Here at SM headquarters we have quite an intricate system for vetting which stories make it to our website. Most of our stories are unearthed by the army of ex test-monkeys (retired from military, space, and medical research) that we house in our basement. They are the ones who scour the internet all day and feed important stories to our bloggers, while we spend most of our time at our full-time jobs. We also have the tipline, by which dedicated readers send in tips. Later, in our conference room, we ask ourselves three main questions about a prospective post:
- Can I do this story justice/am I knowledgeable and interested enough to write about it without sounding ignorant?
- Does the story have an angle highlighting South Asians?
- Does the story have an angle of interest to North Americans?
The reason you haven’t seen us post on this topic before is because not all of us were convinced that we could answer yes to all three questions. After attending the SAAN Conference this past weekend (which will be summarized in my next post), I have become convinced that we have missed the relevance this issue has to our community, and that the answer to all three questions is yes. I am speaking of course of the controversy surrounding a Danish newspaper’s decision to publish a picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as his turban.
Arab foreign ministers have condemned the Danish government for failing to act against a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the Arab League conference in Cairo, they said they were “surprised and discontented at the response”.
Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad or of Allah.
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, in one of which he appeared to have a bomb in his turban. [Link]
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p>I see great irony in this situation that doesn’t seem to have registered in the press (as far as I know). Muslims around the world are protesting this cartoon (often violently) because it is forbidden in Islam to depict the Prophet, especially in such a vulgar manner as this. Muhammad, in his boundless wisdom, wanted to make sure that his image would never be used or treated as an idol, and that men would never worship him as one. In Christianity for example, many most sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet. It was the message of Islam, and not Muhammad the man, that was to better the world. By violently protesting this cartoon, it could be argued that Muslims around the world are acting as if an idol has been desecrated. Using violence to protest this “desecration” legitimizes that which the Prophet cautioned against in the first place. He has become an idol to be defended and avenged in the eyes of many.
Part of the reason that we haven’t already written about this issue is that it hasn’t had nearly as much impact in the U.S. as it has had in Europe and the rest of the world. Do Americans even care or understand what this is all about? Why am I not hearing more about this from the desi community? Before I go on, I want you to take a careful look at some pictures. Don’t read text that follows the pictures until you guess which country each was taken in:
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Muslims offended by the [Philadelphia] Inquirer’s decision to reprint a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that has inflamed the sensibilities of their co-religionists across the world picketed the newspaper this morning…
Most American newspapers have decided not to reprint the cartoon. Newspapers in Europe have, as a gesture of free press solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, run the caricature as well as 11 others pillorying the prophet. One image depicts Muhammad halting a line of suicide bombers at the gates of heaven with the cry, “Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins…”
One demonstrator, 54-year old Aneesha Uqdah of Philadelphia, argued that precedent exists for newspapers to withhold some information to prevent harm: “If a woman was a rape victim, you wouldn’t publish her name,” she said…
The demonstrators carried signs that read, “Freedom of Speech, Not Irresponsible Speech,” “No to Hate” and “Islam = Nonviolence…” [Link]
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Speaking outside his home in Bedford, Mr Khayam, 22, said: “I found the pictures deeply offensive as a Muslim and I felt the Danish newspaper had been provocative and controversial, deeply offensive and insensitive.
“But by me dressing the way I did, I did just that, exactly the same as the Danish newspaper, if not worse. My method of protest has offended many people, especially the families of the victims of the July bombings. This was not my intention.”
Downing Street today described the behaviour of some Muslim demonstrators in London over the last few days as “completely unacceptable”. Some demonstrators carried placards calling for people who insult Islam to be killed. [Link]
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There is a tension in the Islamic world between the desire for democracy and a respect for liberty. (It is a tension that once raged in the West and still exists in pockets today.) This is most apparent in the ongoing fury over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a small Danish newspaper. The cartoons were offensive and needlessly provocative. Had the paper published racist caricatures of other peoples or religions, it would also have been roundly condemned and perhaps boycotted. But the cartoonist and editors would not have feared for their lives. It is the violence of the response in some parts of the Muslim world that suggests a rejection of the ideas of tolerance and freedom of expression that are at the heart of modern Western societies. [Link]
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I don’t see why the onus is on us. Not to get into a “you-started-it” situation, but shouldn’t the Islamic world (i’m grossly overgeneralizing here) learn to be accountable for its own actions? I think at that’s really what is at the core of all of this – who’s willing to be accountable…
Who is ‘us’? Are Musims living amongst us part of our societies or not?
If someone asks what we can do to gain the trust of moderate Muslims I suggested that not baiting and alienating them by publishing crass and crude cartoons depicting Mohammad would be a good place to start – especially because it plays into the agenda of the Jihadis. If you don’t think that is important, then don’t worry about it.
The plot thickens…
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18066746-1702,00.html?from=rss
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad “…..non-iconic representations of Muhammad are traditionally discouraged. From the 16th century, however, Persian and Ottoman art frequently represented Muhammad in miniatures, albeit with his face either veiled, or emanating radiance …”
just take a look at what has happened in the past. i wonder how things will shape up for the muslim world once technology overtakes the west’s dependence upon oil. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/06/8367959/index.htm (did u see the GMC yellow cap ads pre-superbowl) http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/12/01/8364595/index.htm (vinod khosla)
and i’m not baiting the muslims/arabs as some kind of backward, underdeveloped thugs who needed to be shooed back to their deserts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes this guy came up with my favorite philosphical paradox – omnipotence paradox(well i guess i like it as i can understand it) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox
The actions of Iran and other fire-stoking Muslim countries are incorrigible and indefensible. I personally feel sorry for the Muslims living in the UK and other places who are absolutely wrenched and living in distress because of this shit.
Well the onus is on everyone really — including moderate Muslims. Jay Singh, I completely agree, there is nothing constructive in adding fuel to the fire.
But the issue here is much bigger than free speech, or even ethical or appropriate speech (which is what you are referring to). The big issue is: how do we get through to the growing, increasingly alienated and disaffected sections of the global Muslim diaspora, so that peaceful co-existence isn’t just a pipe dream? There’s a lot at stake here and everyone has a role to play regardless of their religious or national identity.
Case in point: Iran’s Hamshahri clearly is not going to promote greater understanding or help in conflict resolution by publishing Holocaust cartoons — it’s an “eye for an eye” approach and we all know where that leaves us.
JS, I think my pacific position has been made abundantly clear in my previous posts. By ‘us’ I am referring to the West as a collective, since ‘we’, or most of the people that comment and write this blog seem to be from North America and the UK. I’m going to assume your second question was rhetorical.
I don’t appreciate words being put into my mouth. That or misappropriating comments. My point was simply that there needs to be accountability in the Muslim world for their actions, particularly in the Middle East, where I grew up, and experienced religious intolerance on a large scale. Although I think that the reprinting of the cartoons was entirely unnecessary, the violent response has been more than disproportionate. And there seems to be little or no accountability on the part of those engaging in such violent behaviour.
most likely b/c there is not an entrenched muslim establishment in the US that would stoke the fires of north american muslims in order to solidify its own political strength. and that kind of self-serving manipulation, i’d contend, is what we are reading about in europe, lebanon, afghanistan, and wherever else violent demonstrations have occurred. it’s mobs of people incited by ‘muslim’ leaders. today it’s the cartoon, a few weeks back its the Qu’ran down the toilet, and any other time it’s female athletes in shorts or state bans on hijab.
i think your understanding of these protests has been to treat them as representative of muslims-in-general. that’s a huge mistake. you’ve given those images too much meaning. most certainly, all over the world, muslims are non-violently protesting the Danish publication’s cartoon. the global economic boycott on Danish goods has been successful precisely b/c it is popular with muslims who don’t identify with those creating violence. however, peaceful protests aren’t captured in the AP and Getty archives.
the Philly demo was, tho. and your conclusion then is that an intrinsic cultural difference explains why a north american demo appears peaceful and other demos around the world appear insane? you argue that there’s something distinctly American about civil disobedience and protest– other cultures don’t have our love for the underdog, they don’t have the potent rationalism that guides are movements…. hmm. i’m sorry, but that notion is weak, man. and highly problematic in that it reeks of whitebread American Exceptionalism. why are you, essentially, ranking protest models, assigning them to different cultures, and then privileging the one that comes easiest to you? it’s not exactly a productive project.
finally, i don’t think that we can condemn as idol worshippers those muslims who are riled up about the cartoon. the modern anxiety with images of the prophet is not simply a vestige of anti-idolatry; it is more powerfully a symptom of Europe’s domination over muslim culture, thought, and semiotics. the Danish cartoonist literally appropriated the Prophet’s meaning–something so central to muslims around the world because it defines their own meaning/subjectivity.
in any case, my main point is that this latest flare-up in the press and around the world can’t be reduced to easy differentiations. stateside, we shouldn’t feel compelled to make those reductions.
Luscious Moon
Do you have any idea how to do that? I don’t, apart from generalities like, ‘encourage democracy’, ‘support liberals’ and blah blah blah
Let’s face it – it is the biggest issue of our age. At the moment, knowing the racist crap my Muslim friends have to put up with in the aftermath of this stuff, the dire things this does for race and religious relations, I feel sad for them – and that they are not helped in their attempts to marginalise the Jihadis by goading them with really crass and offensive representations of Mohammad – playing straight into their hands.
I find it funny that people who are outraged by the cartoons nevertheless think this is permissible just because of free speech. When will the west transcend normative thinking and learn to contextualize? These things keep coming up but no-one seems to think that this is worth addressing.
It wont let me post under my name for some reason.
Ennis, let me try again although I’m not sure I’ll succeed. Let’s say you believe people should be civil. You also believe in the right to free speech. Now you have to balance between the two. You end up saying that free speech is an inviolable right and even hate speech is fine. This to me defies logic. That means one is willing to set all principles and all practicalities aside simply to worship at the altar of free speech. The ACLU’s defense of the KKK comes to mind. Is this the best we can do? Must we deny ourselves the simple act of being human, being subjective, and find it necessary to dogmatically stick to the same stance in each and every instance? This is just a blog. This is not a court of law. It is of not much significance if people simply state that it was wrong of the Danish newspaper to publish those cartoons if they feel that way. There’s no need to take cover behind the free speech thing. But I think it is this culture that compels people to forever religiously stick to one position or the other or else be branded a hypocrite. In India people are better able to contextualize. This type of thinking actually takes away from the debate as the discussion can never approach the shades of grey but only pitch black against white.
Hardly. Terrorism has been around since the dawn of civilization. It’s the biggest hype of the decade. It’s the new red scare, stoked by fundamentalists on both sides for political advantage, Dubya chief among them. Keep the people in fear and they will keep you in power. And it breeds a new punditocracy (Zakaria, Aslan) invested in further cranking the hype.
Easily bigger survival threats: North Korea nukes, Iran nukes, asteroid impact, war with China. Easily bigger economic threats: math/sci decline, culture of entitlement, competition with China.
The leadership knows this. The political wing stokes fear of terrorism while the military wing continues to plan for a conventional war with China– not terrorists.
Beware the pundit-political complex 🙂
Most responsible muslim voices are calling only for peaceful protests. It is true for most muslim blogs writing on the issue, the MCB in Britain, even Qardhawi, etc. The morons in Beirut and Damascus did more harm than the cause the protests were for. The Irani newspaper is going down the wrong road. Abhi, great post. I agree that the philosophy is taking a backseat with respect to symbols when protests turn violent.
I don’t think I ever claimed to. But you help me prove my point. Broadly conceived, goals such as the ones you suggested are understood to be the prerogative of the West (Europe and N. America), which would put the onus on ‘us’. But they don’t get us very far in the short-term. That is what I mean by saying that there is an onus on the Islamic world themselves for some introspection, a reformation of sorts that they never had. That would lead to creating a sense of accountability to self and to the global community.
I agree that it certainly is one of the critical issues these days. However, I just don’t see why the West needs to tiptoe around Muslim sensitivities, when clearly, other religious sensitivities are fair game for the media. When I was a little girl, I had a beautiful hard-bound Oxford World Atlas in which Israel was blacked out on every single page that it was present in whole or part. Of course, this was purchased in the Middle East, because there weren’t any other atlases that were available. I didn’t get to hear the other side of the story until I left the region. I don’t see Jewish people going up in arms about it.
I’m afraid I just don’t see this as an issue of ‘let sleeping dogs lie’. I refuse to apply a double-standard, and that might well be my personal choice and if so, its fine.
“Maybe this is my immature side emerging but I can’t seem to stop laughing every time I look at that cartoon. I don’t see why people need to get all worked up about something so trivial. And I am not saying this just because I’m a Hindu. I would probably find a Ganesh being used for advertising an “all you can eat” outlet immensely hilarious!”
May be taking offense and being violent because of such provocations is just as much a part of the Muslim Experience as “being blissfully oblivious to percieved infractions against religion ” is that of Hindu Experience.
” good post, but, pre-Islamic roots of some of their cultures, you have a problem with arabian paganism?* 🙂 instead of trying to point culturalist fingers let’s just say it is what it is. i don’t think there is an “authentic” islam that is “true” to a set of teachings, i’ve read translations of the koran, and it is vicious or pacific, depending on the passage. the weight you give to the interpretation function is all individual (or social)”
It may be pointed out here that islam prohibits the translation of koran. One may have read the translations of koran but it still is a translation which is limited in its abilty to reproduce the original by the translators own notions priori or apriori. The present day interpratation of islam makes it the violent religion with come across.
There couldn’t have been any other motive (I’m speculating, of course) for publishing the cartoons other than to titillate and pander to the base emotions of their audience. Having said that, I find it absolutely shocking that some of the same people who day in and day out talk about “wiping Israel off the face of the earth” now have the cheek to say they are offended by this. Hypocrisy indeed.
I don’t know, may be this is trivial, but the fact is, the notions of free speech as understood and accepted in the West have not yet been accepted elsewhere. This seems to me to be a fundamental problem here. Even in a democracy like India, most people would agree that these were offensive cartoons and the administration may have actually initiated action, with legal sanction, against the publication. I don’t think there is a universal agreement on what constitutes free speech, and although I think the Western ideal in this regard is worth emulating, that is not the majority view. Many moderate Hindus (some of whom are vehemently anti-BJP), for example, thought MF Hussain was wrong in depicting Hindu godesses the way he did and wanted these to be banned (even if they didn’t support violence). There are a multitude of factors at work here as pointed out already, but this is important, I think.
As for the protests taking a violent turn in certain places, first of all, these are places where the law-and-order situation is not quite on par with the Western world. Even more important, all these are places where religious/ethnic politics has huge stakes and so it always makes sense for certain vested interests to show that they are doing something about it, that they are ‘defending Islam’.
There is hope.
Hmmmm, reading abhi’s thoughtful post and the subsequent comments made me think about this line in Diane Johnson’s Le Divorce (the setting is an American woman in bed with her French lover, discussing a Simpson’s cartoon on French television): How strange to be culturally threatened by a cartoon.
Well, that’s the first thing that went through my head. Sorry. I’m afraid I haven’t much sympathy for the Christians upset by Piss Christ, or the Hindu’s upset by whatever upsets the saffron brigade, or this group of thugs. How strange to be culturally threatened by a cartoon. Yes, yes, religion and blasphemy and racism and provocation. But, really. How can one cause a provocation if the other refuses to be provoked? It’s all about control. It’s always about control for these types.
Let speech be free.
MD, how do you feel about flag burning? Or politicians who want to outlaw it?
I don’t think much of them, Ennis. It’s political posturing: that’s all it is.
I don’t think that will ever happen while there is a clear and present ‘enemy’ that the jihadis can use to garner support. Muslims are humans, and like all humans they fall prey to propaganda & misinformation. As mentioned by Jay Singh, these unecessary provocations just provide more ammunition (excuse the pun) to the jihadis.
Personally, as a liberal muslim I found 5 out of the 12 cartoons very offensive. I saw these images before this brouhaha around Oct/Nov last year and at that time attributed it to typical Danish xenophobia (of which I was well aware – heck even their Queen “We must show our opposition to Islam” Margarethe is somewhat Islamophobic).
But as things stand right now between the over zealous freedom of expressioners and the violent mobs in Lebanon & Syria, I think neither are defendable. Insensitive right wing media out to make a quick buck vs ignorant Islamists out to get power? I’ll support neither thanks. Tabish Khair’s opinion piece in the Guardian pretty much sums up how I, as a moderate, peace loving muslim feel.
The New Zealand Herald’s Saturday editorial gives a very good reason for not reprinting the cartoons. To quote them:
“When any right is invoked, it can be hard to keep your head. As soon as an issue is framed as a test of press freedom, the temptation is to publish for no better reason than to assert that freedom… But in this country, and most others where newspapers have strutted a hairy chest on this issue, Muslims are a small minority of the population and we are free to offend their religious sensitivities if we want to. The only question to consider is, why would we want to?”
“We ask the question, would we insult Christians simply to prove that we have a right to do so?”
One of the biggest myths about all of this is that Islam prohibits the drawing of Mohammed. The link below feature numerous paintings and drawings of Mohammed, most of them painted by Muslim artists from the Middle Ages. As time went one, Mohammed would be drawn, but often the face would be veiled. It was only with the onset of mass publication technology that the prohibition against depicting Mohammed came into full force. Because, if history has shown us anything, is that God or other religious figures are made in the image of man.
Somehow Jesus, over time, went from being a Jew with “skin of burning brass and hair like a wooly lamb” to a blonde, long-haired blue eyed son of God. Buddha went from becoming a North Indian male to his common depiction know as an East or Southeast Asian. If there was a real Moses, would he have had the longevity to walk through a desert for 40 years? Unlikely, but it’s one heck of a story.
If Mohammed were allowed to be drawn according to an individual’s will and ideas – well, maybe he would look Asian, seeing as how Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation. Or maybe black, since Islam is spreading quickly in Africa. But that would mean if you can imagine Mohammed in different guises, then you run the risk of debating his teachings. And that is what the religious despots fear.
As has been pointed, these cartoons have been out for months, but it is only now, one year after the hopeful “Arab spring”, that forces desperate to cling onto to their power need to distract the masses. Hey, it worked for Khomeini in the late 80s– thousands of Iranians dead from war, country is isolated, and the economy is in the toilet – pass a death sentence on a British author to keep the masses in line. And considering the low level of education in much of the Middle East, this is not that hard. Somehow, a region is driven to outrage not by the carnage wrought by car bombs exploding in a mosque during Ashura, but by the sketchings in a language that none of them can read (few of them are literate in Arabic, to boot)
A number of pundits have pointed out the Islam needs to undergo its own Reformation. What they forget is just how violent that period was.
Of all the essays currently written about this, I think Andrew Sullivan had the most concise take on it.
“Your Taboo, Not Mine” – Time Magazine, Feb 13, 2006 “These double standards reveal something quite clear: this call for “sensitivity” is primarily a cover for intolerance of others and intimidation of free people. “
Christopher Hitchen’s had this take on it – Cartoon Debate
“The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.”
Mohammed Image Archive
Personally, I think I’m going to express solidarity with Denmark, and go buy some Carlberg Beer
In Christianity for example, many sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet.
Nice chrisitianity slam..for your information Christ is not a mortal phophet.He was the Son of God… Im not sure what you gained by your inaccurate comment.
This is not a Christianity slam. If you look at the history of Christianity you will see that the idea of Christ has evolved over two thousand years. What he represents has also changed.
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From Wikipedia:
I felt nice reading this post. Thank you for upholding common sense in a crazy world. Keep up the good work SM.
This was on Pickled Politics 2 days ago so probably you all have seen it, but for some reason this little fact from Aqoul has stood out among all the other stories I’ve read the past few days.
Between seeing embassies in flames on the news, and coming home to a boyfriend who obsessively watches Hitler documentaries in an attempt to understand the past, I can’t help but form very dark thoughts about the way Europe is going to start responding to Muslims in the near future. It appears like secular people are reaching a breaking point with the fundies, while the media happily fans the fire. I live in a Pakistani neighborhood, how can I not feel the slightest bit freaked out to see images of arseholes calling for massacres in central London? And this is from someone whose boyfriend is a recovering Muslim, and who has edited a Muslim documentary for a director who works for a Shi’a foundation, so I’m not likely to make sweeping generalizations but I still admit to feeling very worried and scared about this clash of cultures.
The number of sects who believe Christ as God outnumber those who do not by about 90% (I am pulling this number out of my ass here), but put the Catholics, all the Protestants and Orthodox and that is a whole bunch of them.
The vast majority of the Christian denominations, and certainly the major ones like Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptist, Methodist, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox ,Syrian Orthodox believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ as part of the holy trinity. Abhi said: In Christianity for example, many sects now worship Christ as God, instead of seeing him as only a mortal prophet.
Abhi, you are certainly entitled to this view, but in fact it is a view not widely shared by the vast majority of Christians. I acknowledge that minor Christian denominations may subscribe to this view, but it is a tiny minority.They are fully entitled to their beliefs, but it is a fallacy to think that this is a widely held tenet among believers.
I never meant to imply it was widely held belief in modern day Christianity. I do know however that in the first few centuries following Christ’s death, it was hotly contested whether or not he was divine. It was the rise in the power of the Papacy that firmly tipped the balance and encouraged people to become believers.
The article states: “Islamic radicals have been essentially threatening the free discussion of their religion and politics in the West. Rushdie escaped with his life. But Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician who stood up against Muslim immigrant hostility to equality for women and gays, was murdered on the street.”
That is a blatant lie. Fortuyn was assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf, a white collar left-wing environmentalist (he was a native dutch).
“Blasphemy, moreover, is common in the Muslim world, and sanctioned by Arab governments. The Arab media run cartoons depicting Jews and the symbols of the Jewish faith with imagery indistinguishable from that used in the Third Reich. But I have yet to see Jews or Israelis threaten the lives of Muslims because of it.”
Cartoons depicting jews is different to cartoons depicting Mohammad, Moses, Jesus etc. Do the Arab media run cartoons of Moses or even King David? There are thousands of cartoons about MUSLIMS – that’s fine. But one cannot expect friendship after (willfully) insulting a sacred person. After all, would you continue friendship with someone who called your mother a dirty whore?
I for one am glad that we’ve finally made a “cultural stand” and declared a value (Free Speech) that can’t been “toleranced” away. Bravo Danes.
Probably not. But I’d be unlikely to burn down their embassy or threaten ’em with suicide bombers either. World of difference.
I’m personally pretty tired of the various shades of the “we’ve brought this upon ourselves” argument. It’s a cheap way to avoid the underlying clash cuz there will ALWAYS be someplace where we should “start”. It’s like saying the old USSR would be our friends if we just played nice with Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea….
Ultimately, we have to confront the underlying, cultural conflict. Ours is a culture / philosophy (free speech, capitalism, empowered women, “tolerance”, yadda yadda yadda) with global ambitions whether we admit it or not (try holding back the tide of Globalization and shielding your kids from Britney). So is theirs (submission of all, ultimate triumph of Dar al Islam, death for apostasy/blasphemy, yadda yadda yadda). (and no, I’m not talking about all Muslims – there are some fantastic ones out there… and it’s unfortunate how a minority has hijacked their name… )
BUT, even a doctrine of “tolerance” ultimately prescribes certain things that folks MUST be, well, intolerant about – e.g. “free speech”, “free association”, women’s political views, etc. The conflict (to use Brooksian language) is essential, not accidental.
I don’t see anyone here defending the violence – it is more idiotic than the cartoons themselves. But I do agree with the boycotts and trade withdrawals with Denmark, since the Danish government initially refused to resolve this issue at a diplomatic level back in Oct last year.
Fogh Rasmussen was perfectly eloquent when he argued that was an argument not about diplomacy but rather bedrock principles –
I’m gonna drink an extra Carlsberg this weekend.
But in this particular case, it is a direct cause and effect relationship. Why else would people in third world countries (who most likely didn’t even know the existence of Denmark let alone know the contents of its flag and the location of its embassy!) go on a violent rampage against Denmark?
I have been reading this thread with great interest in addition to Desicritics and Pickled Politics. One thing: Danish Government should not responsible or is supposed to police cartoons and press.
Probably, Cicatrix is correct that the cartoons are an extension of xenophobic under-currents. Others have been saying that too. That is too bad, since in WW 2, the King of Denmark and other genteel citizens wore “Yellow Star” to say they all were Jews in defiance to Nazis. Times have changed.
Maybe, a lot of violent expression is extension of deeper problem of ghettoization of muslims in Europe.
But still, freedom of speech is non-negotiable.
I was checking Prophet Muhammad images through centuries provided by KXB, they are quite intriguing.
Why else would people in third world countries go on a violent rampage against Denmark?
They’ve also gone on the rampage against US and Austrian (among others) embassies/institutions. What explains that? The State Dept has actually condemned the cartoons.
It doesn’t much take in certain parts of the world for protests to turn violent, e.g., Kashmir.
At best, the cartoons were merely most recent spark. The fuel — the underlying conflict of principles — has / is accumulating there regardless of any of these actions. THAT’s the ‘essential‘ element. The cartoons, the accidental. To use a phrase that’s been horribly abused of late, it’s the Root cause, not the proximate cause.
If not the cartoons, it would have been something else (Muslim youths killed while being chased by cops?, a movie an Islamicist doesn’t like?, a book he doesn’t like?)
Since when was maintaining principles and being diplomatic mutually exclusive?
“late last year, the Danish prime minister refused to meet a group of Arab diplomats who wished to register their protest. In most other countries they would have been received, their protest accepted. The government would have expressed “regret” and told them it could not put pressure on any media outlet as a matter of law and policy. In their turn, having done their Muslim duty, these diplomats might have helped lessen the reaction in their respective countries. By not meeting them, the prime minister silenced all moderate Muslims just as effectively as they would be later silenced by militant Muslims around the world.”
It’s from the Guardian link I posted earlier.
I hope you enjoy it 🙂
It was the rise in the power of the Papacy that firmly tipped the balance and encouraged people to become believers.
i don’t think this is so, the papacy wasn’t that powerful when the nicene creed was accepted (the papacy as we know it is really, i think, due to gregory the great in the late 6th century). to be pedantic, i suspect is the tilting of the balance from jewish christianity to gentile christianity and the decline of the jewish fraction amongst the believers that allowed jesus to be easily divinized, god-men were a common feature in the pagan religious zeitgeist (and god-men born of virgins at that), and one jews frowned upon. the divine status of christ was common by the time of bishop iraenaeus (180) and pretty normative by the time of the greatest early christian philosopher, origen (early 3rd century). it was surely the majoritarian position by the time that the athanasian creed was accepted as official by the grace of constantine in 325.
on a point of irony, though the indian orthodox church has associations with monophysite jacobite christianity, which emphasizes the unitary nature of christ (rejects chalcedon), there is work that suggests its origins lay with nestorian christianity, who tended to strictly separate god and man (mary was not the mother of god, but of the man). so the subtle shadings don’t matter much 🙂
p.s. abhi, please do not rely on anything that the da vinci code says regarding early christianity, i’ve seen even agnostic biblical scholars savage it for its disortions of the subtle dynamics of the early church and theology.
This is still a version of the “we’ve brought this upon ourselves” argument. By focusing on the meeting that didn’t happen, you seem to be arguing either
either way, we’re in pretty violent (pardon the pun) disagreement. Just cuz no one’s a saint doesn’t mean that everyone’s an equal sinner.
It further explains their ignorance and why only the poor and oppressed muslims are making such violent protests while the more sensible ones are protesting through their wallets.
Apart from Mr Salman Rushdie, none of the examples you cited caused as much offence to the ENTIRE Islamic community as the diplomatic indifference of Denmark.
Not to pick on you (you seem very well, err, written and thoughtful; not to mention awake at this hour) BUT… THERE YOU GO AGAIN!.
This mess was NOT because of a meeting snub.
This was because of underlying principles in conflict – the right to speech & blaspheme on one side, and the mandate the kill the blasphemous on the other. Rasmussen’s meeting or lack thereof is but a fly on the ass of the proverbial elephant in the room here.
Poking vicious fun at people of other religion is horrendously bad, especially for people who want to call themselves civilized.
However, I cannot help but wonder why it is ok to print Ganesh and Shiv on flip flops and toilet seats / toilet paper while this causes several people to die. Or do we not consider Hindus human beings anymore?
Poking vicious fun at people of other religion is horrendously bad, especially for people who want to call themselves civilized.
it is bad only if you privilege religion. word to religionists, not everbody does! i certainly don’t, though prudentially i respect it because people might kill me if i keep shitting on their ground of being.
Well, by not meeting and just LISTENING to their grievance Rasmussen essentially showed the Islamic community the finger. He made a diplomatic faux pas so surely you can understand why those whose feelings the Danish govn. doesn’t give a hoot about would take their business elsewhere?
Again, another personal analogy – would you go back to a store where a service rep racially offended you and their manager didn’t give a damn?
(ugh I wish I could spell ‘bengali’ correctly once in while :\ )