OT: Muhammed-caricatyres and freedom of speach

[Ruatha]

Hi.
The Danish paper Jyllands-posten thought that the media in west had a self imposed cencurship concerning islam.
This came up since a child-book authour couldn't find anyone willing to make drawings under their own name to his book about Muhammed.
The paper sent a letter to 46 drawers associated to the journalists association asing them to make a drawing of Muhammed.
12 of these pictures were published, causing a local protest storm i Denmark in the fall 2005.
A norwegian christian paper re-published some of the pictures later on.
In the late fall some danish muslim leades went on a conference to Kairo and there told of the drawings.
Some muslim countries petitioned the danish prime minister for a meeting discussing the pictures, the danish primem minister refused the meeting saying that the danish goverment had nothing to do with the pictures and couldn't interfere with the free press.
In Januari Fatah lost the Palestinian election to Hamas, to cause trouble for Hamas (A religious organisation) Fatah(A secular organisation) started rotesting and burning danish flags threatening to kidnap all danish people on alestinian soild (If Hamas told the protesters to stop they would lose their credibiity as anislamic organization, if they didn't they would loose western aid, both ways they would seem unfit to govern).
Now the protests are spreading in the muslim world with boycot of danish and norwegian and french products.
The drawings has been republished in January in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria etc.
Last night the Danish and Norwegian embassys in Syria was set on Fire, the Swedish and Chilenian embassys where damaged.

What is the US response?
The American foreign deartments spokeperson Kurtis Cooper:
"We admit and respect the press freedom of speach, but it must be combined with responsibility. To encourage religious and ethnical hatred in this way is not accepted"
I agree that the pictures propably aren't very god, I've only seen one that depicts Muhmmed with a turban and a fuse (the turban being a bomb), but hey; What pictures hasn't been published with God,Jesus, our political leaders etc.
Don't like the pictures dut don't read the paper then! The Danish Jylland-Post doesn't have that big audiance in the middle East!

Put things into proportion!
I usually am a tolerant person but this time I think that Swedsih papers ought to publish the drawings as well to stand beside denmark in this.

What is your opinion, can we only critize our own religion and not others?

[Intimidator]

To make matters worse, today the Arabic European League (an Belgium Muslem organisatian) has posted two anti-semetic drawings on their website (one with Hitler and Anna Frank in one bed and one picture which denies the holocaust)
Their comment was : ' if you (the west) has an freedom of press, so do we..........'

So I guess that the latest word isn't discussed about this isue, probably there will be an lot of protest today in Holland and Belgium from Jewish-organisations.

As for my personal opinion, I think that it indeed the freedom of press to publish what you like, but keep in account the impact it will/can give. And consider if it is worth the trouble.
As long as those caricature's are sending out an message it is okay with me, when they are only used for insulting and offending than PLEASE don't use them.

[Ruatha]

Now the Danish Consulate in Lebanon is on fire.

I belive that the main reason to publicise the drawings was inded to insult and demonize the muslims, but that still does not justify the response.
The test of self imposed censorship is I belive a secondary construction.

I do not belive jews will burn any belgian embassy due to those drawings you refer to.

[El_Phil]

The cartoons themselves aren't actually very good or particularly clever or subtle. Printing them wasn't big or clever as it was going to cause trouble while not really making any worthwhile point.

However once someone decided to publish it I have to give much credit to the Danish government for backing them up.

Good work Denmark, keep it up.

[Renegade 13]

I've been following this story with interest over the past week or so on the web, since the main news programs over here haven't even mentioned it (big surprise...)

I don't consider myself an intolerant person, but who can claim to represent a peaceful religion (Islam) when they resort to violence at every turn? I think the newspaper had every right to publish the caricatures, even if they were insulting, since saying/writing things that some people aren't going to like is what freedom of speech is all about. We wouldn't need laws ensuring freedom of speech if people only wrote/said/drew things that everybody liked!

As for the caricatures "encouraging religious and ethnical hatred"...well that's just a stupid thing to say. No caricature in the world is going to make the average Western person get up in the morning and suddenly decide after seeing the drawing that they hate Muslims! Most people would be amused by the caricatures or just shake their head at the immaturity of it. They sure won't incite hatred. Those feelings would have had to exist previously.

It's a classic example of something that got blown out of proportion.

Not to mention the fact that when European Muslim organizations went to the Middle East to draw some attention to this, they included in the 12 caricatures a few that were NOT published in any newspaper in Scandinavia or anywhere else...and were quite offensive to say the least. Talk about trying to stir up hatred...

Wikipedia has an article on this with a lot more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jylland...ns_controversy

[Intimidator]

El_Phil said:
The cartoons themselves aren't actually very good or particularly clever or subtle. Printing them wasn't big or clever as it was going to cause trouble while not really making any worthwhile point.

However once someone decided to publish it I have to give much credit to the Danish government for backing them up.

Good work Denmark, keep it up.

I agree , the pictures weren't worth the trouble, but again The paper can (thank you democracy and freedom of press) publish them if the want to.........

Indeed it's great work from the Danish Government but also a great job from dozens of European news papers to back their fellow paper and also publish the drawings.

But again , it's a lot of trouble about absolutly NOTHING

[Jack Simth]

From my perspective:
The originals weren't worth the ink to print them nor the trouble caused, and the person who decided they were probably ought to be put in charge of something less important, if not out and out fired.
The reprints made specifically to reinforce freedom of the press, were more than worth the ink to print them, more than worth the trouble caused, and those who decided they should be reprinted on that basis probably ought to be praised.
Why?
Well, I consider it important the the press be capable of printing pretty much anything they deem worthy, and although hateful and hurtful things probably ought not be said, I consider it more important that the press not be limited on what they may say in an opinion manner than that they not say hateful or hurtful things.
Does that make sense?

[Randallw]

Ruatha, are you sure about Fatah setting the whole thing up?. If so I can't say they have much of an argument if they are willing to use it to their own advantage.

I believe the whole thing is related to the lack of education in Muslim countries. Because Muslim countries, in part because of Islamic restriction, aren't what you might call centres of intellectualism, the common person is all too willing to lash out violently rather than consider things. Also because of the large gulf between the west and Muslim countries they feel resentment. If they are Muslims (which is arabic for believers in Allah) how is it the West is so much more powerful. As a result they have, if I may put it in such words, a persecution complex. As a result they resort to their religious arguments to call for the destruction of the west, the power and wealth of which they covet. Islam was once a center of science and mathematics, after all they invented the zero and we use arabic numerals, so where did it all go wrong. It's a result of the Mongols. When they swept into the middle east and eastern europe they practically wiped out those cultures resident there. As a result all the learning centers and intellectuals of the Islamic world were destroyed. This pretty much shattered Islamic culture and they haven't recovered since. This also in part explains why Eastern Europe is such a backwater relative to the west, although of course communism is also a major reason. Western Europe, which was saved, continued to develop, explaining in part its dominance.

[Randallw]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=85446

interesting article. I do believe there is truth in that Muslims are all for being about voicing their hatreds but get angry(er) when someone does it to them. One last thing I'd like to point out. That whole thing about getting virgins in heaven if you are a martyr, true or not, the belief in it would appear to ring false any idea that some Muslims are for womens rights. Plus my opinion of, if it was possible, terrorists is lower if they are a bunch of sexed obsessed idiots who just want to go to heaven and deflower virginal women.

[Azselendor]

"Muslim" I believe actually means "They (or he) who is surrendered to Allah". I might be mistaking for "Islam" however. Never the less, It's not education that is at fault, but fear. The muslim reaction to the cartoon is much like the recent "War on Christmas" fox news and the christian coalition spent millions on or Mike Newdow's lawsuit on the pledge of allegiance.

People simply fear what they don't understand, control, or have. That fear leads to anger and hatred of that and, as a result, they violent lash out at it without logic or reason.

Education and knowledge undoes that - but only if they are willing to grow beyond it.