ItÂ’s easy to condemn the vandalism, the hatred and the violence. I am sure everyone here joins in this condemnation.
But there’s still the uncomfortable fact that many European opinion-makers are reveling in provocation – not only reprinting the cartoons but piling on new offense.
In France the right-wing tab France-Soir already ran the pics. Now Charlie-Hebdo [no website], a leftist satirical weekly with roots in the May 1968 student rebellion, runs the Danish portfolio and its own, new, cover illustration that you can see here. Titled “Mohammed overtaken by fundamentalists,” it shows the usual dark-and-swarthy Prophet with his head in his hands, exclaiming (using the rude word cons): “It’s hard being worshipped by idiots!”
Meanwhile the editor of Jyllands-Posten has decided that not content with offending Muslims, he also wants to offend Jews; and announces, in a particularly tasteful comparison, that accusing him of provocation is like accusing a woman of causing her own rape:
The Danish paper responsible for the original caricatures of the prophet Muhammad is set to stoke the row further by running cartoons satirising the Holocaust.
Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, said today he was trying to get in touch with the Iranian paper, Hamshari, which plans to run an international competition seeking cartoons about the Holocaust.
“My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them,” Mr Rose told CNN. Â…
Mr Rose said he did not regret publishing the pictures.
“I think it is like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a short skirt at a discotheque [on] Friday night,” he said.
“If you’re wearing a short skirt that does not necessarily mean you invite everybody to have sex with you. If you make a cartoon, make fun of religion, make fun of religious figures, that does not imply that you humiliate or denigrate or marginalise a religion.”[Link]
ItÂ’s still all about freedom of speech, right?
yes. if you read this blog, you will see that they put hindu gods on toilets.
so hey, did the hindus riot because someone shat on an image of their gods?
I am not suggesting that criticism of Muslims lead to the protests. I am however suggesting that this climate of intimidation where Islam could not be criticized and so the Danes had to step in is B.S.
Its interesting how many here protect free speech when this very site has blocked views that have offended them in the past.
Unfortunately or fortunately, this goes silent.
As some of those who are blocked do not feel insecure enough to make a big deal about it.
But to express a solidarity with free speech while exercising the right to censor without explanation is a contradiction, no?
Don’t be so superficial and tiresome bwana. Lets get it straight – what you said there about poverty has NOTHING to do with the response to the publication of the cartoons. It is sheer distraction, a smokescreen, and lazy lies.
hey… Jay… I rather liked Euro_D’s commentary. I dont believe he said “this is why this happened” or “europeans are to blame” – he just reported some facts that suggest social unrest. So, just wanted to put a plug for Euro_D. For what it’s worth, I liked his/her reporting – it reported current facts in plainspeak and human terms – I felt this was good value-add. keep it coming. -cloak on-
i’d like to express dismay at the peremptory statements/flames that have begun to invade this thread. i suppose it can’t be avoided. i’d also like to highlight something bengali said:
that’s a pretty good recap of where things are. look, the original cartoons — and the bomb one in particular — were stupid. they were mediocre art. they were infused with racism — as a friend of mine pointed out, they aimed to conflate the brown people on television with craziness and irrationality. he added that in that respect they could have been cooked up by anyone from the pentagon to the mountains of pakistan, in that they stoke the “clash” that extremists on both sides desire and welcome.
i have no problem with jyllands-posten’s right to solicit them, select them, and print them. i have no problem with any other outlet’s right to reprint them. i have no problem with the right to offend. all i wonder is why jyllands-posten and its emulators felt the need to invoke and utilize those rights at this time. i’m glad they did what they did, because clearly it was in their heart. i just want to know why.
as i’ve hinted in previous comments, i think it gets us back to the psychology of a european elite (political, social, educational, economic, etc) that has convinced itself that it is beleaguered. it has fixated on islam as the source of its beleaguerment — but the full picture, as we are getting hints, also includes race anxiety (ergo the conflation of brownness with craziness) and gender anxiety (ergo mr. flemming rose’s nice comments about rape).
(methodological footnote, feel free to skip: why am i generalizing to europe and not including the united states? continental europe exhibits many historic and sociological commonalities that i won’t both going into a long dissertation on here. the bottom line is that the way the elite forms and sustains itself is different in continental europe, where it is relatiely rigid, than it is in north america, where it is relatively fluid.)
(thematic parenthesis, feel free to skip as well: why am i not talking about the violent and obscurantist reaction and the powerful leaders who are callously stoking it? because it’s goddamn obvious, is why. i’m much more interested in the complicated questions and the ones that affect the places and cultures in which mutineers live. we have to examine ourselves, and that ain’t no PC. it’s spiritual health. the mutiny is a space so remarkably populated with sophisticated people that we do ourselves a discredit by not taking on the ambiguous, uncomfortable questions.)
with that out of the way: one strength of the immigrant multicultural societies like the us, canada, australia is that, albeit to varying degrees, this elite anxiety is so much less than in europe. as a result where desis and other browns fit in, and how, and with what prospects, and especially, what are the psychological costs of success or the psychological burdens of failure, is wildly different in north america than it is in europe. browns on one side of the atlantic would do well to bear this in mind and show some empathy for the perspectives of browns on the other side of the atlantic.
in conclusion i would like to post a note that was shared on a small yahoo-group i am part of. it comes from a sister who lives in the united states and is half-danish, half-pakistani. it’s a totally honest statement from someone who rarely speaks up and is completely devoid of ideological agenda. folks may find it interesting:
i’m going to let this sister have the last word as far as i’m concerned. salaam.
What a load of all bulls like saying all chinky looking fellas are similar? Chinese CULTURE LANGUAGE and RELIGION are very DIFFERENT than Thai. Most fellas would be able to tell them apart visualy, or even when they listen to conversation.
No. Sepia Mutiny is not a democracy and has never claimed to be one. We are an oligarchy run by an extremely secretive cabal. Comparing free speech in Denmark to free speech on this website is a case of apples an oranges. We have a pretty specific comment policy. If we censor or delete your comment it is because you have clearly violated the comment policy and taken away from the otherwise productive experience we hope to provide. If you are boderline we tend to let it pass. This is a privately run “institution” and not a publicly run government.
I just want to know how the heck Muslims have the absolute gall to protest against these cartoons when the regularly publish the sickest and most twisted anti-semitic cartoons. Check these out:
http://www.pmw.org.il/Latest%20bulletins%20new.htm#b080206
Whether or not their deeply-held beliefs were insulted (as if that should be test to judge any actions), how can they bear the sheer hyprocracy??
No, read the FAQ.
Razib_against_cholesterol wrote:
islam is not an ethnicity, it is a religion. it does exhibit correlations with ethnicity, but this is not fundamental, even if europeans conflate the two …
I know you beleive being Muslim is not an ethnicity, but that doesn’t make it true everywhere at all times. Ahmed Akkari (the Dane who started it all) said that he could be considered a cultural Muslim — that is, an ethnic Muslim, not a religious one.
To take another example, in India, being Muslim is certainly an ethnicity. The same is true to a great extent in malaysia, where Bumiputras will intermarry with Indo-Muslim Malaysians, even secular ones.
To re-iterate, you may want “Muslim” to be a religious label, not an ethnic one, but that doesn’t make it so everywhare and at all times. It may be that in Denmark, “Muslim” is as much an ethnicity as a religion.
An Analogy may help. Newspaper publications and magazines have a “letter to the editor” column. Many people submit comments on an article or news story that piqued their interest, curiosity, wrath, etc. It is upto the editors discretion what gets published in their PRIVATE enterprise. The Freedom of Speech is for the individual or the private entity controlling said speech. Newspapers and journalists though, live and die by the first amendment. Did they censor? Sure. But it wasn’t their veiwpoint to begin with, only a third parties, which they could choose to express in their own speech (the print media) or not. If the Govt said,”NYT, you cannot express thrid party opinions in your Newspaper”, now that is a violation of free speech. It is the NYT’s to decide what they do with their paper.
If person A comes up to me and asks me to tell person B to ‘screw off’, and I refuse, that wasn’t a violation of anyones free speech. I have control of content (verbal) that I distribute. Now, if I wanted to express that sentitment and said,’screw off’, but a giant muzzle manifested itself, stopping me from speaking (or that scene from The Matrix where Neo’s mouth disappears, preventing him from screaming), then it is a violation of MY free speech.
May be a little off-topic but how about this for “religious feelings”
An interesting time for Germans to be reminding others about the limits of free speech:
George W Bush’s protocol handlers have notified South Block that the American President’s deep belief in his born again faith precludes his visiting Mahatma Gandhi’s Samadhi at New Delhi’s Raj Ghat — during his forthcoming visit to India
They dont preclude him from cutting medicines for grandmothers.
RC,
You need a read a little more carefully before you post. The article that reported that was making a rhetorical point. Bush did not refuse to visit Gandhi’s site, it was the rule of Saudi Arabia who did that. The author was pointing out that the Indian left had nothing to say when the Saudi King paid such disrespect to India but would be in a furor if Bush or Blair said the same thing.
Here it is:
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/09guest.htm
To re-iterate, you may want “Muslim” to be a religious label, not an ethnic one, but that doesn’t make it so everywhare and at all times. It may be that in Denmark, “Muslim” is as much an ethnicity as a religion.
yes, but if you are pragmatic about everything (acknowledge perception as fundamental reality) than of course there will never been any change and the muslim = ethnicity will crystalize as the de facto indefinitely. and of course, muslims who use their identity as a religious ideology will use the ethnicity as cover for their activites and to gain legitimacy.
Harsh,
I highlighted the part where it says that Mr. Bush’s visit will NOT change the protocol. Personaly I dont care if a visiting world leader respects Gandhi-ji or not. I dont think Indian foreign policy establishment should be so touchy about that. All I was pointing out was the religious aspect of thinking of born again Christian. Seems so silly to be doing such a thing.
As for Saudi Arabia, mutineers dont need to read another one of my expletive ridden rants, about how ridiculous it is to invite King of Saudi to Republic Day festivities.
RC,
The point I’m making is that Bush never said anything about being born again or pagan sacrifices. Read the rediff article again. The paragraph you cite is wholly hypothetical — it never happened! The writer just wanted to get people reading it peeved and then he could say “actually this didn’t happen with bush, it happened with the Saudi King. Are you still mad?”
I’m not taking a stand on anything that was said or the substantive position. I’m just pointing out that none of it happened. There was no comment about born-again religious faith.
Ok, the article says above and I exactly did that. But to my defence, its not a stretch to think that Bush actually said something like that. But on the other hand, his handlers are smart enough to not trip over something so silly.
Looks like I need to drink coffee and wake up 🙂 Also, I noticed that the link I put in my last comment is incorrect.
Site admins, When (or if) you get some time please delete my comment #117
From the BBC:
siddhartha_m wrote:
I think much of it has to do with the European elitism regarding social experiments. The Danish newspaper publishing this cartoon and now seeking out anti-Holocaust images reminds me of Larry Summers’ comments about women in science. At the core, they are merely agent provocateurs who stir unrest merely as a large scale social experiment. And that, I think, is reprehensible. Ofcourse, it also makes all the angry stirrings in Beirut seem like infantile flailings from people who are willingly participating in this social experiment.
With regard to systematic (economic) means of protest, that is an option that evangelical lobbyists had in the US (they are powerful and have deep pockets) but not to Muslim immigrants in Denmark who typically don’t form the ruling or influential classes in Denmark.
What leads people to abuse free speech rights (which they have a right to exercise constitiuonally, no doubt) towards offending people is, for the most part, the rush of seeing people agitated by slander. Words have the power to hurt, and people using them often want the heady rush of seeing controversy stirred up by what they write. That unfortunately motivates a lot of academic writing — since people want their papers/articles/columns read and discussed from a purely shameless self-promoting perspective.
great points, DDIA. as i guess i’ve made pretty clear by now i think the psychological angles here are among the most fascinating. not “what’s wrong with what someone else has done” but “why do we do the things we do.” not to apologize for anything; simply to understand what’s going on inside the monkey brain. at a group level, especially a nation/tribe/ummah, collective psychology is a hard thing to posit, but not impossible; look at frantz fanon or albert memmi for example, who were able to diagnose individual neuroses that were pervasive in certain settings (colonialism) with traceable political effects.
peace
Siddharth, Juan Cole hints at why this Danish paper published this at this time. He wrote the following in his article on Salon.com
Here is the link of Daniel Pipes inteview Juan Cole put on his blog.
rc, thanks for this. these guys all seem to have rape fixations. it’s reminiscent of the standard neurosis of southern white men in the united states that led to so many lynchings.
funny (really) cartoon in the g&m tday
Sidd:
Pipes reference to Muslim males and rape is wholly appropriate given the fact that a key tenet to islamic fascism is the subjugation of women. It is really unfair to compare his analysis to the “neurosis of southern white men in the united states that led to so many lynchings” especially when there are moden day “lynchings” (of homosexuals and “wayward” muslim women) by the Palestinans and other muslim supremists.
manju:
sorry but i am not going to let what you just said be the last word on this thread. first of all, i am not interested in daniel pipes’ analyses of the collective neuroses of the muslim mind. i do not find daniel pipes to be a useful source on islam. perhaps you do. i do find daniel pipes to be a useful source on daniel pipes, and flemming rose to be a useful source on flemming rose. in the statements discussed here, each of these gentlemen has described the growth of the muslim population in denmark (and ergo europe, maybe the world) using the metaphor of rape. pipes by making claims about how muslims tend to be rapists, and rose by identifying himself with the position of the rape victim.
the pattern of privileged white men defending their privilege by invoking the psychosis of rape has precedents in many societies. one of these is the united states, which is a/ the country in whose social discourse daniel pipes participates, b/ the residence of the majority of SM readers, and c/ the country that has been the most powerful in the world for some time now, and whose government is using all methods and means to try to defend that power and privilege. three damn good reasons why it is particularly apposite to make this connection. there are surely more.
your comment about “islamic fascism” and the “modern day lynchings” of wayward women in islamic societies is barely worth dignifying with an answer, but since i’m feeling pedagogical this morning i will anyway. the sexual subjugation of women and the barring of women from access to power and opportunity through the physical and psychological trauma of sexual violence is a commonplace of every society, including yours — whatever and wherever that might be. thank you for informing us that it is part of the islamic fundamentalist agenda. yes, we read the newspapers too. now, i invite you to do something about it in your immediate community. today.
peace siddhartha
p.s. you might also want to read up on the history of american racism and lynching in particular, particularly if you happen to live in the united states.
Siddhartha:
Thank you for suggesting I read up read up on the history of American racism and lynching. I found it very comparable to our present situation. I learnt that not all white southerners were racist and certainly not all belonged to, or even supported, groups like the KKK; much like our Muslim brothers and sisters and their relationship to Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc. But I also learnt that the KKK did not exist in a vacuum; rather they were a product of a profoundly racist society. It is therefore no surprise to see that their counterparts—Muslim supremacists, if you will—also emerged from unusually bigoted, intolerant, anti-Semitic, and homophobic societies.
But of course this is not the analogy you wanted me to see. Rather you were saying: “Pipes is to Muslims as white supremacists are to blacks.” But comparing an oppressed people who were bought to America on slave ships and subjugated to Jim Crow to members of a great and powerful religion that rules entire nations, supports terror, suppresses other religions, kills homosexuals, voluntarily emigrates to countries then tries to impose their morals on others by use of mob violence or government force struck me as, well, a bit of a stretch.
I know its obvious that the sexual subjugation of women is part of the Islamic fundamentalist agenda, and that is precisely the context in which Pipes was speaking about Muslim rapes. In contrast, sexism was never part of the agenda of any American Black organization, with the possible exception of the Nation of Islam. Thus reference to blacks as rapists is nothing other than a racist slur.
Thank you for informing me that sexual violence is a commonplace of every society. But we should not use this as an excuse to ignore the systematic repression of women in Islamic societies. After all, does the existence of racism in the US mean we should not have condemned Apartheid in S.Africa?
Freedom –Manju
manju: thank you for the reply. to be clear, i am not for a moment suggesting that the subjugation of women in any society, including majority-muslim societies, be ignored. and i don’t believe that causes to protest can be picked and chosen or ranked. freedom is freedom. dignity is dignity.
my point is that whenever males in positions of power employ rape narratives as argument against those over whom they exercise power, it is a dead giveaway. ever since white males became the holders of power in various societies and in the world at large, they have been vulnerable to a psychosis of the “other” copulating with/impregnating “their” women, and have used this, consciously and unconsciously, to justify and prolong all manner of political, social and economic oppression.
the comments by pipes and flemming are redolent of this. and to the extent your comment #126 endorsed those comments, i was not comfortable with that. in part because i disagree, and in part because i don’t like to see my brown sisters and brothers drinking the kool-aid. to the extent you still feel the same way, i am sorry. the other points you made in your comment #128, i am happy to agree with.
peace siddhartha
About Daniel Pipes’ comment about rapes committed by Muslim men in Denmark; unfortunately, he is factually correct. Gang rapes are used by young Muslim men as a form of social control, usually of Muslim girls who date ethnic Danish men, wear short shirts, etc.
“Honor killings” are, of course, an exclusive Muslim phenomenon, but not practiced by, for example, Somali immigrants. It seems to be done mainly by Pakistanis, Kurds, and Turks.
Here’s an excerpt from an MSNBC interview with the Danish Imam Ahmed Abu Laban who brought the cartoons and other documents to Egypt and Lebanon. An eye opening look at what one has to deal with …
Read the whole thing here
Yes folks, he was out there protesting against the unflattering depiction of Christ too ! Sadly he didn’t mention anything about protesting against any derogatory depictions of Hindu religious symbols. I’m sure he will though… 😉
You are right about it being a form of social control – but here in Australia the gang rapes by muslim ‘men’ are solely comitted against Anglo-Australia women. This gang-rape mentality of young muslim ‘men’ seems to be happening in many western countries. What is with that?
Apparently it’s not exclusive to Muslims.
I think this is all part of a process, and represents huge progress. Cultures are rubbing against each other (ha ha! tribology, the science of rubbing) and naturally there are some rough spots. But those are being abraded away gradually. Discussions like these are progressive and wonderfully hopeful, i think. We just need to minimize collateral damage where we can. And all frogs should get their noses out of the mud. 😉
thank you for letting me comment on your blog. 😉
Mmmmm … matoke is yummy!
lol, plantain man, if you only knew! 😉