The Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published "blasphemous" cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammid. Now, other papers in Europe have published these, too, and Muslims in Pakistan, Palestine, and elsewhere are postesting, boycotting and threatening the EU and their embassies! (Example news stories excerpted here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19051) Here is an online petition in support of the Danish newspaper's publication of blasphemous cartoon depictions of The Prophet Mohammid. http://www.petitiononline.com/danmark/petition.html The cartoons in question can be viewed at these links: http://www.geertwilders.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=381&Itemid=74 AND http://www.gregoriusnekschot.nl/images/de_profeet.gif Lastly, a story explains why this news from late September should arise now in the media only months later: Islamic agitator allegedly fabricated cartoons made even more insulting than those published! - - - February 02, 2006 Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy The controversy over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is expanding, as more Muslims join the boycott and protests against Denmark and various European newspapers decide to publish the cartoons, mostly out of solidarity with Jyllands Posten and to make a strong political stand. One issue that puzzles many Danes is the timing of this outburst. The cartoons were published in September: Why have the protests erupted from Muslims worldwide only now? The person who knows the answer to this question is Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a man that the Washington Post has recently profiled as “one of Denmark's most prominent imams.” Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. ***"We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban.*** On its face, it would appear as if nothing were wrong. However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. ***In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation....*** [***emphasis added***] http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/fabricated_cart.html -Orson
I'm glad that westerners are finally waking up to the serious threat that Islam (not radical Islam, just plain old ordinary Islam) presents to all free-thinking and democratic societies everywhere. There is but one solution, ultimately. Utter defeat (militarily, using whatever it takes) of this horrible, antiquated, and inhumane belief system and all of its adherents world-wide.
Geez, Ibn, you sound like Hitler or Hamas.... I think most people will be happy to see that this Islamic religion and lifestyle be somehow updated so it begins respecting individual freedoms, and the State of Law, you know those universal principles chartered by the UN as human rights, something that to you and to people like you, it may sound as if it was Chinese. Unintelligible.
So the West should subject Muslims worldwide to the final solution? Geez. I mean, between you and the that Aztlan guy from the Immigration Reform thread this place is getting kind of scary! I know too many Muslims who are perfectly twenty-first century compliant to take this seriously. -=Steve=-
The issue comes to the US as hypocrisy US editor are rationalizing NOT defending freedom on the grounds of gratuitous offense would be wrong. Gee, when it came to parodying Christmas celebrations and Christians loosely associated with attacks on abortion clinics, gratuitous portrayal is very sensible - but when Islam is invoked in bombing and terorizing innocent Americans or beheading our citizens abroad, humor is dispensible? "We're maintaining our standards." ANYBODY else see the lamestream media's hypocrisy? -------------------------------------------------------- Washington Post's Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said the paper is covering the controversy over the cartoons but not reprinting them because "the very nature of depicting Mohammad editorially is not an ambiguous question. Either you do it or you don't." "It's never a concern over reactions," he added. "It's a concern over what the Washington Post decides to publish. We're maintaining our standards." Newspapers in the United States and Canada have described the cartoons and carried pictures of readers in Europe scanning them in publications there. The images were first published in September in a Danish newspaper. Toronto Star editor-in-chief Giles Gherson said it's unlikely the paper would run an editorial cartoon that was "gratuitously offensive," to a segment of the population. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060203/wl_nm/religion_cartoons_media_dc
Religion of Peace portests above controvery in London ROP protesters in London on Friday; placards in photos available online say "Freedom[:] Go To Hell" "Be Prepared For The REAL Holocaust" "Eruope You Will Pay. Your 9/11 Is On It's Way" "Behead Those Who Insult Islam" among many others. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004448.htm Meanwhile, GMU Law School professor David Bernstein responds by his respects for the honesty of this sentiment stated in the Washington Post: "'I am not willing to buy any product from a country that has insulted my prophet, my religion and my dignity as a Muslim,' said Leila Faleh, 42, a hospital administrator shopping at the store. 'I would rather go back to drinking milk from a cow and eating dates.' [The professor comments further:] "Yes, go back to drinking milk from a cow, and eating dates. Go back to a 35 year life-span, to a world without antibiotics and anesthesia, to a world where human slaves are bought and sold, and lfe is cheap. Do without your cars, refrigerators, television, and cell phones. But please, don't enjoy the fruits of Western liberalism and then violently reject the freedom that not only accompanies it, but that was a necessary precondition to it. The Middle East is in desperate need not of democracy, but liberalism. "If Ayn Rand were still alive, she would probably suggest that WE boycott THEM, wondering how we let cultures that left to their own devices would be living like the Patriarchs came to threaten us with our own technology. The sanction of the victim, indeed." http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_01_29-2006_02_04.shtml#1138983582 The Middle East - in fact the entire Muslim weorld - is yet to make peace with the fact that the benefits of liberal open society comes at a price, and that is changing of their censorial ways. These cannot be separated because they are bilateral or a "package deal" as Rand would say. Freedom to glorify Islma or The Holy Prophet entails the freedom to blaspheme Him and defame Islam. The same freedom that creates religious and political controversy makes the growth of science and technology that humanity benefits from possible. Islam's refusal to gain both (the freedom to do 'good' and 'bad') means benefitting from neither. It is, as Kant says, always to remain a child. IbnYousef above is accutely aware of and pained by these facts, I believe. The Islamist's like Bin Laden would be parasitic on the West, just as Soviet communism tried and failed to do. This affair is another newsworthy summit, forcing the recognition of why the Middle East remains so backward yet forever remains in turmoil.
UCLA law prof and First Smentment specialist Eugene Volokh clarifies a story that Reuters and other media outlets have spun towards a PC direction. Namely, the US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack's reaction to the above storm. Volokh summarizes: "Sounds to me like McCormack, at least, is repeatedly stressing that the cartoons ought to be protected from governmental punishment, but is simply exercising the government's right to speak out against them. Naturally, the Reuters story could only quote a small part of the comments, but it's unfortunate that the quoted excerpt seemed to understate the State Department's expressions of support for free speech." http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_01_29-2006_02_04.shtml#1139011220 See the above link for an extensive McCormack excerpt, links to media coverage, and a complete transcript. A commenter in the above blog post, however, pointedly disagrees. "Sheesh. Thank God these State Department folks weren't around in 1944. I can just picture it now, some clown from State pointing to that propaganda poster showing the hooded Dutch resistance guy before he was shot: "'These cartoons are indeed offensive to the honor of the noble German people,' said State Department spokesman John Smithy, III. 'We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable.'"
I am happy in a way that Muslims are finally learning how to complain properly. This time, instead of splattering our internal parts against a wall, have decided to boycott EU products as a way to punish us for what they consider unforgivable. Isn´t it progresss from a society anchored in the eighth century AD? Allah bless them. Now we have to teach them to punish the right people. Danish people, for instance, cannot be held responsible for what a free newspaper publishes.....
Without going into the defence of freedom of speech versus the necessary respect for religious ideas controversy, what I get out of all this situation is a feeling of how precious it is to have democracy and freedom of speech in the West. Something that we gained through countless struggles and suffering and that, at least me, usually just take for granted.
Without going into the defence of freedom of speech versus the necessary respect for religious ideas controversy, what I get out of all this situation is a feeling of how precious it is to have democracy and freedom of speech in the West. Something that we gained through countless struggles and suffering and that, at least me, usually just take for granted.
I can assure you that Islam will never be "updated".... the only solution for the West is to utterly defeat it, and convert all of its adherents to some other, less violent, and considerably more tolerant belief system....
Ibn Yusuf, Ahlan wa Sahlan, Are you really the son of Joseph? If you come from a Muslim family, I find it strange that your post are so harsh in regards to Islam. I will not get into tit for tat. I have to say, that I am suprised from what I am reading from this discussion forum. It is not an issue of freedom of speech, but one of academics and scholarship. Most folks on the board just don't know what they are saying about Islam or Muslims. If their arguement was rooted in scholarship, I could understand their point. Their comments are shallow, and not based upon fact. After this post I will quit responding to the negative remarks, and return to the academic discussions, where I belong. With my peeps. Jazakallah khair wa ilm.
Nah.... it is just a moniker I'm using, in part to irritate Muslim sensibilities... which apparently is quite easy to do given their recent demonstrated level of tolerance for what they perceive as "blasphemous statements".... Oh yes.... I forgot... that's only true if the "blasphemy" is directed at them. Muslim newspapers freely portray Jews and Israelis in symbology and pictures that are, if anything, the equal of or worse than the grotesque characterizations from der Sturmer..... Like that's not blasphemy? Please! Yes... Muslims are peace loving tolerant people.... NOT!!!!!!! What a wonderful world it would be.... if there were no such thing as Islam. I guess that's true only if you agree that we live in the 21st century, not the 7th....
No seriosly, that was funny... if you see the irony in that. And to be quite candid, that is how I reacted to the cartoons posted via links on the thread. Regards, Mahmood
Hi Will Makeit! I have not heard from you in a long time, hope you are doing well. Sorry for hijacking the thread folks, please continue on. Abner
Incredible interview in AlJazeeraa to Wafa Sultan, an amazing Syrian woman who uncovers some Islam facets. This interview shows the type of abuse women have to endure in Muslim societies. Can anyone explain to me why Muslims "blame" on Samuel Huntington the Clash of Civilizations as if he was the cause of it? Please, notice how the Muslim cleark tries to intimidate her by accusing her of apostasy and heresy, the unforgivable sin for Muslims, that is punished with death. Disgusting. http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null THis is a lesson for many here in the free world who take liberties for granted.
