I thought it was a conscious provocation.  The reaction was predictable.

LB,

At last we have agreement.

It was an obvious ploy to inflame anti-western feelings and avoid any meeting of the minds.

What can be a better target than freedom of the press?

Religion is insanity.

Context is everything.  Despite cursory appearances, this is hardly a battle between “freedom of speech” and “religious sensitivities.”

First of all, most of the European newspapers, who published and then re-published the cartoons, were a collection of right-wing outlets (Washington Times, Faux News types) who care only about the ‘free speech’ they agree with.  It did not come as a surprise that the original newspaper that published the cartoons had previously REJECTED cartoons about Jesus for fear of offending ‘its readers.’ So much for their being courageous defenders of “free speech.”

Secondly, combined with the current international climate of hostility to, and military aggression against, Muslims, what response was expected?  I agree that it was a conscious provocation, and the reaction should NOT have included violence, but save the holier than thou ‘free speech’ canard.  The real test of a commitment to free speech is to speak that which is UNpopular with ‘your readers.’ This whole affair reeks of religious bigotry and incitement masquerading as free speech.

They’re stupid to criticize someone’s god.  That god is not around to defend himself, and his believers have no ability to see other than what they’ve been told. 

If the Danes are angry about Muslim terrorism, portray the followers of that religion as hypocrites for supporting or commiting terrorist acts, thereby criticizing the bad actions of a few while complimenting the religion.  It’s the only way to appeal to religious folks.

The common question, “What would Jesus do?” is a perfect example of holding a god’s followers up to that god’s standards.

Maggie

The cartoons are moronic and maybe on a certain level vindictive.  But the left shouldn’t be lending any credence to the hysterical reactions from certain Muslims, and especially not the borderline psychotic threats of lethal violence.  We would not tolerate this from Pat Robertson, nor should we.  These responses resemble the worst aspects of fascism, and there is no justification for it.  We either stand for freedom of expression or we don’t, and we certainly should not stand up for death threats in any case.

If a religion, a profoundly held statement of faith, can not stand an insult; where is its strength?  What substance has it?  A prophet makes his own life an example for others to live by- the choice is their’s.  Men create religions, and self serving rules to justify their power over others.

I was wondering if I should continue to send my political cartoons to our local paper — then I came across this item at the New Zealand Herald
-----------------
nzherald.co.nz
2-19-06
“ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers have offered rewards amounting to over US$1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that have enraged Muslims worldwide.”
-----------------
Rather than hire a hit man I can simply sign them as anyone who disagrees with my views on life, religion, government, economics…

My first reaction to hearing about the Muslim backlash to the cartoons was to hope that the people that published them didn’t back down.  I was enormously relieved when other newspapers around Europe published the cartoons as an act of solidarity.

Freedom of speech is the absolute cornerstone of all civilization, and I do not think that is an overstatement. I do not care what the motives of the people involved were, and unlike Luminous Beauty I do not think the scale of the reaction was at all predictable. 

As for the protesters, anyone so easily offended must have pretty fragile beliefs, and whatever their views they have no right to imposed them on to others using threats and violence.  Which brings me to the invasion of Iraq. 

The Muslim reaction to these cartoons is but a drop in the ocean compared to the death and destruction visited on Iraq since the beginning of the US invasion.  We have the freedom to say anything we like about Iraq and the Muslim world, but not to kill their people for simple political and economic gain.  We are the biggest hypocrites possible.

And hasn’t it occurred to anyone that a certain amount of anger concerning the cartoons has nothing to do with the pictures themselves but reflects a much broader feeling of anger about the war in Iraq and perhaps the plight of the Palestinians.

Having said that I am disgusted by any attempt to shut up opposing views using violence and intimidation.  I understand some of the emotions involved, but there is obviously an opportunistic element involved here, much as there was with the neocons in our country after 9/11.  Conservatives are the same everywhere.

I pretty much agree with you Max.  I too believe freedom of expression is vital to progressive civilisation and I certainly don’t condone violence and intimidation, but I also realize that if you continually push people into a corner they will eventually cease to act in a purely rational manner.  To reduce the reaction as purely ‘religious’ is mind-numbingly simplistic.  Social, political, cultural, historical, economic, etc conditions are of much deeper significance, particularly if those actors themselves are largely ignorant of abstract learning about such forces.  Their reactions are more unconscious and purely emotional rather than the result of cognizant and reasonable decision making.  Any conclusions based on mere exoteric religious adherence and belief are at best a superficial analysis.

For a simple analogy; it isn’t so much the kind of match that ignites the fire that causes a conflagration, but the mass of accumulated fuel.

Anyone willing to bet the money behind those ‘rewards’ isn’t traceable back to the CIA?

There you go again, LB.

“Anyone willing to bet the money behind those ‘rewards’ isn’t traceable back to the CIA?”

We’re always the usual suspects with you.

What? Couldn’t it be a non-religious “Muslim” using the cartoons to stir up more anti-western thinking? It works with you — why not with “people pushed into a corner” ready for a lit match?

WTH,

You’re CIA?  I had no idea.

OSS — I predate the CIA. ;-)

Sure WTH,

‘Lucky’ Luciano, Klaus Barbie and you.  Do tell.

?

Let’s put this holier than thou ‘freedom of speech’ canard to rest once and for all. 

If a newspaper published cartoons referring to African-Americans as the “n” word, or printed caricatures of the Jewish Holocaust, would they really be REPUBLISHED over and over again in the name of free speech?  Of all the attacks on freedom of the press here and abroad, would these insulting cartoons be the battle “free speechers” would stand their ground on.  Would these cartoons be embraced as warmly as have the Muhammad-bashing ones?  Be honest. 

Free speech advocates around the world would do nothing of the sort.  Such cartoons, about African-Americans and the Holocaust, would be rightly condemned, loudly and publicly, as tasteless and offensive by everyone, including by our leaders (and if you don’t think so, or don’t think that there would be threats against the newspaper who published them, I’ve got a bridge to sell you). 

So let’s be honest here.  This REPUBLISHING business is NOT about free speech, but a deliberate insult and provocation.  It is Islam-bashing, pure and simple, hidden behind the canard of free speech.  And totally irresponsible in light of current international tensions.

Imran

I’d agree that Holocaust caricatures and anti-black cartoons probably wouldn’t have been re-published.  However, keep in mind the context in which the initial publishing and the republishing happened.  The initial publishing happened in a climate where a Dutch filmmaker had been killed for making a film critical of Islam, and no one could be found to illustrate the prophet Mohammed in a children’s book. After the Rushdie affair, people living in Europe are more scared of publishing anything critical of Islam than they are of any other religion.  The re-publishing only happened after the cartoons--meant for a Danish audience--were internationalized by the Danish Imams, who traveled around the middle east with the 12 published cartoons, and 3 additional ones who they claim were sent to Muslims in Denmark.

I’d agree that this is not so much about free speech, because various European countries put people in jail for holocaust denial.  I think at least the U.S. is more consistent than the Europeans in this respect.  However, I think that each country has a right to its own taboos.  Why should people in Afghanistan and Pakistan tell the Danes which taboos they should have?  If Muslims in Iran can tell Denmark how to run their own society, then the U.S. would have the right to poke it’s meddlesome nose into middle eastern countries and tell them to become materialistic, consumeristic, and capitalistic.  In many Middle Eastern countries Christians cannot distribute proselytizing literature.  Fine.  They have a right to enforce thier taboos in their own societies.  They have not right to tell the Danes what their taboos should be.  Only Danes (including Muslim Danes) should be involved in that discussion.

Earlier, someone said: “And hasn’t it occurred to anyone that a certain amount of anger concerning the cartoons has nothing to do with the pictures themselves but reflects a much broader feeling of anger about the war in Iraq and perhaps the plight of the Palestinians.”

If that’s true, why aren’t there coordinated sustained demonstrations about the Palestinian and Iraqi situations?  Why is it that many Arab countries can normalize ties with Israel, with nary a peep from the street?  Why weren’t they protesting in Nigeria and burning the American embassy when Madeline Albright said it was “worth it” to kill 500,000 Iraqi children?

scenes,

I may be wrong, but I believe the only Arab country with normalized relations with Israel is Egypt.  The Egyptian president was assassinated and the government crack down on dissidents continues to this day, in spite of cosmetic nods to democratic reforms.  Does the Arab street speak to you only with violent riots?  You can see coordinated and sustained demonstrations by Palestinian and Pro-Palistinian Americans on American streets if you have the will to look.

“Does the Arab street speak to you only with violent riots.” The point is that It seems to speak that way when Danish cartoons are involved, but not against the constant depredations of the U.S. and Israel.  Therefore the idea that the cartoons are REALLY a protest about something else is probably incorrect.  If they’re REALLY a protest against Iraq or Palestine, then why the much greater anger about the prophet caricatures.  This idea sounds to me like typical elitist theorizing about fundamentalists: they’re really concerned about something quite different from what they’re openly protesting.

For the disparity in the Islamic response to the cartoons and what I consider more substantive issues, see Ramy Barzoud’s “Punishing Demark, the wrong target.”

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/021606Baroud.shtml

It is simply misleading trying to defend these insulting cartoons by pointing to the “context” of the killing of a Dutch filmmaker.  The Europe/ Islam context much older than that.  That event did not occur in a vacuum. 

As Salim Muwakkil points out on THIS website, the Islamic ire is not difficult to understand, really. When Louis Farrakhan allegedly called Judaism a “gutter religion” in 1984 he was denounced from pillar to post, and more than 20 years later he still catches flack for those reported remarks. Congress even got into the act, unanimously passing legislation condemning Farrakhan’s words. The phrase “freedom of expression” was seldom heard during this controversy; nor were there reiterations of Farrakhan’s words in gestures of sympathy for that libertarian concept.

At that time, Americans seemed to understand that expressions of religious bigotry had to be resolutely condemned. This was a progressive step for a nation once mired in anti-Semitic bias. Muslims are asking similar condemnations of the cartoons they construe as attacks on their religion.

The cartoons were offensive not only because they depicted the Prophet, but because the depictions were disrespectful of the deep reverence Muslims have for the founder of their religion. Whenever Prophet Muhammad’s name is mentioned (even in informal conversations), believers always add “peace and blessings be upon him.”

The offense is compounded by what many feel is the West’s hypocrisy on the issue of free expression. Several Muslim commentators have noted that freedom of expression stops at holocaust denial in a number of European countries, including France and Germany (where the cartoons were published in solidarity with the concept of free expression).

All of this is taking place in a global context informed by a history of Western imperialism and a current resurgence of that aggression. Islamist groups long have argued that the West has launched a new crusade against Islam. Following the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, that argument has a lot more traction.

In a post-9/11 world, growing numbers of Muslims feel they are being demonized by an increasingly Islamaphobic West. And, several Islamic and human rights groups have documented increasing incidents of persecution against Muslims.

For a complete text of the above article, see:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2510/

scenes,

It is difficult for me to agree that what ‘seems’ to you is conclusive evidence for what is ‘probably incorrect’.  It is true that the current protests are ‘about’ the cartoons.  That does not negate the fact that they are ‘driven’ by long standing underlying causes, including as Baroud says, reactions to ‘globalization’s depredation of local cultures.  It seems to me you are making hard and fast what is only ephemeral and superficial. 

But beyond my mere ‘elitist’ intellectual disagreement, good article.

IMRAN, IMRAN...Is that you?  It sounds like your writing.

I am here in the great white north, conducting yet more Socratic seminars in multi-cultural storytellers-- amid government purchased media and propaganda that spawns student-teacher “belief” in and acceptance of double-censored elementary school letters to soldiers “fighting for our freedom,” and societally scripted “opinions” regarding Muslims as primitive and barbaric for their reaction to depictions that are “just stupid cartoons.”

These are dark days. Sometimes I crumple under the weight of student responses that indicate the constructed annihilation of critical thinking --and so the ability to consider how we might learn alternative viewpoints through multi-cultural stories.

But your response here, even if you are not the Imran I knew, gives me some hope that perhaps someday I, too, will earn a place in Horowitz’s list of the most dangerous academics!

Still, I have some questions for you.

Couldn’t the republishing (republic-ing) be very much about free speech in its 1984 inversion and re-writing/re-righting of the very concept of free speech?

Isn’t the deliberate nature of all we are witnessing really the vehicle that duplicates the cartoons, but translated into caricatures that translate Muslims into primitive, violent, fanatics in the minds of many western peoples?

Namaste…..

“Sure WTH, ‘Lucky’ Luciano, Klaus Barbie and you.”

No, the other group — Gen. William Donovan, William Stevenson and Ian Flemming.

Imram,

“If a newspaper published cartoons referring to African-Americans as the “n” word, or printed caricatures of the Jewish Holocaust, would they really be REPUBLISHED over and over again in the name of free speech?”

Yes, if it would sell papers and boost TV ratings. 

Especially so if there were riots as in the 60s.  The media love controversy — if they can’t find it, they will try to make it.  Think about how much “non-news” there is. A lot is in the form of a question…

“What did Mt. X know and when did he know it?” “Will A & B break up now that she found out he was cheating?”

“Free speech advocates” don’t run all the media. It’s hard to tell which of the pubs not showing the cartoons, did not due to fear (not just physical, but financial) and which did not out of ethical concerns.

Christianity has been a lot cartooned a lot in U.S. publications and criticized openly in other media (so much material, so little time). The differences in culture are often not realized and ignorance knows no boundaries.

sceneshistoriques,

Thanks for the link to the Ramzy Baroud article.  It is happening here in the U.S. as well and I couldn’t help relating it to the small midwestern town where I was born.  Globalization seems to be reducing all to the lowest common denominator.

I was unaware that, “… European countries put people in jail for holocaust denial.”

What is the degree of punishment?  Is there an attempt to change the perception or just punishment?

Strange that new comments don’t seem to be going up here.

WTH, I thought Ian Flemming was MI6.  Wild Bill and Allen Dulles were both handlers of Luciano.  You never got to Italy or Marsailles?  Too bad, it’s so lovely on the Riviera.  Dulles is famous for saying that A. Somoza was an SOB, but he’s our SOB.  OSS/CIA SOP.

humor is humor is humor. islam as a religion should be strong enough to survive such sillyness. i doubt ‘jesus christ superstar’ did much, if any, damage to the emergence of pentacostalism, or to the vast vaults of wealth on the vatican.

The shameful, violent response of the faithful to the cartoons cannot be condoned. However, I can well understand the sharp reaction to such goading disrespect.  The cartoons were a stupid idea and, yes, the reactions were entirely predictable.  Perhaps this was the motivation on the part of the cartoonists-to villify all of Islam by baiting a few into rageful acts of destruction and violence. It served the West’s political purposes given the global context in which this is occurring.  Further, it will add to counter-incitement against innocent Muslims who will bear the brunt of the West’s rightous anger and paranoia.

The violence should not be condoned yet the reaction to such hateful disrepect was understandable.

The cartoons were disrespectful.

Imran - While I would not want to see racist cartoons using the “n” word published and republished I would indeed defend the right to do it.  I would also complain very loudly to the editors of those publications exercising that right.

I would certainly not be calling for the murder of the authors, or torchin businesses in protest.

Religion, practiced by the self-righteous, will be the ruination of humankind.

Eliza:

You bring up an excellent point about the 1984-style inversion and re-righting of terms and concepts by the current administration. 

The inversion of the defense of “free-speech” in this cartoon context is similar to their inversion of the defense of “journalistic sources” in the Plame Affair.  In both instances, these noble concepts have been twisted beyond recognition by those who have, in the past, vociferously opposed and fought such concepts their entire lives (and will toss them again when it doesn’t suit them).

Although I am disheartened by the number of people who do not see through these transparent charades, the above poll numbers give me hope that people instinctively and intuitively recognize the truth, even when it is obscured by a concerted effort otherwise.

Imran

i believe there are things that trouble me much more than this cartoon business. both sides are right and both sides are wrong in some aspects of this whole whoop-te-do in my opinion. also, i don’t have the time or the wish to try to put together every piece of the global puzzle. i just do the best i can to keep up with the basics, and help those i can help when i can.
oops! so what am i doing posting this? sorry.

I think comparing these cartoons to a racist or homophobic depiction is specious. The cartoons make a valid commentary on jihadist Islam, not on the whole of the religion. In any event, it’s identical to the actions of fundamentalists in our own country. They do not believe in separation of church and state, so “desecrating” a Christian symbol (like removing those 10 Commandments displays in courthouses) is likewise seen as criminal by them.

An analagous cartoon might be fundies breaking down the door of an abortion clinic with a huge crucifix bearing Christ’s body. Undoubtedly the fundies would go nuts but it’s a fair depiction of their brand of religion.

The cartoons were a disrespectful provocation. No, the violence was not a reasonable response but that has little to do with the fact that they were probably planted for political reasons in order to elicit paranoia inducing violence on the part of SOME Muslims.  This would produce the stigmatizing reaction and hence justify more “war on terror” imperialist aggression.  The cartoons must be seen in the context of Western Imperialism.

islam is not a tolerant religion.  it is an insult to mohammed to pretend that it is.  he was a hater. give him the respect of his beliefs.  “tolerance”, “diversity” and all the feely good current nice nice is liberal protestant/reform jewish ideology that had a moment in the 60’s.  political corrrectness and secular leftism took over the education establishment in America, though little else.  PC is its legacy.  we pay lip service to tolerance and diversity, although most of us know however we choose to live is better than people who don’t live the way we do.  Islam is honest, give it credit for that. but it is a despicable religion from a political rights/civll rights point of view.  OOPS.  i’ve offended somebody. Good!

Knocko:

I’m not sure if you read the preceding posts regarding religious bigotry and incitement masquerading as free speech, but thank you for proving my point.

Imran

As my poet, Erato, said: “Free speech ...in a madraas ?
A truly difficult morass.”

I was delighted to see that the Imams wouldn’t abide a bit of danish.
More for me and Erato.