Posted on 02/07/2006 6:07:41 AM PST by KeyLargo
www.suntimes.com
Flag-burning riots are one-sided assault
February 7, 2006
BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN
As riots spread through the Islamic world, the British foreign secretary, the U.S. State Department, the U.N. secretary general, various responsible Muslim organizations and many commentators in Europe and America are calling for restraint on both sides.
What both sides would those be? Well, one side has published a handful of cartoons, arguably blasphemous and certainly insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, and the other side has burned embassies, taken hostages, murdered three people suspected of being Christians and/or Danes, shot at Danish soldiers helping children in Iraq, marched through London with banners threatening further bomb attacks on the city, and attacked and beaten people whom they suspected of some vague connection with, well, with Europe or Christianity.
Suppose both sides listen to these calls for restraint. What would happen? I suppose that one side would stop burning embassies and murdering people and the other side would no longer publish cartoons to which the murderers might object. That would mean the murderers had obtained their objective and the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons had been defeated in its campaign against the unofficial Islamist censorship that in recent years has spread across Europe by murder and intimidation.
For, contrary to much "responsible" commentary, Jyllands-Posten, the small regional Danish newspaper that first published the caricatures of Mohammed, did not do so from trivial motives. This was not the kind of avant garde "shock" tactics on show in "Piss Christ" or in the "Sensations" exhibition in Brooklyn that included a painting of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung. It was a serious and justified protest against the fact that Danish artists had been frightened out of illustrating a children's book on Islam and Mohammed.
They feared for their lives -- and their fear was reasonable. In Holland last year the film-maker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a radical Islamist for his semi-pornographic film criticizing Islam as hostile to women. His collaborator, a Somali-Dutch feminist MP, is now under permanent police protection.
Nor were the Danish cartoons all as crude and pointless as some critics have alleged. One cartoon shows the Prophet with his turban evolving into a bomb. Insulting? Maybe. Blasphemous? Perhaps. Or maybe a perfectly fair comment on the arguments of radical Islamists that their religion justifies the murder of innocent bystanders, on the subsidies that Muslim governments give to suicide bombers, and on the thousands of Muslims baying for blood in response to a caricature.
Three cartoons were more harsh and insulting than the rest. But these had not been published originally in Jyllands-Posten. They were added by the radical Islamists who distributed the cartoons around the Muslim world. Vile though it is, this trickery by radical Islamists at least demonstrates the uselessness of appeasing their demands for censorship. If they are granted, our concessions will merely be the springboard for a further attack on Western liberty. And if we disobligingly refuse to furnish them with a pretext, the Islamists will manufacture one. We might as well fight in the first ditch rather than the last.
Some moderate Muslims have spoken out against this terror at risk to their own lives. Their courage should be applauded and their safety protected. But others have either timidly gone along with murderous extremism or qualified their condemnation of it with criticism of Western governments, U.S. foreign policy, racism, etc. And it is this large middle ground of "moderate Muslims," especially Muslim immigrants living in Western Europe and the United States, who are either welcomed or feared as potential recruits in an Islamist jihad.
Hence some of those adhering to the "both sides" analysis want to prohibit words and images that these millions might regard either as blasphemous or as insulting to minorities in a multicultural society. They see this as necessary to maintain social peace.
Any Christian who had to endure the poisonous sophistries emitted by the cultural establishment during the "Piss Christ" and "Sensations" debate (to justify taxpayer subsidies for blasphemies, no less) will have some sympathy with this argument. But there are powerful practical arguments against such a law.
It would have to prohibit whatever any sizeable religious group considered blasphemous. Given the number of religions in the modern West, that would prohibit a great deal. If it was applied in a sufficiently strict way to satisfy even moderate Muslims, it would intrude very considerably on free speech and artistic expression. So it would be applied in a haphazard and discriminatory fashion -- appeasing the more unreasonable believers and ignoring peaceable ones -- and it would bring the law into disrepute.
Such partial law enforcement would eventually cause more division in society than the widest definition of free speech. Curbing blasphemy is best left to social pressure and good manners. But "both sides" need to leave room for honest vigorous and controversial debate.
The secondary argument that we must all censor ourselves to avoid offending others in a multicultural society is a highly ironic commentary on the liberals' promise that multiculturalism meant a more lively, colorful and argumentative society. We are now told that it means holding our tongues on sensitive issues.
If multiculturalism is incompatible with a free and lively society, as some implicitly now concede, then the sensible response is not to gradually chip away at Western freedom but to ensure that immigration from non-Western cultures proceeds at a rate that is assimilable culturally as well as economically. In other words Muslims coming to Europe or America would automatically adjust to the freedoms of a free society because they would lack the numbers to insist on everyone else changing to suit them -- which is currently the Islamist demand.
That demand is, finally, the reason for applauding those French, German, Spanish and other European newspapers that have reproduced the cartoons as a gesture of sympathy with Jyllands-Posten and those politicians, such as France's Nicholas Sarkozy, who have supported them. Even if the arguments for laws against blasphemy were valid -- and they are not trivial -- that would count as a secondary consideration alongside the need to resist plain blackmail, intimidation and murder. Those who take refuge in the false equivalence of the "two sides" argument are, in the end, guilty of cowardice. They should seek some "Dutch courage" by ordering a glass of acquavit with a Carlsberg chaser.
certainly insulting to the Prophet Mohammed...
Most of these cartoons were not insulting. Most of them were merely depictions of Muhammed. Apparently, the Muslims don't want us to depict Muhammed, although, it's perfectly alright for them to do so.
What has been illuminating has been to see quotes from the President of Iran and the President of Pakistan to the effect that "Freedom of speech does not mean that one has the right to cause offense or to show disrespect for other peoples' religion."
Sorry, boys. Freedom of speech means just that, or it means nothing at all.
It seems that they would place the fault of the riots not on the rioters, but on the cartoonists. After all, people can't be expected to react non-violently towards an insult to their religion. Sorry, boys. Once again; civilized people don't kill in the name of an insult to their religion. The fault of the violence lies with those who commit it.
The President of Iran (or one of his toadies) is organizing a Holocaust cartoon contest. Fine. Let's see how many Jews kill Moslems over it.
You are misinformed, and thus misunderstand part of what's going on here. It is in fact a tenet of Islam, set forth by Muhammed himself, that Muhammed's face is never to be depicted. He forbade this so that he would never be used in a statue, icon, illustration, etc. as an object of veneration or worship. He wanted to make sure that only Allah alone was worshipped.
If you look in any Islamic religious work, they avoid depictions of Mohammed. In those illustrations where that would be impossible, either his face is turned away from the point of view, or a ball of flame is substituted for his face.
And they complain when someone else shows his head as a bomb? Heck, they started it.
Hmm - I had picked out that exact paragraph to emphasize.
I disagree with one point, however. It is not the same thing to condemn so-called art such as the ones mentioned which blaspheme Jesus Christ, and the cartoon with Mohammed with a bomb turban. The former is gratutious nastiness and the latter is cogent political commentary. The so-called artist who photographed the crucifix in a bottle of his own urine did the act out of hatred, ignorance, and vileness; the artist who drew the bomb/turban cartoon had a logical reason and necessary message to get across.
And all religions are not the same, nor are all adherents of all religions the same.
But they do depict him, even though they say he must not be depicted.
Oh, yes, one more thing, the muslims constantly depict jews and christians in cartoons far worse than any the west had drawn about muslims. They simply want the whole world to bow down to Allah. Well, no thanks, if I owned a paper I would be flooding it with cartoons about muslims right now. What murderous thugs these people are.
Not that I've seen. In all the pictures of marches and protests and riots and Islamic news reports, I've never seen a depiction of Mohammed. Since you are proposing as a fact that they do do so, perhaps you could provide an example.
Where? I've never seen an example of such. Since you are stating that they do depict him (or more precisely his face, since that's the actual issue at hand), perhaps you could provide one?
"Where? I've never seen an example of such. Since you are stating that they do depict him (or more precisely his face, since that's the actual issue at hand), perhaps you could provide one?"
a google image search for Mohammad turns up quite a few..
here is one on an islamic website:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oranous.org/Image/High%2520Quality/Prophet%2520Mohammad.jpg&imgrefurl=http://aaddee.blogsky.com/&h=1333&w=1000&sz=119&tbnid=Lo8qgYFwTdXLqM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=112&hl=en&start=6&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmohammad%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG
We can't play by two sets of rules. Their "rule" is the most offensive cartoons imaginable can be printed in Arab newspapers. "Our" rule is that we're not allowed to draw a cartoon of Mohammed. Their rule is that they will try to kill as many of us as possible - including women and children and to kill us in the most offensive way possible. "Our" rule is that we must only hit military targets and do whatever is humanly possible to avoid killing the innocent. It's why Arabs will surround a target with children. They know we don't want to kill the innocent. On the other hand, they will stock weapons in hospitals and schools. They don't even care about their own children.
That said, the "let's bomb Mecca" thing has to do with the fact that these control freak, chip on the shoulder jerks get the power for their blood lust from Mecca. This is the site in the world that celebrates the "God as nutcase control freak with bloodlust". Really. Think of the God of Abraham as the God of Control Freaks, the God of Job as a betting God, the God of Jesus as the God of Charity (Love). It's not that God changes, it's that man's understanding of God changes. The two year old sees his parents one way - the 15 year old sees them a different way. The perception of the children are not the definition of the parents. Both perceptions can be truthful - and both can be wrong. God as control freak is the perception of the two year old... And that's what Muslim's celebrate. Whoa, sorry, I've gone off on a tangent here... Anyhow, these guys fear something happening to Mecca - while they don't fear much else.
Nope, they sell pics of Mad Mo in the street for a nominal couple of coins. No secret, and it's been going on forever. They put them in their homes like we have pics of jesus.
(drawings, that is)
It's a "tenet" of ours that innocent people are not beheaded - and it's a tenet of ours that respect is a two way street. Why some people think it's OK to burn a building but not Ok to publish a cartoon is beyond me. Here's my "tenet": don't burn down buildings. You can worship any fool thing you want to - you can say it's evil to step on an ant - but don't expect me to have to live by your silliness. And if you think that's extreme, would you like to live by
my religious rules?
In short, I don't give a flying flip about Islam's "rules" any more than they give a flying flip about Israel's rule's or Catholic "rules" etc. It's time from Muslims to grow up and get the chip off their shoulder.
see post #13. a google image search for 'prophet mohammad' will turn up many pics. I found this one on an Islamic website.
"...hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world...such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages..."
The cached version is slightly different and additionally gives this text:
"Norwegian scientist Ingvild Flaskerud traveled to Iran in 1999 and purchased several iconic pictures of Mohammed sold openly on the street. Even though the Islamic regime in Iran strictly forbids creating, selling or owning such images, nothing was done to either the artist or the buyer, who was able to take them out of the country without any problems."
BINGO
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