Cartoons?

[eborr]

It's even more ironic that Christianity, which emerged from Judaism, has so enthusiastically embraced religious imagery!

Sorry that is only partially accurate, from time to time Christianity has it debates - one of the reasons of the schism between the orthodox and the Catholic churches was the use of the Icons, which was conveninently forgotten by catholics some years later to the extent that when the first mumering of the Protestant variation took hold they accused the bells and smells boys of being idolators.

Nothing is ever simple.

[IdylleSeethes]

Yes eborr. The Schism is one example. A characterisic of the Reformation was the destruction of religious icons. There is still much evidence of this in the cathedrals and churches of England and France. Within the church, Savanorola is an example of wanton destruction. Even Vatican II had a theme of diminishing ornamentation. The destruction of the late 1960s was more orderly than the Reformation, but was as senseless.

[Whistler]

Iran Renames 'Danish' Pastries

(CNSNews.com) - Bakeries in Iran are renaming their "Danish" pastries because of the flap over the Mohammed cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. Iranians must now ask for "Roses of the Prophet Mohammed," press reports said. Iran's confectioners' union ordered the name change.

Freedom Fries: The Sequel!

[Alatar]

Oh for Gods sake. "Freedom Fries" was embarassing, this is even worse.

[IdylleSeethes]

We have now entered Rushdie territory.

Bounty1
Bounty2

This level of intolerance is a major destructive force.

[Erunáme]

That's awful! How scary for those cartoonists.

What I find so hard to wrap my head around is some of the interview with Muslim leaders. Interviewers have asked why suicide bombers and other terroritst activities aren't condemned as harshly like the cartoons have been. The leaders often say it doesn't compare. That blasphemy against Mohammed is so much worse. So drawing Mohammed is much worse than killing innocent people. Right.

[Meneltarma]

Well this is nice. Apparently a certain state politician from my country has offered a bounty of 510 million rupees to anyone who kills the Danish cartoonist. And apparently it is perfectly legal to do so since Denmark is so far from India.

[truehobbit]

Yikes, Melly!

Pearl's post again confirmed this strange dichotomy that every Muslim these days seems dead certain that an image of Mohammed is blasphemy, when this is so obviously untrue (as shown in Imp's quote and Eru's link)!
I wonder if this is the belief of a certain denomination of Islam that today is so dominant that other interpretations are forgotten or whether people are just deliberately misinformed about their own religion in whichever way it suits the religious leaders?

In further news on this delightful subject: a Turkish movie has hit the cinemas in Turkey and here (don't know about other countries) - "Valley of Wolves" is an action movie à la Rambo. Starting out from a real event, it's a revenge story that targets America, Christianity and Judaism as the enemy who gets their "just punishment" from a Turkish vengeance squad.
Young Turks in this country flock to see it and are thrilled that, as they say in interviews, the evil of America gets finally exposed.
The German government hoped that the Turkish government would condemn the movie, but they happen to be quite pleased with it!

[Whistler]

In this movie, American actor Gary Busey plays a JEWISH doctor. After American military forces slaughter a party of innocent Muslims (including the bride and groom) at a WEDDING, the few survivors are dragged off to the ABU GHRAIB PRISON where this JEWISH doctor subjects them to ghoulish OPERATIONS in which their VITAL ORGANS are removed and sold to RICH AMERICANS.

Well, I've always known that Busey had a drug habit to finance. I hope the jerk got paid well for this one.

[Rowanberry]

I haven't got time to even browse through everything that's written in this thread. But, just today, there was a very good article regarding this conflict in our leading newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat). It was a portrait and interview of Ari Hukari, a Lutheran priest who lived and worked in Middle East for 12 years, got acquainted with a lot of Muslims, and through them, learned to understand their culture and religion. I think that his view of this conflict is quite accurate:

In his opinion, the most shocking lesson in the cartoon conflict is not that the Islamic world was offended - it was expected, and it was what was sought after. The most shocking thing was that, the Western world didn't understand that, something sacred does still exist - Sacred with a capital S, something that must not be offended, even if the law allows it.

"In our post-Enlightenment world, there isn't anything left that wouldn't be subject to the human rational curiosity, and would not have already been mocked", he says. A Westerner cannot be insulted any more, the sacred has lost its meaning for them.

"If we ourselves don't have something sacred and our faith is lost, how could we recognise it in another and feel respect for it?" Hukari shakes his head.

He knows that the cartoon conflict mostly feeds the fundamentalism and is added as another Western wrong in a long bitter list in Islamic interpretation of history.

"Fundamentalism lives on these provocations. It downright asks and hopes for them from the West."

I hope this gets across approximately correct - I'm not a professional translator.

[Jnyusa]

Rowan, I'm very much in agreement with Hukari's sentiment.

Jn

[nerdanel]

I am not, because I am not convinced that the Western world has lost the ability to comprehend the offensiveness of someone else mocking what is sacred to oneself.

Personally, I was sympathetic to Islamic outrage on two levels:
First, on the level of members of a foreign culture mocking their culture/religion (intertwined at some more basic level for them than for us). In mocking their religion, mocking something sacred, holy...forbidden ground. Second, on the level of a majority mocking a disenfranchised cultural/religious/ethnic minority. As my posts indicate, I am almost always sympathetic to minorities in this position.

I can get to the point where I say that normatively, these considerations mean that the cartoons should not have been drawn. (I am aware that this differs from the sentiments that I express on page 1 of this thread, and that is a direct result of extended conversations I have had with some of my (liberal, Western) Muslim classmates.) However, we in the West have a countervailing consideration of free speech - and that means that even if something normatively should not have been said, even if the line demarcating sacred territory should not have been crossed, the moment that it is, something has occurred that is independently worthy of protection. A communication has been made that must be vigorously defended - the making of the communication, that is, not necessarily the content thereof.

So, I feel that something has got lost in translation, between the people who are bent on discussing the offensiveness of the cartoons and the people who are bent on discussing the free speech issue. The former seem to be hearing, "It wasn't offense-worthy, and by the way, it's a free speech issue," from the free speech contingent, and the latter seem to be hearing, "It was offense worthy, and by the way, it should be prohibited speech" from the offense-driven contingent. I'm not so sure that many people are embracing either of these positions (although some clearly are).

In my ideal world, a dialogue would include:
(1) For us desensitized Westerners, truly acknowledging and internalizing the offense that a devout Muslim would take at cartoons perceived to be mocking his or her faith. Surely something is sacred enough, important enough, to us that we can understand how they feel by analogy.
(2) Agreement that there is value in not doing things that will deliberately offend and hurt other people - concession from the Western side.
(3) Agreement that there may be countervailing value in asserting political or other points that may (but does not have to) trump the value of not deliberately offending and hurting other people. This would be an case-by-case balancing determination - concession from the Muslim side.
(4) For religious Muslims (excepting those, primarily Westerners, who already understand and/or agree with this), accepting and understanding how dearly the West holds the secular value of free speech. It would involve them accepting that because of that value, we believe that we have to leave the case-by-case determination up to each individual and encourage them to consider it seriously. And, if an individual fails to do so, or balances in a way that we disagree with, we believe that there is importance in preserving and defending that choice even if we would have not made the same ourselves.

That wouldn't be perfect understanding, but it would be as close as we can get - and better than what we have right now.

[Jnyusa]

tp: I am not, because I am not convinced that the Western world has lost the ability to comprehend the offensiveness of someone else mocking what is sacred to oneself.

I believe that it is sufficiently lost to the West that we do need public reminders of its existence elsewhere, such as the view expressed in the article Rowan quoted.

Neither you nor I nor most of the people on this board are typical of Western sentiment and rationality. We are better educated, better exposed to the world, and more tolerant than the average person who does not, in fact, own a computer or have any idea where Iraq or Afghanistan are located much less know their history or hold sympathy for their past sufferings and future aspirations.

Americans in particular are always the first to shell out blood-money for a catastrophe (if it's reported above the fold) but we are not, on the whole, an empathetic People.

(1) Surely something is sacred enough, important enough, to us that we can understand how they feel by analogy.

The only thing I can think of that has analogous strength is the belief in that Genesis should be interpreted 'literally' ! Yet the people who hold that belief seem to be the ones least likely to be tolerant of analogous feelings among 'heathens.'

(2) Agreement that there is value in not doing things that will deliberately offend and hurt other people - concession from the Western side.

We couldn't even get that from 300 well-educated people on a messageboard who claimed that tolerance was one of their most cherished principles.

(3) Agreement that there may be countervailing value in asserting political or other points that may (but does not have to) trump the value of not deliberately offending and hurting other people. This would be an case-by-case balancing determination - concession from the Muslim side.

Generally public figures are not exempt from public critique. Therefore satire against the mullahs or the suicide bombers might rankle but could not be considered heresy. And I don't believe any fatwahs have been issued against criticism of Osama bin Laden.

Satirizing the life of a holy man who has been dead for nearly 1400 hundred years has not been traditionally considered a potent realm for satire. It looks to me as if an exception has been made in this case because a deep-seated prejudice is behind our dealings with the Moslem world. I continue to think that the cartoons were mean-spirited and politically inept. And not funny.

That's not to say that the mullahs are justified in calling for the death of the cartoonists. A good spanking would be more appropriate, imo.

(4) For religious Muslims (excepting those, primarily Westerners, who already understand and/or agree with this), accepting and understanding how dearly the West holds the secular value of free speech. It would involve them accepting that because of that value, we believe that we have to leave the case-by-case determination up to each individual and encourage them to consider it seriously. And, if an individual fails to do so, or balances in a way that we disagree with, we believe that there is importance in preserving and defending that choice even if we would have not made the same ourselves.

The fruition of this depends very much, I think, on the fruition of #1.

There was a conference this weekend in Philadelphia, bringing Moslem scholars and clergy before a primarly Christian audience to answer questions and explain their religious beliefs; and also, I believe, to represent the moderate, conservative Moslem view as opposed to the radical extremists who get all the airtime. The conference was only covered by public radio ... which figures, in a sad sort of way ... and even among this ubertolerant group there was one woman in the audience who insisted on harrassing the panel, accusing them of disguising their violent foundational world view and belonging to a religion that espouses violence, etc.

tp, I do not disagree with your pov ... I share it in large measure ... but I don't believe that we two (or we 98 ) are typical. Making the world look more like us, though desirable, is not likely to come about in the immediate future. It will get worse before it gets better. And the problem is not 100% 'them.'

Jn

[Teremia]

One problem I see with this discussion is that even if we come to some understanding about what sorts of satire "go too far" or "offend people's sacred beliefs" (and I have no doubt satire regularly DOES offend people, and very deeply indeed), where would we draw the line?

Because the people rioting around the world haven't even seen these images, which in and of themselves (as I understand from the descriptions I've read) were mostly a kind of intellectual meditation on the nature of sacred images rather than outright desecration. The people rioting got caught up in a riot. Someone said, "Denmark has blasphemed against the Prophet!" and then hysterical crowds went wild. The blasphemy was a RUMORED blasphemy, but that was apparently enough.

I'm not sure, then, how gently everybody would have to tread to avoid such flare-ups in the future. Everyone trying not to blaspheme against other people's ideas of the sacred would not -- however admirable and polite it might be to try -- prevent such disasters.

What might help over the long run would be the West taking a break from doing what looks to the Muslim world like invading and colonizing Muslim countries. The underlying tensions now are acute: the cartoons and the violent events provoked by those cartoons are just a symptom of that tense state of affairs the world finds itself in.

I personally would love to have my country try really hard to be the good guy for a few decades. Then maybe we'll all have calmed down and can be tolerant of other people's opinions.

[eborr]

Interesting dichotomy of views

We pride ourselves in Europe of allowing freedom of speech, but then you get this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4734648.stm

Personally I think Irving should be kept in prison, on the grounds that his consisitently commits fraud by describing himself as a historian.

On the other hand if we make holocaust denial a crime, then we have no moral justification for criticising muslims over their reaction to the cartoonists- all we are discussing is a level of retribution.

Freedom of expression does not have a limitation, ipso facto.

There was a debate on the beeb about this yesterday and some academic was arguing that the reason you should make holocaust denial an offence is that ignorant people might not be able to understand and be able to discriminate between the massive body of evidence that tell's us the holocaust happened and the views of some right wing loonies.

This means that our freedom of self expression is to be limited according to the lack of wit of folks who might hear or read what we say.

I was very moved by an email sent on behalf of a concentration camp victim (age 93) who said that the denial of free speech was what Hitler was about, and that a limitation of free speech was a victory for Hitler, of such people ( the instigator of the email) is real heroism to be found.

[Impenitent]

The issue of Holocaust denial is one that causes me to go through all kinds of agonizing loops.

We are 60 years after the end of the war; and during this period Holocaust denial has been insidious and unrelenting but ultimately pointless, as there were survivors who could provide first hand refutation. But soon, they will be gone. There will be no one who can stand up and say, "You lie - I was there and it happened." At that point there will be such a body of falsehood masquerading as history that - human nature and the lessons of history being what they are - I am resigned that the denial will eventually whitewash that appalling period.

My responses to this are visceral. Melbourne has a substantial and close-knit Jewish community, mostly Polish in complexion, and the vast majority are survivors or children and grandchildren of survivors. In my circle of acquaintance are many who survived - my flat mate's mother survived Auschwitz; one of my newsletter volunteers, now deceased, had a most extraordinary life, having been born in Oswiecim and taken by the Nazis into the very first labour gangs which were required to convert an old army camp into a concentration camp. Due to his engineering and handyman skills, he had the good fortune to be given a job in which he was relatively safe. He saw the first arrivals; watched the trains pull in; sortings take place. He saw it all. I saw the numbers on his arm. He was in Auschwitz for two years and then actually escaped, joined the Polish underground...

There are so many others; I've seen the numbers on their arms and looked into their eyes and you know what I see? Not anger, not hate, but a deep compassion for humanity.

My husband's grandparents and two aunts died in a concentration camp. His father and uncle, having escaped to Russia, returned after the war and witnessed the complete devastation of centuries-old communities. They did what they could - they became involved in the underground zionist train which smuggled displaced persons - Jewish persons, haunted, hunted, homeless, unwanted - out of the old killing grounds and to a new life. I read elsewhere that the cartoon fiasco is a zionist plot.

I despair. The zionists I know - and they are many, and I'd say I'm some way toward being a zionist myself - are ordinary folk who want peace and a cessation of hate. I have no desire to take over the free world, the banks and the UN or to stir up hatred. The zionists are not some faceless, unbodied entity, they are me and many of my acquaintances and our old folk.

It's so complicated. And I know this is a massive derailment of this thread but what I've read these last few days has coalesced into such a despair that even amongst the small internet community where I felt I had friends and acquaintances such cannards have reared their heads.

Apologies. I just had to say it, just once.

[Whistler]

And I think I speak for everybody in saying that we are glad you did.

[nerdanel]

Jn, I think we're mostly on the same page. I want to clarify that what I meant about understanding that beliefs are sacred:

As a liberal, an ACLU supporter, and someone still within the academic world, I consider every belief I hold to be fair game for debate, satire, or criticism. However, I have my beliefs, values, axioms that are so important to me, so naturally following from my worldview, so dearly held that some part of me is fundamentally outraged by mere disagreement with them, forget about mocking or satire. (Whether or not these beliefs rise to the level of "sacred" can be debated. I would submit that whether or not one believes in God, there are other beliefs that can potentially be held just as strongly.) It's not the dominant part - years of conditioning have taught that I must accept and respect that others can "legitimately" feel differently, as expressed by even mocking/satire. But there is that piece of me that can sympathize with the fierce anger that many Muslims have felt; I just assumed it would be the same for other Westerners. Perhaps not.

eborr --

On the other hand if we make holocaust denial a crime, then we have no moral justification for criticising muslims over their reaction to the cartoonists- all we are discussing is a level of retribution.

Correct. This is why I believe, for once, that the United States has the clear moral high ground over the European nations who make Holocaust denial a crime. I believe that we have a moral justification for criticizing any sort of physical/violent retribution to distasteful speech that certain European nations presently lack.

Even if Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism dressed up as debate, anti-Semitism is a frame of mind, a belief, a prejudice, a worldview - it is simply outrageous to me that anyone could be imprisoned for a reprehensible worldview. It should go without saying that I would say the same for any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other prejudice, so long as it remains nonviolently expressed. I believe there is a poignant hypocrisy in criminally sanctioning speech displaying prejudice towards the Jewish people, while defending speech displaying prejudice towards Muslims as "free speech". Please note that in saying this, I am not intending to equate the two forms of speech. However, I think they should both be allowed legally - while both being condemned morally.

[Jnyusa]

tp: Jn, I think we're mostly on the same page. I want to clarify that what I meant about understanding that beliefs are sacred: ...

Yes, I agree with everything you've written in the paragraph that followed. Regarding the last sentence, "But there is that piece of me that can sympathize with the fierce anger that many Muslims have felt; I just assumed it would be the same for other Westerners. Perhaps not."

I should clarify as well ... I believe Americans can and do feel equal rage, though not often about religious subjects ... think instead of our flag waving ... but what we have trouble doing is imagining that 'foreigners' find their own beliefs as legitimate as we find our own; and for that reason I do not believe that the word 'sacred' can be properly applied to our fervors. We equate self-righteousness with sacredness and I do not believe that these are the same things at all.

I also agree with you that Holocaust denial should not be criminalized. I noticed, while living in Germany, that the illegality of Nazi symbolism did not stop youth from painting swastikas on the walls of public buildings. Fresh air is better for debunking ideas, imo. But I also agree with Imp's observation that as time goes by and our living memorials of the Holocaust die, it will become harder and harder to counter misinformation.

Jn

[Impenitent]

I also agree with you that Holocaust denial should not be criminalized. I noticed, while living in Germany, that the illegality of Nazi symbolism did not stop youth from painting swastikas on the walls of public buildings. Fresh air is better for debunking ideas, imo.
Jn

I didn't get around to saying so while venting, but this is also my position. The onus, therefore, is on the educated and good-willed to make a difference.

Who was it who said that all it takes for evil to flourish is for good (wo)men to do nothing? Perfect application here. It is because we (the larger, western world) are so lackadaisical about our teaching of history and politics and critical thinking that such misinformation can become a dangerous thing.