Muhammad Comics
Michelle Malkin and other right-wingers are leading the charge in support of the Danish cartoonists. I wonder why they are the first to lose their minds over a Ted Rall or Tom Toles cartoon? Because they are also religious fundamentalists and do not believe in free speech any more than the muslims who would like to murder the Danish cartoonists.
Many leftist cartoonists and bloggers in public and private have taken a position of "Sure, I support the right to make bigoted cartoons, but I'm not going to get behind them when they set out to offend muslims."
I strongly disagree. First, what would be the reaction if the tables were turned? How would Michelle Malkin and liberals react to comics that were drawn deliberately to offend christians? I'm sure there have been plenty of offensive things done to Christ, but lets make it really nasty. Let's say comics depicting Jesus sodomizing his mother and having sex with another man and animals. Pat Robertson would immediately call for God to strike them down, Fred Phelps would go picket something, and Michelle Malkin would talk of the religious intolerance in this country.
But imagine it went further; buildings being burned down, death threats, cartoonists in hiding. All the left would be talking about was the christian fascists running this country and how these people are in-fucking-sane and need to learn to accept free speech even if it is offensive. They wouldn't care if the original intention was to piss off christians or not because the proper reaction is not to burn down buildings and threaten people's lives.
Secondly, I don't think many of the cartoons were that offensive or bigoted at all. The cartoon below, for example, seems like a simple reference to the challenge itself (given by a children's book author stating that no artist would illustrate a book on Muhammad unless it was anonymous.)
And this is a comment on the author's challenge itself, making fun of him for the publicity stunt.
The rest, to me, seem to criticize fundamentalist Islam. A new article in the London Times confirms they are not racist right wingers:
All the cartoonists are now in hiding, with 24 hour police protection. They were paid $128.67 for the comics.
How about just sending an angry letter to their Editor? Maybe a boycott if it's that important.
....or burning down their foreign embassy, I guess that works too. Maybe tie the cartoonists to a post inside. Roast 'em up nice.
Many leftist cartoonists and bloggers in public and private have taken a position of "Sure, I support the right to make bigoted cartoons, but I'm not going to get behind them when they set out to offend muslims."
I strongly disagree. First, what would be the reaction if the tables were turned? How would Michelle Malkin and liberals react to comics that were drawn deliberately to offend christians? I'm sure there have been plenty of offensive things done to Christ, but lets make it really nasty. Let's say comics depicting Jesus sodomizing his mother and having sex with another man and animals. Pat Robertson would immediately call for God to strike them down, Fred Phelps would go picket something, and Michelle Malkin would talk of the religious intolerance in this country.
But imagine it went further; buildings being burned down, death threats, cartoonists in hiding. All the left would be talking about was the christian fascists running this country and how these people are in-fucking-sane and need to learn to accept free speech even if it is offensive. They wouldn't care if the original intention was to piss off christians or not because the proper reaction is not to burn down buildings and threaten people's lives.
Secondly, I don't think many of the cartoons were that offensive or bigoted at all. The cartoon below, for example, seems like a simple reference to the challenge itself (given by a children's book author stating that no artist would illustrate a book on Muhammad unless it was anonymous.)
And this is a comment on the author's challenge itself, making fun of him for the publicity stunt.
The rest, to me, seem to criticize fundamentalist Islam. A new article in the London Times confirms they are not racist right wingers:
In an interview with a Swedish newspaper this week, some of the cartoonists expressed their doubts about the entire episode. “It felt a little like a lose-lose situation. If I said no, I was a coward who contributes to self-censorship. If I said yes, I became an irresponsible hate monger against Islam,” one of the cartoonists said.
Another said: “I was actually angry when I first received the letter [from Jyllands-Posten]. I thought it was a really bad idea. At first I didn’t want to participate, but then I talked it over with some friends from the Middle East, and they thought I should do it.”
The cartoonists come from a variety of different political backgrounds, which is reflected in their work. While some of the pictures satirise Muhammad, others attack populist right-wing politicians and even Jyllands-Posten itself, which is rightwing.
All the cartoonists are now in hiding, with 24 hour police protection. They were paid $128.67 for the comics.
How about just sending an angry letter to their Editor? Maybe a boycott if it's that important.
....or burning down their foreign embassy, I guess that works too. Maybe tie the cartoonists to a post inside. Roast 'em up nice.
posted by Matt Bors at 8:57 PM
13 Comments:
I think your attempt to defend 'cartoonist's rights' misses a hell of a lot. This is a campaign of deliberate provocation in order to confirm and perpetuate myths of the 'clash of civilizations.' Take this quote from the BBC today:
'The row over the Danish cartoons is yet another dramatic illustration of the huge gap between secular liberal values in the West and the predominantly religious outlook of Middle Eastern societies.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4678220.stm
No, it's not. Now what do you think would happen if large-circulation dailies like the Irish Times or El Pais or the Chicago Tribune published cartoons showing Jesus getting a blowjob from Mary Magdalene or Moses using the Ten Commandments as a dildo or snorting cocaine or something? [You can use your imagination to think of offensive things Moses could be depicted doing.]
As for the West's liberal values, these have been dramatically revised in recent decades to the extent that in practice they only apply to Zionists and their allies. Ask the Holocaust revisionists - those currently incarcerated including Germar Rudolf, David Irving and Ernst Zundel - what they have learned from experience about the West's 'liberal values.'
Come to think of it, imagine if the Jyllands-Posten actually took on the West's REAL religion, the Holocaust. What kind of furore do you think would erupt if cartoonists depicted Auschwitz as one big sex orgy or the Warsaw ghetto as a pedophile utopia?
Can you seriously imagine the Danish prime minister telling Jewish lobby groups that Jyllands-Posten had the right to publish cartoons of starving and emaciated Jews having sex with three-year-olds or - even worse - not agreeing to meet with the Jewish lobbyists to talk about the issue at all?
The furore over the Danish cartoons is, in fact, yet another dramatic illustration of the West's double standards.
Everything will be done to accommodate Zionist sensibilities and to placate Zionist demands - and to facilitate Zionism's war on Islam.
But nothing will be done to accommodate Muslim sensibilities or to placate Muslim demands.
So I find it a bit much when you imply that this is about the right to satirize.
If this is all the fuss is about, when do we get to see your cartoons making fun of the Holocaust? Or Abe Lincoln in bed with a black prostitute? (Examples of offensive subjects you could make into cartoons could be multiplied indefinitely.)
I have to disagree with the above comment. The cartoons in question are hardly comparable to one showing Jesus getting a bj. As has been noted by many, Arab cartoons have not been gentle towards America or Israel--not that they should be. We all know hypocrisy when we see it. I am a stickler when it comes to free speech. You either have it or you don't. The recent statement by the Vatican about "free expression being OK "except" is a ridiculous statement. There can be no "except." If a people can't monitor what is offensive for themselves, then too bad. The fear of offending someone is an insidious form of censorship. Anyone who does editorial cartoons must reject it completely. My point is that nothing should be off limits. The other poster is correct whan stating that accommodation's are made for some groups and not others. This stems from that miserable "political correctness" gene that editors all seem to have.
I agree with david. There is no exception.
As for 'social democracy now' you said "This is a campaign of deliberate provocation in order to confirm and perpetuate myths of the 'clash of civilizations.'" So, did someone make muslims react in the radical way they did? something to illustrate a culture gap? No matter how tired the right wings rhetoric about a culture gap is, there apparently is one. The west would not have this type of reaction to comics.
All of the offensive comic subject matter you refer to should have the ability to be printed. Your idea for holocaust comics are pretty offensive, if they were printed they would be spoken out against, but the proper reaction wouldn't be setting buildings on fire and calling for beheadings. This is my whole point.
A few other things, Matt:
• The cartoonists were only paid $73 each for their work, in the article I read.
• THe cartoons do show diverse views. One of the other cartoons actually calls the Danish newspaper a bunch of right-wing provocateurs. But calling Mohammed a terrorist or a devil is still a bigoted cartoon in my opinion.
• The cartoonists themselves don't want the cartoons reprinted and tried to stop it--how is it supporting cartoonists' rights to fan the flames that are leading to their being threatened with death?
-I thought I read 73 pounds, so I converted it.
-I'm not talking about supporting the right to fan the flames, but neither are the muslims who are the most outspoken on this. They think anyone who violates their laws must die. The cartoons were printed once, so that is enough to warrant death, althought the issue was exacerbated by the reprinting, which was viewed as a slap in the face.
I have no problem with them being printed again though. But it should be in the right context, such as discussing this whole thing and presenting the original comics. printing them just for the hell of it is pretty dumb.
I can understand the Muslims for being upset about this issue,, but why don't they get this upset when someone beheads someone in the name of Allah, or crashes airplanes into buildings in the name of Islam? I see THAT as a double standard and I feel those who are in such violent protest of this comic should get their priorities straight.
I agree with anonymous on the fact that it seems as if the whole muslim nation is pretty much setting their own standards as if they were above the "norm" for social relations and leaving the rest of the world to abide or else. The or else being execution or hostage situations, which both again fall into them creating their own bubble to live in, and anyone entering should be entering with a sense of fear and defensive thinking due to the mongering of anything western. Not to say this is the attitude of most if any western muslims. The whole thing with the Iranian news paper coming out with holocost cartoons im guessing is going to blow up in the faces of the involved hoping to stir something up that wont even exist to stir. Creating more violence and murder in retaliation to their upset.
Firstly, they (Muslims)respect the beliefs of others, including free speech, so they say. But, when a social dilemma appears, they kill, burn, threaten, torture, etc., all because they are offended and really don't support free speech. All they care to hear is free speech that they approve of.
Coincidently, they also do not like being called Moslems because that sounds similar to the Saudi word "suppressor." Do you think there might be a connection between them often times being called Moslems and the way in which they conduct themselves? Don't go to Saudi Arabia and praise Jesus Christ in public, they will incarcerate you (suppression, but of course, really supporting free speech, supposedly).
The atrocities of I-Slam (I'm sorry, Islam)probably could fill a library and certainly, in my opinion, makes the atrocities of the Christian churches dwarfed in comparison.
Maybe I don't have it right, maybe it would be wrong to call them Moslems instead of Muslims. But, with Christ, the seeds of the liberation of women were sown. With Mohammed, the seeds of suppression were sown. There never was a women's movement in the middle east, and that can be traced directly back to Mohammed, the "prophet."
Hey, all I want to say is good job. Way to be understanding and to advance world peace. I’m sure it means a lot to the Muslims when people like you decide to criticize the way they deal with foreign relations, without any background knowledge on their religion at all. Finished with the cynicism, you need to understand what the cartoons mean to Muslims. You need to understand that in Islam, they are not allowed to have pictures of Muhammad. Not even flattering pictures. I can see how that can be a very hard belief to grasp, but its there. It’s like the Orthodox Church. They don’t have many pictures, because of iconoclasm and all, but they still have some. Now, you’ll have to work with me on this one, but just follow along: Pretend there has never been any picture of Jesus. Not in churches, monasteries, or even homes. In fact, to have a picture of Jesus would be blasphemy. And then (drawing on the first comment by ‘Social Democracy Now’) someone decided to draw Jesus getting a blow job from Mary Magdalene. How would you feel, remembering that having any picture of Muhammad is blasphemous? Now that’s how the Muslims feel.
Now second of all, I agree with you when you say that the west would not have this kind of reaction to the comics. Anyone who cannot see that is a moron. Now you contradict yourself when you say “…the proper reaction wouldn't be setting buildings on fire and calling for beheadings.” You state in the above paragraph, that there is a difference between how the middle east and the west would react to such comics, but then you go ahead and make a judgment on how they acted, looking at it with a western view point. I can only assume that you in fact did not contradict yourself, but make a statement along the lines of ‘They should be more like the west, and not burn buildings and behead people.’ You may never own up to the fact that you think they should be more like the west, but if you don’t, then you need to judge their actions based on a Middle Eastern viewpoint. What is a Middle Eastern view point? Watch the news. Look up the history of Islam on Wikipedia, at least (www.wikipedia.com). What the Middle Eastern viewpoint is, ‘if we don’t agree, we need to act out violently.’ Why do they do this? They do this because they do not have a government that allows them to petition grievances. That has been the Middle Eastern viewpoint for centuries. Am I saying that we should go in there and give them democracy through war? No. This way has worked for them for a long time, longer than the United States have been around, and its no place of ours to change their government without their approval. But that isn’t the subject at hand.
Now I think I am going to be sick. There is a reason the first anonymous decided against being named. It is because he is grossly uninformed, and is just a tool of mass media. Maybe suicide pilots did crash the planes in the name of Allah, but that doesn’t mean that their religion supports it. No where in Islam, does it tell followers to crash airplanes into buildings. That is just popular, uninformed belief. But I’m sure you realize that. And actually, speaking to anonymous #2, during the Dark Ages, the Muslims are the ones who would allows citizens in the Dar ‘Al Islam to be other religions; it was the Christians who couldn’t tolerate the Muslims. And also, it wasn’t with Christianity that “the seeds of the liberation of women were sown”, it’s with the Enlightenment and Revolution periods of history; i.e. 1700’s-1800’s. It was Enlightenment ideas, which spurred from the European Renaissance, which ironically, came from again, Dar ‘Al Islam, which was the knowledge center of the world during Europe’s Dark Ages. Europe eventually took Islam’s vast knowledge, and started the Renaissance with it.
Simply stated, we can’t take a look at the way that the Muslims are reacting from a Western viewpoint. We need to know more about their religion, society, and culture before we can make judgments.
First off, the above post is quite outside the topic of free speech, the recent comics, and the reaction to it. However, I would just like to inform the above poster that given the history of Arabia, Muhammad brought tremendous reforms towards women's rights. Before Muhammad, women were given no rights into inheritence. Albeit a woman's right to inheritence is half a man's, it is still a great imporvement upon the previous state of things. And I'm unaware of any women's rights movements which can be traced *directly* back to Jesus or to any prophet.
I'm afraid the poster above makes the mistake made by countless to say "Islam does/doesn't do this." Praising Jesus Christ in public might get you incarcerated in Saudi Arabia (I'll take your word for it) but most Muslims wouldn't mind you praising Jesus, who is revered as one of the great prophets.
However, I too digress responding to the opinions of the above poster, which in my opinion and given proper respect are a bit uninformed. My point is that although the reactions to the cartoon are certainly extreme, this reaction should not come as a surprise to anyone. All I suggest is that perhaps the problem is not with the fact that they're Muslims but that the countries such reactions are coming from are not quite used to the idea of free speech. What example of a fair-and-balanced argument do these souls have? The Ayatollahs or the countless "clerics" who're most often than not connected with militant groups with political agendas?
Also, in the light of the current war in the middle east, such an "insult" to Muhammed, who is as deeply loved by Muslims as Jesus is by Christians, can easily be used to rile up the crowds who see this as insult added to injury.
What is ironic in all this however is that those who claim to hold Muhammad in such high esteem forget that the sanctity and image of one of the most exhaulted figures in history can take quite a few low blows.
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." -- Horace Walpole
its a stupid comic get over it
Yes, its a stupid comic, I do agree with that.
Alas, I am open to make jokes about anything. My religion, my disablities, my family. I belive in the freedom of speech.
I also belive in common sense. We know that the Middle East is in a tense situation, and why the hell would someone go out of their way to make a bad situaion worse? Make things worse for the unfortunate troops that are there, along with other innocent lives?
As far as one person saying that Muslims were not upset by the 911 attacks, you need to open your eyes. I clearly remember so many Muslims that were outraged by the attack on their country. Muslims are Americans too. I also remember our local vetrenary hospital here (owned by a Muslim) being dystroed due to his religious followings.
Everyone here needs to take a chill pill. Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Instead of adding fuel to the fire, its time to start putting it out.
Lol muslims are crazy... Come on, their are many people who make fun of religious icons of the Christians and Catholics. Best known being South Park which regularly mocks Jesus and has Shown god as this [http://www.csps.minx.co.uk/epiimgs/411/god1.gif] and they dont go burning down buildings and threatening the creators lives... I myself am not religious and find it hillarious how a culture can go to such extremes as these Muslims have, just proving their mostly insane and generally follow crazy political terrorist redicals.
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