No one brought this up, i'll do it...
So they're burning danish, norwegian, french... flags everywhere. I have a tip for you; burn the European Union flag, that way you'll "get them all". But no, Norway is still out of the union...
Getting back to those cartoons. I personally think this matter has been immensly blown out of proportion. I'm curious to know what the bloggers, that talk to the world, think. Besides textile burning junkies, who thinks there should be censorship in Denmark or Europe.
I do not wish to enrage anyone but I do think that freedom of speech existing in all the most advanced countries in the history of humanity is not a coincidence. The last 99.9% electoral vote in a european country goes back to more than 60 years. You must suspect that Danes aren't evil masterminds plotting to destroy the muslim world with a cartoon. You do know that if a cartoonist draws Jesus in Finland, no priest dares to object, because they'll sue his ass off. So why not finally accept that there are people who see things differently and you can't shut them all up, that's reffered to as dictatorship. It's that simple.
It's unexplicable to me how a cartoon can do you more harm than a law forbidding women to drive.
And please, do not attempt to turn this into a sectarian issue, this is about freedom of expression and censorship, tolerance and anger... I'm just portraying things like they are.
posted by Anonymous @ 2:00 AM
12 Comments:
last trip to amsterdam i saw a enormous poster on a building façade showing the pope on a huge godmichet ... didnt see any angry christians burning flags...
no guts no glory
Did you know that France has laws that ban all forms of homophobic and antisemitic speech? No other European country has that and the United States do not have that. That is true freedom of speech: the absence of government interference with the people's right to say what they want. Even if France passed those laws based on good intentions, they are still infringements on freedom of speech. Therefore, all the French journalists cannot run around crying that the mean bearded muslims are trying to censor them because their freedom of speech was already limited by their own government in the first place. So why does France find it so important to outlaw gay-bashing and jew-hating while thinking that it is their fundamental right to say whatever they please about Islam? There is some contradiction there. As long as France will uphold those laws and charge fines against whoever breaks them, they cannot blame people for wanting to censor other stuff. It's the "why them and not us" logic.
All the other countries are able to function without such laws because their journalists rely on:
- good taste
- good knowledge of their audience
- relevance of the material
I'm in the US. I have the right to say whatever I please on my blog or even on this one. I could write a whole post about how weird maronites are or how creepy shiites can be, etc. but I do not. Nobody forbids me from it. But it would be tasteless, offensive and irrelevant.
Now, the reaction of burning flags and threatening to kidnap europeans is wayyyyyy out of proportions and the people who do that should be punished or arrested. You do not solve hatred with more hatred.
well said callipyge
one more thing-
The act of drawing a disciple of God with a bomb in his turbine is neither satirical nor respectful..
What would President Bush do if Time magazine published a picture of Jesus with a hand grenade or a rifle?
Those drawings were made to incite anger and resentment in the Islamic community.
Isn't beautiful how religion brings us closer together?
I am sure that anti-jewish hatred also started with "innocent" satirical caricatures and not outright attacks. The rest is in the "infamy" section of history books.
ramz-
The Islamic community is "not searching for ALL reasons to feel anger and resentment."
I am a Muslim who does not go around searching to pick a fight.
Oh, and by the way, satire is a form of language to convey insults or scorn in a "witty" manner
And I saw it for what it is.
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You're damn right!
"To-day, I came to Beyrouth in hurry... I descended at Hamra to buy something from there first, and on my way I took two photographs of a vernacular intervention; a feller had written the word “Denmark” in large Arabic letters on the pavement, so that people and cars ran over it. I also am very cross over the Danish issue, and am only getting more and more disappointed in the last people that still stood tall in front of my eyes (the Europeans). How sick, how blind, how staunch, and how immature. I do not give two flying fucks about their freedom of speech; it is impolite.
And even if I wanted to take it from their fucking freedom perspective; it ends at the other."
I was so depressed today after reading about the Syrian torching of the embassies in Damascus; it was just so barbaric, in the worst sense of the word. And then they (or is it we?) wonder, why does the world hate us? But I have to say that I take solace by what I am reading here. I am so glad to read views that appreciate critical thinking before reacting, and a discussion of freedoms (and their limits). I wish this were more descriptive of the general Arab and Islamic populace...
zwixo-I was being sarcastic about the "religion uniting us"
as for ramz- well, you will understand how I feel once someone publishes a hateful illustration about something that is sacred and special to you...
Once someone starts to make fun of you, then you will get it (not implying that I will)
We have differing views and you chose to point out my "problems" but I won't do that to you.
Believe what you want, laugh at the gays, the jews, or the blacks, the muslims...but I won't
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