A little bit of history on the issue:
Back in September Danish author Kaare Bluitgen was planning to write a childrens story about the prophet Mohammed. But no illustrators were willing to draw the prophet for fear of offending Muslims who believe that depicting Mohammed is blasphemous.
The editor of Jyllands-Posted took an exercise in determining whether Denmark was commited to free speech. As part of an article on self-censorship, they invited dozens of artists to draw a cartoon of Mohammed. Twelve responded.
And from there, we have gone down a path of bomb threats, boycots, fatwahs, flag burnings, hunger strikes, declarations of holy wars, embassies attacked and burned and so on...
The whole thing is utterly absurd. And everyone here surely knows that I am a left-wing extremist that would argue against the powers of America and capitalism at the drop of a hat...
However!
I'm sorry but no matter how I look at this, there is no logical, smart and mature excuse for the behaviour that has resulted from many Muslims as a result of the cartoons.
Why was it stupid? Was it stupid because the act itself was stupid, or was it stupid because we knew how Muslim-extremists would respond? I don't think people should be touchy about things for fear of offending.
See my opening paragraphs, and is that such a crime? If this is how they wanted to test the waters, well then, why not? Muslims have got a lot of maturing to do if this is how they handle a few poorly drawn comic strips.
I don't see why. They're different issues, and this is, as has been demonstrated, something that obviously needs to be discussed and resolved.
Back in September Danish author Kaare Bluitgen was planning to write a childrens story about the prophet Mohammed. But no illustrators were willing to draw the prophet for fear of offending Muslims who believe that depicting Mohammed is blasphemous.
The editor of Jyllands-Posted took an exercise in determining whether Denmark was commited to free speech. As part of an article on self-censorship, they invited dozens of artists to draw a cartoon of Mohammed. Twelve responded.
And from there, we have gone down a path of bomb threats, boycots, fatwahs, flag burnings, hunger strikes, declarations of holy wars, embassies attacked and burned and so on...
The whole thing is utterly absurd. And everyone here surely knows that I am a left-wing extremist that would argue against the powers of America and capitalism at the drop of a hat...
However!
I'm sorry but no matter how I look at this, there is no logical, smart and mature excuse for the behaviour that has resulted from many Muslims as a result of the cartoons.
conkermaniac said:I am not defending how the Muslim world reacted, but you have to admit what the Europeans did was stupid.
Why was it stupid? Was it stupid because the act itself was stupid, or was it stupid because we knew how Muslim-extremists would respond? I don't think people should be touchy about things for fear of offending.
conkermaniac said:They knew this was coming. I don't understand what they were trying to achieve by printing these cartoons. Defending freedom of the press?
See my opening paragraphs, and is that such a crime? If this is how they wanted to test the waters, well then, why not? Muslims have got a lot of maturing to do if this is how they handle a few poorly drawn comic strips.
conkermaniac said:Considering that you can't talk totally freely about the government anywhere in the world, wouldn't it make more sense to target freedom of the press in that sense first, rather than the freedom to insult other cultures?
I don't see why. They're different issues, and this is, as has been demonstrated, something that obviously needs to be discussed and resolved.
conkermaniac said:But I despise double-standards the most. Some of the same people who seem confounded by the Muslim reaction would go bat---- insane if the same were said of their religion. What if I drew a political cartoon of Jesus impaling babies? (I would never do this but what if...?)conkermaniac said:Let's talk about double standards. Leaders in Arab and Muslim countries [Hey there Iran!] ululating about human rights, and the 'right not to be offended'. Meanwhile, we've got state and judicially sanctioned Bible burning, eye gouging, flogging, repression of political rights and freedoms and so on and so forth.
That's all okay behaviour, but a couple of cartoons...
Besides, on that point, people may get pissed off about their culture, beliefs, and religion being insulted, and so they should. But responding with violence and stupidity is not the answer, is not smart, and just makes things worse.
conkermaniac said:BUT there are those Europeans who would, so-to-speak, "overreact." And some of these people are right now arguing that the cartoons were merely an expression of freedom of speech.
Let's talk about over reacting...
...bomb threats, boycots, fatwahs, flag burnings, hunger strikes, declarations of holy wars, embassies attacked and burned and so on...
Googledaily said:What if it's YOUR religon that is made fun of? And when you protest I get all my friends to purposely distribute the material all over the place just to prove a point I called free speech, wouldn't you be pissed off too?
Pissed off, but so what? ---- happens. I know my beliefs get trashed a hell of a lot, and I get a lot of ---- for it, but that's life. It annoys me, but what's it matter?