Salman Rushdi take two...

The pretty much complete boycott of Danish goods in the Middle East is set to break the Arla food group.

Norwegian flags are being burned on the street.

Over a cartoon.

The artist is in hiding and the publishers of the Norwegian and Danish newspapers that ran the cartoon are recieving death threats.

I understand that it is against Islamic law to depict the Prophet in any way, respectful or otherwise, in order to prevent idolatry. But surely this law can't be inacted over the non Islamic?

I never saw Theo Van Goth's film and I didn't read Satanic Verses, neither sounded to my taste (and the cartoon wasn't particularly funny nor clever) but nobody should have to die for voicing their opinion, wether it be documentary, fiction or satire.

As for boycotting a country because they refuse to apologize for asserting their freedom of speech. Well I'm crossing my fingers that the EU trade commision has big enough balls to deal with that. Let the people in those countries boycott Danish goods of thier own free will, it is their right after all.

I'm pretty sure in other religions, the cartoon would equate to:

Christianity: Christ watching porn
Hinduism: Brahma eating a cow
Buddhism: Buddha...well, I don't know. Buddhists don't normally get offended easily.

However, while some might find such things amusing or hurtful, they can draw the line between offense and violence. I'm sure the response is just a political front, a way for the government to stir up the people into paying attention to things other than what's going on economically or politically. There's discord in many countries, and this is an outlet. If the governments in question did nothing at all, the conservate sections would be an uproar and the discord would escalte -inside- the country rather than outside the country. And the only ones making death threats would probably only be "fanatics" with too much time on their hands. Most people who were offended would frown and that would be the end of it. Maybe a nasty letter to the editor.

But to answer your question, IMO, Sweden should not be punished as a non-islamic country for practicing free speech, so long as there is no prolonged focus against Islam, which then has the potential to become hate crime or extreme bias.

But above all, what kind of idiot would publish such a thing knowing the present world's troubles? Jeez. What did he expect? Moron.

ooo, good analogy. Forgot about that story :D

It’s not about freedom of speech. It’s about offending beliefs so deeply held that the believers could become angry enough to destroy property, boycott trade, to kill you, even to start wars. That reaction is so entrenched that it’s a fact of life and has been so for well over one thousand years. Frankly I think the newspaper that published the images is criminally naïve if they’re talking about ‘freedom of expression’; they’re criminally naïve for publishing the cartoons!

I love the principals of ‘freedom of expression’, but there’s a certain point when lovely warm ideals come into confrontation with the cold facts of reality. We can’t forget that we live in the real world and our actions have the potential to cause nasty consequences. If we forget that we can end up dead.

If that Danish newspaper had published a series of cartoons depicting Jesus having rough sex with a young boy as some sort of statement on paedophiles in the church, there would be a few Christians and Christian companies who wouldn’t give the principals of ‘freedom of expression’ a second thought (if the work came to their attention).
It’s the world we live in. Danish publishing laws and guidelines can’t protect their people against the reactions of fanatics in other countries so it’s moronic to cite them (which the newspaper did).

A good analogy: It’s perfectly legal here for me to call someone a ‘fucking cunt’. My friends couldn’t care less if I called them a bunch of ‘fucking cunts’. My family couldn’t care less either, (my grandmother may be taken somewhat aback). But if I walked up to a large, aggressive looking, humourless young man and called him a ‘Fucking Cunt!’ to his face, I could expect to be beaten senseless… The moral of the story is: be careful who you offend.

The problem comes in when you start saying things like "you shouldn't say that because someone will get offended."

If free speech is only for things that people want to hear, then what good is it?

I'm not saying I don't understand your point of view, but I think we should all be united in letting anyone say what they want without fear of death or imprisonment -- assuming they are either espousing an opinion or stating the truth as they know it.

The nasty part about free speech is defending the right to say thing we don't think need to be said.

And that's perfectly fine Ronson. But, (and this is a big but), laws covering free speech are not universal. Outside of the country where you 'speak your mind', you can't expect the same protection.
And then principals aren’t overarching things. We apply them intelligently, not selectively (because that invalidates them), but intelligently. I’m not sure I’d personally support protecting someone who does something as obviously insanely stupid as this; Just like I wouldn’t automatically expect the support of my friends if I walked up to a big burly violent young man and called him a ‘fucking cunt’. If I did expect that support, then what I’d really be hoping for is the right to oppress the fellow and expect my friends to take the heat regardless, (or even start a violent confrontation). There’s something immoral about that.

-edit- In this instance it's less a case of:
"you shouldn't say that because someone will get offended",
as:
"You shouldn't say that because you will cost your country millions of dollars, endanger yourself and your family, cause an international incident, risk inflaming dangerous tensions, and probably even something bigger all for a silly cartoon".

With all that said, I wouldn't throw them to the dogs, but there's no way I'd support getting the EU involved or having the Danish government extend defence of them outside of Denmark.

warofwinds
IMO, Sweden should not be punished as a non-islamic country for practicing free speech

Which is funny because they aren't even involved. And is ironic as Swedes have also been recieving threats over this. Can nobody tell them apart?

I'll add more to the actual argument later.

I think I stand behind what Ozone says. And I'll add the phrase "Just because we can, does that mean we should?"

Ronson makes sense, though. We can't just keep our mouths shut for fear of offending somebody. Because we're bound to at some point. The deciding factor comes in the purpose of your message. I think it's stupid and pointless to express yourself in some way just for the sheer purpose of offending. If there's ultimately a good purpose, like informing or inspiring change, then maybe it's okay. But those who simply seek to offend should expect a backlash. I don't think the cartoonist should die, but I won't feel bad if he's disliked by hundreds of thousands. He was asking for that. Is it worth offending for a laugh? I've seen a lot of feelings hurt by people who thought "Yes."

I once considered drawing a one shot filler strip. "Prophet Mohammed aged 1" otherwise known as "The baby with the beard". Funny? Maybe, maybe not and I wasn't going for shock either... it was just an odd idea that stuck in my head, I also had ideas for occasional snapshots like "First steps" and "3rd birthday" etc in a polaroid style with (with baby Jesus, Buddha and maybe a baby Hindu god at the birthday party). I didn't avoid doing it due to worries over reprisal, I just never got around to it. If I had gone through with it, would I be on a list somewhere?

Which is why this sort of thing worries me. I don't believe any of the people (apart from maybe Salman Rushdi) went into it with their eyes closed. I do believe the newspapers were very shortsighted however.

But again, can what I do be dictated by laws that are illegal in this country. Well no, I could still choose to do it. But I'd know that no matter how innocent my idea was (and my idea was, the other guys were quite offensive) some people would take it as a direct insult to their faith and as required by Islamic law try and kill me.

So I don't do it.

Chameloncholic

warofwinds
IMO, Sweden should not be punished as a non-islamic country for practicing free speech

Which is funny because they aren't even involved. And is ironic as Swedes have also been recieving threats over this. Can nobody tell them apart?

I'll add more to the actual argument later.

D'oh! Don't even know why I wrote Sweden. Really I don't. One of those slip ups I guess *sighs* I blame it on 5 hours of straight Chem.

Free speech has to be defended completely, or it has no defense at all. Call it idealistic if you wish, but when the bullying of people from speaking truth to power is allowed to work, opression is inevitable.

What was this cartoon, anyway? Was the artist making a great statement or true statement? What was he trying to say?

I get the feeling I'll never get to see it.

Hawk
What was this cartoon, anyway? Was the artist making a great statement or true statement? What was he trying to say?

I get the feeling I'll never get to see it.

Yeah that's what I was wondering too as I read this thread.

After all it's hard to make an judgement on this without sounding like a total moron if you don't even know what the thing that started it all was even all about.

3rd Image alone. Warning NSFI (Not Safe For Islam) As I said, not particularly clever or funny.

OK, I figure I have to put my two cents in on this at some point... might as well be now.

The newspaper in question, Jyllands-Posten, was within its rights, under Danish law and the legal traditions generally respected in the west, to solicit and publish cartoons of Mohammed. Nevertheless, they may have erred by waving it in the collective face of the Middle East at a time when many ME leaders are in trouble and looking for something, anything, to focus their people's attention away from THEM. I would say that they exercised poor judgement and worse timing in this move.

HOWEVER... this is a two-way street. Those who are confident in their faith and culture might be disgusted, but not excessively preturbed by some doodles made by people in some other corner of the globe. Christians were dismayed by some "artist" suspending a crucifix in a jar of urine, but they didn't riot in the streets over it (at most they wondered why their tax dollars should go to support this and I can't really blame them for that). Even many muslims are of the opinion that this is much fuss over a matter that would have been forgotten in a week a few years ago. It also gives many people in the west a reason to point and say "See? They can dish it out but they can't take it!" and the whole cycle begins again.

Unfortunately, the cultures of the Middle East and the west still have a long way to go before they can have discourse on religious matters without violence coming into it.

Chameloncholic
3rd Image alone. Warning NSFI (Not Safe For Islam) As I said, not particularly clever or funny.

That's it? Dang.

You know, all rights and ethics aside, I don't think that what little comedic, political, or artistic value it has was worth all the trouble this guy's in now.

Thanks for the link, Chameloncholic.

Ronson
Free speech has to be defended completely, or it has no defence at all. Call it idealistic if you wish, but when the bullying of people from speaking truth to power is allowed to work, oppression is inevitable.

You can not carry on the policy universally. You can only administer and maintain it within the country where it occurs. To make it universal leads directly to war and oppression. That is a very simple straightforward equation.

If the Prime minister of Australia (Mr John Howard), made a statement that Israel is an evil country, and that started a war… I wouldn’t want to take part in such a war just to defend the “Free Speech” of an imbecile. The lives of my friends and family are worth more than words.

And what if I did? And we fought for and won the right for our leader to disparage and vilify Israel with impunity. If they complained again, we could just remind them of how many of them we killed in our war of “Free Speech”. Of course we wouldn’t grant them the same speech rights, (victors just don’t do that sort of thing). We’d be oppressing them nicely,
SO you shouldn’t try to make it universal, no matter that my example is rather extreme. World police are a bad idea. :D

SO back to this Danish/Scandinavian trouble… Yes, defend and protect the stupid newspaper in Denmark and protect the Norwegian one (within Norway), that also republished them. But not outside of there. That will lead to a lot more nastiness and it’s better to limit the stupidity before it gets bad. Like Coydog says, the prevailing attitude in the Middle East at the moment makes this sort of thing especially touchy.

-there was quite a bit more than that Hawk. The problem isn't with the artist or the political content, it's with the action of the publisher and any depiction of the prophet at all. The whole thing is an exercise in childish naivety. Not Free Speech or clever statements.
Just like the morons who joke about bombs while they're on Aeroplanes. They go directly to jail. It's only harmless free speech, it really is very harmless and I think it's terribly wrong and AWFUL that they get jailed for just joking about something you should joke about, but I don't see anyone else complaining about their speech rights... And there are other issues involved in that situation than simply free speech: just like with the situation in the Middle East and militant Muslims.

ozoneocean
You can not carry on the policy universally. You can only administer and maintain it within the country where it occurs. To make it universal leads directly to war and oppression. That is a very simple straightforward equation.

But the premise was someone drawing a cartoon and people from a different country took offense and you asserted that it wasn't worth the money to defend that person's ability to say what they wanted to.

If the Prime minister of Australia (Mr John Howard), made a statement that Israel is an evil country, and that started a war… I wouldn’t want to take part in such a war just to defend the “Free Speech” of an imbecile. The lives of my friends and family are worth more than words.

I think it more likely that such a stupid statement would be dealt with come election time -- or before, if your party system is similar to British Parliament.

As for starting a war? By whom? By Australia? it's no longer just a free speech thing but an illegal war. By Israel? Then they were wrong to resort to war instead of their own free speech against Mr. Howard.

And what if I did? And we fought for and won the right for our leader to disparage and vilify Israel with impunity. If they complained again, we could just remind them of how many of them we killed in our war of “Free Speech”. Of course we wouldn’t grant them the same speech rights, (victors just don’t do that sort of thing). We’d be oppressing them nicely, SO you shouldn’t try to make it universal, no matter that my example is rather extreme. World police are a bad idea. :D

Unless you equate invasion of a sovereign country as the same thing as free speech, I don't get the comparison. I don't see how you can equate the two, as one seems to be words and the other is a path to anarchy (if we respect no borders, where would a war like that stop?)

-there was quite a bit more than that Hawk. The problem isn't with the artist or the political content, it's with the action of the publisher and any depiction of the prophet at all. The whole thing is an exercise in childish naivety. Not Free Speech or clever statements.

I don't know. If we hold the Muslim prophet's rules to a higher standard to any other religion, then free speech takes a step backwards because it has been silenced.

Maybe the message wasn't something you approve of. Maybe it's something you don't feel needed to be said. Heck, maybe it was just said badly.

But the wrongdoer isn't the victim of the oppressor, it's the oppressor.

That is, the cartoonist/newspaper/publisher isn't at fault for the extreme - and extremely wrong - actions of a bunch of religious fanatics.

And if it's a country, I'd like to know if those countries are also withholding their oil from the offending nations. I'm thinking they aren't. It's hypocracy.

Just like the morons who joke about bombs while they're on Aeroplanes. They go directly to jail. It's only harmless free speech, it really is very harmless and I think it's terribly wrong and AWFUL that they get jailed for just joking about something you should joke about, but I don't see anyone else complaining about their speech rights... And there are other issues involved in that situation than simply free speech: just like with the situation in the Middle East and militant Muslims.

This has happened? Someone joked about bombs and went to jail? I hadn't heard.

I would possibly put it akin to yelling "fire" in a theater though. A misheard word about a bomb could panic those around them and cause injury in the resultant evacuation.

But I don't see how blaming the cartoonist/newspaper/publisher solves the problem of Muslim extremism.

But the premise was someone drawing a cartoon and people from a different country took offense and you asserted that it wasn't worth the money to defend that person's ability to say what they wanted to.

No I didn’t. :D It’s not worth causing in international incident for and causing other Danish and Scandinavian businesses to lose millions of dollars for. They aren’t losing that money through defence of the publishers, just for the nature of the original incident. Danish laws are such that you must protect your citizens, no mater the statements they make. This goes well beyond prosaic, minor matters of defamation…

As for starting a war? By whom? By Australia? it's no longer just a free speech thing but an illegal war… Unless you equate invasion of a sovereign country as the same thing as free speech, I don't get the comparison

No I was making an extreme example of the ‘defence’ of free speech leading to war. It’s helpful to follow things to their ultimate possibilities. It can and does happen.
In reasoning I’m following the statement widely attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (which is the main principal behind free speech), as well as the idea that the rights of the Danish newspaper to publish images deeply inflammatory and offensive to Muslims should be defended beyond the borders of Denmark.

And if it's a country, I'd like to know if those countries are also withholding their oil from the offending nations

Oil isn’t being withheld, orders for Danish goods are being cancelled en-mass.

This has happened? Someone joked about bombs and went to jail? I hadn't heard… I would possibly put it akin to yelling "fire" in a theater though. A misheard word about a bomb could panic those around them and cause injury in the resultant evacuation

Yes, there have been may people detained for making those sorts of jokes, although I’d say a lot less now since they know it’s not a good idea… ;)
I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of any cases. At the very least they receive huge fines and it most often happens when they’re not even on the plane! Just joking about it to customs officials who are inspecting their baggage. And it’s exactly equivalent to the trouble of Muslim extremists: You have a trying, troubled, volatile situation, and someone thinks is funny to throw a match on it.

I don't blaim them. I know they've done something stupid, but I don't blaim them for it, nothing serious has happened because of it yet.

Funny thing is, the press in ME countries, (which is often as not state-controlled) routinely publishes some of the vilest anti-Semitic cartoons this side of Der Stürmer. Like I said, this is a two-way street.

And here [service.spiegel.de] is another perspective from Ibn Warraq, himself a Muslim. He points out that there is a danger in giving too much deference to the detractors.

Oh, I don't think the guys complaining about the images are the purest hearts out there... Quite the contrary!

The main difference between other cartoons and the ones at issue is not the fact that they are cartoons; it's who they're depicting. Any image depicting the profit is deeply profane to a Muslim. That's just a simple tenet of faith to a few hundred million people on the planet.
Of course it’s only the more political and devout that are going to take up the cause. The trouble is it’s those same people who tend to take rather undesirable actions to get their points across…

It seems the trouble in Denmark was dealt with pretty quickly, there were apologies and tempers were soothed, even if all orders of Danish goods were cancelled in places like Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately some genuine MORONS (probably racist ones at that), have been republishing the images all across Europe in newspapers, ostensibly to support the Danish Newspaper.
All they ended up doing was making things worse for Denmark by drawing even more world wide Muslim attention to the original issue, so that the Danish embassy in Jakarta (Indonesia) was stormed by a militant group. This also puts Danish peace keeper troops at very much greater risk as targets for attack.
Jeepers, even the US government has condemned the use of the images.

Just as a note of interest, lots of depictions of Mohammed have been done in history:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Yeah, the hypocrisy, narrow mindedness and ignorance of the Western view of Islam sort of takes away a little of the humour there. ...Actually the ignorance of that view as expressed in the cartoon is sort of funny in itself. So it is just as humours after all :-D
He looks a lot like Hamid Karsi in that pic...

I may figure the 'toons in question are in rather poor taste, and not even particularly good political cartoons, but all this sacking, burning and rioting is not doing Muslims any good, either. There may be only a few hundred or thousand individuals out of that billion-or-so that were actually motivated to violence over this, but what will non-muslims think when they see that on TV? Add to that the crazy Iranian president who wants to arm up with nukes and I see a perfect storm of cultural warfare that does nobody any good.

Also, take into account that the original publication of the cartoons was in September. Not until these last two weeks did we see any major fuss over this, and just where did they get all those Danish flags for burning, I wonder? It kind of smells like a manufactured event to me. The cartoons seem to be a convenient pretext/smokescreen for something bigger taking place.

Coydog
Also, take into account that the original publication of the cartoons was in September. Not until these last two weeks did we see any major fuss over this, and just where did they get all those Danish flags for burning, I wonder? It kind of smells like a manufactured event to me. The cartoons seem to be a convenient pretext/smokescreen for something bigger taking place.

Add to that other images which have been thrown in to the mix for no other reason but to stir up anger.

• When Sinead O'Conner publicly trashed Pope JP II, her records were burned, she was boycotted by MANY music stores. People protested. Burned effigies, etc.
  
  When the Beatles said they were "more popular than Jesus" (which, by the way, they WERE) pretty much the same thing happened.
  
  Not to mention the "Dixie Chicks" incident.
  
  And lets not forget the extremists you hear about that BOMB abortion clinics.
  I am definitely not supporting what was done, but I sure as hell am not gonna say it wouldn't happen in the U.S. or any other 'civilized' nation.
  
  See, funny thing is that the protesters (especially the extreme ones) don’t hold true to the beliefs they are yelling are being violated. They are just using them to further their own agendas.
  
  Such is the world.
  
  .: SpANG! :.

Chameloncholic
Add to that other images which have been thrown in to the mix for no other reason but to stir up anger.

That does seem to have merit, but the site that it's coming from..."Observations of the world from the heart of Jesusland!"

...Are they kidding? WTF kind of motto is that?

Geez. Islam prohibits the making of images of the prophet for a reason related to idolatry - certainly a cartoon image is blamless in this context, unless it's imagined the cartoon is to be worshipped.

But the same as how a Biblical probhition against cooking a calf in it's MOTHER'S milk evolved into a probition against Jews enjoying any form of dairy with any form of meat - Many Muslims apparantly take any visual depiction of the prophet as the equivelant of burning the Koran in anger.

Such stupidity is really irritating. Makes me embarassed to admit I'm a human being the same as them.

People believe what they believe Mykill, we all hold stupid beliefs. ALL of us! We might think they're perfectly sane, normal, defensible and ok, but they may not be to someone else. That’s how humans are I’m afraid.

Coydog: It looks as if the protesters are being stirred up because the original images were published in September, but that’s just because not all of us know the whole story. Even in today’s world of the internet, news still travels slowly… Apparently the initial problem was all sorted out in Denmark. The trouble is that newspapers in Norway republished the images later, which drew attention to the original publication in the Danish newspaper. This created further problems with the Islamic community and the trouble then spread far outside Europe… Other European newspapers caught wind of the whole thing and republished the images yet again; and so contributed to the whole ongoing problem, keeping it alive and helping it to spread. All the while this drew more and more attention to the original Danish publication…
Even a New Zealand newspaper has republished them.

-So it’s not really a case of sinister Muslim protesting naughtiness, it’s just more a case of fatheaded European news editors chasing a story and keeping the fracas alive, giving a chance for more and more people to learn about the original incident and make things worse.
-the same as always happens with the moron press.

As for the Iranians being crazy. I tend to differ here as well. What could they do with a nuke? They can’t throw it very far… To make rockets that could throw them a long way is a lot harder and more expensive than making a bomb. Even their Jets don’t have the range (jets are piss-easy to shoot down too). They have no one to attack on their borders except Israel, which has more nukes (real ones), the most powerful ally in the world, and a couple of million Palestinians. Even if aliens gave them a rocket with the range to reach Europe or America, they couldn’t use it because it means instant death. Even their conventional army is barely enough to defend themselves. Iran is a danger to no one at all. They’re just a little angry bogyman. Now that Sadam is gone, they're the new most evil people...
If Iran gets invaded, Syria is next. Then maybe North Korea? Anyone who won't tow the line. It's a sad game.

Total global freedom of speech is such a silly idea I can’t believe anyone would actually forward that :-D
I mean, it’s a lovely ideal, in some ways… But we have a diverse world here covered in billions of people, with thousands of communities, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and countries, we can’t force all these peoples to behave and accept the same ideals as us! In practice, that’s worse than quashing someone’s right to “Free Speech”.
-But maybe that's what people are attempting? Iraq has been invaded, Afghanistan before them. And as I said, Iran and Syria are next, maybe North Korea and then Burma will be next after them. I’d say Belarus, Turkmenistan, and a few of the “hardline” exSoviet regimes are living on borrowed time. Russia is the big jewel in the crown on that end.
Personally I don’t think the suffering and tragedy that war brings is worth it to forward ideals.
I've got a nice ideal, "the price of my freedom should not be your suffereing."

My bottom line is, meaningful freedom of speech includes the potential to upset and offend, and that's just life in a free society. Some may exercise it irresponsibly or in very poor taste, but without that, no real discourse or change for the better can take place.