November 4, 2005
JUST A LITTLE LIGHT TEASING BETWEEN GOOD FRIENDS
Muslims march over cartoons of the Prophet (Kate Connolly, The Telegraph, November 4th, 2005)
A Danish experiment in testing "the limits of freedom of speech" has backfired - or succeeded spectacularly - after newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked an outcry.Thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets in protest at the caricatures, the newspaper that published them has received death threats and two of its cartoonists have been forced into hiding.
Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's leading daily, defied Islam's ban on images of the Prophet by printing cartoons by 12 different artists.
In one he is depicted as a sabre-wielding terrorist accompanied by women in burqas, in another his turban appears to be a bomb and in a third he is portrayed as a schoolboy by a blackboard.
The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take "necessary steps" against the "defamation of Islam".
But Mr Rasmussen, the head of a centre-Right minority coalition dependent for its survival on support from an anti-foreigner party, called the cartoons a "necessary provocation" and refused to act.
"I will never accept that respect for a religious stance leads to the curtailment of criticism, humour and satire in the press," he said.[...]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch MP famous for her criticism of Islam and author of the screenplay for Mr Van Gogh's film Submission, supported the paper. "It's necessary to taunt Muslims on their relationship with Mohammed," she said.
"Otherwise we will never have the dialogue we need to establish with Muslims on the most central question: 'Do you really feel that every Muslim in 2005 should follow the way of life the Prophet had 1,400 years ago, as the Koran dictates?' "
Doesn’t this give you some great ideas for the necessary provocations we have to make in order to establish needed dialogues with Jews, blacks and women?
Seems to me that there's been a surfeit of provocations, both necessary and gratuitous, of pretty much every other group for at least 50 years. Just off the top of my head, I remember a whole series of hateful cartoons by Conrad at the LA Times against Jews including arranging dead bodies in the shape of a star of David, an award winning Guardian cartoon of Sharon eating arab babies, Condi Rice portrayed as a "house nigger," and more than a few gratuitously cruel caricatures of Hillarie Clinton, and let's not forget the sliming of black Republican running for governor in Maryland. I'm sure a Google search will turn up thousands of other examples like "piss Christ" and the Madonna of the Elephant Dung examples of fine art.
Posted by: David Rothman at November 4, 2005 9:31 AMBased on what happened to, and the lack of action by the Dutch after Theo van Gough's murder, the folks at Jyllands-Posten would have been better off just running Magic Eye pictures of Mohammed in their paper.
Posted by: John at November 4, 2005 9:57 AMKudos to Denmark for standing up.
Posted by: Sandy P at November 4, 2005 10:47 AMThis is a troubling issue. What do we do with people who play by a wholly different set of rules?
We see some of this at home. Consider how our understanding of freedom of expression goes out the window when "sensitivity " issues are presented. Recall that matter wherein some minor public figure was pilloried for using a synonym for "parsimonious" which sounded to the unschooled like a racial epithet.
The temptation is to say that this is a minor matter and that if someone feels so strongly about it we may indulge them to avoid all the fuss. The opposite view necessarily embraces the resolution that if they mean to have a war, let it start here.
How we think about law and justice should determine our decision. It is not our way to submit to the most barbaric, the most irrational, the most like the Muslims.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 4, 2005 12:03 PMNone of these cartoons is half as funny as Iznogud, the Grand Visir Who Wants to Be Caliph in Place of the Caliph!
Posted by: Eugene S. at November 4, 2005 5:29 PMLou:
What do we do with people who play by a wholly different set of rules?
Well, we draw lines in the sand and shoot them if they cross them. But surely this says more about our (or Europe's) sick attitude to faith than anything about Islam. We know full well this is blasphemous to them, but we do it anyway and tell ourselves nonsense about promoting a dialogue. Having completely expunged the notion of blasphemy from both our laws and our culture, we now insist they do likewise, even though we would have reacted like they as recently as fifty years ago. It's one thing to intellectualize the idea that Islam needs a Reformation, quite another to chortle as we foist an equivalent of Pis-Christ on them and tell ourselves we are striking a blow for freedom. This is shameful. The sole purpose is to degrade them one by one.
I could be wrong, but I bet you wouldn't ever see this kind of thing (the reaction, I mean)in Poland or Israel. Hopefully not in North America either.
Posted by: Peter B at November 5, 2005 5:56 AMPeter B:
You conflate "culture" and "religion" quite often.
One can be a Western Muslim.
Further, who cares what Muslim immigrants in Denmark find blasphemous ?
There are Hindus living in America, but we haven't stopped slaughtering and eating cattle.
Your contention that public discourse should be controlled by the most sensitive among us is flatly wrong.
Furthermore, "Piss Christ", although in very poor taste, demonstrated for the 9,255th time, along with Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, that Western societies are strong, and Muslim societies brittle and weak.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 6, 2005 3:13 AMHey, Michael, it's a sunny morning and I'm feeling good about myself and my society. We're both really strong and I think I'm going to wander outside and taunt some Orthodox Jews or laugh at people in wheelchairs to prove it.
A little rough and declasse, you say? OK, I'll just write it all into an artsy play and charge admission.
Posted by: Peter B at November 6, 2005 5:38 AM