoons in question.

 

What I haven't been able to gather from my reading is a coherent explanation of what - in particular - is so offensive to Muslims. This business about all portrayals of Mohammed (hopefully I can leave out the customary PBUH without harming anyone's tender sensibilities here) being an affront to Islam seem to be inconsistent with the scores of pictures of Mohammed that people have documented all over the Islamic World. Was it the connection they were purporting to show between Islam and terrorism? Seems to me that if the silent majority of Muslims really did object to their brethren sawing off heads and detonating themselves in markets, discos, etc - while chanting "Allah Akbar!," they'd welcome a bit of criticism directed against the fanatics who are giving their religion a bad name - or at least stop a tad short of burning down embassies. Which brings me to another point - perhaps part of the dialogue that people are calling for should involve asking how it is that beheading civilians, slaughtering wedding-parties, etc in the name of Allah elicit nothing more than a shrug, but a few relatively mild cartoons published thousands of miles away, in a language that none of them can understand constitute an unpardonable affront to their religion that must be avenged?

[cj001f]

What I haven't been able to gather from my reading is a coherent explanation of what - in particular - is so offensive to Muslims.

Printing blasphemic pictures involving the prophet merely to insult and incite them?

[JayB]

If it's blasphemous to depict Muhammad, they'd have quite a number of their own heretics to dispatch in the middle east. If the intent was to provoke, rather than to criticize those who use Islam to justify suicide bombings and beheadings - then it would have been pretty easy to cook up scenarios involving pork, sodomy, and alcohol that would have done a much better job. If these cartoons were calculated to give offense, then they did an awefully bad job of it, seeing as how it took four months and lots of coordinated agitation by a select cadre of governments and mullah's to generate the said offense.

[Jim]

Whoa. Turn down the dial bro. Maybe it's the lack of skiing back there.

[sexual_chocolate]

If it's blasphemous to depict Muhammad, they'd have quite a number of their own heretics to dispatch in the middle east. If the intent was to provoke, rather than to criticize those who use Islam to justify suicide bombings and beheadings - then it would have been pretty easy to cook up scenarios involving pork, sodomy, and alcohol that would have done a much better job. If these cartoons were calculated to give offense, then they did an awefully bad job of it, seeing as how it took four months and lots of coordinated agitation by a select cadre of governments and mullah's to generate the said offense.

 

What is your point with all this? Surely there must be some direction you are going with this, as far as a proposed solution?

[Jim]

They're bad, we're good. Let's bomb them.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Word is, bombing is going to be hot this year.

[foraker]

Welcome to the New American Century....

Please check your guns and knives at the door.

Oh, hell, better keep 'em. You're gonna need 'em.

[Dru]

That's part of it - the other part being that part of what motivated the publication of these cartoons was the editor's sense that the death threats and assasinations that had been directed at anyone critical of Islam in the previous months and years had created an unhealthy climate of fear, where people were reluctant to criticize even the most objectionable behavior amongst the Islamists.

 

17 years and 1 day

 

 

 

If there is a connection between having a fatwa issued against you and marrying a Bollywood hottie, hook me up with a fatwa! Thats Padma Lakshmi, now known as "Mrs Rushdie" to you.

[EWolfe]

Fatwa?

 

Yes, we were one of the "fat" states, wazzit to ya?

[JayB]

Whoa. Turn down the dial bro. Maybe it's the lack of skiing back there.

 

I'm definitely missing the powder and the steeps, but I'm consoling myself in the park these days, so it could be worse. I wasn't trying to be overly dramatic - but if you take a look at the cartoons, and consider how easy it is to whip certain elements in the Middle East into a flag-burning frenzy - it seems clear that any cartoonist who set out to offend Muslims could have done so much more effectively than the guys who sent in their cartoons to the Jyllands-Posten. The fact that a planeload full of imams with powerpoint presentations had to hold seminars that they jazzed up with a few forged slides, and explain point-by-point exactly how the cartoons were offensive, why Muslims who had previously shrugged them off should in fact be offended, and the manner in which they should express their outrage also suggests that the cartoonist's point was something other than simple agitation. Some of the cartoonists actually seem to be making fun of the premise that the call for submissions was based upon:

 

[JayB]

From IslamOnline

 

Not good. Reminds me of Churchill's speech after Chamberlain declared "Peace in Our Time."

 

"We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat." Something tells me that the champions of sensitivity on this board would be less than enthusiastic if we were to adopt similar legislation at Pat Robertson's behest.

 

 

DOHA, February, 15 2006, (IslamOnline.net) – The Norwegian parliament has amended the Penal Code to criminalize blasphemy in the wake of the republication of Danish cartoons that lampooned Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by a Norwegian magazine, Christian and Muslim leaders in Norway said on Tuesday, February 14.

 

"Law 150-A, which has been approved by parliament, criminalizes blasphemy and clearly prohibits despising others or lampooning religions in any form of expression, including the use of photographs," Norway's Deputy Archbishop Oliva Howika told reporters after a meeting in Doha with Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

 

Howika was among a Norwegian delegation that also included the chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Norway, Mohamed Hamdan.

 

"Under the new law, the crime of blasphemy will be punished either by a fine or imprisonment," Howika said, promising Qaradawi to fax him a copy of the law after being published in the country's official gazette.

 

Hamdan regretted the burning of the Norwegian embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus, but said the government had blamed the magazine for the violent reaction.

 

"The Norwegian government made it clear more than one time that it would not condone blasphemy," he said.

 

Last September, Denmark's mass circulation daily Jyllands-Posten ran 12 cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). One of the photos showed the prophet as wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

 

Many European newspapers, including the Norwegian Magazinet, reprinted the drawings, triggering an outcry across the Muslim world and calls to boycott Danish products and Norwegian products.

 

Any image of the Prophet -- let alone biting caricatures -- is considered blasphemous under Islam.

 

The editor of the Norwegian magazine at issue apologized to Muslims on February 10, for publishing the cartoons.

 

Vebjoern Selbekk, who initially defended his January 10 publication of the cartoons in his magazine as an expression of press freedom, appeared before TV cameras shaking hands after his apology with Muslim leaders.

 

Apology Accepted

 

Hamdan ® and Howika during the meeting with Qaradawi.

 

The delegation distributed copies of the magazine's apology note to the Muslim minority after the meeting with the prominent Muslim scholar as well as an apology translated into Arabic from the minister of labor.

 

"We accepted the apology in principle," Qaradawi said. "We do appreciate the Norwegian stance which is different from that taken [initially] by Denmark. The Norwegian prime minister has condemned the cartoons at the very outset."

 

The Danish newspaper has apologized for offending Muslims, although not for printing the drawings.

 

Four months after the publication, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday, February 13, met with a Muslim group to discuss the fallout from the cartoons crisis. He initially refused to meet ambassadors of Muslim countries to contain the crisis under the pretext of free speech.

 

"Muslims want all people to live in peace, cooperation and love. We don't call for strife. All people are created by God, so there was no need for this strife," Qaradawi told reporters..

 

"We were deeply hurt by the cartoons. The Danish newspaper could have defused the crisis by offering an immediate apology to the Muslims. Had it apologized, the issue would have been resolved," he said.

 

He pointed out that there is a difference between "freedom of expression" and freedom of insulting"

 

"Freedom of expression is all about expressing an opinion. In the cartoons case, there is no opinion or counter-opinion," he said.

 

Qaradawi called anew on the United Nations to adopt a resolution banning blasphemy to head off similar incidents in the future. He also urged the European Union to criminalize blasphemy against any religion, including pagan religions.

 

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is pressing for a ban on religious intolerance to be part of the bedrock of a planned new United Nations human rights body.

 

According to the text of an OIC proposal, the new UN body should state clearly that the "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression" and that states, organizations and the media have a "responsibility in promoting tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values."

[Dru]

hmm

 

[foraker]

Which is it Jay? On the one hand, you bemoan people for having sensitivity to other people's religions. On the other, you seem to think we should be sensitive to your (putative?) feelings about Christianity and Christian leaders? If you think people should be sensitive to how Christianity is portrayed, then you shouldn't be upset by how other people think we should approach the issue. If not, are you just using Christianity for your own purposes in order to advance your point? That seems pretty base. Which is it?

[sexual_chocolate]

Hey quit butting in. I'm still waiting for the solution to this whole mess.

[underworld]

solution =

[foraker]

You're not going to get one. It's the current theme amongst the conservative set to demand solutions to complex problems when confronted with those who doubt the 'solutions' provided by the current admin. The point being that if you fail to provide one, obviously the solution of the current admin must be either the best of all possible solutions (apologies to Voltaire) or at least good enough until you come up with something better. They aren't prepared if you beat them to the punch or the answer is: "I like the job the president is doing".

[EWolfe]

Norwegians are thick.

 

Not your best representatives.

[Dru]

In Sweden, the "Swedish Chef" of the Muppets is known as the "Norwegian Chef" børk børk børk!

[foraker]

Having lived in Sweden for a year, I can say without doubt that the title 'swedish chef' should be included in the pantheon of oft-repeated oxymorons....