Islamic cartoons, merged multiple threads

TABING said:

Posted on TFL and here for maximum coverage.

Here is a link to the "offending" cartoons. If this doesn't work, google "mohammed cartoons" and you'll find them somewhere.

http://www.di2.nu/files/Muhammed_Cartoons_Jyllands_Posten.html



These pictures were reprinted in many mainstream dailies throughout Europe in the past week in support of the Danish paper that originally published the photos. The Danish government has refused to apologize for them and "punish" the newspaper for printing them. Bully for them.

I think the liberal Europeans are finally getting fed up with the primitive mentality of their "alien" immigrants and the middle eastern countries. Freedom of the press is something that both conservatives and liberals cherish, and they are coming together on this. Combined with Iran's nuclear sabre rattling, these events are hopefully an "eye opener" to freedom loving people in the western world.

Here in the UAE and other countries in the area, all Danish products have been removed from shops. Now that the Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, Swedish, Swiss and Spanish newspapers have printed these pictures, it remains to be seen if the obscenely rich natives in the Persian Gulf can live without their Mecedes, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Airbus, Rolexes; Champaign, wines and beers that they hypocritically consume in vast amounts even though their religion forbids it.

I suspect that the furor will quietly die down if they have to give up all these products. I'm surprised that no American newspapers (that I know of) haven't printed these pictures in solidarity with the brave Danes.

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How can you show "tolerace and understanding" to a group that is absolutely, violently intolerant and closed-minded itself, and wishes to destroy the very philosophy you hold that causes you to express that tolerance?

That's the question that European "tolerant society" sorts need to ask themselves.

"You printed something that offended us by our religion, so we're going to start killing your people." That ought to be an eye-opener.

How can you show "tolerace and understanding" to a group that is absolutely, violently intolerant and closed-minded itself, and wishes to destroy the very philosophy you hold that causes you to express that tolerance?

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By remaining calm and NOT trying to impose your POV on those who wish to wallow in their own ignorance. If another group wishes to remain in the 13th century, so be it. However, if/when they attack you in a futile attempt to force THEIR POV on you, you destroy them utterly, since they have demonstrated that they are incapable of living among decent folk.

Europe is in the throes of re-discovering its Inner Viking. Should be instructive to observe.

Sindawe said:

By remaining calm and NOT trying to impose your POV on those who wish to wallow in their own ignorance. If another group wishes to remain in the 13th century, so be it. However, if/when they attack you in a futile attempt to force THEIR POV on you, you destroy them utterly, since they have demonstrated that they are incapable of living among decent folk.

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I'd agree with that.

The response from a good portion of the European press, and the majority of European society is neatly summed up in the editorial from France Soir (translated via the Guardian):

It is necessary to crush once again the infamous thing, as Voltaire liked to say. This religious intolerance that accepts no mockery, no satire, no ridicule. We citizens of secular and democratic societies are summoned to condemn a dozen caricatures judged offensive to Islam. Summoned by who? By the Muslim Brotherhood, by Syria, the Islamic Jihad, the interior ministers of Arab countries, the Islamic Conferences - all paragons of tolerance, humanism and democracy.

So, we must apologise to them because the freedom of expression they refuse, day after day, to each of their citizens, faithful or militant, is exercised in a society that is not subject to their iron rule. It's the world upside down. No, we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe.

Because these self-proclaimed doctors of law have made this a point of principle, we have to be firm. They can claim whatever they like but we have the right to caricature Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Yahve and all forms of theism. It's called freedom of expression in a secular country ...

For centuries the Catholic church was little better than this fanaticism. But the French Revolution solved that, rendering to God that which came from him and to Caesar what was due to him.

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Sadly the papers owners ruined the point by sacking the managing editor of the paper, though in response the journalists have mutinied and printed more editorials along the same line. A lot of other papers are now printing the images as a protest against censorship and free speech, and they have a point - depicting Mohammed in cartoon form may be against Islam, but the cartoonists and the readers arent Islamic, so they should get to do what they want.

Sadly, few if any of the mainstream British press has seen fit to print the "offending" cartoons and only the BBC has broadcast them in full, to avoid "causing offence". The irony is the press is also commenting on the row but without publishing the images themselves they are forced to describe them, which is kind of strange.

longeyes said:

Europe is in the throes of re-discovering its Inner Viking. Should be instructive to observe.

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Indeed,

It is interesting to see certain segments of Europe "waking up" to the threat of impending Islamo-Fascisim. There's only two problems.

- It may be too late.

- They have to battle the insipid politicaly correct and collectivist mindsets of their fellow native countrymen, and governments, at the same time.

I'd love to visit Europe, when my finances, and the age of our children allowed it. I'm not so sure I'll ever get the chance. I suppose Eastern Europe is still viable, since they've not suffered the onslaught of immigration, although that's largely because of their own poverty as they're still recovering from Communisim.

I have a couple of friends that so happen to be muslim. They are laughing their butts off at all this. They agree that you have a small group of
muslims that don't have anything else to do but cause problems.

- It may be too late.

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No, it's not too late. Both Europeans and Americans are no strangers to aggressive action, once roused. I think the West is just waking up and doing a sober situation appraisal.

As for "laughing Muslims," well, laugh away. This is very serious stuff.

My great concern about allowing these sorts of religious groups special 'tolerances' is that others then start to wade in and demand that they are 'tolerated' in this manner too.

A play supposedly critical of Sikhism was shut down (by the theatre) because of protests, and a Christian group here in the UK openly cited that as precedent in their campaign to try and stop the BBC from showing Jerry Springer the Opera.

TABING said:

Here in the UAE and other countries in the area, all Danish products have been removed from shops. Now that the Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, Swedish, Swiss and Spanish newspapers have printed these ...

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Good. Let them eat sand, drink oil, and drive camels instead.

Wake up and smell the jihad, boys and girls.

I want to make very clear, that I do not, for a single second, believe that all Muslims everwhere react in this fashion.

But the simple fact is that plenty of Muslims, especially those who actually run countries or are ruling members of the Palestinian Authority, or who may soon have their hands on nukes, do think and react in this fashion.

That's why I keep saying this is the next World War.

And it ain't just about oil.

It's an irreconciable clash of worldviews.

And one set of those worldviews just happens to be right out of the year 700.

Here's another breaking story from Yahoo.com


http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/Media_Watch

Cartoon blasphemy uproar gathers pace
Reuters - 1 hour, 5 minutes ago
PARIS - An international row over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad gathered pace on Thursday as more European dailies printed controversial Danish caricatures and Muslims increased pressure to stop them. A dozen Palestinian gunmen surrounded European Union offices in the Gaza Strip demanding an apology for the cartoons, one of which shows Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.

Here's another article from the Financial Times.

Check it out.....draw a cartoon of Mohammed? Gives us a reason to kill you infidels.

Why, your honor, of course I raped that woman....she was provokin' me with the way she was dressed.......


http://news.ft.com/cms/s/52cb6026-9418-11da-82ea-0000779e2340.html


Anti-Muslim cartoons ‘will fuel terrorism’
By Roula Khalaf in London and William Wallis in Cairo
Published: February 2 2006 18:40 | Last updated: February 2 2006 18:40

Muslim condemnation of the European media campaign to reprint controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed spread on Thursday, with leaders warning the controversy could play into the hands of extremists.


President Hosni Mubarak said the reprinting of the cartoons – originally published by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, they were reproduced this week in newspapers across Europe – would lead to serious repercussions, inflaming sentiment in the Muslim world and among European Muslim communities. Insensitive handling of the issue, he said, would give more pretexts to extremists and terrorists to carry out attacks.

In Saudi Arabia, Prince Nayef, the interior minister and staunch conservative, said the cartoons were an insult to all Muslims, and suggested the Vatican should intervene to put an end to the spread of the cartoons.

Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey, a European Union candidate country, deemed the cartoons an “attack on our spiritual values”, and called for a limit on press freedom.

Images of the prophet are considered blasphemous by Muslims so depicting Mohammed as a bomber, as in one of the original cartoons, was certain to spark an uproar. The row has also erupted at a very sensitive time in Muslim relations with the west. Five years after the attacks of September 11 and the launch of the “war against terror”, many Muslim Arabs still feel that their religion, rather the minority terrorists in their midst, is under attack.

Concerns over terrorism have also caused tensions within European society, where Muslims are the fastest growing minority. There were some exceptions on Thursday to the otherwise widespread indignation, however.

Jordanian independent tabloid al-Shihan reprinted three of the cartoons on Thursday, saying people should know what they were protesting about, AFP news agency reported. “Muslims of the world be reasonable,” wrote editor Jihad Momani. “What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?”

On the streets of Cairo, some people acknowledged that the region had far more serious problems to worry about and indeed protest against. But as Abdulfattah, a 23-year-old commerce graduate from Cairo University, said: “Although it’s a tiny issue compared to the other issues we are facing in the region like the US aggression in Iraq, this is something people feel they can do something about and protest about. It’s their way of venting their anger.”

The decision to reprint the Danish cartoons, which were first published in September, appeared to be a deliberate attempt to challenge what several European newspapers see as fundamentalist pressure. Some newspapers also pointed out that there is no outrage when Jews are ridiculed in cartoons.

“Enough lessons from these reactionary bigots! Just because the Koran bans images of Mohammad doesn’t mean non-Muslims have to submit to this,” said Serge Faubert, editor of France Soir, the French newspaper which reprinted the cartoons on Wednesday.

An international row over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad gathered pace on Thursday as more European dailies printed controversial Danish caricatures and Muslims increased pressure to stop them.

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I think I just found me some new online avatars.

We here in america have the advantage- and sometimes disadvantage- of having only a little over 200 years of history.

Europe and Middle East, as well as asia, have 2000+ years of (recorded) history.

We truly are still the new and old world.

new age enlightenment

Are there any Hallocaust survivors reading this?

Since when is it trying to impose your "POV" on others when you express objection or dismay to another's behavior?

Mind controll anyone?

I feel like someone else in society is trying to impose their "POV" on me -every time I say "Hey, just wait a minute there!"

Who is imposing on whom?

I'm reaching my golden years and have an old dictionary from my childhood that I kept through the years. Please, anyone, ask me what the definition of "tolerance" -the accurate defintion, not the political correct one, is!

Sindawe said:

I think I just found me some new online avatars.

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Then you won't mind if I make one of Jesus having unnatural congress with the twelve Apostles? It's on about the same level.

Then you won't mind if I make one of Jesus having unnatural congress with the twelve Apostles? It's on about the same level.

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Would not bother me in the least. Heck, you can even make one up of *MY* deity being mounted by a stallion and giving birth to an eight legged horse.

Then you won't mind if I make one of Jesus having unnatural congress with the twelve Apostles? It's on about the same level.

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I don't think that's accurate. A more appropriate comparison would be a Catholic priest salivating over an alter boy. And given the astounding number of sexual abuse charges against Catholic priests, I doubt that the Catholics would threaten anyone publishing such a cartoon with AK47s.

The fact is that the violent reaction against this cartoon proves the accuracy of the cartoon. Hopefully the Catholic church's response to the clergy abuse crisis will be to filter out pedophiles from the clergy, an appropriate response. I don't think we can expect such a reasonable response from the radical Muslems, which indicates Hillbilly may be correct.

Cool, Sindawe. You are a man of consistency. But I didn't realize that Loki had devotees these days.

[For the curious, after a dispute about payment for services rendered a giant was mightily ticked off at the Aesir. In order to keep him from finishing the job Loki lured his workhorse off into the woods. Some months later Loki came back leading an eight-legged colt sired on him by the stallion.]

Lobotomy Boy said:

I don't think that's accurate. A more appropriate comparison would be a Catholic priest salivating over an alter boy. And given the astounding number of sexual abuse charges against Catholic priests, I doubt that the Catholics would threaten anyone publishing such a cartoon with AK47s.

The fact is that the violent reaction against this cartoon proves the accuracy of the cartoon. Hopefully the Catholic church's response to the clergy abuse crisis will be to filter out pedophiles from the clergy, an appropriate response. I don't think we can expect such a reasonable response from the radical Muslems, which indicates Hillbilly may be correct.

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You're right about the second point, wrong about the first. The fact that there have been threats of violence over this pretty clearly makes the paper's point. But Mohammed isn't to Muslims what a priest is to Christians. He's considered to be the most holy of prophets and the founder of the religion.

So.... then how about a cartoon showing Jesus approving of priests raping children? Is that equivalent enough. It wouldn't bother me.

The problem with the islamo-fascists is that they style themselves the most special of special interest groups. Their faith is so incredibly fragile that it cannot withstand satire. How pathetic they are. They are spoiled children who are desperately in need of having a 14 ton clue dropped on them.

I guess you're right. Mohammad would probably not condone the actions of some of his followers any more than Jesus would condone the raping of boys by priests.

Anyone else remember Mapplethorpe hysteria?

<moderator hat on>

Oh yeah, so far so good guys, though this thread is definitely perched right on the fine line. Keep the discussion centered on civil liberties & all will be well.

</moderator hat>

pax

Well, yeah, sure, but what if somebody had put a crucifix in a container of urine and called it "art?" Don't you think there'd have been riots and boycots and threats by the hundreds?