Hirsi Ali and the right to disobey someone else's religion
The so called cartoon war is not very funny, here in Europe. For the first time since returning from the US I feel the Atlantic distance. Some comments on this and other sites sound somewhat relaxed, to put it mildly. Andrew Sullivan is "close to unhinged'' about the cartoon thing, according to Mickey Kaus.
Dream on. If you read Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's demands for apologies from Denmark and legislation from the European Parliament and every member state outlawing insulting the prophet and then you compare that to what Franco Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security had to say about the matter, then relaxation is not the first thing that springs to mind.
Statesman Frattini, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Brussels, pleaded for self restraint, a code of conduct without wanting to restrict freedom of expression, at this stage. Thanks a lot. Read this one paragraph from this qualified ski instructor's downhill bobbing and weaving:
I expect to address exactly the issue of the possibilities of reconciling the principle of freedom of expression, that cannot be limited of course, with the principle of responsibility of journalists, and press in general. We will talk also about the so-called code of conduct, which I mentioned in the communication on radicalisation, but of course the point will be, when I talk about a code of conduct, I don't talk about an instrument to limit the freedom of expression. But I will try to offer to the press, to journalists, an instrument to self-regulate. (Full transcript: here).
One day later the Dutch parliamentarian from Somali descent, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, gave a talk in Berlin of a different ilk. You can read it here, on Leon de Winter's Free West blog. If you want to know more about her background, see this older interview or this brand new one.
Hirsi Ali, who since the murder of The van Gogh cannot set foot outside her permanently undisclosed location without body guards, came to Berlin because of its pivotal history and the optimism it embodies. She came to defend the right to offend, because there is not such a thing as a little bit of free speech in a democracy. Again, read her own words.
What came of the cartoon crisis so far, she wondered?
Well, publication of the cartoons confirmed that there is widespread fear among authors, filmmakers, cartoonists and journalists who wish to describe, analyse or criticise intolerant aspects of Islam all over Europe.
It has also revealed the presence of a considerable minority in Europe who do not understand or will not accept the workings of liberal democracy. These people – many of whom hold European citizenship – have campaigned for censorship, for boycotts, for violence, and for new laws to ban Islamophobia.
Hirsi Ali made the crucial point that she is not out to offend anybody's religious sentiment. But she cannot accept the tyranny of people who have no clue about democracy, or pretend to. This has nothing to do with being on the left or on the right.
I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. Demanding that people who do not accept Muhammad’s teachings should refrain from drawing him is not a request for respect but a demand for submission.
I am not the only dissident in Islam. There are more like me here in the West. If they have no bodyguards they work under false identities to protect themselves from harm. But there are also others who refuse to conform: in Teheran, in Doha and Riyadh, in Amman and Cairo, in Khartoum and in Mogadishu, in Lahore and in Kabul.
The dissidents of Islamism, like the dissidents of communism, don’t have nuclear bombs or any other weapons. We have no money from oil like the Saudis. We will not burn embassies and flags. We refuse to get carried away in a frenzy of collective violence. In number we are too small and too scattered to become a collective of anything. In electoral terms here in the west we are practically useless.
All we have are our thoughts; and all we ask is a fair chance to express them. Our opponents will use force to silence us. They will use manipulation; they will claim they are mortally offended. They will claim we are mentally unstable and should not be taken seriously. The defenders of Communism, too, used these methods.
Berlin is a city of optimism. Communism failed. The wall was broken down. Things may seem difficult and confusing today. But I am optimistic that the virtual wall, between lovers of liberty and those who succumb to the seduction and safety of totalitarian ideas will also, one day, come down.
Not the Munich type. By the way, the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, said this week he 'has no use' for Hirsi Ali's cartoon views. He praised the calm reaction to the row by Dutch muslims. He might have to take an extracurricular course with Denmarks PM Rasmussen: according to a RTL News poll just out 84 percent of the Dutch people support Hirsi Ali's project to make the movie Submission II. Number one was about women's suppression by islam. It sealed filmmaker Theo van Gogh's fate. Number two is to be about homosexuals' islamic predicament.
Comments (64)
I'm really sick of hearing some French, Danish, Ameicians, and other former colonials bitch about this stage of the post colonial world. I'm American and generally love French and Dutch culture, but this kind of finger pointing, jingoism, and hate mongering is ugly when we do it, ugly when the French and the Dutch do it.
Let's a get a few things straight:
a) The Muslim world wouldn't give a damn about non-Muslim Europe if a couple things hadn't happened. 1) if Europe didn't consume oil, sell arms, and hadn't basically drawn the map through colonialism and wars and generally remain quite involved in the Muslim world. When someone plays a role in making something that makes other people unhappy, they have to share the blame, regardless of intentions. 2) if Europe hadn't taken many laborers into their countries on the promise of equality and opportunity, which wasn't entirely truthful or altruistic since they've been quite good for the European economies and Europeans have been remarkably human and ordinary in having prejudices and xenophobia.
b) It's a complete myth this is a response to "cartoons" and that spin is just designed to demonize the Muslim world and portray it as completely irrational. In fact, the Muslim world is responding to mostly real prejudices against them originating in Europe and the US, and as always in human nature some of that gets sensationalized. These series of editorial cartoons were like shots fired over their bow, indicating European public opinion was becoming even more extreme against Muslims. That is incredibly threatening to Muslims as they are generally the weaker powers, non-nuclear, economically disadvantaged, and in many ways at the mercy of Europeans and the USA. With power comes responsibility and for the irresponsibility relative to wealth and power, Europeans ought to be ashamed.
c) Europeans and the USA don’t have the best records on human rights when it comes to the unlucky minority for any particular era. Whether it was the Jews, or gypsies, the blacks and now the Muslims, we always seem to find somebody to kick down pretty regularly. Without communism to occupy us, it’s perfectly rational to wonder who the new enemy will be and by all account Muslims look to be next. Yes there have been acts against western countries by Islamic people, but they do not represent all Islamic people, and collective punishment like prejudice is also a great wrong.
d) Any people in that position, when they are disadvantaged and in a fearful position will have some percentage react totally irrationally and violently. Call it the fight or flight instinct, when there is no where to run too.
e) further demonizing an entire people because some small percentage acts violently is the oldest trick in the book and has always been used to demonize the other and rally otherwise good people into a jingoistic mindset. It always leads to more violence and escalates problems.
f) the people who are contributing to this mess, who call themselves liberal or enlightened, ought to be ashamed for their primitive knee-jerk tribalism and hypocrisy, perpetuating the worst of human nature, when we of all people have the most wealth, education, and opportunity to do better. Nor do we face any great danger in reality compared with the oppression the Islamic endures daily, in which we are somewhat complicit.
g) obviously violent maniacs are wrong. But tarring an entire people with the actions of a few is even more wrong, especially when we as the greater power should be acting more responsibly and generously.
h) there is nothing wrong with Europe wanting more cultural homogeneity and harmony, but it can't be hypocritical. You can't promise liberalism and tolerance and opportunity to attract cheap labor and then have prejudice and a second class society. If Europe wants to sever ties with Islamic countries, and not dictate any rules on them either, fine. But otherwise Europe has to take some responsibility for it's actions abroad and for the power it wields and the public perceptions abroad. If Europe and the US want to dictate to the world on matters of resources and military strength, then we're morally bound to treat the world as we would our own for we share a part in ruling them. Otherwise we create a morally unacceptable colonial structure and compromise and betray our own values.
The people fanning the flames of this idiotic culture war by overreacting to some violent responses are no better than white racists who responded similarly to the Watts riots, or British colonials in India, or French in Algiers, and on and on throughout history.
It's also COWARDLY that enlightened people on all sides who know better have been too fearful of the militant kooks in thier own camp that they bite thier tongues.
SHAME!
February 10, 2006 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had a long discussion about this with my fellow Tulane Policical Economy graduate. We both wondered what the fuss was about.
I understand that people may be offended. Free speech must be free for all persons not just the people we like or agree with. People should stress this to the Muslim world. Just because one group of people thinks bad things about Muslims, not every one does. They have the same rights of speech and are free to speak out about how it makes them feel and that they don't like it, and not to buy the paper etc. They don't have the right to riot and injure people.
Have you guys seen the cartoons? Please see below link with translation.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/danish_muslim_cartoons
I also found on google. A thumbnail of the entire page. Apparently this whole thing was an excercise to see if people were self-censoring because they were afraid of violence. It was a part of a discussion of free speech. In that context, I don't think that these are nearly as offensive as many have contended.
Now I have also read articles contending that the Saudi Government has been using its propaganda machine to get people upset about this. After reading that and then subsequently looking at the cartoons themselves it seems to me that possibly the people perpetrating the violence are simply using this as an excuse or they are being used. After all these are in another language. Do you think they got the translation right, or translated them at all?
MsAnnaNOLA
New Orleans, Louisiana
February 10, 2006 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
RogerGathman
Nick, finally - a reasonable man in an insane asylum!
The Islamists are definitely using the cartoon bait. But the cartoon bait doesn't come out of some enlightened context where we are all just worried about feminism and gay rights. It comes out of a Denmark with a very strongly marked rightwing party that promotes Moslem bashing routinely.
Since Marc Chavannes seems to be tuned in to every fatwa that hits the airwaves, it is funny he missed the broadcast of Radio Holger in Denmark last August, right before the cartoons were published. Here is what the incredibly liberal Danish radio station was broadcasting, according to the BBC story, 4 August 2005:
The Denmark Radio Broadcasting Central Committee has decided to hold an emergency meeting to cancel the broadcasting licence of the Radio Holger, a local Danish radio station, which called on people to kill Muslims in order to combat terrorism.
The committee moved quickly on the issue since the decision about the racist broadcast of the Copenhagen Radio Council of which Radio Holger is bound would take a few months.
Committee Chairman Christian W Scherfig said they could not wait a few months to reach a decision on such a significant issue. The Copenhagen Radio Council's decision was open for appeal; however, if the Central Radio Council reaches a decision on the issue, there is no other authority to object the decision.
Furthermore, the Copenhagen police launched an investigation on whether Radio Holger's announcement had violated the penal code that punished racism.
Owner of the Radio Holger, Kaj Vilhelmsen, had last week called on people to kill Muslims in order to combat terrorism. Vilhelmsen, who holds all Muslims responsible for the London blasts, used the expression "supporters of Mohammed" instead of "Muslims".
"Muslims should be expelled from Western Europe in order to fight against terrorism. We can only prevent their bombings in various places using this method. Fanatic Mohammed supporters should be terminated as well. The meaning of this is to kill some of them," Vilhelmsen had claimed.
Funny how Chavanne never even mentions the DPP. Gee, wonder why?
February 10, 2006 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't quite see what the angry Nick Doe is talking about. Assuming we posit that all the sins of past colonialism were real, that the invasion of Iraq has done little to assuage them, that immigrants who are Islamic are not seamlessly absorbed into western societies...so what? These are problems that many people of good will are trying to deal with.
The violence, the escalation, the "non-negotiable demands" that a particular religion be removed from any possible criticism or ridicule in societies that criticize, caricuture and ridicule everything has not come from the (mostly) tolerant region know as "the West". It has come from citizens of nation states that are some of the most intolerant and repressive on earth with the de facto sanction and often instigation of their governments.
Are you suggesting we role over? Should I give up my right to talk about the "alleged" Jesus and the "fictitious" Mohammed with my Danish friends or only keep half of it?
Sam Taylor
February 10, 2006 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rubbish that I have heard today:
1. On the BBC world service phone-in, someone claimed that Muslims were "99.99% non-violent". If that were true, then in the UK, with a population of approx. 1.6 million Muslims , only 160 would be violent. There are 7500">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/4328894.stm>7500 British Muslims who are in prison. It is not credible that only 160 of these are violent.
2. Nick Doe is now claiming here that it is all the fault of European colonialism. Rubbish. Jen debunked this quite effectively on Steve Gilliard's newsblog. I wonder if Nick Doe even knows what colonialism is. It's about colonies and settlers. The only place I can see settlers is in the Israeli territories and the settlers are American. Or maybe Nick is referring to a post-colonial legacy, but in that case, the colonised Indonesian populations immigrated into Holland, say, would be the Christianised population. Europe has no Statue of Liberty in the harbor at Naples summoning migrant families.
The sad truth is that Islam is intolerant and violent. It makes exceptions for Christians and Jews as "people of the book", but Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and secularists are proscribed. Its penal code demands punishments against the body, which Europe rightly abhors (though America also practises). And it appears incapable of taking offense without demanding death; in happier times this might be considered excitable and childish rhetorical hyperbole, but after the murder of Theo van Gogh this excuse cannot be made. The condemnation of and apologetics for that act are shown to be hollow by the nature of the demonstrations against the cartoonists.
This is not a happy conclusion but it is unavoidable. I love and respect Muslims as people, but to be respected as people is not what they want. I can't give them what they want. I can't accept a prohibition on depiction of the human form ">http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/god-doesnt-read-funnies-what-if-its.html> in case it resembles the prophet (and yes, Fafnir has hit the nail on the head as comedians usually do).
So shame on you Nick Doe. This is a serious issue and requires some serious thinking.
February 10, 2006 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Danes should have the right to publish their cartoons and Moslems should have the right to get mad about them. The rest is just testosterone poisoning.
February 10, 2006 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
While the doctrine of freedom of speech may be the ultimate issue, the penultimate issue is the crime of blasphemy -- or to say it differently, the attack upon the doctrine of separation of church and state whence the crime of blasphemy is written out of the legal code.
Islam has long -- perhaps, since its inception -- employed the power of temporal rulers to enforce submission to whatever form of Qur'anic interpretation and sharia was currently in ascendance. Failing to submit one is classified as a heretic or apostate, an outlaw from whom the protection of the ruler is withdrawn. Naked, unprotected by the law, the apostate becomes fair game.
Western civilization can no longer countenance the crime of blasphemy, and for so long as Muslims can, there can be little place for them in Western societies.
February 10, 2006 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Without oil the Muslim world wouldn't have a dime. Europeans turned a worthless substance into gold. The only reason Muslims get a piece of the pie is because they demand it with guns. That's exactly the way they got "their" lands - in case you hadn't noticed all those ancient artifacts or read any history books.
You do know that before Europeans were colonials in Muslim lands Muslims were colonials in Europeans lands? You do know about Spain? About the balkas? About the lands of the former Byzantine Empire? And what about India - surely you don't think Muslims were native to that land? Or that they came there by invitation? Or that they behaved themselves beautifully and the Hindus loved them and all is sweetness and light?
Nobody forces Muslim laborers to come to Europe and, at this late date, they're certainly well-informed about conditions. I venture to say that I've met no immigrants as foolish and pretentious as you.
You say you're sick? I say you're not sick enough. Not by a long-shot.
February 10, 2006 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Islamic conquest of South Asia took place during the Rajput supremacy in north India, which lasted from the seventh to the twelfth centuries. The first effort toward invasion was made in 664 CE during the Umayyad caliphate, when Muslim forces led by Mohalib began launching numerous raids from Persia. Among the cities struck was Multan in the southern Punjab region in what is today Pakistan. Mohalib penetrated as far as the ancient capital of the Maili and returned with many prisoners of war. However, the Muslims did not come to conquer at this time, seeming only to make exploratory raids.
It took several centuries for Islam to spread to parts of India. Hindus were converted to Islam by laws favoring Muslims, by force, by marriage, or voluntarily. Some of the ruling families and warrior castes of various Hindu kingdoms were forced to convert.
Historian Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization (1972) that the Muslim conquest of India was "probably the bloodiest story in history." The number of people killed is estimated based on the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations. K.S. Lal estimated in his book The Growth of Muslim Population in India that between 1000 CE and 1500 CE, the population of Hindus decreased by 80 million. The legacy of Islamic conquest of South Asia is a hotly debated issue even today.
You shouldn't be allowed to speak in public. You're an utter disgrace.
February 10, 2006 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
First of all this is not a "freedom of speech" issue. No one has the "freedom of speech" to openly insult people, to threaten people, to demean people, to incite people to violence, etc. Freedom of speech refers only to our freedom from government interferrence in our communications. Newspapers have great responsibilties that go along with their freedom to print the news and their opinion. One of those responsibilities surely is not to openly insult vast numbers of people by what they publish. How would we feel if the NYT for example published x rated cartoons featuring gay sex acts? What the Danish newspaper did was comparable from the viewpoint of Moslems.
I don't believe that Islamic countries are demanding that European countries establish censorship of their newspapers. They do demand that those newspapers not publish what, to them, is insulting filth. In a perfect world that demand would not be accompanied by violence against Europeans or their property, but, we certainly know this isn't nearly a perfect world.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 10, 2006 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chapter 109 of the Holy Quaran says:
This is what ALLAH told Prophet Mohammed [pbuh].
So, as you see Islam allows diffrent religions but its a shame that few people always take issues to the nth degree.
I'm a Somali immigrant like Ms Herzi Ali, she of all people should know that living in the west for say 10 or 20 yrs does not erase or change generations of Culture and Teachings.
We can change and should adopt the GOOD ways of our adopted nations but we can forget where we came from.
Peace and may the good people in all of us prevail.
ps: NickDoe has expressed some of my points I wanted to say.
February 10, 2006 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hold all of these propositions to be self-evident:
1. Danes can publish any cartoon they damn please.
2. Just like in America anyone can publish any antisemitic cartoon they want.
3. Except that civilized people use their judgment and avoid such offensive behavior.
4. It's not for nonmuslims to decide whether depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban is offensive, just as it's not for gentiles to decide what's antisemitic or for whites to decide what offends blacks.
5. Muslims around the world are a little edgy toward the west, because they have some good reasons to be so. Oh, just to take one example, there are 130,000 heavily armed Christians in the heart of the Arab world bossing the locals around and killing those who don't get the message.
I think if 130,000 Muslim Iraqis were patrolling the streets of America today, we might even be a little touchy about their taste in cartoons.
February 10, 2006 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
How would we feel if the NYT for example published x rated cartoons featuring gay sex acts?
I would be annoyed that they were behind the paywall. I'm not quite sure what you are getting at, but no-one would have the right to demand the death of the NYT editor, and anyone who did should expect a long prison sentence.
February 10, 2006 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, the amount of stupid posturing over this issue is appalling. It's ridiculous that some right-wing racist rag can cause this level of uproar. And for all those out there trumpeting that this is a grand battle between freedom of speech and religious authoritarianism, please explain to me 1) how exactly Muslims in Demascus are going to force you to give up free speech, and 2) what sort of campaign you plan to wage on the other side. If you tell us to be more worked up over this absurd issue, tell us what your plan is for that energy.
Islam is, incidentally, a far more tolerant historically tolerant than Christianity. It is that very tolerance that causes them problems today, because it prevented an equivalent of the Protestant Reformation and Thirty Years War, which together created the doctrine of separation between Church and State. It took a religious catastrophe - or sequence of them - in the West to create secularism, and no equivalent catastrophe has occured in the Muslim world.
February 10, 2006 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I'm confused, Hoppy. How is demanding that "newspapers not publish" something not the same as demanding censorship?
February 10, 2006 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It took a religious catastrophe - or sequence of them - in the West to create secularism . . . .
Not exactly; cuius regio, eius regio. It took the Dutch merchants and the Enlightenment to establish tolerance and the separation between Church and State.
A history of submission to oriental potentates, real and metaphorical, doesn't suggest "tolerance" to me.
February 10, 2006 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How would we feel if the NYT for example published x rated cartoons featuring gay sex acts? What the Danish newspaper did was comparable from the viewpoint of Moslems."
Hm, presumably I would burn the office of my local newspaper -- Knight Ridder, NYT, who can tell the difference.
"The sad truth is that Islam is intolerant and violent."
The sad truth is that too many Muslim are intolerant and violent. Perhaps, this is a minority, but substancial and visible. However, broad generalizations are dangerous in many ways. They are factually wrong (what is "Islam", by the way). They have a tendency having a very nefarious lifes of their own.
"It's not for nonmuslims to decide whether depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban is offensive, just as it's not for gentiles to decide what's antisemitic or for whites to decide what offends blacks"
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Some religious believers are offended by mere existence of unbelievers (or homosexuals, or married homosesuals etc.) Some Jews take any criticism of Israeli right wing as anti-Semitism when expressed by Gentiles, and as "self-hatred" when expressed by Jews. Muslim have their share of totally humorless and intolerant blokes who are damn quick to take an offence.
By the way, Chechen government (Putin's puppets) just expelled all Danish relief organizations from Chechnya. Granted, they never liked do-gooders carping about human right abuses etc. Other Muslim leaders have similarly crass agendas.
February 10, 2006 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"No one has the "freedom of speech" to openly insult people, to threaten people, to demean people, to incite people to violence, etc."
Nonsense. With the exception of incitement to violence & threatening, everyone in a free society has the right to openly insult people & to demena people. Don Rikles became a millionaire insulting people & demeaning them. And to make fun of their religion, their looks, their morals, etc. This sort of sloppy thinking won't get us anywhere.
February 10, 2006 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you deliberately invoking the worst of Orientalist prejudices? If it weren't for the rest of your post, I would assume this was satire. "History of submission to oriental potentates" indeed. The European history of submission to potentates is quite acceptable because, after all, they were European potentates, with crowns and everything, and at least in submitting to them our forebears did not abase themselves before an inferior race. Well, except for Greece and the Balkans and, well, everything east of Vienna and the southern two-thirds of the Iberian peninsula, but they don't count, I guess. Incidentally, it was the Islamic institution of the ulama which provided the greatest check on absolutism in the pre-Modern Middle East, and gave the general population a voice in a way that has no parallel in our feudal system.
I suggest you consider whether, for the bulk of history, a Jew was better off living amongst Christians or Muslims. Or, for that matter, whether a Christian was better off among Muslims or a Muslim among Christians. This has the advantage of at least being relevant to the question of tolerance, and does not entail embracing 19th century racism.
As for the inspiration for secularism, take a look at what the Founding Fathers had to say about it, particularly "the strife that has plagued Europe." Or developments in Prussia. Or the Toleration act in the English Parliament (which was also informed by years of internal strife between successive Protestant and Catholic regimes in England).
February 10, 2006 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is bullshit. Secularism predominates in the West even where there is no separation of church and state. For example, in the UK, which has an official state religion: Anglicanism. It's the state religion, but very few people give a shit. That's why Anglicans don't run around in the street shrieking their fucking heads off about the latest "insults" to their "beliefs."
February 10, 2006 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're making a category error, but before I can so conclude, it would be helpful if you could list a few of these "European potentates."
February 10, 2006 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Censorship is government censorship. A demand that newspapers not publish something - pornography, for example - is demanding that they behave civilly, not censorship. Don't we demand that our local newspaper resist the economic gains they would get by publishing a full page of large porn movie ads? At one time our newspapers did just that, and were virtually forced by citizen pressures to stop doing so. Apparently Moslems view those Danish cartoons much as we viewed the porn movie ads.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 10, 2006 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I'm not familar with Don Rikles' newspaper. Do you have a link?
Seriously: A newspaper or other printed matter has a very long life and a very wide reach compared to a nightclub act. The two are not at all comparable. Nor are the National Enquirer and its competitors comparable to a newspaper.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 10, 2006 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
A few years ago a very wise woman who posted on an AOL message board that I enjoyed pointed out that a major difference between Christianity and Islam is their age. Christians during the first hundreds of years behaved in a very similar way to how Moslems behave today - defensive, quick to take offense, and other signs of "immaturity". So, perhaps the sensitivity that Islamic people have for things like these cartoons is partially explained in that way. And, perhaps if Christianity were as "youthful" as Islam, we would have similar reactions to similar events. This is not a criticism of either religion, just an effort to understand why something that I can't even imagine seriously offending me is so offensive to Moslems.
Hoppy in Sacramento
February 10, 2006 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
This entire cartoon episode is 100% hypocritical upon the part of those who are complaining and the representatives of states that have joined in on the side of those complaining. There can be no argument about how restrictive the expression of religion or social norms are in countries that are largely influenced by Islamic dogma. Their complaints are intended to create that same restrictive environment in other states in an attempt to gain control via a religious context that does not otherwise exist in those other states. In states that are largely guided by Islamic culture and custom there is a built in censorship that has no place in an open, democratic society. People cannot be made to fear the idea of an open dialog because they may be threatened with violence. If the circumstance of that violence derives from religion and is passively condoned by the state then it must be condemned as an infringement upon human rights.
thepeoplechoose
February 10, 2006 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that you call for a list suggests that you don't understand the meaning of the word. Any monarch not restrained by a powerful aristocracy will do. Unless your query is about submission to Oriental potentates, in which case just look at maps of the Ottoman empire and the Rahmanid caliphate in Cordoba.
February 10, 2006 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are all the "facts" stated so firmly above really facts or just opinions stated as facts ?
For example the generalizations that "Muslims believe" such and such , conflict with my understanding that one of the characteristics of Shiite belief is that there is no "pope". That instead , individual religious leaders are both allowed and expected to think for themselves perhaps in line with Aliosman's quote from the Quaran.
(I also understand that this "states rights" approach to Shiite beliefs extends , paradoxically , to permitting Khamenei to take the position that what he believes is more important than what lesser leaders believe.)
In comparison I understand that the Sunni do not follow this "states rights" approach but , more like the Catholics , believe that the truth is the truth is the truth not a subject for endless speculation .
Assuming I'm right (and I'd welcome correction) then it's nonsense to make firm statements about what "Muslims think"when in fact Muslims think many things.More like the fox than the hedgehog.
February 10, 2006 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
See below re: Toleration Act.
February 10, 2006 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
walter c
Ok question time for all you posters.
First take a look at the pictures in question at this link.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/danish_muslim_cartoons
1)Now do these give you the right to threaten or kill the cartoonists who drew them or to punish the nation where they originated?
2)Do you think its right to threaten any political cartoonists with death if they hurt your feelings? If so please explain to the audience why it is necessary to threaten the cartoonists.
3)Do you think that restrictions should be placed on cartoonists in terms what they are allowed to draw so as not to offend readerss wherever they may be?
Would you consider limiting cartoons that:
Insult or satirize politicians and or political parties?
Satirize certain celebrities and or pundits?
Insult or satirize religous figures or religions in general?
4) Would you consider a editorial board composed of various religious authorities and political representatives to review all cartoons before publication as a acceptable means of not aggravating readers throughout the world?
Any takers?
February 10, 2006 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I guess that means you've reduced your list to the Sun King.
February 10, 2006 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest you look up the definition of censorship. Censorship does not have to be done by a government.
February 10, 2006 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
A demand that newspapers not publish something - pornography, for example - is demanding that they behave civilly, not censorship.
How is such a demand supposed to be enforced if not through government censorship? Honestly, why should a newspaper care about what someone half a world away (who doesn't even read the newspaper) is demanding?
Don't we demand that our local newspaper resist the economic gains they would get by publishing a full page of large porn movie ads? At one time our newspapers did just that, and were virtually forced by citizen pressures to stop doing so.
You've just answered your question. Newspapers don't do that because their readers (ie. paying customers) won't stand for it. Because Saudis or Iranians don't read Danish (Norwegian, French, etc.) newspapers, they have no way to force the publishers to listen to them. As long as Danes (Norwegians, French, etc.) support publishing "blasphemous" cartoons, it will be done.
February 11, 2006 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're obviously very angry. But what exactly do you think you're proving?
February 11, 2006 1:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
<blockquote>1. On the BBC world service phone-in, someone claimed that Muslims were "99.99% non-violent". If that were true, then in the UK, with a population of approx. 1.6 million Muslims , only 160 would be violent. There are 7500 British Muslims who are in prison. It is not credible that only 160 of these are violent.</blockquote>
This is the most specious argument I have seen in a long time. First, the person the BBC was likely talking about <em>political</em> violence. Second, a lot of people go to jail for non-violent crimes. Third, at what rate do other Brits go to prison? Unless Muslims are <em>disproportionately</em> violent, you have no argument.
<blockquote> The sad truth is that Islam is intolerant and violent. It makes exceptions for Christians and Jews as "people of the book", but Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and secularists are proscribed. Its penal code demands punishments against the body, which Europe rightly abhors (though America also practises). And it appears incapable of taking offense without demanding death; in happier times this might be considered excitable and childish rhetorical hyperbole, but after the murder of Theo van Gogh this excuse cannot be made. The condemnation of and apologetics for that act are shown to be hollow by the nature of the demonstrations against the cartoonists.
This is not a happy conclusion but it is unavoidable. I love and respect Muslims as people, but to be respected as people is not what they want. I can't give them what they want. I can't accept a prohibition on depiction of the human form in case it resembles the prophet (and yes, Fafnir has hit the nail on the head as comedians usually do).</blockquote>
That's just bunk. What is your evidence? All Muslims are responsible for the murder of Theo van Gogh? Roughly 430 million or so Muslims live in non-Muslim democracies. Are they causing problems in those countries?
It's really easy to stereotype and scapegoat, but you're not helping.
February 11, 2006 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is ironic that after 1000's of years, our Freedom to choose may actually bring our destruction.
As an example :
Choosing between right and wrong, was the issue in the Garden of Eden, Adam decided for the human race that we wanted free will, unencumbered by laws (Gods). (Censorship)
This cartoon mocks our ability to contain free will.
If one considers, that if the cartoonists knew, that they would offend or insult another persons, value or what they esteemed, the cartoonists knew what the reaction would be.
Picture a man on a trail, and he sees a large beehive, just outside of town. Bee's busy, doing good work. But the man couldn't just leave things alone, he picks up a big stick and he proceeds to knock the bee hive down, to debase it. Like it's a sport, something fun. He runs towards town, gets stung maybe they were killer bees and he dies.
To some who say the bees should not have responded that way, "They're bees!" you know how they'll respond.
Being ignorant is no excuse for bad behavior. Restraint from inciting the bees, would have been the wiser course. Freedom to choose turned out to be the wrong choice. Only this time the whole town has to deal with the incited bees, and many more get stung and lose their lives.
Freedom of the Press without self imposed restraint was a bad choice.
So now after 1000's of years of free will, a lack of self restraint, sets off a chain of events that leads to annililation of the human race. Done not by God, but by mankind himself.
February 11, 2006 3:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm meeting anger with anger...and I thought my points were obvious. But I'll spell it out as slowly as I can.
1) The West is no more and no less colonialist than anyone else and certainly not so than Muslims.
2) The Muslims are certainly not less violent than Europeans and Islam is no religion of peace. Look at the date of the first invasion of India - 664. It was out of recently conquered Persia. The Prophet died in 632. That means some of the conquerors actually knew him...and certainly knew people who knew him. Thus they knew well what he was teaching and what he wanted. There's no reason to believe they got it wrong and every reason to believe they got it right. Read Will Durant's description of the Muslim conquest of India several centuries later. Does it seem to you that their policies changed?
3) The Prophet has been dead for 15 centuries. Denmark is a secular country and there's every reason to believe the people who penned those cartoons were similarly inclined. They were making political statements about the behavior of modern day Muslims - they were saying it's violent, brutal, savage, stupid, and unrestrained...and that such behavior can quite likely be attributed to Muslim religious teachings, or at least the interpretations placed on those teachings by far too many of its adherants.
4)You can agree or disagree with their comments and the expression of those comments but they are at the very heart of free speech.
5)Muslims who are outraged by those cartoon are some of the most intolerant and violent people on earth. They regularly run horrifically offensive and disgusting cartoons in their own press and have committed sacriligious acts against other religions unparalled anywhere else in modern times. Or - if that's too much for you - then as bad as anywhere else in modern times.
5)The Left, in its hatred and jealosy of those more talented and fortunate, and its ignorance of history, is sticking its ass in the air and begging for jelly. I find it disgusting.
6)What's the alternative? You stand up for free speech. You respond to violence with violence. They kill our journalists we kill theirs, They kill our soldiers we kill theirs. They burn our embassies we burn theirs. And if that's not enough then you run the Muslim colonizers out of the Western world by the millions, if necessary.
Afraid of that? You should be. It's frightening. But running away from reality because it's frightening is called cowardice.
Clear enough for you?
I'm actually quite sure it was before my response...and that your question was sarcastic and rhetorical and that you weren't seeking any real answers. That you were, and are, dead-sure you're right and I'm completely off-the-wall and irrational. True or not?
February 11, 2006 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The Islamic world is fed up with violence and extremism in the name of religion and is ready for an era of progressive, democratic Muslim governments, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Friday.
Khatami said current conflicts between the West and Islam have created a situation that "can only see ever-escalating violence, whether in the form of war and occupation and repression, or in the form of terror and destruction."
"After about two centuries of dispute between tradition and modernity in the world of Islam (there is) a high level of mental preparation for the acceptance of a major transformation in the mind and lives of Muslims," Khatami said in a speech at an international conference on Islam and the West.
The trouble with this analysis is that it's factually wrong. Khatami was voted out and the violent and extreme are triumphant everywhere. So be sure you stock up on jelly, little one. You're going to need it.
February 11, 2006 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me put it another way if you still don't understand.
Just because we in the West are strong doesn't mean we are all- powerful. Our actions rarely match our ideals - and often fall far short. Our wealth is not equal to our wants. We are not free from want and fear, from threat and failure.
These flaws, failings, and weaknesses make it hard to know what is right, what to do. It exposes us to unfair criticisms by those who can't distinguish between what is desireable and what is possible, who can only see our failings and not the failings of our enemies.
It would be nice if we really were so powerful that we could afford to treat our enemies like impoverished children to be nurtured and trained. It might even be nice if we were so noble that we could turn the other cheek and face every taunt and every blow with equanimity and sympathy.
We can't. Not if we're human. Nor if we want to survive.
February 11, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Europeans have been remarkably human and ordinary in having prejudices and xenophobia...collective punishment like prejudice is also a great wrong...The Muslim world wouldn't give a damn about non-Muslim Europe... the Muslim world is responding to mostly real prejudices...Europeans ought to be ashamed.
Here is where you should examine your thinking.
1)xenophobia and prejudices are entirely ordinary but a great wrong.
2)saying collective punishment is a great wrong is the same as saying war is a great wrong
3)You speak quite often about collective entities like countries, cultures, peoples. I find that contradictory.
In real life, in this world and not some idealistic fantasy, people are tribal and collective in much of their thinking - regardless of your judgement of such behavior. So people are often correct when they find the other threatening, and correct in their response to such threats. War is very cruel, very hard, and often very unfair but it is a rational response in the world we live in...and all attempts to eliminate it have failed.
It's even worse with violence on a smaller scale. Threats and insults can't be eliminated from human behavior. I can't tell you how many times during the day I'm insulted and infuriated by the behavior of others...who often deliberately and inconsiderately ignore my feelings.
How shall I respond? Shall I turn the other cheek? I hate that but am often forced to do it. Shall I respond in kind? For me that's usually the best way...but I never cease to be surprised by the outrage that provokes. Shall I escalate and use violence? I've done that and found that emotionally that's best but it has difficult consequences and those who've been felled by my blows too often fail to understand how much they deserved their beating.
February 11, 2006 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
(1) The West is no more and no less colonialist than anyone else and certainly not so than Muslims.
You can't actually believe that. It would mean that all regions are exactly the same amount "colonialist". Surely you agree that some regions are more colonialist and imperialist than other?
(2) The Muslims are certainly not less violent than Europeans and Islam is no religion of peace....
Agreed, to the very limited extent that your incredibly broad generalization has any meaning.
(3) The Prophet has been dead for 15 centuries. Denmark is a secular country and there's every reason to believe the people who penned those cartoons were similarly inclined. ...
Agreed again.
(4)You can agree or disagree with their comments and the expression of those comments but they are at the very heart of free speech.
Exactly.
(5a)Muslims who are outraged by those cartoon are some of the most intolerant and violent people on earth. They regularly run horrifically offensive and disgusting cartoons in their own press and have committed sacriligious acts against other religions unparalled anywhere else in modern times. Or - if that's too much for you - then as bad as anywhere else in modern times.
True.
(5b)The Left, in its hatred and jealosy of those more talented and fortunate, and its ignorance of history, is sticking its ass in the air and begging for jelly. I find it disgusting.
What?
Is 5b supposed to follow from 1 through 5a? If it is, I am indeed jealous of your talent and fortune in disterning the link. I don't see it.
(6)What's the alternative? You stand up for free speech. You respond to violence with violence. They kill our journalists we kill theirs, They kill our soldiers we kill theirs. They burn our embassies we burn theirs. And if that's not enough then you run the Muslim colonizers out of the Western world by the millions, if necessary.
Stand up for free speech? Yes. Absolutely.
Respond to violence with violence? Not necessarily. Free speech is a virtue on it's own. So I will be glad to stand up for it no matter what the eventual outcome of the fight. But violence is no virtue. It is merely a means, and a very unpleasant one. Violence is to be tolerated only if we have thought long and hard about the ends we wish to achieve, and have concluded that we are willing to pay the costs of the violence to achieve the rewards.
Your suggestion, that violence should be automatically met with violence, is the height of idiocy. It is fascinating that you devote paragraphs to the idiocy of Muslim countries way of thinking, and then suggest that the solution is to behave like them.
Afraid of that? You should be. It's frightening. But running away from reality because it's frightening is called cowardice.
Just because it is frightening doesn't mean it is right. It is worth asking if we are being cowardly. But it is first worth asking if we have chosen the right battle.
(I should point out that I am not suggesting that we should appease the riduculous demands being made. I just want to make clear that choice to avoid violence can be made for other reasons than cowardice.)
February 11, 2006 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
walter c wrote:
Ok question time for all you posters followed by 4 ?s
Easy . No ,no, no, no . In spades And here's a question back. Or two. Is there anything wrong in choosing to extend to muslims the kindness of choosing not to insult them ? Prick a muslim ,does he not bleed ?
February 11, 2006 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
First, you have to accept that gross generalizations and imperfect summaries are the price of succinctness. I'm not prepared to write a treatise which deals with every caveat and exception in order to cover my ass.
That said - point by point.
Colonialism - meaning conquest of other colective entities - and appropriation of their resources - is universal to a high degree of accuracy. Real constraints prevent equal expression. In today's world we, the Chinese, and Muslims in a lot of places, are the principal colonizers. Our methods are different but are goals are the same.
Muslims and violence. This is a hard one. Perhaps its more accurate to say that their societies are far more chaotic, far less successful than ours, that they chose to use violence in different ways and in response to different things, and that their choices seem to us to be beyond the range of civilized behavior. That their choices seem closer to those of head-hunters or human sacrificers.
Violence and its proper uses. To say that violence is no virtue is to say that gravity is no virtue. Violence is virtuous if it is properly used...unless you believe that cowardice is virtuous. There's room for discussion about what times and circumstances are proper. Nor did I mean to say that violence should always and automatically be met with violence. Only that it was proper in this situation.
Just because it is frightening doesn't mean it is right. It is worth asking if we are being cowardly. But it is first worth asking if we have chosen the right battle.
These are the hardest choices of all...and never easy to make. I was raging against those - far too numerous on this forum - who refuse to admit that we might be right to choose violence.
The Left, jealosy and cowardice. A very gross generalization...but true I think. Trying to justify it is too hard. I ask you to think only about two observations. Our armed forces are overwhelming from the Right. Our wealthy (Hollywood excepted) are mostly on the right.
February 11, 2006 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep punching people, and enjoy your jail time. The fact that you can't understand that you do not get to beat people for "threats and insults" is simply evidence of your small-mindedness.
It's a wide, wide world of man. And of law. Your choice is to grow up and join humanity or to be shunned and punished by those of us capable of living in a civil society.
Have a nice life.
February 11, 2006 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I could write a list for you, but there already is one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_absolutism
Most of those should be familiar to you, and if you weren't so invested in maintaining prejudice they would already have occurred to you.
February 11, 2006 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with that view is it treats religions as some sort of mystical organic whole with a set maturation process, which is nonsense. There's no intrinsic developmental cycle to a religion after it's established.
February 11, 2006 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not true, actually.
You mentioned a bunch of stuff without making any direct connection to what Nick said.
But you are obviously a troll. Isn't kind of sad that you are trying to appear "completely off the wall and irrational"?
Meh.
February 11, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's" not true actually"?
I didn't attempt to answer everything Nick said but only you can't make the connections.
Apparently a troll means someone who doesn't agree with you or most of the people who post to this forum. I take pride in that. Calling me irrational and off the wall doesn't make it so. Sad that you can't recognize the difference.
Meh
F___ you, too.
February 11, 2006 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nick
You seem to forget that Charles the Hammer stopped the Muslims from sweeping into France at Tours. That Spain was governed by Muslims for hundred of years and that Muslims were at the Gates of Vienna. The idea that this is all about European abuse of Muslims is misguided and treats Muslims as if they were children.
Eupropeans don't really promise real tolerance as we know it in the United States. To be French or German or any of any nation is to be of the soll or of the blood. It was this idea that Hitler and Mussolini enlarged to create their fascisms.
The Europeans are now trying to forge a more tolerant world in which women and gays have power and respect. What do you say and how do you treat people who respect the rights of neither women or Gays? How one treats the intolerant in a tolerant society is one of the hardest things to do. I remind you that America had this problem with the neo-Naziis marching in Skokie and with the various skinhead groups.
What does treating guest workers has second class citizens, which they are, have to do with rioting against symbols of Denmark and Norway in Saudi Arab and Afghanistan two mention two places?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 11, 2006 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
You mean works like "OUr Body's Ourselves" should not be published because it offends people? How about works about Gay sex, it also offends people in the United States should Brokeback Mountain be pulled from movie theaters?
Being offended is the price one pays for living in a free society.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 11, 2006 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen
Excellent point. To reenforce it. The Dutch evicting Catholic Spain was bloody enough but the Thirty Years War between Protestants and Cathoics gave the world the concept of total war. Tolerance in Europe did not so much come because of acceptence but from the realization that if you did not want to die for your religion you could not kill the damned even if they deserved it.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
February 11, 2006 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've never spent time in jail which means I've chosen well.
Your choice is to grow up and join humanity or to be shunned and punished by those of us capable of living in a civil society.
You're telling me to grow up or you and your friends will shun me? You honestly believe I'd consider that punishment? And how else are you going to punish me? Don't tell me you'd resort to force?
February 11, 2006 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you remember when you wrote this:
I'm actually quite sure it was before my response...and that your question was sarcastic and rhetorical and that you weren't seeking any real answers. That you were, and are, dead-sure you're right and I'm completely off-the-wall and irrational. True or not?
It wasn't all that long ago. In fact, it was in the post I was replying to. That's amazing!
So, what wasn't true was 1) that my question was rhetorical and sarcastic, 2) that I wasn't seeking real answers, and 3) that I thought you were "completely off-the-wall and irrational."
So, as you can see, it was you who called yourself off-the-wall and irrational. But you clearly thought I would interpret your statements that way, and I'd bet you wanted me too. And that is what makes you a troll. Not that you are disagreeing with myself or other people on the forum, but that you are trying to disrupt the discourse by appearing off-the-wall and irrational.
For a good explanation of precisely what you are doing, check out Wikipedia's article on internet trolls: "[T]he characterising feature of trolling is the perception of intent to disrupt a community in some way. Inflammatory, sarcastic, disruptive or humorous content is posted, meant to draw other users into engaging the troll in a fruitless confrontation. The greater the reaction from the community the more likely the user is to troll again, as the person develops beliefs that certain actions achieve his/her goal to cause chaos."
So, you're posting inflammatory and disruptive content--"sticking their ass in the air and begging for jelly" suffices for an example--and you can't quit posting on this thread (9 comments from you alone, or slightly less than 20% of all the comments on the thread.)
I don't know how you got from "meh" to "F--- you," but that is precisely the sort of pathetic behavior that is unacceptable.
And, yes, your behavior is pathetic.
February 11, 2006 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Employing academic definitions and failing to historicise them is perilous.
What you've pointed out is that the courts of a few quasi-European states having large armies -- notice how the Wiki entry places all Absolute Monarchies in the European marches (although the date when Russia can be said to have become "European" is debatable) -- exercised, for a relatively short period of time, a great deal of power. I'll stick with Louis XIV as, and again for a short time, only, the sole -- in your words -- "European potentate" in history.
Unlike European societies Muslim societies never developed a grammar and syntax which included political liberties and in that absence, "oriental potentates" ruled them arbitrarily and unhindered by law.
February 11, 2006 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were it that simple, flavius, this thread would have closed out short of three comments.
February 11, 2006 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
More perilous, of course, is dismissing counterexamples without offering any evidence. Most perilous of all is a sweeping generalization across fourteen centuries and thousands of miles of geography, offered without any evidence and used to support a conclusion to which it has no logical relation. Read Orientalism; it would do you good.
Me, I'll be sticking with Hitler as my example of a potentate.
February 11, 2006 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was asking for clarification. I have many other concerns and don't spend all my time, energy or concentration on this site. I wanted to be sure I understood what you were saying. I never called myself irrational and off the wall. I anticipated you would...and it turns out I was wrong by only one post.
My posts have a great deal of content. It's your problem if you can't see that...and your problem that you can't handle forceful expression. Phoney tolerance of bad positions is no good to anyone and least of all to those who choose to respond that way to truly dangerous situations.
What does meh mean? I interpreted as a sign of disgust.
February 11, 2006 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your reply has no substance at all. It;s purely a personal attack.
Nobody's forcing you to respond to me. What does it say about you that you do?
I wasn't aware that responses are rationed. I respond to what interests me and respond to those who respond to me if I think it worthwhile.
February 11, 2006 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If anything, Hitler is an exception that proves the rule. Surely you're not arguing that Hitler's reign was a typical form of European government (or even long-lived), rather than an aberration? Significant, yes, typical, hell no. I mean, how long did the Third Reich last?
February 11, 2006 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's the state religion, but very few people give a shit.
Unfortunately the police do. This poem is still banned in the UK after this trial. But at least no-one was beheaded.
February 11, 2006 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless Muslims are disproportionate ly violent, you have no argument.
I'm not making any argument about the violence of the British, which is notorious. I am debunking a claim that Muslims are exclusively non-violent, by implication due to their peaceful religion. "99.99%" was the term used, the numbers do not run that way and it shows that the speaker was clinging to platitudes in defiance of all reason, logic and language.
All Muslims are responsible for the murder of Theo van Gogh?
Of course not. At the time they rushed to denounce this as un-Islamic. But that does not sit with calls for cartoonists to be beheaded. Presumably these are not the same Muslims but we still have a situation where death threats are made, by numbers of Muslims, and there is at least one clear instance of these threats being carried out. What do we say? How do we describe this? Are Muslims violent? Is Islam violent? Evidently some Muslims are violent, they are able to carry out their violence and they can act under brand Islam without apprehension. Sorry, but it's true. The question is, who or what fixes it, how and by when.
I don't see much in the way of solutions, myself. But there does seem to be a tacit agreement in some quarters that the solution is to talk up non-violence so that it will eventually become a self-fulfilling dream, kind of like clapping your hands for Tinkerbell. Good, this may work. Or it may not. But it's only a tactic and does not of itself wish away any realities.
February 11, 2006 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, what is you point PETER?
February 14, 2006 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen, I'm hesitant to ask; but did you ever shook hands or spent time talking with a "Muslim"?
February 14, 2006 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel,
Arabs and Muslims are not one and the same. Just because Arabs treat their women-folk badly doesn't follow that ALL Muslims do the same. Look at women in West & East African Muslim countries, they're powerful in their societies and wield considerable standing accordingly.As for Gays, it is ironic that some cultures do not have a word for a Gay man or female in their language let alone respect such a person
ps: The Muslims liberated Europe from the Dark Ages...so let us not rewrite history!
February 14, 2006 1:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, oh Great Vizier, I have, and she was, after having lived here for decades and having brought her husband's parents over from Pakistan, complaining bitterly about American society, our low morals and godlessness, and telling me how much better it was "over there."
P.S. She had two teenage daughters -- probably explains everything, eh?
February 14, 2006 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink