I have seen the future.

Excellent link and surprisingly appropriate cartoon response, especially considering the president of Iran is supposed to have said something to the effect that "Zionists" were somehow to blame for the cartoons.

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silmaril.livejournal.com

....surprisingly appropriate cartoon response

...no, no it isn't.

Drawing. Human. Images. Is. Forbidden. In. Islam. It is seen as a path to idolatry.

(No, I understand the symbolism. Thank you. Taken at face value it's a nonsensical cartoon, however.)

That goes about fifteen times for images of Mohammed, since it directly connects to Islam's biggest ideological difference from Christianity: Prophets are human, not divine. Don't ever even think of attributing divinity to your prophet. Don't ever even think of getting close. If drawing representations of him might, just might, spark thoughts of praying to him, forget about it right the Hell now.

That's how serious it is, that's what

theweaselking is talking about, and whether The Prophet was pictured offensively or not is beside the point that he was pictured, really.

And that "Zionists" remark, that you obviously regard as childish? Yes, it does seem childish. It's also something deeply-spread "over there" and I am by no means convinced that all the brainwashing necessary to create that kind of conspiracy theory mindset was by the fundamentalist Islamic leaders. There has been a lot of fingers playing a lot of games in those backwards, closed-in, narrowminded countries. There has been a lot of stories told. There has been some fire to put up at least a little of that much smoke.

I'm getting pretty close to boiling point about this myself, and there might be a full entry tomorrow, if I feel my blood pressure is up to the task.

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This is a quick response, as I would actually like to give more thought to what you've said.

I accept without any qualification that it is unacceptable to create any image of the prophet Mohammed. Except that, I know that now; I did not know that before. Knowing that, my immediate thought is that in a courteous, rational society consideration of such things should trump careless and casual "free speech". Free speech does not mean speech without thought or consideration. However, the debate about the responsibility that free speech imposes has gone on since the Bill of Rights was written. That said, clearly there are deeper issues here and cultural ignorance is not an excuse. If your blood pressure is up to the task, I really would like to learn from what you have to say.

Also, as far as I know, the Zionist thing historically originates in America and Western Europe, and it continues to be repeated here so I don't think it comes from Islamic fundamentalism, I just think they're repeating it. It's just that in this specific case, I consider it rhetoric and potentially harmful rhetoric in that I'm not aware of any way in which the cartoons derive from it and I don't think it's likely to be a particularly constructive approach to the problem, either.

I have a question, which I don't intend to be offensive, but I have seen some beautiful Persian art that shows people. Is this a violation of the prohibition? Your statement above seems fairly clear and specific but I may not entirely understand something.

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> Knowing that, my immediate thought is that in a courteous,
> rational society consideration of such things should trump
> careless and casual "free speech". Free speech does not mean
> speech without thought or consideration.

A tangent:

I would say it does not trump free speech--although we may be agreeing, to me "trumping" means it overrides it (in this case, on a societal level); that free speech is not applicable in certain circumstances.

I would say that in a courteous, rational society, free speech would not be used as an excuse to do such a thing; that in a CRS people would not do things even though they had the right to do them, not that a CRS would remove that right in certain circumstances.

But hey, I'm a Canadian. We're fuzzy on free speech.

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I was trumping "careless and casual", so I think we are agreeing ("people would not do things even though they had the right to do them"). I can't really comment on fuzzy Canadians, but I can say that I get my mom to tape This Hour has 22 Minutes and Royal Canadian Air Farce and mail the tapes to me, since they are two of my absolute favorite programs. They seem pretty free speech-ish to me.

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silmaril.livejournal.com

I'm still trying to collect my thoughts about the sociopolitics of it all, but I'll answer the question about Persian art: Yes, technically it is a violation. So is photography and television and the portraits Ottoman Sultans commissioned from Italian painters in the 17th century. The basic prohibition has been relaxed, obviously, over the centuries. (Not very fast, though, which is why you'll find the vast majority of Islamic decorative arts is abstract art, at the most flowers and trees, in things like wall mosaics or hangings or carpets.)

But since the whole "Prophet is not divine" thing is very fundamental, to my knowledge it's never been relaxed for representations of Mohammed. I remember hearing about movies that depict Mohammed's life; the scenes were supposed to be set so that the Prophet was never on camera. But I might be misremembering that, as I've never seen such a movie.

(I'll also point out that Persian fundamentalism is different from Arabic fundamentalism is different from Turkish fundamentalism is likely different from Indonesian fundamentalism of which I know nothing, and leave it at that.)

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Thank you.

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Thanks for the link.

> Just when you thought that all the bombing and killing and dying
> over there meant that the US actually opposed theocratic regimes.

Hahahahahahaha he made a funny. The US government *are* theocrats. They make law based on their idiotic literal misreading of Christianity. They just haven't managed to outlaw other religions yet.

I still maintain that everyone who says "It's just a cartoon!" are missing out on exactly how offensive the act of idolatry is. I 100% support the right of the Danes to draw Mohammed, and I absolutely condemn the violent responses, but the anger is stemming from something where it's really, really hard to find a western equivalent act.

I mean, *is* there anything in Christianity that a nonbeliever can do that violates a fundamental tenet like that? The closest things I can compare this to would be forcefeeding ham to a Jew (which is a bad comparison because of the assault), pissing in the baptismal font, or swirling "the blood of Christ" around in your mouth and then spitting it on the floor and giving a dissertation on it's bouquet.

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giza.livejournal.com

> I still maintain that everyone who says "It's just a cartoon!" are missing
> out on exactly how offensive the act of idolatry is. I 100% support the right
> of the Danes to draw Mohammed, and I absolutely condemn the violent
> responses, but the anger is stemming from something where it's really, really
> hard to find a western equivalent act.

Oh yeah, just to clarify my stance on the situation, I thought some of those cartoons (like the one with the bomb in the turban) were rather tasteless.

What's really ironic (and sad) is that with stunts like this (http://giza.livejournal.com/212671.html), it makes the effects of those cartoons on the reputation of Muslims pale in comparison. :-/

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silmaril.livejournal.com

I mean, *is* there anything in Christianity that a nonbeliever can do that violates a fundamental tenet like that?

Give the following as a post-sermon: "Jesus was not the Son of God. No, I really mean it. He was just some dude, nor was Mary a virgin when he was conceived." That should pretty much cover it.

(Anybody who's going to whine how people can say that in Christian societies today without threats of violence would please come over and whine in my journal and leave

theweaselking alone.)

I loved the links to Bruce's journal; thank you. "Don't be a jackass" should have been the first and last commandment, really.

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I think

theweaselking's comparison's are closer, actually; what you describe strikes me as being more someone saying "Yeah, I can too draw a picture of the Prophet", instead of actually going out and doing it.

Nonetheless, thank you both.

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Which points did you regard as excellent? I'm curious.

Meantime, didn't these people also burn the library at Alexandria?

Maybe not the same people, I mean, the same kind of people.

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The same kind of people, yes. The same kind of people, incidentally, who led the Crusades, beat black people to death for being "uppity", caused the 30 Years War, burned "witches" at the stake in the name of religious tolerance, attempted genocide against the Jews, and who insist that all Muslims should be forcibly converted to Christianity or killed.

Hint: I'm not blaming "Muslims" in this case. I'm blaming easily led stupid people, of whom Islam has absolutely no monopoly on.

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Except that they apparently do have a monopoly in those countries: it is, in fact, their power base.

Incidentally, there is simply no basis for comparison for these places and the US being a "theocracy." If the US is a theocracy, I'll take that kind of "theocracy" any day over any Islamic state.

It flenses all meaning from the word theocracy to suggest we are. I thank God the US is overwhelmingly a secular state, where silly and stupid people are free to suggest there's a war on Christmas, and the rest of us are free to regard them as silly and stupid without fear of that kind of mob retaliation.

Red herrings: "The same kind of people, incidentally, who led the Crusades, beat black people to death for being "uppity", caused the 30 Years War, burned "witches" at the stake in the name of religious tolerance, attempted genocide against the Jews, and who insist that all Muslims should be forcibly converted to Christianity or killed."

None of that is under discussion or even being disputed. I assume so that they're the same kind of people.

Please, utilise a little perspective here.

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...I'm sorry, how is his perspective in bringing in historical references to religiously-reinforced atrocity different from your perspecitve in bringing in religiously-reinforced social atrocity?

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For one, he's not offering much that qualifies for useful context in this discussion.

For another, no one is disputing any of those things. What appears to be under dispute is whether or not people of any race, creed, color, or religion have an entitlement to be free of offense.

The bottom line is, no harm was done with the cartoons, however offensive they may have been.

In comparison, substantially greater harm has been done in the name of their suppression. We all agree the Muslim repsonse has been irrational and mindless. What we seem to have sticky bits over in this discussion is whether people have the right to remain free of offense, which a sizeably loud and powerful segment of Islam is willing to threaten to kill over.

There is no such right. So if being in Denmark offends the Muslims so greatly, they are free to leave Denmark.

The majority of those that don't live in Denmark didn't even see the cartoons, so, really, how much sense does their offense even make?

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> For one, he's not offering much that qualifies for useful context in this
> discussion.

I thought he was responding to you in kind, and even agreeing with you. After all, you suggested similarities between the people enacting current events and the people who burned the library at Alexandria.

Now, since exact identity of the people responsible for the destruction of the library isn't known,[1] and since most accounts establish it as happening before the foundation of Islam, you clearly weren't equating what happened to the embassies to actions motivated by Islam. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume you were comparing it to actions motivated or excused by divine belief or religion.

Then

theweaselking gave other examples of destructive actions motivated or excused by divine belief or religion.

Then--and this is the part that throws me--you accuse him of tossing out red herrings. And now you're saying you don't think it's useful context. But if you didn't think such parallels were relevant and useful context, why did you bring them up?
---
[1] Candidates include Julius Ceaser (five hundred years and fifty years before Islam--because part of it accidentally caught fire), the Patriarch Theosophilius of Alexandria (two hundred years before Islam--because all those horribly non-Christian temples had to go), and the Caliph Omar (forty years after Islam--but the account of him ordering it tends to get treated as completely unreliable since it came out of nowhere to be written down three centuries after the supposed fact by Bishop Gregory Bar Hebræus, who didn't even keep straight who was supposed to be alive and dead at the time anyway and had the fact-checking skills of P.J. Barnum).

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"Therefore, it is reasonable to assume you were comparing it to actions motivated or excused by divine belief or religion."

You have earned a cookie. More or less.

"Then--and this is the part that throws me--you accuse him of tossing out red herrings. And now you're saying you don't think it's useful context. But if you didn't think such parallels were relevant and useful context, why did you bring them up?"

Aaand I'll be taking that cookie right back. You obviously missed where he described the US as a theocracy (you also obviously missed where I explicated this in the same post above).

I live here. If the US is a theocracy, then we suck at it.

Mind you, there are some who do wish it were otherwise. But they are a hardcore few---one I should not hesitate to mock them and their beliefs in a cartoon, should I so choose.

Honestly, it is a little frustrating listening to people opine that US is a theocracy when real theocracies lie just across a pond or two. Really, there is no basis for comparison. It's like comparing R.E.M. to Britney Spears, and I hate R.E.M.

I respect our host's beliefs and opinions, but mine are very different regarding the country I live--and occasionally grew up--in.

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No, I saw where he described it as a theocracy. But that's not the part you referred to as a red herring.

Also, can you point me towards where either

theweaselking or

bruceb said that anyone had the right to be free of offense? Nothing I've seen either of them say to date reflects that; in fact,

bruceb specifically acknowledges that people may have a right to dish out offense, and suggests that the beginning of behaving sensibly--or with civility, if you prefer--involves not doing so simply because they can. Saying it is rude, or tacky, or boorish, or uncivilized to piss on other people's sacred beliefs in no way says that those people have the right to insist you not do it. It's merely making a value judgement on the people who do do it.

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"Hint: I'm not blaming "Muslims" in this case."

I'm not assuming you are. I hope you only blame political Islam; what Muslims have allowed themselves to become.

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johan-g.livejournal.com

If by "excellent", you mean "utterly fucking moronic", then yes, those were excellent points.

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People keep saying "this is just a cartoon." People keep saying "OMG, how violent and stupid the Muslims are for getting angry over a cartoon!"

I'm going to quote myself, from elsewhere.

Calling it "drawing a cartoon" glosses over how it violates some of the most fundamental taboos of the religion in question. Images, especially images deemed to be mocking or insulting, are a serious thing in Islam - think of it like airdropping urine on the Vatican, or beating up soldiers' widows, or having someone teach your grade-school children young-earth creationism if you're looking for an approximately equivalent level of offense, here.

This is not to say that the reaction is sane or rational, only that, from their perspective? They're not reacting over nothing. They're reacting over a direct, personal, blasphemous attack on them and their beliefs.

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People blaspheme in the US all the time. Whether its on the same magnitude as what muslims saw in the depictions of Mohommad, I'm not sure. A major part of the problem is that many muslims need to, well, suck it up.

No one gets killed and nothing gets burned down for eating fish on Fridays, working on Sundays, using god's name in vein, etc... Most Christians have also managed to ignore religious leaders spouting their bullshit and laughing at them after they spout their bullshit.

To quote Bill Maher(about Fundamentalist Muslims): "... you're bringing up the rear civilization-wise"

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> No one gets killed and nothing gets burned down

Not any more, anyway, but that *did* happen for a long time

> for eating fish on Fridays, working on Sundays, using god's name in
> vein, etc.

It isn't quite the same as eating meat on a friday or working on Sunday, because Christianity prohibits *adherents* from doing that. It has no blanket prohibition that I know of that matches up with the prohibition on idols in Islam.

> A major part of the problem is that many muslims need to, well,
> suck it up.

Absolutely. At the same time, why is it so totally unacceptable for westerners to say "Yeah, okay, we understand why this pisses you off, but you have no sovereign right to avoid being offended" instead of "It's just a cartoon, it means nothing, and you're being a baby".

Because, after all, it *does* mean nothing to Christians or Jews or atheists. It manifestly does *not* mean nothing to Muslims.

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Not any more, anyway, but that *did* happen for a long time

Luckily it stopped in the 1700's. Apparently, the muslims weren't paying attention.

because Christianity prohibits *adherents* from doing that.

Christianity(and Judaism) didn't discriminate in the past if you violated one of the tenets. If you violated one of them, you were guilty, regardless of religion.

They have every right to be offended, but BURNING DOWN embassies? Advocating a 9/11 style attack on Denmark? Violent muslim fundamentalists need a cultural enema.

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1700s? You're funny. People were being openly killed for religious reasons over religious differences in the USA right up to the last 50 years or so. Not everywhere, of course, but still. It's *still* legal to murder gays in California because you've got a religious objection to them and you're afraid they might hit on you.

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Are you saying on the same scale as what the major cities in Saudi Arabia every Friday? You're gay, you get a public beheading!

Yes, I know people were killed in the US after 1700 for religious intolerance, but it was no where near some of the crazy shit that goes on in psycho central.

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That should read do every friday...

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> No one gets killed and nothing gets burned down for eating fish on
> Fridays, working on Sundays, using god's name in vein, etc...

Raise your hand if you think those are still seen as fundamental tenets of Christianity.

Personally, I'd say a closer comparison is "no one gets killed and nothing gets burned down for being gay, killing other people, or committing abortion".

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johan-g.livejournal.com

I agree with what you wrote. Better you had written that in the first place than linked to that Baugh fellow.

My problem with Baugh (apart from the sheer fucking melodrama) is the way he completely glosses over the other side. Just because it's Serious Business doesn't mean we can't call it what it is: overreaction by a magnitude of eleven. Or to put it another way, "OMG, how violent and stupid these Muslims are for getting this angry over blasphemy!"

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Indeed.

I certainly see no harm in attributing the reaction of the Muslims in question to the actions of assholes, and calling it that.

It seems like Baugh shouldn't either.

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Which happened four months ago in a free newspaper in a country they have no control over and no business suggesting any control in.

That doesn't exactly sound like they have much of a reason for their reaction so much as they're looking for an excuse.

And as an excuse, it belongs in the dark ages.

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"Calling it "drawing a cartoon" glosses over how it violates some of the most fundamental taboos of the religion in question."

No, I don't think so. Don't you find it interesting that the reaction is rooted in the same tyranny the cartoons posit?

They are just cartoons. The Satanic Verses is just a book. They are just ideas.

The real problem is, Islamic tyrants have much use for making something bigger of these things than they actually are.

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...just?

As opposed to all the *other* ideals people get up in arms about?

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Your response doesn't make sense to me. Could you rephrase?

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But of course.

Your dismissing of ideas as something that can be brushed off with the use of "just"--implying something small, irrelevant--makes no sense to me. You've been passing judgement from a perspective that is clearly grounded in ideas, and yet you don't seem to think that ideas are something which should apply to the real world instead of being shrugged off and ignored. Could you rephrase?

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Okay, here's your rephrase:

The bulk of the offense taken is utterly out of any sense of perspective, regardless of how arbitrarily certain religious documents are interpreted.

It's too bad extremist Muslims can't take it on the chin, when they're so capable of throwing fire and bombing civilians and announcing prices to put on people's heads.

It's too bad extremist Muslims and their tools value life so little. There is simply no balance for that reaction when weighed against a snotty cartoon.

It's too bad Muslim political leaders cynically use this capacity for offence to do real harm, incite violence, and destroy people's lives. It will, no doubt, keep their people's minds off their real problems, which, frankly, appear to stem from being theocracies.

How's that for the reaction provoked by a cartoon or three?

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But you're basing all those statements on your ideas. If ideas are unimportant and dismissable, how can you use them as a foundation for such sweeping generalizations?

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Now you're being obtuse.

I never said ideas/ideals were unimportant. I said the reaction was unjustifiable. Unequivocally so.

Bruce Baugh seems to think it actually matters in the context of everything that's happened that maybe somebody, for the sake of "civility" that some group is essentially not to be critiqued (whatever form it might take).

That's retarded. The benefit of civility is not a shelter from harsh, pointed ridicule as some seem to believe. The benefit of civility is being able to take such in stride.

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So in your eyes, civility--that thing defined as common courtesy, politeness, showing regard for others--only applies when dealing with people who are snide boors, and has nothing to do with dealing with people in general?

That seems to either miss the point or fly in the face of every definition of the word that I can find. Would you mind passing me your reference?

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Civility is how we react to the uncivil.

And I think your glommage of civility in this case suggests a malformed set of priorities on the matter.

You shoot a man in the face because he laughed over the fact that your marshmallow caught fire, and someone suggests that maybe he shouldn't have laughed int he first place is missing the very essence of civility.

It's like suggesting maybe a rape victim shouldn't have worn a sexy dress in the first place. Nothing to do with her safety, or whether she should have carried a gun; no, you clearly believe that she should not express herself by wearing what she is free to wear.

Or maybe a wealhty man shouldn't dress how he pleases in order to avoid being mugged.

Your definition of civility appears one-sided, and therefore rather worthless in context.

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