It's provocation to show support for free speech by publishing cartoons that are provocative or controversial or even down-right offensive?

Yeah. I don't get that.

Okay, my comment makes no sense. Not the first time :) Things that are provocative.....anyway, you get the rest of this.

I guess what I meant was: when is provocation okay and when is it not? I'm sure the papers are trying to be provocative, but they might argue they are being provocative in order to make a point about free speech - like publishing Maplethorpe photos or pictures of Bush as a baboon or Iranian papers putting up anti-semitic photos. But, if the point is to say: hey, we know these photos are provocative, but we think in a free society we should be able to do this without violence or threats of it, what kind of provocation is it? Good or bad provocation?

Whlie it can be argued that the initial publication of the cartoons was an exercise in free-speech, the way the incident has since been aggravated by publishers in Europe is unfortunate and in poor taste. I don't think that the sort of defense of free speech that was utilized in cases like Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz, Rushdie etc apply to this case - what scholarly or artistic puspose these cartoons serve?

Wow - I feel dumb for having given such an asshole a millisecond of my attention. Now it's definitely nothing more than a provocative PR stunt.

Unless he's doing it in the name of Academic Freedom, of course, in which case I completely support him :p

"applies", "do these cartoons serve"

Okay, one last comment given that I've already made a fool of myself with the provocative/provocation snafu.

Maybe provocation in this environment is okay. You have a perfect storm here, an incident which serves as a proxy for a lot of different things: societies that are feeling stressed by trying to balance traditional ideas of free speech with new cultures that have a different understanding of the public realm. So, I guess I don't understand what you are trying to say. That there are two equal wrongs here? That we have to understand how these images are stirring people up? How is that? I'm a woman and I see degrading images of women all the time in the greater society: I don't go on a rampage. So what if these images are degrading or provocative? It's up to you, the individual, to give power to images: they have no power in and of themselves. Only the viewer can do this. Only the viewer can do this.

(Speaking of provocation, apparently many of these protests were organized by the usual culprits, with doctored images used to rile up said culprits. Have you seen those reports? Very convenient, I'd say).

How do you calm down millions of muslims up in arms over a cartoon, hey it's easy, attack the Jews!

How do you calm down Indians if they're insulted, shit all over Pakistan of course.

How do you rip on Americans, tell the Russians their Vodka is crap. Oh wait, that one is outdated by 15 years. My bad.

It’s still all about freedom of speech, right?

Sadly, it still is. But instead of engaging in this juveline form of tit for tat reactions, if Arab countries had the balls, they would simply say, "No more oil for you". But Kings and Princes still need the cash to roll around in their 5 trillion benzs and Maybachs.

You can file a lawsuit, make the paper pay. But this emotional outrage doesn't give anyone didly squat. Seriously, the internet is full of far more nasty stuff, yet no one is running around yelling and killing.

GujuDude:

How do you calm down millions of muslims up in arms over a cartoon, hey it's easy, attack the Jews!

Why would this calm millions of Muslims down?

I can't help but think that most of the same people who are up in arms about "provocation" here would be LEAPING TO THE FRAY to defend "provocation" if / when it's directed against some Western symbol -

- MD's Maplethorpe example
- Piss Christ
- The Last Temptation of Christ
- Jesus & Convent Nun costumes at Halloween (at least here in SF, the vast majority of the latter seem to be worn by fat bearded men...)
- just about every editorial cartoon published in an Arab newspaper about Jews (for ex here)
- our chattering classes & OpEd pages would be on fire for weeks if a (R) politician so much as accidentally snubbed Brokeback Mountain, Will&Grace, or QueerEye. And yet they fall sadly silent at far more dire cases of Gay prosecution outside the West (for ex., here)....
- the de rigeuer George Bush effigy burned on the streets of Alexandria, Jenin, Paris, and San Francisco
- etc. etc. etc.

This outsized focus on avoiding provocation is just a form of rule by he who hath the thinnest skin.

And how was the provocation related to kashmir palestine and iran.
BBC had a bit on why no embassies were burnt this time in pakistan, and an annoymous answer was
b/c this time we(pakistanis) dont want the US to think Islam is volatile. It was hillarious as the reference was
was to the image created by zia that pakistan will either flip to the iranian style or american style if the US
doesnt support them and consider them a major ally against russians.
Here it is [from bbc]

"Injured religious sentiment has seldom translated into public unrest unless there was political mileage to be gained from it by some vested interest," he argues.

The 1979 sacking of the US embassy in Islamabad, say these analysts, was aimed at convincing the US of Islam's destructive potential and hence its utility in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But, if the point is to say: hey, we know these photos are provocative, but we think in a free society we should be able to do this without violence or threats of it

I guess they are re-printing the cartoons to show that they are not intimidated by the embassy burning/boycott of Danish products.

The Muslim street insane response has now in a way encouraged the Europeans to not back down or back down and lose face.
So now its a question of who blinks first. I think the Europeans will now keep coming out with cartoons which are even more derogatory towards Muhammad/Islam/Muslims. If they dont, it will look like the Muslim street won and Europe lost.

This sad escalation will eventually lead to the killing of one of the European cartoonists followed by Europeans burning down a few dozen mosques (like in the Van Gogh case) followed by even more hysteria on the American Right Wing blogosphere about Eurabia/dhimmitude/total war.

Vinod_at_large:
Do you see any difference between provocation which offends/humiliates the majority/people in control and offending/humiliating a vulnerable minority?
I am sure you dont and that is why my friend you are a conservative leaning libertarian.

The reason liberals in the West dont mind satirizing Jesus, the white man, churches is because they are in power and not a vulnerable minority and they can handle it,
while at the same time the liberals would be up in arms against the satirizing of Blacks, Gays and Muslims is because these groups are a minority and stigmatizing them will not be the same as stigmatizing people in power.

There is a difference between limitation in speech in a international and US context. This situation is going to explode, and the Danes, the French, are misguided to provoke it as if they have nothing to gain. As I describe below, limitations on speech were incorporated into the UN charter for this very reason: the power of xenophobia. Abhi was at least respectful.

I never thought I would believe that I am going to put forth this idea, but even in our great bastion of democracy, the first amendment is limited by context when there is clear and present danger. As Justice Holmes once said in the landmark case that even troubles me:

We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. . . . The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.

source: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=249&invol=47

Let me be clear that I absolutely disagree with the conclusion in Schenk as applied to the United States; in that case a man was sentenced to 20 years for "sedition" and "espionage" because he promoted membership in the Communist party. Schenk presents the same argument that we have against the US government in its overreaching in the war on terror. As Schenk's counsel pointed out:

But how can a speaker or writer be said to be free to discuss the actions of the Government if twenty years in prison stares him in the face if he makes a mistake and says too much? Severe punishment for sedition will stop political discussion as effectively as censorship. ... Must we return to conditions which prevailed under George III and be punished for criticizing our Government? ... Revolutions are not caused by freedom of expression.

source: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/curiae/html/249-47/001.htm

But we are no longer talking about speech in a nation, a republic. We are talking about a global context. The UN Charter and subsequent international conventions adopted after WWII and reflect limitations of speech in global rights because they were borne out of WW II and the horrifying resounding reality that the persecuation of Jews and Kurds and Gypsies and entire races came both from actions and inflammatory speech, ie mein kampf, that persuaded entire peoples to kill others based purely on such racialized hatred. Thus, international law, out of the profound experience of how xenophobia can spin out of control, by words, charicatures of racialized images, puts limits on hate speech and speech that can inflame. These laws reflect a principled distinction between speech within a nation and speech between nations and peoples. These laws respect a difference between exchanging ideas and spreading hate.

Do you see any difference between provocation which offends/humiliates the majority/people in control and offending/humiliating a vulnerable minority? I am sure you dont and that is why my friend you are a conservative leaning libertarian.

Yep, those (poor) jews / xtians who (still) live in Arab countries sure know a thing or 2 about being a vulnerable minority.

I'll grant that there's some aspect where majority / minority issues play out but I'm still ultimately far more "individualist" than "group membership" oriented about this sort of stuff. The ultimate diff b/t the "conservative / libertarian" view here and the "liberal" one is the DEGREE to which minority status provides cover. For me, when there's a philosophy that so directly attacks free speech, subjugates women, advocates violence to achieve these ends, yadda yadda yadda, I give it very little cover - regardless of majority / minority status.

would be LEAPING TO THE FRAY to defend "provocation" if / when it's directed against some Western symbol -

Well, it depends how the situation is handled. If the offense taken by a community ("Eastern" or "Western"), against a particular expression of free speech which apparantely serves no greater purpose than provocation, is then spun into cheap publicity and further provocation I'm not with the "leapers".

For me, when there's a philosophy that so directly attacks free speech, subjugates women, advocates violence to achieve these ends, yadda yadda yadda, I give it very little cover...

Unless they're Republican evangelicals in power in the U.S. ;)

Anji,
That is an interesting analysis and I largely agree with it. However, it should be pointed out that radical Muslim clerics from Denmark are the ones who first spread these cartoons out of one country (where they were published in a small-time local paper) and then distributed them (and other more incendiary ones that were never published) across the Muslim world. At this point as AMfD says in comment 11, this is about losing face. Many who believe in the freedom of speech feel that appeasement is a greater sin than needless provocation. If radical Islam sees that violence or the threat of violence is enough to change free countries, while their own corrupt autocratic governments remain the same, then where does that leave the world?

Many who believe in the freedom of speech feel that appeasement is a greater sin than needless provocation. If radical Islam sees that violence or the threat of violence is enough to change free countries,...

i don't see how it's changing anything. the original cartoons got published and nobody's taking jyllands-posten out of circulation. the reprintings are happening without impediment. the danish paper issued a provocation, and found muslim activists unsophisticated enough to take the bait; the escalation proceeded from there in a spiral as AMfD points out. now the papers i mentioned in the post are just piling on. it's already degenerated completely which is why so many people are turned off and unwilling to say anything on the entire matter.

what i find unpleasant is that the euro papers are doing this in the name of "freedom of speech." they are not. it's fascinating that in the united states, where the doctrine and practice of free speech are far more entrenched than in europe, nobody is hurrying to print the cartoons.

i find that american free-speech values and american multicultural values seem to blend quite well here to produce a general reasonableness. american papers aren't bandying the cartoons about, and american muslims aren't calling for jihad. the same apparently in canada. what about australia?

the purported opposition between free-speech and multiculturalism is a total red herring. free-speech and multiculturalism seem to me to go well together, and what we are currently seeing in europe is a deficit of both.

peace

This sad escalation will eventually lead to the killing of one of the European cartoonists followed by Europeans burning down a few dozen mosques (like in the Van Gogh case) followed by even more hysteria on the American Right Wing blogosphere about Eurabia/dhimmitude/total war.

i predict that an order of magnitude or more muslims in muslim countries will die than any non-muslims (byproduct of rioting and what not).

Do you see any difference between provocation which offends/humiliates the majority/people in control and offending/humiliating a vulnerable minority?

much of europe is post-christian. this is probably one reason that the vatican is siding with muslims.

woops, forgot to blockquote the first sentence in my comment (#19). it was a quote from from abhi (#18).

I've beat this horse dead by now, but if you want to be respected like a grown up, you have to act like one. These newspapers may be publishing more stuff 'provoking', prodding, inciting, etc. They may be racist. By reacting to these articles, people play right into the hands of the instigators (on either side). It's like a heckler in the stands during a game. Hecklers can talk a bunch of shit, call names, moon the players, etc. But by losing your cool and getting all pissed off, you lose your mental edge, focus, and ultimately the heckler got what the wanted.

Jesus & Convent Nun costumes at Halloween (at least here in SF, the vast majority of the latter seem to be worn by fat bearded men...)

You don't see these religious leaders showing tapes of, um, erotic entertainment that at times has some pretty crazy stuff with relgious charcters used at times. Again, the internet is a far more open forum with lots of stuff being said and published that would 'offend people', and there is no way to stop that content from reaching the masses.

This outsized focus on avoiding provocation is just a form of rule by he who hath the thinnest skin.

Ditto.

Why would this calm millions of Muslims down?

Changes the focus, by calm I mean venting their frustrations somehwere else. And it was a comment not to be taken too seriously. More of an observation of what people try to do, despite the lack of any success by using such a strategy. It's more of a temporary smoke screen that lasts, say, all but 2 seconds.

it's fascinating that in the united states, where the doctrine and practice of free speech are far more entrenched than in europe, nobody is hurrying to print the cartoons.

most americans respect religion, period (unless you are some elephant worshipping hindu). more americans dislike atheists than they do muslims.

the purported opposition between free-speech and multiculturalism is a total red herring. free-speech and multiculturalism seem to me to go well together, and what we are currently seeing in europe is a deficit of both.

america is less operationally multicultural than much of europe in that there is more mixing. many muslims live totally separate from non-muslims in europe (though not all, see the relatively low religiosity of french muslims as a case in point).

i find that american free-speech values and american multicultural values seem to blend quite well here to produce a general reasonableness. american papers aren't bandying the cartoons about, and american muslims aren't calling for jihad. the same apparently in canada. what about australia?

I've beat this horse dead by now, but if you want to be respected like a grown up, you have to act like one.

not unless people demand that you do.

amj's point that this is an attack on minorities vs. majorities in well taken in response to vinod's query about (some) liberal absolutism for free speech being equivocal in this case, but, the reaction of muslims is many orders of magnitude more extreme than christian nutsos has been. controlling for all variables i would still say that this wreaks to me of be-careful-the-savages-aren't-grown-up.

Vinod_at_Large

This is not an attack, but don't you think it more than just "some" majority/minority relations. You don't think, that Daneish parlimentarians calling Muslims "a cancer on Danish society" perhaps describes what this is really all about (They could run for Shiv Sena with a platform like that). How about selective persecution of blashphemy laws? It was all about race. We talk about the west as if it's some kind of monolithic culture. Danes are not the same as Brits, Americans, Canadians or even French. It is an almost completely homogeneous society, that has been playing up its socialist credentials and pretending to know something about integrating with others. Easy to do in theory, I guess. Faced with reality of the first wave of immigration, they turn into these aloof biggots who seem to be saying: How dare people living in Denmark have different values than us? How dare these people don't appreciate hours of porno on TV?

one thing, i'll go on the record that i if i had to choose between

a) no disrespect of religion
b) disrespect of islam but not christianity
c) disrespect of christianity but not islam
d) disrespect of both

i would go d, (c|b), a. the rank order of c & b is conditional on the context, in the USA i would probably pick c) since islam is a weak force here, and in europe b) since christianity is relatively moribund.

not unless people demand that you do

Agreed.

How dare people living in Denmark have different values than us? How dare these people don't appreciate hours of porno on TV?

hallelujah!

look, there aren't many places where TV-porn is appreciated. there are dozens of muslim states, but only a few nordic states. i will stand up and say that nordic states should keep their culture the way it is, and too many muslims as they behave themselves is a cancer. i have a friend in copenhagen and he jokes about how he's never seen so many headscarves in his life. shit, i'm taking a stand with spinoza, get out of the damn ghetto!

come on guys, speak with your mouse clicks, stand up for porn!

re: values, i'm with the crowd that says some values are nonnegotiable. the rights won by the persecution of voltaire, the imprisonment of diderot, etc. are not negotiable. spicy food? check. colorful dress? dress. new slang? check. new musical styles? check. hybrid children? check. there are many things that i think are cool, and are probably acceptable to broad swaths of modern people in many nations. but, sacrificing the felicitous freedoms won by the quirks of european history from the wars of religion to world war II are not negotiable.

enough of the world already respects "traditional values" and "decency."

come on guys...stand up for porn!

HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Porn is the secret weapon. You can fight em, you can shoot em, you can bayonet guys, you can send the diplomats in all in vain.

Everyone has gone about this the wrong way. Shit, all we needed to do is send Jenna Jameson in.

razib_the_atheist

I would be with you, but I don't think that you can have a dialouge with anyone who attacks your core values. Do you think the cartoons were meant to start a cross cultural dialouge? Of course not. The right wing paper (which has the largest circulation of any news paper in Denmark) wasn't planning on it's cartoons to get out. They were creating an atmosphere of hate and intolerence in their own community and flexing it's 'secular' muscles, openly provoking the ethin minority communities whose values differed from the majority. I'd be interested in seeing how many 'tolerant and open minded' Danes have cancelled the subscription to the newspaper since the story hit the fan.

The fact the story got out and has become a useful propaganda tool is a statement about globalization and the manipulative skills of Islamic Fundamentalists.

On a side note did anybody notice:

More than 900 Danish websites have been hacked, with a further 1,600 western sites attacked and defaced.
Does anybody know what kind of manpower would be required to pull this off?

Excuse my Hinglish please
the last post had an error,

Note to self: preview before posting

I wrote: The right wing paper (which has the largest circulation of any news paper in Denmark) wasn't planning on it's cartoons to get out.

I meant: The right wing paper (which has the largest circulation of any news paper in Denmark) wasn't planning on it's cartoons to reaching the greater muslim community, the images were for it's core audience (Danes with right wing values).

In the first place, "Muslims" aren't protesting violently against the cartoons. If they were, the mobs would be tens and hundreds of thousands, not thousands and hundreds. What's happening is that "some Muslims" are protesting violently. So one has to ask, who are they? Aside from the obvious suspects — rabble-rousing, ignorant clerics — I would guess the crowds are made up of underemployed males in their late teens and twenties, the same crew that in all cultures at all times is prone to engaging in mob violence. The cause is immaterial — soccer, anti-globalization protests, etc. And always, these mob-lovers, these testosterone-expenders, give a bad name to the far larger group of more reasonable people that they are taken to represent.

Because, in the second place, "Muslims" in the aggregate are offended by the cartoons. They have good reason to be. I'm not a Muslim, but I've read several biographies of Mohammed, and it's obvious to me that some of the cartoons in particular are based in utter ignorance. Satire is pointed, witty criticism; it presumes intelligence on the part of the satirist. Real satire requires knowledge of the object of the satire on the part of the satirist. When Jonathan Swift wrote his Modest Proposal, he knew the situation in Ireland and he knew the nature of the English ruling class. The Danish cartoons, with a couple of exceptions, appear to have been written by juvenile know-nothings, the cartoonist equivalent of the bile-filled flamers that are the bane of comment boards on the Internet. They clearly know nothing of Mohammed and tar all Muslims with the al-Q brush.

No matter what you think of his religious credentials, Mohammed was a decent, loving man who genuinely tried to improve human society. He was well aware that there would be people to come who would claim to be his followers who would grievously distort his message. I'm all for freedom of speech — but I'm opposed to the sanctification of ignorance. As far as I'm concerned, most of the Danish cartoonists are ignorant fools. As are the violent rioters.

Abhi wrote:

it should be pointed out that radical Muslim clerics from Denmark are the ones who first spread these cartoons out of one country

Actually, it was Ahmed Akkari, a 'born-again' Muslim Dane. You can read an interview with him here. Some excerpts:

Akkari grappled awkwardly with the global emergency that has sprung from his mission. Friends, strangers and close family members are now blaming him for exactly the thing he says he was trying to prevent: the caricaturing of Muslims as violent fanatics.

The riots, he acknowledged, have placed his fellow European Muslims in a far worse position than they had previously known.

He even seemed embroiled in the same fear that has gripped most Danes this week. "This could get a lot worse, and it could make life worse for Muslims here. If we can sort it out, if we can do something to help, make people take responsibility _ all the people involved _ then we have a chance of this violence not happening any more."

He had never meant this to be more than an internal Danish conflict, he says. It was meant to be a technical matter: How to get the government to acknowledge that something had gone wrong in this close-knit society, something that had caused its largest newspaper to ignore the feelings of a minority whose members number 180,000 in a country of 5.4 million.

Too late now, buddy

Siddhartha,

I fully disagree with you in your final analysis.

I wrote a few comments on Abhi's post, and similar to posts actually written by Muslims at Desicritics. I understand a muslim's feel of hurt. Respect is important.

It seems there was maybe some latent xenophobia when the cartoons were published, and it points to a deeper problem. Cicatrix and Scandanavian Hippie talked about it.

However,

The moment you take away the Freedom of Speech and Expression you take away the foundations of democracy. I support European newspapers publishing them as an act of solidarity. More important than that is you cannot be a hostage to whims of a group (be any religous or political group) - should we all seek permission before we write, draw, and speak at all time - no object certificate for everything, that is censorship.

siddharth m

Perhaps it's because free speech as we understand it in the US is not as 'entrenched' (as you put it) in some European countries that it is so irresistable to republish these pictures. Am I making my point clear? I mean, maybe the safety valve has to go off once in a while and it can't if you can't really say what you think. And here comes the pressure cooker, and here comes the safety valve......

I meant:

.......no objection certificate for everything we do at all times, that is censorship.

It's interesting that most people who staunchly defend free speech also generally identify themselves as being not religious. Notice however, they treat free speech exactly as if it were a religion. They have nothing at stake if Jesus or Allah or Ganesh are attacked but no-one dare touch their deity of free speech. If you take the context out of a situation you're left with nothing but blind faith. In this connection, I appreciated Abhi's post (not the substance of it which I didn't agree with at all) because he chose to use his discretion in censoring a part of the cartoon and saying that comments would be screened. So you see, by instinct people do get it right even if theoretically they worship at the altar of free speech. For the first time in my life I find myself on the same side as the Vatican. I too believe there is no need to be deliberately insulting and peoples' feelings count for something. This does not mean I will feel this way in every situation. The dominant powers can be provoked and I have no problem with Jesus cartoons even if they are offensive.

I don't think this controversy is about free speech at all. There is a lot of anger on both sides and it would be good if people tried to get at the bottom of it. I sympathize with the European predicament of feeling that they are being required to submit to Islam and not just be tolerant of it.

kush,

The moment you take away the Freedom of Speech and Expression you take away the foundations of democracy.

where did i say anything to the contrary? i note that amid all this noise, no newspapers that are printing this stuff are getting penalized for doing so. it seems to me that freedom of speech in this matter is holding up pretty well, against considerable pressure.

all i am saying is that it's way too easy for certain european papers to reprint the pictures using "freedom of speech" as a mask for an underlying project which is, at least in part, and consciously or not, to react against the role islam plays in their societies. it's a pretty shallow substitute for honest debate.

but as far as i am concerned, sure, those papers are free to print whatever they like. and we are free to analyze what it all means. (and MD, i think i agree with your last point.)

on a psychological level, one thing i see at work here, is that it looks like powerful white males (of all political stripes) in europe are feeling a lot more defensive/insecure about their cultural status than are powerful white males (of all political stripes) in america.

an interesting observation, no?

"on a psychological level, one thing i see at work here, is that it looks like powerful white males (of all political stripes) in europe are feeling a lot more defensive/insecure about their cultural status than are powerful white males (of all political stripes) in america."

siddhartha,

That is probably true.

That is why I really hope some of European Muslim leaders step up to the plate for dialogue. Middle East and South Asia needs to back off.

Divya

What do you mean freedom of speech is not absolute?

I for one will prove that I can not be oppressed and that the freedom of speech is absolute. I will go to a crowded theatre and scream Fire. Democracy demands it.

If a few people get hurt, it's really their problem, they should respect my rights to free speech.

Come on Mutineers, fight for democracy. Each of you go to a crowded theatre this weekend and scream fire. We must all do this or else the facist-firementalist will win.

... he chose to use his discretion in censoring a part of the cartoon and saying that comments would be screened. So you see, by instinct people do get it right even if theoretically they worship at the altar of free speech.

Totally wrong, see FAQ under 'free speech.'

on a psychological level, one thing i see at work here, is that it looks like powerful white males (of all political stripes) in europe are feeling a lot more defensive/insecure about their cultural status than are powerful white males (of all political stripes) in america.

an interesting observation, no?

Very interesting. Europe is declining in so many ways--demographicaly (the "great" city of Milan, in the news toay, has a population of 1.3 million--it wouldn't even be a suburb in China!), economically (overall percentage of world gdp), and it has much less cultural influence than it once did.

Itchy and Scratchy watch out the president is on the case.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/08/news/web.0208bush2.php

Van Desi -

You don't think, that Daneish parlimentarians calling Muslims "a cancer on Danish society" perhaps describes what this is really all about

If these they were marching around with signs protesting stuff like that, I'd agree with them. If they were protesting *that* while threatening beheadings, I'd DISAGREE with them. But what's worst, is that they're carrying signs like this AND threatening beheadings, suicide bombs, etc.

At this point, we're far from a case of "look what we've brought upon ourselves" but are instead, facing bedrock principles which are in diametric conflict.

It's interesting that most people who staunchly defend free speech also generally identify themselves as being not religious. Notice however, they treat free speech exactly as if it were a religion. They have nothing at stake if Jesus or Allah or Ganesh are attacked but no-one dare touch their deity of free speech.

Well then, if I gotta be representin', then I guess I better start representin'. Yo. I AM RELIGIOUS, AND I STAUNCHLY DEFEND FREE SPEECH. Got that?

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, Vinod is religious too. This is probably the first time we've agreed on anything remotely political ever.

Why has no one in America published the cartoons? Well first of all, I'm not even sure that's true. But if you're asking why have the major papers not published the cartoons--the answer is very simple. Americans--the most continuous experience with the philosophy of free speech--realize that just b/c you CAN do something does not mean you SHOULD. Amazingly subtle distinction, apparently. You can go through the comments sections and find hte Laxmi thong. I hated it. I condemned it. It made me sad. If I meet the maker at a paty, I will refuse to talk to them unless they apologize. I will staunchly oppose their participating in any Laxmi-centric religious activities. But you know what? I'm not going to hit them, and Im not going to call on the state to hit them, either literally or figuratively. Laxmi has Her own posse that can take care of that stuff with far greater precsion than I can. I regard vengeful violence exerted on not-violence as expressing a lack of faith in Divinity.

I actually see my religiosity and my love of free speech as a piece. In my room on one wall hangs religious paintings, and on another wall hangs the First Amendment, written on the flag. Let me loudly declare my love for my God without fear of reprisal, and let anyone who watches me and considers that love know that I am NOT declaring it loudly because I am afraid of the state or of a mob, and let the signifier of that knowledge be the fact that the jack-ass down the road who needs to loudly declare his hatred of my God can do so without fear of violence, and let the watcher be free to discern which signal is most true and most sincere without outside interference.

I WANT to know who the jackasses are. I want them to feel free to say they are jackasses without being attacked. Then I can avoid them. There is nothing more religiously repulsive to me than the notion of a temple/mosque/church full of worshippers who are secretly blasphemous in their heart but who worship in public simply to stay safe.

Each of you go to a crowded theatre this weekend and scream fire.

Very clever. Let's think about that shall we.

In both situations a signal is delivered (screaming) and received. In this example the signal contains information that must either be acted upon immediately (i.e. wihtout time for thought or examination) or ignored. If it is true, and ignored, the recipient risks death. If it is not true, and acted upon, the recipient risks death. The recipient has no time to evaluate the verity of the signal, and the risks entailed in ignoring it are absolute.

In another a signal is printed on a piece of paper. That paper is picked up at a newsstand and read. (Or fine, transmitted through the internet.) There is no lack of time to evaluate the source and credibility and of the signal source, nor is there any immediate threat contained in it. BOTH of the conditions that make the fire signal dangerous--the risk involved, and the opportunity to evaluate--are missing. ANY remotely reasonable human being--older than the age of 5 and not retarded--has the capacity to evaluate the signal and ignore the signal (or shove it out of the MUST GO KILL SOMEONE pile and onto the BLOG ON SEPIA MUTINY pile) with plenty of time and attention. There is no immediate threat, there is no lack of time to process the signal, there is no necessary physical reaction involved, really. The threat, as it exists, is cultural. And it can be responded to in a cultural medium. Like more cartoons. Or a sarcastic blogpost. Or even boycotting. Fine. But torching embassies? Demanding that the Danish state do something about it* Those are responses that are out of proportion. Proportion, what a concept. Speech, press, religious belief are all mental actions, fundamentally--and proportionatley, they should not be subjected to physical force.

*Yes, I realize the Danish state has anti-blasphemy laws, and well, that's also ridiculous, but it's not clear to me that they're ever actually enforced.

Why has no one in America published the cartoons?

this is only partially true... I've seen 'em on major network news and a blogger I read regularly (Virgina Postrel) has a screen cap w/ a very visible "Fox News" logo in the bottom left (here).

FWIW... the blogosphere has reported that CNN did NOT show them... So I wonder if this is just selective outlets within the US.... "Provocative" conspiratorialist that I am, I wonder what the correlation is b/t outlets that didn't show the cartoon picts for fear of creating even more outrage vs. ones who had a media field day with Abu Ghraib picts...

Saheli,

Well said.

NPR discussed US media role this morning. The cartoons have been published in US - even of one of major news network did for some of them earlier.

I think the majority of US media has refrained because they can on their own volition - not out of fear - as you said.

I may have not drawn Prophet Mohammad cartoon out of respect or I may have (who knows - I have not thought about it) but I am not going to tell others not to do it.

If they are lying about something, I will get upset and try my best to defend truth but not get violent.

It's interesting that most people who staunchly defend free speech also generally identify themselves as being not religious. Notice however, they treat free speech exactly as if it were a religion. .... So you see, by instinct people do get it right even if theoretically they worship at the altar of free speech.

Wha??? I fail to see the connection - and I also fail to see how such a spurious relationship can be drawn between the two that are often seen to coexist. I'm not even going to start to list various staunchly religious groups who freely expound their ideology in states where free speech is constitutionally upheld, precisely because they are free to express their bigotry or religious beliefs without fear of violent retribution or persecution.

I don't think this controversy is about free speech at all.

It most certainly is at the heart of it all. Its about whether or not people have the right to offend, which relates to whether or not one can express themselves freely, even if that means saying (or drawing) something offensive.

Some to publish or not to publish drama in the U.S. The editorial staff of the New York Press quit when they were told they could not publish the original cartoons.

http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2006/02/ny-press-kills-cartoons-staff-walks-out.html

I, for one, agree with them even though the memo is rather sanctimonious (divya- I think these people worship at the altar of free speech but tell me again why that is a bad thing?), they have a very valid point.

It is a story. It is a huge story and you can't tell it well without presenting the supposed cause of the furor.

But commissioning more cartoons, yeah that's less about free speech and more about beinng provocatuers.
Now, don't they have that right? They are not breaking any laws to my knowledge. You can't legitimately hold them responsible for arson - that is the responsbility of the person holding the torch.

Also the "hard being worshipped by idiots" reminded me of the The Onion post 9/11 - something about God being pissed off that people are too stupid to follow the don't kill rule. Although that was not geared just towards islam, was funny and I have no idea what cons means.

Ok, back to lurking.

nothing controversial... wanted to share some bad writing - the excerpt is from a report filed by yahoo correspondent james kilner.

The editor of Jyllands-Posten has apologized for offending Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, including one of the founder of Islam holding a bomb in his turban, but defended his right to do so in the interests of free speech.

It most certainly is at the heart of it all. Its about whether or not people have the right to offend, which relates to whether or not one can express themselves freely, even if that means saying (or drawing) something offensive.

whether people have the right to offend is not that interesting a question. i am sure 98% of the people who comment here agree that in general, people have the right to offend.

the more interesting question is: what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?

i'd love to hear people's answers to this question - whether in general, in their own lives, or in the case of the danish cartoons.

peace

but I don't think that you can have a dialouge with anyone who attacks your core values

what are those core values? look, i don't believe in god and don't respect any holy scriptures, and i'm not going to pretend that religious texts are ontologically any more significant than a collection of calvin & hobbes cartoons. that doesn't mean that i don't respect the right of religious people to believe what they want to believe. to each his own.

yes, i can see why the cartoons were offensive. i thought they were in bad taste, though i think saying there was an ethnic element is iffy, it can be justified, but instead of a jew, a better analogy would be to a rabbi. but in any case, many muslims' core values (not all) seem to be that we their core values are their core values and our core values are their core values. homey don't play that game.

No matter what you think of his religious credentials, Mohammed was a decent, loving man who genuinely tried to improve human society

he was also a militarist who liked 9 year old girls (i hope that doesn't get me censored). in other words, he was a man of many faces.

p.s. and please be cautious about conflating ethnicity and religion here. there was some of this in the attack, but attacking an ethnicity = attacking people, attacking a religion = attacking ideas. the problem (as an unbeliever) with many religious people is that they seem to conflate mental harm with bodily harm when it comes to their religious beliefs.

It's interesting that most people who staunchly defend free speech also generally identify themselves as being not religious. Notice however, they treat free speech exactly as if it were a religion. They have nothing at stake if Jesus or Allah or Ganesh

what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?

part of it is that people are afraid to offend muslims, that's straight out true. when i was VP of an atheist club i had a few creepy threatening emails for being an apostate. it was bizarre. nothing came off it, but the fact that something like that occurs tells you the state of mind of some muslims.

and yes, there is an ethnic element to it. so what? no society is perfect, and european gov. tend to have generous welfare benefits for muslim immigrants, so on the grand scale i don't weight european racism that much when placed next to freedom of expression and holding the line against medieval religion. europeans might hate muslims (to some extent true), but they also fatten 'em up.

it's all about your priorities and how you weight them.

what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?

siddhartha,

- maybe, latent xenophopia

- maybe, testing limits

- maybe, darring the Islamic power structure

- maybe, business as usual

christian symbols are offended day-in, day-out

since July, I started visiting sepia mutiny, i have ~90% disagreed with Vinod. However, I agree with him (and support him) why when Christian symbols are offended, there is no violence on the streets - in present. we are not talking about 500 years ago.

However, I agree with him (and support him) why when Christian symbols are offended

that's because christians aren't part of an underclass. i mean, look at all those evangelical black christians who are all rich, why do they have to be uppity about their religion being attacked or distorted by secularists when they have such great success? :)

my point is that even if racism and deprivation are necessary conditions for primitivism, they aren't sufficient.

Thanks Kush.

I am not going to tell others not to do it.

Oh hell. *I'll* tell others not to do it. I'm not the state. And I won't bring a torch or sword to the conversation.

Really, those protesters in Philly were heroes in my book. Register your anger, and register it loud, but don't physically force an issue that is not about force in the first place.

amen sister.

btw, i haven't had a religious conversion in the past day. bad reediting job on my handle.

god bless

razib

Razib a general quesion,
How does your extended family deal with your overt athiesm?
and also do you go with the flow on cultural occasions, ie do you practice rituals.

what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?

-insecurity
-fear
-boredom with my low-paying job as a cartoonist for a little-known newspaper, say in, er, denmark

Vinod

Thanks for responding so prompty.

You have the edge on me. You are criticising a bunch of whackjobs who've probably failed grade 9, would probably like to off me, since I'm not a coreligionist and my tendency to mack on anything that moves will probably get in a spot or two of trouble.

I'm criticising a bunch of self richeous blowhards who think they have interesting things to say to the world but are as insular and small minded as any other conservative monarchy. But at least they have democracy and the right to say what ever they would like (barring selective application of the constitution). Even if they don't have the sense to choose the right things to say.

You wrote:

At this point, we're far from a case of "look what we've brought upon ourselves" but are instead, facing bedrock principles which are in diametric conflict.

Who's we? I'm not Danish, and if I'm not mistaken neither are you. Nor am I right wingnut, nor am I sadistic as@hole who has a sense of human that requires the humiliation or subjugation of ethnic minorities. And let's please come back to this, for a momment. Muslim in Denmark means being brown (check out the laws for nationalizing spouses of Danish nationals or even more simply look at the orientalist scourage caricature in the turbanbomb image). Religion and ehtnicity are intermixed in these representations, like being Jewish/Semetic or Black/Urban. So an insular xenophobic rag, in a tag along country wants to start a fire, and then hide behind other Western nations that spend on DoD and produce something other than lego blocks. Well burn baby burn.

Lastly manners and respect for others are hardly in "diametric conflict" with democracy.

ps. Just as a side note: How many palestinians drink Carlsburg beer? Really what essential Danish products can you boycott? Are falvorless biscuits really such hot sellers in the Muslim world? Should we inform Parle-G.

pss. Check on the Danish stand when Salman Rushdie fatwa was issued.

How does your extended family deal with your overt athiesm?
and also do you go with the flow on cultural occasions, ie do you practice rituals.

most of them don't know i assume. they are mostly in the UK or bangladesh or the middle east, so there isn't an issue that comes up since i don't see them and don't keep in touch. my parents and i don't see each other often either, so mostly don't ask/don't tell, they pray and hope.

insular and small minded as any other conservative monarchy

do you think danes are insular and small minded? christ, how perfect do you want ppl to be? most danes know english and have been outside of their country (it is hard to be THAT insular when you are tiny).

Oh you all are a funny, funny bunch. Luscious moon, that low-paying job comment is hilarious. razib - I'm in the kind of wierd position of wanting to be a believer, but not feeling it. I am seriously sad about this. Seriously. God is too beautiful an idea to abandon, which of course, is not a position you would agree with. Once again, it's all about aesthetics and beauty and art, for me.

Anyway, people like to offend for lots of reasons and one of them is that sometimes some peoples need offending. Oops. Is that too provocative?

Saheli - I want to write the way you write. Amen sister, indeed.

MD (initials of name, not degree. Little in-joke for razib).

Doesn't look like anyone has pointed this out yet... so:

Jyllands is backtracking quickly

Someone posted this on my blog:
Reading between the lines, it seems like the Culture Editor at Jyllands-Posten, Flemming Rose (who commissioned the original Mohammed cartoons), had a fit of pique, and made some typically Danish sarcastic remarks to a CNN reporter, who quoted him in full. Jyllands-Posten’s Editor-in-Chief, Carsten Juste, has slapped-down Rose, and all at Jyllands-Posten are now trying desperately to save face.

also: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=203972006

This story is evolving as we speak!

Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws? Just curious.........

And let's please come back to this, for a momment. Muslim in Denmark means being brown (check out the laws for nationalizing spouses of Danish nationals or even more simply look at the orientalist scourage caricature in the turbanbomb image). Religion and ehtnicity are intermixed in these representations, like being Jewish/Semetic or Black/Urban. So an insular xenophobic rag, in a tag along country wants to start a fire, and then hide behind other Western nations that spend on DoD and produce something other than lego blocks. Well burn baby burn.

1) yes, racism is a problem, but, please, i doubt that it is the full picture. there are a minority of muslims who are patriarchal wife-beatin' kufir hating nuts. in england the muslim browns are more problematic. in the netherlands the muslims are more problematic. in france the lighter skinned muslims are more problematic. islam as an ideology brings its own baggage.

2) the jewish/semitic assocation is different by degree, as jews have always been a nation, an ethnicity (OK, at least since the roman period when matrilineal descent was introduced and the pagans were christianized). islam is not an ethnicity, it is a religion. it does exhibit correlations with ethnicity, but this is not fundamental, even if europeans conflate the two, accepting it operationally will cyrstalize this tendency and pretty soon you're going to have a bunch of medieval loons defending their practices as somehow fundamental to their DNA.

3) theo van gogh was killed by a muslim in the netherlands, not a hindu. i tend to find the hindutva types on these boards pretty dumb, but they have a lot of facts to work with, thatz be the truth. racism doesn't drive you crazy, it doesn't drive non-muslim non-whites in europe toward organized ideological violence.

4) it's all about priorities. your utility calculation. i'll be straight, one ayaan hirsi ali is worth a 1,000 hijab wearing god-fearers in my book. god bless her.

Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws?

because we don't want to perpetuate orientalist caricatures you right-wing hag!

Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws?

Because there are many different viewpoints being expressed here. There is general consensus about the woman who got killed by her in-laws - it was wrong and the culprits should burn in hell.

It's one of those stories you read and say,"Effin bastards". You'll be hard pressed to find an opinion that strays too far from that.

Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws? Just curious.........

(1) this issue is on TV in us

(2) Its painful to deal with horrible stuff in ones own society so its easy to look at other societies is more fun to watch. Although both problem exist in india and its neighbors.

(3) a genuine concern of PC which may stifle political discussions particularly those that have ethnic and religious issues. This is related to one of the major conflicts of our times.

Totally wrong, see FAQ under 'free speech.'

Well, if you want to get off on a technicality . . .

Anyway, I'm on the Danes' side. I just don't get this fanatic support of any type of belief system. I mean it's not like these cartoons were published in Saudi Arabia. That would have been interesting and progressive.

divya, who do you think wrote the FAQ? i suspect that SM posters are aware of the details, this isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Razib

It helps to have a sense of one's own history. Look up the 92-93 Mumbai (check out Maximum City)sectarian violence, or the 85 Delhi riots. I'm sure if you work hard enough you'd find records of one or two Hindu crimes. Good times await. Oh while you're at it, you might also want to look up Air India bombings.

2) the jewish/semitic assocation is different by degree, as jews have always been a nation, an ethnicity (OK, at least since the roman period when matrilineal descent was introduced and the pagans were christianized). islam is not an ethnicity, it is a religion. it does exhibit correlations with ethnicity, but this is not fundamental, even if europeans conflate the two, accepting it operationally will cyrstalize this tendency and pretty soon you're going to have a bunch of medieval loons defending their practices as somehow fundamental to their DNA.

What are you going on about. I thought I was fairly clear in my intent. When the Danes say muslims, they mean brown people. I wasn't talking about how people choose to identify themselves.

4) it's all about priorities. your utility calculation. i'll be straight, one ayaan hirsi ali is worth a 1,000 hijab wearing god-fearers in my book. god bless her.

Really your value for "human" life is awe inspiring. I'm glad that you've calculated such a precise calculus. So you're fond of humanist ideals, unless it becomes inconveinient. "all men are created equal... well kind of". Thanks for sharing your very unique postion.

By the way that if you work really hard over the next couple of days, you'll be able to find records of one or two muslims killed by westerners in the last couple of years [places to start looking: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palistine, Algeria] and one or two examples of Western countries screwing over muslim nations for perhaps less than noble reasons [Iran, Iraq, oh just read a history about the whole of the middle east]. A few people were killed here and there, one in a thousand.

Have a good time.

i have a friend in copenhagen and he jokes about how he's never seen so many headscarves in his life. shit, i'm taking a stand with spinoza, get out of the damn ghetto!

razib (_against_multireligionism?)

How on earth can they get out of the ghettos when, cancers that they are, they are treated with as much welcome as chemotherapy by the natives. It's stupid and naive to expect masses of poor and unskilled workers to overcome poverty and racism and integrate into a foreign community (who don't like them in them in the first place).

Anyhow, it's hardly surprising that this vile newspaper will now join forces with another vile newspaper from Iran to make fun of holocaust victims. Class. Pure class. One must wonder if Mr Rose would be so insensitive if his mother/father/grandmother/grandfather were gassed or starved to death by those wonderful German lads.

who do you think wrote the FAQ? i suspect that SM posters are aware of the details, this isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I happen to agree with the FAQ. It proves my point. For all this hue and cry about free speech, people with common sense draw the line somewhere. This is as much a public space as it is a private one - that's the technicality.

I didn't intend for this to come out like I don't care about free speech. I've spoken before about PC speech which I find stifling. I just didn't like this particular circumstance, that's all. It targets all Muslims - moderates and fanatics. In contrast, where were the Danes at the time of the hijab issue where they could have taken on the fanatics only? They let that slide. This reminds me, the other reason I don't like these types of "freedoms" is because you're forced to lump all people in the same category. The hijab bothers me, the turban doesn't. But both issues are lumped together because of some belief that is supposed to apply to all people at all times.

Really, those protesters in Philly were heroes in my book. Register your anger, and register it loud, but don't physically force an issue that is not about force in the first place.

It probably sounds awful, but the poor and uneducated will ALWAYS be easily mislead, more passionate and dare I say, more violent. Even in developed Western countries poorer areas are more violent. This is why you will see cricket mad fanatics in India rioting in the streets and burning effigies of the members of their cricket team for losing the World Cup and why you will NOT see the same happening in an equally cricket mad Australia when the same occurs.

What the European media have essentially done is started a war with illiterate muslims.

There's a saying that goes something along the lines of "Don't fight with an idiot. If you do, you'll need to stoop to their level to win". And as we are seeing now, the European media have stooped to that level.

JP actually issued a statement on its website refuting the holocaust cartoon claim as 'sarcasm'.
Too lazy to get the link right now.

This whole argument of culture of fear where people cannot criticize Islam in the West is ridiculous.
Anybody who has been awake anytime since 9-11 will attest to hearing/reading enough discussions about the backwardness, wickedness and evil of Islam.
Pat Robertsons 'Muhammad was a terrorist' to Franklin Graham's 'Islam is evil' to Toncredo's 'Nuke Mecca' to Ann Coulters 'lets invade them/convert to Christianity' to Berlusconi 'Islam is backward' to Congressman 'pull out the diaper heads with fan belts out of the lines for questioning' to the Cartoon of 'Muhammad riding a bomb filled with trucks' in the US to Denmarks Parliamentarians 'Muslims are Cancer' to Van Goughs ' Muslims are goat fuckers' to 'Muhammad is a child-molester comment/analysis/books by 2344 western personalities to the half a million blogs/books/articles written about the wickedness of Islam and countless other politicians, media personalities, talk show hosts, western politicians lambasting Islam to various degrees in the past few years..................its amusing to see this atmosphere of fear where it was imperative for the Danes to publish the cartoons because no one could dare criticize Islam in the open.
Is there any religion which can be criticized with the same impunity that Islam has been in the West since 9-11?

Am I the only who is getting sick of being lectured about the bedrock values of the 'WEST'?
This ad nauseam chest beating of 'our' values against 'their' values, 'our' greatness against 'their' weakness, 'our' moral superiority against 'their' moral cowardice, 'our' nobility 'against' their 'savagery', Muslims are coming, muslims are coming, order your burqas, shave your pubic hair, where is Winston Churchill, what would Winston Churchill do, Western solidarity, reminiscing about WW2, Eurabia, dhimmitude, anti-semitism, american liberal cowardice for not re-printing the cartoons, cnn is cowering, buy danish, we are all danish, we are in this together, stand up american newspapers......oh please!

For those of you who missed it (or were too lazy to click through on Razib's comment) here is the Vatican's statement on the matter:

In its first official comments on the caricatures, the Vatican, while deploring violent protests, said certain forms of criticism represent an "unacceptable provocation." "The right to freedom of thought and expression ... cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers," the Vatican said in a statement. [Link]

Am I the only who is getting sick of being lectured about the bedrock values of the 'WEST'?

I think it's time to herd all right-wing conservatives from all countries into one paddock and let them fight it out themselves.

It is amusing that the people who are for publishing the cartoons are the same ones to get offended by flag burning.

fuck the flag, but praise all that it stands for.

why burn the flag in the USA? because in this country you can!

Am I the only who is getting sick of being lectured about the bedrock values of the 'WEST'?

i'm not. most of the people of the west don't really accept the values of the west. why the hell would you talk about the ACLU you all the time?

There are many levels of hypocracy here -

- European media normally extremely sensitive towards anti-semitism seems to think caricaturing muslims is free speech.
- Media in Muslim countries which regularly caricatures, jews, americans, hindus, etc, seems to be sensitive when it comes to islam
- Christians who get offended by religious caricatures are derided by faux-liberals as rednecks and hillbillys.
- Muslims who get offended by religious caricatures become poor, vuranrable minorities who must be protected and whose violence and outrage are understandable in light of the West's oppression.
- Christian conservatives defending this on the basis of free speech would easily be pissed off at other forms of free speech.
- Muslims who are offended by this would probably be more than happy to destroy 3000 year old buddhist idols in afganistan.

* hypocrisy *

Look up the 92-93 Mumbai (check out Maximum City)sectarian violence, or the 85 Delhi riots. I'm sure if you work hard enough you'd find records of one or two Hindu crimes. Good times await. Oh while you're at it, you might also want to look up Air India bombings.

i didn't say hindus weren't savage, the gujarat riots showed that. the sikh attack on the theater in england last year showed how primitive they can be. i'm just saying that muslims seem especially unsaintly on that count.

So you're fond of humanist ideals, unless it becomes inconveinient. "all men are created equal... well kind of". Thanks for sharing your very unique postion.

all men are created equal, before the law.

why burn the flag in the USA? because in this country you can!

It's stupid and naive to expect masses of poor and unskilled workers to overcome poverty and racism and integrate into a foreign community (who don't like them in them in the first place).

heh. well, that's what the german jews and american jews did (though with vastly different end points). and life isn't easy. some people are born ugly, go ask them.

Err, if you did burn the American flag in the US you would be lynched

bullshit. that link was for australia, not the USofA, where we worship free speech (canadians and ozzies like to say they respect it, they don't worship it). seriously dude, they speak english differently.

Is there any religion which can be criticized with the same impunity that Islam has been in the West since 9-11?

yes. if you read this blog, you will see that they put hindu gods on toilets.

so hey, did the hindus riot because someone shat on an image of their gods?

It is amusing that the people who are for publishing the cartoons are the same ones to get offended by flag burning.

nice to see you are OK with generalizations btw (this libertarian is too). i'll keep that in mind when talking about the modal behavior of muslims....

well, that's what the german jews and american jews did (though with vastly different end points). and life isn't easy.

bullshit. that link was for australia, not the USofA, where we worship free speech

nice to see you are OK with generalizations btw

The really frightening thing though, is that the 'WEST' think of their ideologies as superior and non-negotiable. Similarily, muslims think of their religion as superior and non-negotiable. *sigh*

They have been minority groups in various countries for thousands of years and are possibly the ONLY minority group in the world to overcome oppression. But the advantage they had was that they weren't poor and they weren't unskilled.

1) it is not true they are the only minority group to overcome oppression. i don't want to give you a history lecture, but to give you a trivial one the chinese in thailand have repeatedly ascended the heights of power, been assimilated, and given way to the next wave of chinese. the christians in the roman empire overcame oppression rather spectacularly.

2) yes, the jews were poor, whether they were unskilled is a bit more dicey. but, in poland in the 18th century there was a massive increase in jewish numbers and surplus humanity which 'ate air,' an allusion to the fact that local laws and cultural biases prevented employment of jews in agriculture at a time where small tradesmen were being marginalized and only so many slots were open for money lenders (jews were generally barred from professions). the german jews who arrived in the USA were often the sons of rag traders. these were not the high and might of the world, the jews who escaped the bounds of the shtetl during the jewish enlightenment were the wretched of the world and repulsed their gentile neighbors with their locks, caftans and folkways. their appearence and odor was repulsive to most, and even the great philosopher moses mendelsshon was forced to pay fees to renew his residency permit in the city of berlin.

anyway, the point is that oppression is not the sum of all things. the world does not turn on the will of the white man if you so choose it not too.

So this is basically a war of religions. What I beieve is better than what you believe!

i don't think that basic foundational values are derived, they are. yes, it is a war of religion in a sense. i call children of voltaire jihad!!!

the chinese in thailand have repeatedly ascended the heights of power, been assimilated, and given way to the next wave of chinese.

the christians in the roman empire overcame oppression rather spectacularly.

A view from over here:

Some major social problems are coming together at once.

One: the European social divide. Countries like Holland and Denmark operated what their governments saw as a liberal immigration policy until recently, resulting in a sudden influx of relatively poor and unskilled primarily Muslim immigrants. These countries are small, relatively cohesive in a racial and linguistic sense, and quite parochial with a poor understanding of other people and world-views. They might have reacted well to an influx of well-educated and articulate Muslim doctors, but they certainly didn't to the influx that they got. The result was that the local population shunned these people. They faced ferocious discrimination in the job market even in situations where they had the necessary skills. They were equally discriminated against socially, typical examples being in nightclubs where having dark skin was often enough to keep you out unless you had white Danes to vouch for you. Thus we finish with people who feel rejected as Europeans and cling to the only other identity they have, usually Muslim, but transformed in a local context and rather dangerous because lacking a healthy social organisation, respected authority figures, etc. These people do unpleasant, vicious and reprehensible things like the murder of Theo Van Gogh. In response the Danes, who have meantime shed none of their parochial prejudices but rather seen them reinforced by this situation and also by the global wave of Islamophobia emanating from Israel and America, have elected an extremely unpleasant and xenophobic government that has brought in very bizarre and reprehensible rules against foreigners. One result is that (for example) Danish citizens who want to marry a foreigner now often have to go to Sweden because it is too difficult or impossible under Danish rules. In truth neither the Danes nor their immigrant population come out looking very good in all this, but the fault is more that of the Danes because it was their decision to structure their immigration and social policy in the way that led to this situation, and as the dominant majority it is only in their power to change the situation, not the other way around.

Two: The enormous disparity in wealth and power between Muslims and Westerners, combined with the conflict between Muslims and the West that the creation of Israel, the dispossession of Palestinians, and the support to this policy by the west has created.

The Danes and indeed most Europeans need to start figuring out that they have laws against inflammatory speech about (for example) the Holocaust for a reason. In principle, in an ideal society, there is no reason to forbid satire or hatred relating to the Holocaust or Islam or any other subject. However Europeans have inherited a complex and turbulent history and they have not done very much to make it simpler. Until they can resolve their social problems they need to apply tighter restrictions on inflammatory speech than they have done till now. They need to accept that they have a significant Muslim population and start treating these people as equal partners. By and large Europeans do not treat immigrants as people who have an equal right to live where they do (unlike Americans). Even when they are polite and even friendly or helpful, they treat immigrants as outsiders. This is self-defeating: either you should not accept immigrants in the first place, or you should accept them fully. The European way at present is really, really dangerous.

I think desis and other immigrants in Europe can do more to change this situation by standing up, organising, persuading Europeans to realise that they are here to stay, that they are articulate, that they regard themselves as Europeans and need to be accepted as such by society. The change has to come from within the majority, but better dialogue can help accelerate it.

Sorry, these are not very well organised thoughts, but that is what the comment function is for.

Two: The enormous disparity in wealth and power between Muslims and Westerners, combined with the conflict between Muslims and the West that the creation of Israel, the dispossession of Palestinians, and the support to this policy by the west has created.

I just tune out of whatever someone is saying as soon as they come out with this line as 'explanation'!

Jay Singh: Please do tune out, as your response indicates you wouldn't have anything thoughtful to contribute anyway. Best of luck to you.

yes. if you read this blog, you will see that they put hindu gods on toilets.

so hey, did the hindus riot because someone shat on an image of their gods?

I am not suggesting that criticism of Muslims lead to the protests. I am however suggesting that this climate of intimidation where Islam could not be criticized and so the Danes had to step in is B.S.

Its interesting how many here protect free speech when this very site has blocked views that have offended them in the past.

Unfortunately or fortunately, this goes silent.

As some of those who are blocked do not feel insecure enough to make a big deal about it.

But to express a solidarity with free speech while exercising the right to censor without explanation is a contradiction, no?

Jay Singh: Please do tune out, as your response indicates you wouldn't have anything thoughtful to contribute anyway. Best of luck to you.

Don't be so superficial and tiresome bwana. Lets get it straight - what you said there about poverty has NOTHING to do with the response to the publication of the cartoons. It is sheer distraction, a smokescreen, and lazy lies.

I just tune out of whatever someone is saying as soon as they come out with this line as 'explanation'!

hey... Jay... I rather liked Euro_D's commentary. I dont believe he said "this is why this happened" or "europeans are to blame" - he just reported some facts that suggest social unrest. So, just wanted to put a plug for Euro_D. For what it's worth, I liked his/her reporting - it reported current facts in plainspeak and human terms - I felt this was good value-add. keep it coming.
-cloak on-

i'd like to express dismay at the peremptory statements/flames that have begun to invade this thread. i suppose it can't be avoided. i'd also like to highlight something bengali said:

There's a saying that goes something along the lines of "Don't fight with an idiot. If you do, you'll need to stoop to their level to win". And as we are seeing now, the European media have stooped to that level.

that's a pretty good recap of where things are. look, the original cartoons -- and the bomb one in particular -- were stupid. they were mediocre art. they were infused with racism -- as a friend of mine pointed out, they aimed to conflate the brown people on television with craziness and irrationality. he added that in that respect they could have been cooked up by anyone from the pentagon to the mountains of pakistan, in that they stoke the "clash" that extremists on both sides desire and welcome.

i have no problem with jyllands-posten's right to solicit them, select them, and print them. i have no problem with any other outlet's right to reprint them. i have no problem with the right to offend. all i wonder is why jyllands-posten and its emulators felt the need to invoke and utilize those rights at this time. i'm glad they did what they did, because clearly it was in their heart. i just want to know why.

as i've hinted in previous comments, i think it gets us back to the psychology of a european elite (political, social, educational, economic, etc) that has convinced itself that it is beleaguered. it has fixated on islam as the source of its beleaguerment -- but the full picture, as we are getting hints, also includes race anxiety (ergo the conflation of brownness with craziness) and gender anxiety (ergo mr. flemming rose's nice comments about rape).

(methodological footnote, feel free to skip: why am i generalizing to europe and not including the united states? continental europe exhibits many historic and sociological commonalities that i won't both going into a long dissertation on here. the bottom line is that the way the elite forms and sustains itself is different in continental europe, where it is relatiely rigid, than it is in north america, where it is relatively fluid.)

(thematic parenthesis, feel free to skip as well: why am i not talking about the violent and obscurantist reaction and the powerful leaders who are callously stoking it? because it's goddamn obvious, is why. i'm much more interested in the complicated questions and the ones that affect the places and cultures in which mutineers live. we have to examine ourselves, and that ain't no PC. it's spiritual health. the mutiny is a space so remarkably populated with sophisticated people that we do ourselves a discredit by not taking on the ambiguous, uncomfortable questions.)

with that out of the way: one strength of the immigrant multicultural societies like the us, canada, australia is that, albeit to varying degrees, this elite anxiety is so much less than in europe. as a result where desis and other browns fit in, and how, and with what prospects, and especially, what are the psychological costs of success or the psychological burdens of failure, is wildly different in north america than it is in europe. browns on one side of the atlantic would do well to bear this in mind and show some empathy for the perspectives of browns on the other side of the atlantic.

in conclusion i would like to post a note that was shared on a small yahoo-group i am part of. it comes from a sister who lives in the united states and is half-danish, half-pakistani. it's a totally honest statement from someone who rarely speaks up and is completely devoid of ideological agenda. folks may find it interesting:

my position as a PakiDane (mom from Denmark, dad from and currently living in Pakistan) has had me thinking a lot about this and talking to family on all sides.

I think the cartoon episode demonstrates a few aspects of the Danes. First, Danes have an odd sense of humor. They really do. Generalizing here of course, but they have a very dry sense of humor, make fun of themselves (and others) easily, and like to have a good time over most other things. They have a hard time appreciating that others may take things more seriously. And in Jutland, the area where the paper is published, there has not been the influx of immigrants that there has been in Copenhagen, and therefore there is less tolerance or awareness. Second, Danes have a bit of a
superiority complex. They firmly believe that they have a better system and society that most other countries in the world. They're proud. I have many conversations with Danes that included some form of pity and patronizing that I am American. Third, like many other countries, Denmark is
experiencing some serious xenophobia and racism these days. It has the most conservative government it has had in some time. Regardless of whether publishing the cartoons was right or wrong, the PM’s refusal to talk with Muslim leaders last fall, and continued resistance to making any genuine
apology doesn’t help matters.

Talking to various family members, I’ve heard both outrage and embarrassment at being Danish (not surprisingly from my mom who married a Muslim, and from my aunt whose husband was a high level politician), and genuine confusion as to why Muslims are so offended. “I don’t understand why they take it so seriously!” says another aunt. Her husband, a minister, has been known to use Calvin and Hobbes as a subject of his sermons.

As for the Muslim perspective... I don’t know much about Syria and Lebanon. But in Pakistan, violent protests are a means of free speech. I know I’m being a tad reductive, but this is a country where the way to change/reform government is to stage a coup. The literacy rate is about 50%; people aren’t writing letters to the editor here. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a Danish product to boycott there either. No doubt, the Danish clerics who took the cartoons on the road are exploiting this situation. I’m still waiting to hear anything from my Dad on his take on how this is playing out over there.

This whole thing has me thinking a little about the recent domestic hooplah about the short-lived television show “The Book of Daniel.” This NBC show started in January but it was cancelled after 4 episodes. Many Christians freaked out at the depiction of a priest addicted to painkillers who
regularly had conversations with Jesus. Advertisers pulled out, stations refused to air it, and that was that. Obviously not on a scale as the huge cultural clash brewing around the world, but it still provides a little interesting comparison. People were offended by someone else appropriating
and in their view desecrating their personal image of a prophet. But in this case, people had a systematic (economic) way of expressing their outrage and making a change.

i'm going to let this sister have the last word as far as i'm concerned. salaam.

Yes, but they have somewhat similar backgrounds (religious, cultural, racial). Surely it would be similar to me, a bangladeshi, moving to sri lanka and 'assimilating' there.

Its interesting how many here protect free speech when this very site has blocked views that have offended them in the past.

Unfortunately or fortunately, this goes silent.

As some of those who are blocked do not feel insecure enough to make a big deal about it.

But to express a solidarity with free speech while exercising the right to censor without explanation is a contradiction, no?

No. Sepia Mutiny is not a democracy and has never claimed to be one. We are an oligarchy run by an extremely secretive cabal. Comparing free speech in Denmark to free speech on this website is a case of apples an oranges. We have a pretty specific comment policy. If we censor or delete your comment it is because you have clearly violated the comment policy and taken away from the otherwise productive experience we hope to provide. If you are boderline we tend to let it pass. This is a privately run "institution" and not a publicly run government.

I just want to know how the heck Muslims have the absolute gall to protest against these cartoons when the regularly publish the sickest and most twisted anti-semitic cartoons. Check these out:

http://www.pmw.org.il/Latest%20bulletins%20new.htm#b080206

Whether or not their deeply-held beliefs were insulted (as if that should be test to judge any actions), how can they bear the sheer hyprocracy??

But to express a solidarity with free speech while exercising the right to censor without explanation is a contradiction, no?

No, read the FAQ.

Razib_against_cholesterol wrote:

islam is not an ethnicity, it is a religion. it does exhibit correlations with ethnicity, but this is not fundamental, even if europeans conflate the two ...

I know you beleive being Muslim is not an ethnicity, but that doesn't make it true everywhere at all times. Ahmed Akkari (the Dane who started it all) said that he could be considered a cultural Muslim -- that is, an ethnic Muslim, not a religious one.

To take another example, in India, being Muslim is certainly an ethnicity. The same is true to a great extent in malaysia, where Bumiputras will intermarry with Indo-Muslim Malaysians, even secular ones.

To re-iterate, you may want "Muslim" to be a religious label, not an ethnic one, but that doesn't make it so everywhare and at all times. It may be that in Denmark, "Muslim" is as much an ethnicity as a religion.

But to express a solidarity with free speech while exercising the right to censor without explanation is a contradiction, no?

No, read the FAQ.

An Analogy may help. Newspaper publications and magazines have a "letter to the editor" column. Many people submit comments on an article or news story that piqued their interest, curiosity, wrath, etc. It is upto the editors discretion what gets published in their PRIVATE enterprise. The Freedom of Speech is for the individual or the private entity controlling said speech. Newspapers and journalists though, live and die by the first amendment. Did they censor? Sure. But it wasn't their veiwpoint to begin with, only a third parties, which they could choose to express in their own speech (the print media) or not. If the Govt said,"NYT, you cannot express thrid party opinions in your Newspaper", now that is a violation of free speech. It is the NYT's to decide what they do with their paper.

If person A comes up to me and asks me to tell person B to 'screw off', and I refuse, that wasn't a violation of anyones free speech. I have control of content (verbal) that I distribute. Now, if I wanted to express that sentitment and said,'screw off', but a giant muzzle manifested itself, stopping me from speaking (or that scene from The Matrix where Neo's mouth disappears, preventing him from screaming), then it is a violation of MY free speech.

May be a little off-topic but how about this for "religious feelings"

"George W Bush's protocol handlers have notified South Block that the American President's deep belief in his born again faith precludes his visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at New Delhi's Raj Ghat -- during his forthcoming visit to India.

When asked -- by reporters on a recent trip aboard Air Force One -- if he will be breaking a decades long tradition of foreign dignitaries visiting India paying respect to the Father of India, Mr Bush, as is his wont, was caught off guard and mumbled something about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ views cremation as a pagan practice."

An interesting time for Germans to be reminding others about the limits of free speech:

GERMAN cops will use sweeping powers to collar England fans doing Basil Fawlty-style Hitler impressions at the World Cup. Yobs will be instantly banged up for TWO WEEKS if they goose-step like John Cleese in his most famous Fawlty Towers scene.

And hard core louts who give Nazi salutes — like the one jokingly made by Michael Barrymore in Celebrity Big Brother — could be hauled before a judge within 24 hours.

If convicted of inciting hatred they will face jail terms of up to THREE YEARS.

Wearing joke German helmets or any offensive insignia will also result in a stretch behind bars.

The crackdown was revealed by police in Nuremberg, where England will play Trinidad and Tobago in a first-round World Cup match on June 15.

Police chief Gerhard Hauptmannl, a 59-year-old former judge and Mafia crimebuster, said yesterday:

“We will come down hard on people who use insulting behaviour or make trouble. We are very sensitive about our history....

England football fans should be aware that the Nazi salute and provocative behaviour like goose-stepping in public will be punished. We will offer the warmest welcome to true football fans. But anyone glorifying extremism here risks arrest.

We are prepared to use our police powers to hold fans for up to two weeks without charge if we feel they are a threat to public safety and order.

This used to be the city of the Nazi rallies but is now famous as the city of human rights. We do not live in the past.” [Link]

George W Bush's protocol handlers have notified South Block that the American President's deep belief in his born again faith precludes his visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at New Delhi's Raj Ghat -- during his forthcoming visit to India

They dont preclude him from cutting medicines for grandmothers.

RC,

You need a read a little more carefully before you post. The article that reported that was making a rhetorical point. Bush did not refuse to visit Gandhi's site, it was the rule of Saudi Arabia who did that. The author was pointing out that the Indian left had nothing to say when the Saudi King paid such disrespect to India but would be in a furor if Bush or Blair said the same thing.

Here it is:

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/09guest.htm

To re-iterate, you may want "Muslim" to be a religious label, not an ethnic one, but that doesn't make it so everywhare and at all times. It may be that in Denmark, "Muslim" is as much an ethnicity as a religion.

yes, but if you are pragmatic about everything (acknowledge perception as fundamental reality) than of course there will never been any change and the muslim = ethnicity will crystalize as the de facto indefinitely. and of course, muslims who use their identity as a religious ideology will use the ethnicity as cover for their activites and to gain legitimacy.

Harsh,

I highlighted the part where it says that Mr. Bush's visit will NOT change the protocol. Personaly I dont care if a visiting world leader respects Gandhi-ji or not. I dont think Indian foreign policy establishment should be so touchy about that. All I was pointing out was the religious aspect of thinking of born again Christian. Seems so silly to be doing such a thing.

As for Saudi Arabia, mutineers dont need to read another one of my expletive ridden rants, about how ridiculous it is to invite King of Saudi to Republic Day festivities.

RC,

The point I'm making is that Bush never said anything about being born again or pagan sacrifices. Read the rediff article again. The paragraph you cite is wholly hypothetical -- it never happened! The writer just wanted to get people reading it peeved and then he could say "actually this didn't happen with bush, it happened with the Saudi King. Are you still mad?"

I'm not taking a stand on anything that was said or the substantive position. I'm just pointing out that none of it happened. There was no comment about born-again religious faith.

Before some of those mentioned above lather themselves into a frisson of fury over the latest slight from the US hegemon, they should stop and substitute Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for George W Bush, 43rd President of the United States.

Ok, the article says above and I exactly did that. But to my defence, its not a stretch to think that Bush actually said something like that. But on the other hand, his handlers are smart enough to not trip over something so silly.

Looks like I need to drink coffee and wake up :-) Also, I noticed that the link I put in my last comment is incorrect.

Site admins,
When (or if) you get some time please delete my comment #117

From the BBC:

Almost 1,000 Danish websites have been defaced by Islamic hackers protesting about controversial cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. The attacks typically replace home pages with pro-Islam messages and condemn the publication of the images... He added that a further 1600 Western sites have also been attacked and defaced as part of the same protest. [Link]

siddhartha_m wrote:

i think it gets us back to the psychology of a european elite (political, social, educational, economic, etc) that has convinced itself that it is beleaguered. it has fixated on islam as the source of its beleaguerment -- but the full picture, as we are getting hints, also includes race anxiety (ergo the conflation of brownness with craziness) and gender anxiety (ergo mr. flemming rose's nice comments about rape).

I think much of it has to do with the European elitism regarding social experiments. The Danish newspaper publishing this cartoon and now seeking out anti-Holocaust images reminds me of Larry Summers' comments about women in science. At the core, they are merely agent provocateurs who stir unrest merely as a large scale social experiment. And that, I think, is reprehensible. Ofcourse, it also makes all the angry stirrings in Beirut seem like infantile flailings from people who are willingly participating in this social experiment.

With regard to systematic (economic) means of protest, that is an option that evangelical lobbyists had in the US (they are powerful and have deep pockets) but not to Muslim immigrants in Denmark who typically don't form the ruling or influential classes in Denmark.

What leads people to abuse free speech rights (which they have a right to exercise constitiuonally, no doubt) towards offending people is, for the most part, the rush of seeing people agitated by slander. Words have the power to hurt, and people using them often want the heady rush of seeing controversy stirred up by what they write. That unfortunately motivates a lot of academic writing -- since people want their papers/articles/columns read and discussed from a purely shameless self-promoting perspective.

great points, DDIA. as i guess i've made pretty clear by now i think the psychological angles here are among the most fascinating. not "what's wrong with what someone else has done" but "why do we do the things we do." not to apologize for anything; simply to understand what's going on inside the monkey brain. at a group level, especially a nation/tribe/ummah, collective psychology is a hard thing to posit, but not impossible; look at frantz fanon or albert memmi for example, who were able to diagnose individual neuroses that were pervasive in certain settings (colonialism) with traceable political effects.

peace

Siddharth,
Juan Cole hints at why this Danish paper published this at this time. He wrote the following in his article on Salon.com

It is worth noting that in 2004 the Danish editor who commissioned the drawings, Flemming Rose, conducted an uncritical interview with the American neoconservative and Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. Pipes, an extreme right-wing supporter of the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, has warned of the dangers of Muslim immigration into Denmark, claiming that "many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country" and that male Muslim immigrants made up a majority of the country's rapists.) '

Here is the link of Daniel Pipes inteview Juan Cole put on his blog.

Pipes, an extreme right-wing supporter of the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, has warned of the dangers of Muslim immigration into Denmark, claiming that "many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country" and that male Muslim immigrants made up a majority of the country's rapists.) '

rc, thanks for this. these guys all seem to have rape fixations. it's reminiscent of the standard neurosis of southern white men in the united states that led to so many lynchings.

funny (really) cartoon in the g&m tday

Sidd:

Pipes reference to Muslim males and rape is wholly appropriate given the fact that a key tenet to islamic fascism is the subjugation of women. It is really unfair to compare his analysis to the "neurosis of southern white men in the united states that led to so many lynchings" especially when there are moden day "lynchings" (of homosexuals and "wayward" muslim women) by the Palestinans and other muslim supremists.

manju:

sorry but i am not going to let what you just said be the last word on this thread. first of all, i am not interested in daniel pipes' analyses of the collective neuroses of the muslim mind. i do not find daniel pipes to be a useful source on islam. perhaps you do. i do find daniel pipes to be a useful source on daniel pipes, and flemming rose to be a useful source on flemming rose. in the statements discussed here, each of these gentlemen has described the growth of the muslim population in denmark (and ergo europe, maybe the world) using the metaphor of rape. pipes by making claims about how muslims tend to be rapists, and rose by identifying himself with the position of the rape victim.

the pattern of privileged white men defending their privilege by invoking the psychosis of rape has precedents in many societies. one of these is the united states, which is a/ the country in whose social discourse daniel pipes participates, b/ the residence of the majority of SM readers, and c/ the country that has been the most powerful in the world for some time now, and whose government is using all methods and means to try to defend that power and privilege. three damn good reasons why it is particularly apposite to make this connection. there are surely more.

your comment about "islamic fascism" and the "modern day lynchings" of wayward women in islamic societies is barely worth dignifying with an answer, but since i'm feeling pedagogical this morning i will anyway. the sexual subjugation of women and the barring of women from access to power and opportunity through the physical and psychological trauma of sexual violence is a commonplace of every society, including yours -- whatever and wherever that might be. thank you for informing us that it is part of the islamic fundamentalist agenda. yes, we read the newspapers too. now, i invite you to do something about it in your immediate community. today.

peace
siddhartha

p.s. you might also want to read up on the history of american racism and lynching in particular, particularly if you happen to live in the united states.

Siddhartha:

Thank you for suggesting I read up read up on the history of American racism and lynching. I found it very comparable to our present situation. I learnt that not all white southerners were racist and certainly not all belonged to, or even supported, groups like the KKK; much like our Muslim brothers and sisters and their relationship to Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc. But I also learnt that the KKK did not exist in a vacuum; rather they were a product of a profoundly racist society. It is therefore no surprise to see that their counterparts—Muslim supremacists, if you will—also emerged from unusually bigoted, intolerant, anti-Semitic, and homophobic societies.

But of course this is not the analogy you wanted me to see. Rather you were saying: “Pipes is to Muslims as white supremacists are to blacks.” But comparing an oppressed people who were bought to America on slave ships and subjugated to Jim Crow to members of a great and powerful religion that rules entire nations, supports terror, suppresses other religions, kills homosexuals, voluntarily emigrates to countries then tries to impose their morals on others by use of mob violence or government force struck me as, well, a bit of a stretch.

I know its obvious that the sexual subjugation of women is part of the Islamic fundamentalist agenda, and that is precisely the context in which Pipes was speaking about Muslim rapes. In contrast, sexism was never part of the agenda of any American Black organization, with the possible exception of the Nation of Islam. Thus reference to blacks as rapists is nothing other than a racist slur.

Thank you for informing me that sexual violence is a commonplace of every society. But we should not use this as an excuse to ignore the systematic repression of women in Islamic societies. After all, does the existence of racism in the US mean we should not have condemned Apartheid in S.Africa?

Freedom
--Manju

manju: thank you for the reply. to be clear, i am not for a moment suggesting that the subjugation of women in any society, including majority-muslim societies, be ignored. and i don't believe that causes to protest can be picked and chosen or ranked. freedom is freedom. dignity is dignity.

my point is that whenever males in positions of power employ rape narratives as argument against those over whom they exercise power, it is a dead giveaway. ever since white males became the holders of power in various societies and in the world at large, they have been vulnerable to a psychosis of the "other" copulating with/impregnating "their" women, and have used this, consciously and unconsciously, to justify and prolong all manner of political, social and economic oppression.

the comments by pipes and flemming are redolent of this. and to the extent your comment #126 endorsed those comments, i was not comfortable with that. in part because i disagree, and in part because i don't like to see my brown sisters and brothers drinking the kool-aid. to the extent you still feel the same way, i am sorry. the other points you made in your comment #128, i am happy to agree with.

peace
siddhartha

About Daniel Pipes' comment about rapes committed by Muslim men in Denmark; unfortunately, he is factually correct. Gang rapes are used by young Muslim men as a form of social control, usually of Muslim girls who date ethnic Danish men, wear short shirts, etc.

"Honor killings" are, of course, an exclusive Muslim phenomenon, but not practiced by, for example, Somali immigrants. It seems to be done mainly by Pakistanis, Kurds, and Turks.

Here's an excerpt from an MSNBC interview with the Danish Imam Ahmed Abu Laban who brought the cartoons and other documents to Egypt and Lebanon. An eye opening look at what one has to deal with ...

ABRAMS: All right. And so Imam, we can count on you to be out there publicly if there are any hateful cartoons towards Jews or Christians in any Arab publications as well, correct?

ABU LABAN: We never accept that. Me, myself when the film “The Last Temptation of Christ” have been displayed in some cinemas in Europe. I was the first to protest. But, you know, unfortunately secularism and atheism is gaining more momentum in the European continent and that‘s why...

Read the whole thing here

Yes folks, he was out there protesting against the unflattering depiction of Christ too ! Sadly he didn't mention anything about protesting against any derogatory depictions of Hindu religious symbols. I'm sure he will though... ;-)

About Daniel Pipes' comment about rapes committed by Muslim men in Denmark; unfortunately, he is factually correct. Gang rapes are used by young Muslim men as a form of social control, usually of Muslim girls who date ethnic Danish men, wear short shirts, etc.

"Honor killings" are, of course, an exclusive Muslim phenomenon,

I think this is all part of a process, and represents huge progress. Cultures are rubbing against each other (ha ha! tribology, the science of rubbing) and naturally there are some rough spots. But those are being abraded away gradually. Discussions like these are progressive and wonderfully hopeful, i think. We just need to minimize collateral damage where we can.
And all frogs should get their noses out of the mud. ;)

thank you for letting me comment on your blog. ;)

Mmmmm ... matoke is yummy!

lol, plantain man, if you only knew! ;)