Blasphemous cartoons

[Rhisiart]

Perhaps the Islamic nations are over-reacting, but for the sake of sanity, why would you go out of your way to disrepect someone else's religion?

What do you gain by doing this? The man who designed these stupid cartoons has to be a complete ass. And for that matter, also the editors that reprinted them.

This so-called freedom of press is hypocritical. The press can be silenced by any European government if pressure is put on them when it suits Western politicians.

It is rare for me to support the British press (normally the gutter press of the world), but at least they had the good sense to not copy the Danes and French. I note the American press are also keeping a low profile.

We deplore anti-semitism. We should also deplore anti-Islamism.

[ora]

I really think you're missing at least some of the discussion. Its pretty acceptable to parody christianity, why is Islam any different? The Danish paper has publicly said that they wish they hadn't published them given the general reaction, but that they were trying to contribute to a debate on freedom of speech (rather than freedom of the press), and commenting on the current sensitivities around Islamic issues. Freedom of the press is one thing, but if you are saying that European governments can (and you seem to imply in some way should) silence people for voicing their opinions (since I don't think you can argue this was any sort of incitement) then personally i think you have a view of the world i think we should be fighting against not supporting.

I may well come back to this, but its 4am and i need sleep, but i felt the need to give some reply first.

ora

[Mikuro]

I can't recall ever seeing Christianity parodied in such an "outsider's" way. If these were cartoons of Jesus torturing prisoners, you can bet there'd be a huge outcry.

When I was reading about it in the paper today, I thought the rioters (for lack of a better word) needed to just grow up. Then they started describing some of the cartoons, and...well, they really are bad. It bothers me to no end when people project the radicalism of bin Laden to all of Islam. That's an incredibly closed-minded idea.

On the one hand, I don't believe in censorship. On the other hand, people shouldn't feel like they can do whatever the heck they want. They're pushing the limits just for the sake of pushing the limits here, and I don't think that's respectable.

[Rhisiart]

Originally Posted by ora

(since I don't think you can argue this was any sort of incitement)

Oh, I think the cartoons are most definitely incitement.

[Zammy-Sam]

I think it's rather a "bad timing". Currently there seem to be tensions between religious groups all around the world. If I got it right, those cartoons were actually published 3 months ago. Yet the reaction boosts now when the tensions are getting stronger and stronger. Sometimes I have the feeling that some powerful groups are throwing coal into light fire on purpose so it can go up in flames at the right time. It scares me.

[ora]

OK, back again after some sleep .

There are few issues here, both issues of fact and issues of opinions. On the fact side, there has been some misunderstanding on what was published. The paper had 12 images of the prophet Muhammad, if such things don't offend you you can see them here: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004413.htm . There were also three images that were being distributed by Danish Islamic groups that were far far more inflammatory, including very dark sexual imagery and use of Pig imagery that was clearly designed to enrage Muslim. These images were never published in Denmark, despite news sources such as the BBC thinking they had been and publishing one of them. It seems the people distributing these very nasty images were making a range of outrageous claims - from saying the Danish Queen said she hated Muslims, to having a support base of 200,000 Danish muslims (rather than 15,000). I found out about all this over the last _months_ that this has been going on because i share an apartment with a Danish guy, so i got to hear the on going coverage in the Danish press as well as the recent resurgence of feeling on this issue and the republishing in France. If you look at the images that _were_ published, while edgy they are also make fun of themselves: one image is of a muslim boy in front of a blackboard where he has written "Jyllands-Posten's [the paper's] journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs".

Its also important to understand something about Danish culture here. While in general one might say the nordic countries are very politically correct, the Danes are PC in an odd way. For instance, one of their most popular TV shows (as i hear) stars Dolph, a fascist hippo (man in a life size blue hippo suit) who believes the only true men in Europe are ones like Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the Berlucsoni would be perfect is he wasn't such a lazy southern European (and I've toned down those statements a bit for the board). In general, I have got the impression that Danish humor can be fairly non-PC because on some level its well understood that people are open minded and not bigoted. It took me a while though, and when my flatmate described some of Danish kids TV the first time i was fairly shocked, some of that stuff would have to be on at 1am in the UK if at all (for any Danes, the christmas show about the fisherman in Copenhagen and his son was what got me).

On the issues of perception and offense things get more complicated. Mikuro in some ways I do agree with you, we don't see so much 'outsider' criticism of Christianity, but thats because I live in western europe, a fairly christian-dominated area so its not exactly outsider, but for strong anti-chritian messages how about South Park (the devil and Saddam Hussein in a relationship, God is a strange animal thing who is best friends with the Budha) or the Kevin Smith film Dogma? On the other hand i don't think we should limit freedom of expression, and i think thats why these cartoons were published, to highlight how sensitive we have become of criticizing Islam, rather than just being published _in order_ to criticize Islam. Granted they did not have that effect, and the editors have expressed their regret for that, but this not mean they should be strung up, or Danish people threatened by Hamas etc. I don't feel able to come down too strongly on either side, but I do feel strongly that the kind of sentiments you guys have expressed come from a limited, over-PC-influenced view of the situation.

If you want to get theoretical about this, i would say it highlighted the modern failure of multiculturalism as a sociopolitical position, something i've seen widely discussed. This failure could be summarized as the fact that being tolerant of other cultures in a country is of course positive, but that we have exercised tolerance in a way that has actually led to ghettoisation by not encouraging integration between different cultures. I've seen this extensively in the UK, from separation of cultures (and here Islam is unusual as the religion and culture seem so intertwined by western standards) based on economic status leading to separation along racial lines in a way which made people feel deeply resentful. I also had a very interesting discussion with a French woman, of admittedly right wing economic views, on the recent riots in France. She claimed that these riots, which seemed to be going along racial lines in some way, showed a real problem in French culture. She felt that earlier generations of immigrants to France who had been invite din to work had been better integrated, but that the second generation children of these immigrants found themselves in poverty and a racial minority, and that when the police stop to check your ID on every block its hard to not feel separated from society.

Ok, I wandered a bit off track their but it does relate here. These images, in my opinion anyway, were _not_ incitement. Edgy yes, perhaps inadvisable, but not meant to lead to racial or religious persecution. For that you can go to north london and find within not many meters Islamic people spouting fire and brimstone and death to the west, and British people (from the british national party) calling for racial purity of Britain (forgetting we are all a mix of romans, celts, saxons, vikings, normans etc etc). Both are reprehensible, but i don't feel this is the same situation. I also wonder why these cartoons, which were published in _september_ last year, were only causing the uproar now,and why the French paper chose to reprint them (I am less sure if their motives are real discussion or shifting more papers).

Urgh, enough for now or I'll be at this all day. I really don't want to offend anyone, i would just encourage looking at the situation in context and with as much information as possible, rather than to some extent being affected by a version of the media hyping that people are accusing the Danes, or rather this one paper, are doing.

[edit] Zammy you posted while i was composing this almost endless post . I agree with you, i can't say for certain if this situation has been used to support certain positions, but i think its a very valid question.

[Mikuro]

Thanks for taking the time to write that post, Ora. An interesting read.

I took a look at the cartoons you linked. I don't think they're anything to get too offended at, honestly. Some of them seem harmlessly amusing. Then again, religious fanatics (of all faiths) tend to not "get things", and I'm sure this would be exacerbated by the difference in culture. Considering how poorly fanatical American Christians react to even American humor, it's not surprising that some Muslims would be up in arms (er, I meant that figuratively) about this.

I've never seen Dogma, and I'm not a big South Park fan myself, but I just want to say that from what I've gathered, that type of humor is very different from what I previously thought these cartoons were (turns out most of them were not as bad as I thought, though). The thing with South Park is that their humor isn't really at odds with conventional Christian morals. So God's best friends with Buddha — so what? There's nothing wrong with the Buddha's messages even by Christian standards, so I don't see this as offensive or anti-Christian. I think it's just cute — even open-minded. And having the Devil in league with Saddam is practically politically correct at this point. If they had Jesus siding with Saddam, then I'm sure we'd have heard more about it, because that WOULD have been anti-Christian (or at the very least anti-"popular American Christianity").

Another key difference is that South Park is talking about the creators' own culture, and its audience shares that culture. Even if they or their viewers aren't Christian, they at least share a lot of that culture. So it's not like they're misrepresenting anything. That's what I meant when I referred to the "outsider's" perspective. I feel like some of these cartoonists misrepresenting something of which they have no honest understanding TO people who also have no honest understanding.


If these Muslims are demanding that nobody be allowed to draw the prophet Muhammad, then I think that's totally unreasonable. I'm sorry, but your religion should not dictate what I can do. There's way too much of that as it is.


As for the cartoons themselves, some don't seem like they're even trying to be offensive. I don't really "get" some of them myself, though, specifically the first one (what's that...thing...in the lower-right supposed to be? A camel? Is it significant? What's the point?) and of course the ones with foreign text. I thought the "we ran out of virgins" one was funny, but I can easily understand being upset by it if you don't "get" the humor. Humor is always a tricky business. (Heck, maybe my interpretation is more innocent than the actual artist's intent; it's impossible to say, really.)

The only reason I find any of this offensive is that they're almost validating the radicals' behavior as being in keeping with Islam, which it's not. It's the propagation of that idea that I think is offensive (and when done by Christians, very hypocritical). Some of these seem to be merely mocking the radicals, which I think is perfectly legit any way you look at it.


(I wonder if I can find subbed videos of Dolph the fascist hippo.....)

[Rhisiart]

Ora, I disagree with your views on this issue, although of course I vigorously defend your right to have them.

In my opinion, the pictures were crass, insensitive and spiteful. I wouldn’t use the word ‘edgy’ to describe them. There were a clear attempt at incitement. Sure, the pictures seem like harmless fun to non-religous Danes, Brits or non-evangelical Americans, who easily dismiss them as some kind of satire, but I think Muslims have a right to feel insulted and a moral duty to express their disgust. However, any such response has to be reasonable and proportional.

Most religous people around the world - Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Hundu - live by the teachings of their Holy Books and seers. They deserve a modicum of respect and should not have to put up with cartoons mocking their faiths, however 'harmless' non-religous people believe these cartoons to be.

Equally, there are a minority of radical Muslims who are just as arrogant, fanatical and dangerous as radical Christians, Jews and Hindus. The papers in Denmark and France poked a stick in a hornet’s nest for a giggle knowing that it would incite extremists. Stupid, stupid, stupid.