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?
Some to publish or not to publish drama in the U.S. The editorial staff of the New York Press quit when they were told they could not publish the original cartoons.
http://thepoliticker.observer.com/2006/02/ny-press-kills-cartoons-staff-walks-out.html
I, for one, agree with them even though the memo is rather sanctimonious (divya- I think these people worship at the altar of free speech but tell me again why that is a bad thing?), they have a very valid point.
It is a story. It is a huge story and you can’t tell it well without presenting the supposed cause of the furor.
But commissioning more cartoons, yeah that’s less about free speech and more about beinng provocatuers. Now, don’t they have that right? They are not breaking any laws to my knowledge. You can’t legitimately hold them responsible for arson – that is the responsbility of the person holding the torch.
Also the “hard being worshipped by idiots” reminded me of the The Onion post 9/11 – something about God being pissed off that people are too stupid to follow the don’t kill rule. Although that was not geared just towards islam, was funny and I have no idea what cons means.
Ok, back to lurking.
nothing controversial… wanted to share some bad writing – the excerpt is from a report filed by yahoo correspondent james kilner.
when i first read it, i went,… huh
whether people have the right to offend is not that interesting a question. i am sure 98% of the people who comment here agree that in general, people have the right to offend.
the more interesting question is: what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?
i’d love to hear people’s answers to this question – whether in general, in their own lives, or in the case of the danish cartoons.
peace
but I don’t think that you can have a dialouge with anyone who attacks your core values
what are those core values? look, i don’t believe in god and don’t respect any holy scriptures, and i’m not going to pretend that religious texts are ontologically any more significant than a collection of calvin & hobbes cartoons. that doesn’t mean that i don’t respect the right of religious people to believe what they want to believe. to each his own.
yes, i can see why the cartoons were offensive. i thought they were in bad taste, though i think saying there was an ethnic element is iffy, it can be justified, but instead of a jew, a better analogy would be to a rabbi. but in any case, many muslims’ core values (not all) seem to be that we their core values are their core values and our core values are their core values. homey don’t play that game.
No matter what you think of his religious credentials, Mohammed was a decent, loving man who genuinely tried to improve human society
he was also a militarist who liked 9 year old girls (i hope that doesn’t get me censored). in other words, he was a man of many faces.
p.s. and please be cautious about conflating ethnicity and religion here. there was some of this in the attack, but attacking an ethnicity = attacking people, attacking a religion = attacking ideas. the problem (as an unbeliever) with many religious people is that they seem to conflate mental harm with bodily harm when it comes to their religious beliefs.
I have nothing at stake if Jesus or Allah are dissed, but i do have something at stake if Ganesh is dissed. The point is i cant control what some one else thinks nor can i control their actions. I will kick u out of my house if u insult hinduism/buddhism/sikhism on my property. {jains well i dont care for them ;-)} But i cant do that elsewhere. And the issue is who should decide whats offensive and whats not ? I decide it on my property you are free to do so in yours? Kind of reminds me of the Guru Nanaks foot being in kaba’s direction story….
what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?
part of it is that people are afraid to offend muslims, that’s straight out true. when i was VP of an atheist club i had a few creepy threatening emails for being an apostate. it was bizarre. nothing came off it, but the fact that something like that occurs tells you the state of mind of some muslims.
and yes, there is an ethnic element to it. so what? no society is perfect, and european gov. tend to have generous welfare benefits for muslim immigrants, so on the grand scale i don’t weight european racism that much when placed next to freedom of expression and holding the line against medieval religion. europeans might hate muslims (to some extent true), but they also fatten ’em up.
it’s all about your priorities and how you weight them.
what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?
siddhartha,
maybe, latent xenophopia
maybe, testing limits
maybe, darring the Islamic power structure
christian symbols are offended day-in, day-out
since July, I started visiting sepia mutiny, i have ~90% disagreed with Vinod. However, I agree with him (and support him) why when Christian symbols are offended, there is no violence on the streets – in present. we are not talking about 500 years ago.
However, I agree with him (and support him) why when Christian symbols are offended
that’s because christians aren’t part of an underclass. i mean, look at all those evangelical black christians who are all rich, why do they have to be uppity about their religion being attacked or distorted by secularists when they have such great success? 🙂
my point is that even if racism and deprivation are necessary conditions for primitivism, they aren’t sufficient.
Thanks Kush.
I am not going to tell others not to do it.
Oh hell. I’ll tell others not to do it. I’m not the state. And I won’t bring a torch or sword to the conversation.
Really, those protesters in Philly were heroes in my book. Register your anger, and register it loud, but don’t physically force an issue that is not about force in the first place.
amen sister.
btw, i haven’t had a religious conversion in the past day. bad reediting job on my handle.
god bless
razib
Razib a general quesion, How does your extended family deal with your overt athiesm? and also do you go with the flow on cultural occasions, ie do you practice rituals.
what are the circumstances that lead people to exercise their right to offend?
-insecurity -fear -boredom with my low-paying job as a cartoonist for a little-known newspaper, say in, er, denmark
Vinod
Thanks for responding so prompty.
You have the edge on me. You are criticising a bunch of whackjobs who’ve probably failed grade 9, would probably like to off me, since I’m not a coreligionist and my tendency to mack on anything that moves will probably get in a spot or two of trouble.
I’m criticising a bunch of self richeous blowhards who think they have interesting things to say to the world but are as insular and small minded as any other conservative monarchy. But at least they have democracy and the right to say what ever they would like (barring selective application of the constitution). Even if they don’t have the sense to choose the right things to say.
You wrote:
At this point, we’re far from a case of “look what we’ve brought upon ourselves” but are instead, facing bedrock principles which are in diametric conflict.
Who’s we? I’m not Danish, and if I’m not mistaken neither are you. Nor am I right wingnut, nor am I sadistic as@hole who has a sense of human that requires the humiliation or subjugation of ethnic minorities. And let’s please come back to this, for a momment. Muslim in Denmark means being brown (check out the laws for nationalizing spouses of Danish nationals or even more simply look at the orientalist scourage caricature in the turbanbomb image). Religion and ehtnicity are intermixed in these representations, like being Jewish/Semetic or Black/Urban. So an insular xenophobic rag, in a tag along country wants to start a fire, and then hide behind other Western nations that spend on DoD and produce something other than lego blocks. Well burn baby burn.
Lastly manners and respect for others are hardly in “diametric conflict” with democracy.
ps. Just as a side note: How many palestinians drink Carlsburg beer? Really what essential Danish products can you boycott? Are falvorless biscuits really such hot sellers in the Muslim world? Should we inform Parle-G.
pss. Check on the Danish stand when Salman Rushdie fatwa was issued.
How does your extended family deal with your overt athiesm? and also do you go with the flow on cultural occasions, ie do you practice rituals.
most of them don’t know i assume. they are mostly in the UK or bangladesh or the middle east, so there isn’t an issue that comes up since i don’t see them and don’t keep in touch. my parents and i don’t see each other often either, so mostly don’t ask/don’t tell, they pray and hope.
insular and small minded as any other conservative monarchy
do you think danes are insular and small minded? christ, how perfect do you want ppl to be? most danes know english and have been outside of their country (it is hard to be THAT insular when you are tiny).
Oh you all are a funny, funny bunch. Luscious moon, that low-paying job comment is hilarious. razib – I’m in the kind of wierd position of wanting to be a believer, but not feeling it. I am seriously sad about this. Seriously. God is too beautiful an idea to abandon, which of course, is not a position you would agree with. Once again, it’s all about aesthetics and beauty and art, for me.
Anyway, people like to offend for lots of reasons and one of them is that sometimes some peoples need offending. Oops. Is that too provocative?
Saheli – I want to write the way you write. Amen sister, indeed.
MD (initials of name, not degree. Little in-joke for razib).
Doesn’t look like anyone has pointed this out yet… so:
Jyllands is backtracking quickly
Someone posted this on my blog: Reading between the lines, it seems like the Culture Editor at Jyllands-Posten, Flemming Rose (who commissioned the original Mohammed cartoons), had a fit of pique, and made some typically Danish sarcastic remarks to a CNN reporter, who quoted him in full. Jyllands-PostenÂ’s Editor-in-Chief, Carsten Juste, has slapped-down Rose, and all at Jyllands-Posten are now trying desperately to save face.
also: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=203972006
This story is evolving as we speak!
Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws? Just curious………
And let’s please come back to this, for a momment. Muslim in Denmark means being brown (check out the laws for nationalizing spouses of Danish nationals or even more simply look at the orientalist scourage caricature in the turbanbomb image). Religion and ehtnicity are intermixed in these representations, like being Jewish/Semetic or Black/Urban. So an insular xenophobic rag, in a tag along country wants to start a fire, and then hide behind other Western nations that spend on DoD and produce something other than lego blocks. Well burn baby burn.
1) yes, racism is a problem, but, please, i doubt that it is the full picture. there are a minority of muslims who are patriarchal wife-beatin’ kufir hating nuts. in england the muslim browns are more problematic. in the netherlands the muslims are more problematic. in france the lighter skinned muslims are more problematic. islam as an ideology brings its own baggage.
2) the jewish/semitic assocation is different by degree, as jews have always been a nation, an ethnicity (OK, at least since the roman period when matrilineal descent was introduced and the pagans were christianized). 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, accepting it operationally will cyrstalize this tendency and pretty soon you’re going to have a bunch of medieval loons defending their practices as somehow fundamental to their DNA.
3) theo van gogh was killed by a muslim in the netherlands, not a hindu. i tend to find the hindutva types on these boards pretty dumb, but they have a lot of facts to work with, thatz be the truth. racism doesn’t drive you crazy, it doesn’t drive non-muslim non-whites in europe toward organized ideological violence.
4) it’s all about priorities. your utility calculation. i’ll be straight, one ayaan hirsi ali is worth a 1,000 hijab wearing god-fearers in my book. god bless her.
Why do you suppose this is getting more comments (and more reaction, generally) than a story about a woman being killed by her in-laws?
because we don’t want to perpetuate orientalist caricatures you right-wing hag!
Because there are many different viewpoints being expressed here. There is general consensus about the woman who got killed by her in-laws – it was wrong and the culprits should burn in hell.
It’s one of those stories you read and say,”Effin bastards”. You’ll be hard pressed to find an opinion that strays too far from that.
My idea is cause
(1) this issue is on TV in us
(2) Its painful to deal with horrible stuff in ones own society so its easy to look at other societies is more fun to watch. Although both problem exist in india and its neighbors.
(3) a genuine concern of PC which may stifle political discussions particularly those that have ethnic and religious issues. This is related to one of the major conflicts of our times.
Well, if you want to get off on a technicality . . .
Anyway, I’m on the Danes’ side. I just don’t get this fanatic support of any type of belief system. I mean it’s not like these cartoons were published in Saudi Arabia. That would have been interesting and progressive.
divya, who do you think wrote the FAQ? i suspect that SM posters are aware of the details, this isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Razib
It helps to have a sense of one’s own history. Look up the 92-93 Mumbai (check out Maximum City)sectarian violence, or the 85 Delhi riots. I’m sure if you work hard enough you’d find records of one or two Hindu crimes. Good times await. Oh while you’re at it, you might also want to look up Air India bombings.
2) the jewish/semitic assocation is different by degree, as jews have always been a nation, an ethnicity (OK, at least since the roman period when matrilineal descent was introduced and the pagans were christianized). 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, accepting it operationally will cyrstalize this tendency and pretty soon you’re going to have a bunch of medieval loons defending their practices as somehow fundamental to their DNA.
What are you going on about. I thought I was fairly clear in my intent. When the Danes say muslims, they mean brown people. I wasn’t talking about how people choose to identify themselves.
4) it’s all about priorities. your utility calculation. i’ll be straight, one ayaan hirsi ali is worth a 1,000 hijab wearing god-fearers in my book. god bless her.
Really your value for “human” life is awe inspiring. I’m glad that you’ve calculated such a precise calculus. So you’re fond of humanist ideals, unless it becomes inconveinient. “all men are created equal… well kind of”. Thanks for sharing your very unique postion.
By the way that if you work really hard over the next couple of days, you’ll be able to find records of one or two muslims killed by westerners in the last couple of years [places to start looking: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palistine, Algeria] and one or two examples of Western countries screwing over muslim nations for perhaps less than noble reasons [Iran, Iraq, oh just read a history about the whole of the middle east]. A few people were killed here and there, one in a thousand.
Have a good time.
razib (_against_multireligionism?)
How on earth can they get out of the ghettos when, cancers that they are, they are treated with as much welcome as chemotherapy by the natives. It’s stupid and naive to expect masses of poor and unskilled workers to overcome poverty and racism and integrate into a foreign community (who don’t like them in them in the first place).
Anyhow, it’s hardly surprising that this vile newspaper will now join forces with another vile newspaper from Iran to make fun of holocaust victims. Class. Pure class. One must wonder if Mr Rose would be so insensitive if his mother/father/grandmother/grandfather were gassed or starved to death by those wonderful German lads.
I happen to agree with the FAQ. It proves my point. For all this hue and cry about free speech, people with common sense draw the line somewhere. This is as much a public space as it is a private one – that’s the technicality.
I didn’t intend for this to come out like I don’t care about free speech. I’ve spoken before about PC speech which I find stifling. I just didn’t like this particular circumstance, that’s all. It targets all Muslims – moderates and fanatics. In contrast, where were the Danes at the time of the hijab issue where they could have taken on the fanatics only? They let that slide. This reminds me, the other reason I don’t like these types of “freedoms” is because you’re forced to lump all people in the same category. The hijab bothers me, the turban doesn’t. But both issues are lumped together because of some belief that is supposed to apply to all people at all times.
It’s all very well for educated ‘Net connected individuals with comfortable lives to behave reasonably. But how can you expect the poor and illiterate (most of whom probablty don’t even KNOW what are in the cartoons) to behave like that? We aren’t seeing violence in Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman or Malaysia. We are seeing it in Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq & Palestine! Those marvellous bastions of peace, harmony, political stability, education, wealth and allies of the West.
It probably sounds awful, but the poor and uneducated will ALWAYS be easily mislead, more passionate and dare I say, more violent. Even in developed Western countries poorer areas are more violent. This is why you will see cricket mad fanatics in India rioting in the streets and burning effigies of the members of their cricket team for losing the World Cup and why you will NOT see the same happening in an equally cricket mad Australia when the same occurs.
What the European media have essentially done is started a war with illiterate muslims.
There’s a saying that goes something along the lines of “Don’t fight with an idiot. If you do, you’ll need to stoop to their level to win”. And as we are seeing now, the European media have stooped to that level.
JP actually issued a statement on its website refuting the holocaust cartoon claim as ‘sarcasm’. Too lazy to get the link right now.
This whole argument of culture of fear where people cannot criticize Islam in the West is ridiculous. Anybody who has been awake anytime since 9-11 will attest to hearing/reading enough discussions about the backwardness, wickedness and evil of Islam. Pat Robertsons ‘Muhammad was a terrorist’ to Franklin Graham’s ‘Islam is evil’ to Toncredo’s ‘Nuke Mecca’ to Ann Coulters ‘lets invade them/convert to Christianity’ to Berlusconi ‘Islam is backward’ to Congressman ‘pull out the diaper heads with fan belts out of the lines for questioning’ to the Cartoon of ‘Muhammad riding a bomb filled with trucks’ in the US to Denmarks Parliamentarians ‘Muslims are Cancer’ to Van Goughs ‘ Muslims are goat fuckers’ to ‘Muhammad is a child-molester comment/analysis/books by 2344 western personalities to the half a million blogs/books/articles written about the wickedness of Islam and countless other politicians, media personalities, talk show hosts, western politicians lambasting Islam to various degrees in the past few years………………its amusing to see this atmosphere of fear where it was imperative for the Danes to publish the cartoons because no one could dare criticize Islam in the open. Is there any religion which can be criticized with the same impunity that Islam has been in the West since 9-11?
Am I the only who is getting sick of being lectured about the bedrock values of the ‘WEST’? This ad nauseam chest beating of ‘our’ values against ‘their’ values, ‘our’ greatness against ‘their’ weakness, ‘our’ moral superiority against ‘their’ moral cowardice, ‘our’ nobility ‘against’ their ‘savagery’, Muslims are coming, muslims are coming, order your burqas, shave your pubic hair, where is Winston Churchill, what would Winston Churchill do, Western solidarity, reminiscing about WW2, Eurabia, dhimmitude, anti-semitism, american liberal cowardice for not re-printing the cartoons, cnn is cowering, buy danish, we are all danish, we are in this together, stand up american newspapers……oh please!
For those of you who missed it (or were too lazy to click through on Razib’s comment) here is the Vatican’s statement on the matter:
haha No you’re not. I’m also getting sick of the double standards of SOME. It is amusing that the people who are for publishing the cartoons are the same ones to get offended by flag burning. They are pretty much the same thing, i.e. offensive to one group and not offensive to another.
I think it’s time to herd all right-wing conservatives from all countries into one paddock and let them fight it out themselves.
It is amusing that the people who are for publishing the cartoons are the same ones to get offended by flag burning.
fuck the flag, but praise all that it stands for.
why burn the flag in the USA? because in this country you can!
Am I the only who is getting sick of being lectured about the bedrock values of the ‘WEST’?
i’m not. most of the people of the west don’t really accept the values of the west. why the hell would you talk about the ACLU you all the time?
There are many levels of hypocracy here –
Look up the 92-93 Mumbai (check out Maximum City)sectarian violence, or the 85 Delhi riots. I’m sure if you work hard enough you’d find records of one or two Hindu crimes. Good times await. Oh while you’re at it, you might also want to look up Air India bombings.
i didn’t say hindus weren’t savage, the gujarat riots showed that. the sikh attack on the theater in england last year showed how primitive they can be. i’m just saying that muslims seem especially unsaintly on that count.
So you’re fond of humanist ideals, unless it becomes inconveinient. “all men are created equal… well kind of”. Thanks for sharing your very unique postion.
all men are created equal, before the law.
Err, if you did burn the American flag in the US you would be lynched by a mob or put in jail!
It’s stupid and naive to expect masses of poor and unskilled workers to overcome poverty and racism and integrate into a foreign community (who don’t like them in them in the first place).
heh. well, that’s what the german jews and american jews did (though with vastly different end points). and life isn’t easy. some people are born ugly, go ask them.
Err, if you did burn the American flag in the US you would be lynched
bullshit. that link was for australia, not the USofA, where we worship free speech (canadians and ozzies like to say they respect it, they don’t worship it). seriously dude, they speak english differently.
Is there any religion which can be criticized with the same impunity that Islam has been in the West since 9-11?
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?
It is amusing that the people who are for publishing the cartoons are the same ones to get offended by flag burning.
nice to see you are OK with generalizations btw (this libertarian is too). i’ll keep that in mind when talking about the modal behavior of muslims….
German jews and american jews are an incorrect comparisons. They have been minority groups in various countries for thousands of years and are possibly the ONLY minority group in the world to overcome oppression. But the advantage they had was that they weren’t poor and they weren’t unskilled.
uh-huh. So this is basically a war of religions. What I beieve is better than what you believe!
Nice to see you conveniently ignore the word ‘SOME’ (which I capitalised!)
The really frightening thing though, is that the ‘WEST’ think of their ideologies as superior and non-negotiable. Similarily, muslims think of their religion as superior and non-negotiable. sigh
They have been minority groups in various countries for thousands of years and are possibly the ONLY minority group in the world to overcome oppression. But the advantage they had was that they weren’t poor and they weren’t unskilled.
1) it is not true they are the only minority group to overcome oppression. i don’t want to give you a history lecture, but to give you a trivial one the chinese in thailand have repeatedly ascended the heights of power, been assimilated, and given way to the next wave of chinese. the christians in the roman empire overcame oppression rather spectacularly.
2) yes, the jews were poor, whether they were unskilled is a bit more dicey. but, in poland in the 18th century there was a massive increase in jewish numbers and surplus humanity which ‘ate air,’ an allusion to the fact that local laws and cultural biases prevented employment of jews in agriculture at a time where small tradesmen were being marginalized and only so many slots were open for money lenders (jews were generally barred from professions). the german jews who arrived in the USA were often the sons of rag traders. these were not the high and might of the world, the jews who escaped the bounds of the shtetl during the jewish enlightenment were the wretched of the world and repulsed their gentile neighbors with their locks, caftans and folkways. their appearence and odor was repulsive to most, and even the great philosopher moses mendelsshon was forced to pay fees to renew his residency permit in the city of berlin.
anyway, the point is that oppression is not the sum of all things. the world does not turn on the will of the white man if you so choose it not too.
So this is basically a war of religions. What I beieve is better than what you believe!
i don’t think that basic foundational values are derived, they are. yes, it is a war of religion in a sense. i call children of voltaire jihad!!!
Yes, but they have somewhat similar backgrounds (religious, cultural, racial). Surely it would be similar to me, a bangladeshi, moving to sri lanka and ‘assimilating’ there.
haha, I somehow doubt that Europeans would want that kind of spectacular success of muslims in Europe. They’re already peeing their pants at the unfortunate birth rate of muslims in Europe.
A view from over here:
Some major social problems are coming together at once.
One: the European social divide. Countries like Holland and Denmark operated what their governments saw as a liberal immigration policy until recently, resulting in a sudden influx of relatively poor and unskilled primarily Muslim immigrants. These countries are small, relatively cohesive in a racial and linguistic sense, and quite parochial with a poor understanding of other people and world-views. They might have reacted well to an influx of well-educated and articulate Muslim doctors, but they certainly didn’t to the influx that they got. The result was that the local population shunned these people. They faced ferocious discrimination in the job market even in situations where they had the necessary skills. They were equally discriminated against socially, typical examples being in nightclubs where having dark skin was often enough to keep you out unless you had white Danes to vouch for you. Thus we finish with people who feel rejected as Europeans and cling to the only other identity they have, usually Muslim, but transformed in a local context and rather dangerous because lacking a healthy social organisation, respected authority figures, etc. These people do unpleasant, vicious and reprehensible things like the murder of Theo Van Gogh. In response the Danes, who have meantime shed none of their parochial prejudices but rather seen them reinforced by this situation and also by the global wave of Islamophobia emanating from Israel and America, have elected an extremely unpleasant and xenophobic government that has brought in very bizarre and reprehensible rules against foreigners. One result is that (for example) Danish citizens who want to marry a foreigner now often have to go to Sweden because it is too difficult or impossible under Danish rules. In truth neither the Danes nor their immigrant population come out looking very good in all this, but the fault is more that of the Danes because it was their decision to structure their immigration and social policy in the way that led to this situation, and as the dominant majority it is only in their power to change the situation, not the other way around.
Two: The enormous disparity in wealth and power between Muslims and Westerners, combined with the conflict between Muslims and the West that the creation of Israel, the dispossession of Palestinians, and the support to this policy by the west has created.
The Danes and indeed most Europeans need to start figuring out that they have laws against inflammatory speech about (for example) the Holocaust for a reason. In principle, in an ideal society, there is no reason to forbid satire or hatred relating to the Holocaust or Islam or any other subject. However Europeans have inherited a complex and turbulent history and they have not done very much to make it simpler. Until they can resolve their social problems they need to apply tighter restrictions on inflammatory speech than they have done till now. They need to accept that they have a significant Muslim population and start treating these people as equal partners. By and large Europeans do not treat immigrants as people who have an equal right to live where they do (unlike Americans). Even when they are polite and even friendly or helpful, they treat immigrants as outsiders. This is self-defeating: either you should not accept immigrants in the first place, or you should accept them fully. The European way at present is really, really dangerous.
I think desis and other immigrants in Europe can do more to change this situation by standing up, organising, persuading Europeans to realise that they are here to stay, that they are articulate, that they regard themselves as Europeans and need to be accepted as such by society. The change has to come from within the majority, but better dialogue can help accelerate it.
Sorry, these are not very well organised thoughts, but that is what the comment function is for.
I just tune out of whatever someone is saying as soon as they come out with this line as ‘explanation’!
Jay Singh: Please do tune out, as your response indicates you wouldn’t have anything thoughtful to contribute anyway. Best of luck to you.