Kuwaitis call for boycott of Danish goods

[nbcrusader]

Cartoon Protesters Rampage in Pakistan

Thousands rampaged through two cities Tuesday in Pakistan's worst violence against Prophet Muhammad caricatures, burning buildings housing a hotel, banks and a KFC, vandalizing a Citibank and breaking windows at a Holiday Inn and a Pizza Hut.

At least two people were killed in Lahore, where intelligence officials suspected outlawed Islamic militant groups incited the violence to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's U.S.-allied government.

Those innocent people should not have been provoked....

 

[A_Wanderer]

George W. Bush
"We believe in a free press. We also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others."

Straight from Bush's mouth - and a complete load of codswallop.

Like saying that you have the freedom to think, and the responsibility to think way somebody tells you.

 

[U2Man]

Update:

A French documentary film crew filmed two of the Danish imams who helped incite a lot of the anger over these cartoons in the Middle East. They weren't aware that they were being filmed while the following took place.

One of them (Ahmed Akkari) expressed a wish that the moderate Danish muslim and member of parlament, Nasser Khadar, would be blown to pieces along with his ministry if he was ever appointed a minister in a Danish government.

The other imam (Abu Laban) was telling another one about a certain person that he knew - a martyr - who, according to him, was ready to do a suicide bombing.

Scary stuff, seems like some were finally unmasked here.

The Danish politician, Nasser Khadar is currently considering his political future.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Religion of Peace

I would refuse to submit to any God, if that sick creep of a deity really existed I would want it exterminated - possibly with thermonuclear weapons.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The UN report on the matter came out

In describing Denmark

Their uncompromising defense of a Freedom of Expression without limits or restrictions does not conform with international standards which keep a necessary balance between Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Religion (as if thats a bad thing A_W), in particular non-initiation of religious and racial hatred, agreed upon by all the Member States of the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This position is indicative of an alarming lack of sensitivity and comprehension of the religious convictions and the significant emotions of the communities concerned(how sensitive would these "religious communities" be towards an atheist? The answer is about 3 feet of rope and noose with a 10 foot drop - their beliefs should be mocked as savagely as any other belief system). Because of this attitude, these publications consolidate criticisms which have been formulated especially by certain mass media, and in particular since the tragic events of September 11, which associate Islam with terrorism (the faith based initiative was inspired by Mohammed) and which is a central explanation for the recrudesence of islamophobia in the world and in particular in their own countries. However, it’s precisely this amalgam which is at the core of the criticisms formulated against the caricatures of the Danish newspaper. The consecutive debate about the publication of the caricatures revealed in a more worrying way the emergence, from certain intellectuals, media and politicians, of a rhetoric of conflict of cultures and civilizations dividing the world between civilized secular democracies characterized by defense of Freedom of Expression and retrograde and backwards closed countries identified by the defense of religious freedom (religious freedom doesn't extend to killing people for choosing another faith or getting believers to kill unbelievers!) and insisting on their religion’s place in their societies.

link

What a bastard of a report, both treating the concept of free speech as a negative and affirming countries that are "identified by the defence of religious freedom and insisting on their religion's place in their societies" as having religious freedom - that list would include Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

Freedom of speech protects religious minorities, freedom of religion is what makes a country have religious freedom, a nation that will kill people for apostacy, ban Jews and Atheists from setting foot in the country and ban other religious texts does not have religious freedom. What fucking topsy-turvy world is the UN living in.

Cut all funding to the UN and move it's HQ to Kigali or Srebrenica ~ truly some of the international communities greatest pieces of cooperation in shifting blame.

 

[all_i_want]

religious freedom to an atheist would be what women's rights are to men - an atheist would have to respect these, just like men have to respect women's rights. Also, saying that a religion doesnt deserve respect because some of its adherents do not respect other religions is the same as saying if there are some racists in a community that community should not expect to be protected from racism. It doesnt make sense.

i dont really like any religion myself, and they piss me off pretty often, the religious types. but everyone has their sensitivities, like if I said free speech should be abolish, or religious scripture would be adopted in public schools, you would be outraged.

Living as a community means everyone has to make compromises, so in this case, why not compromise the right to make religious hate speech? just because you have the freedom to do something doesnt mean you SHOULD do it. The nature of rule of law and democracy requires everyone to give up certain rights they have in nature, like the right to kill, to create a more prosperous and harmonious society. I think the objective still stands.

 

[A_Wanderer]

No, the "right to kill" is a direct violation of the no-harm principle, the ultimate deprivation of another individuals liberty. Cases of execution could really only be justified in the cases where the convict represents a persistent threat to the lives of others - execution for free thought is punishment for trying to excercise liberty.

There is absolutely no right to not be offended, there is however a right to free speech - thats not always pleasent but it exists. It is a guarantee for the people that can keep both society and government in check. If the price is that people get offended and we don't live in a harmonious society then good, a society unified in belief is truly enslaved.

I get offended all the time, I am offended by the religious claiming my fibre of being in perpituity as property of their God, I am offended by their anti-freedom bias, I am offended by smug interfaith dialogues that get together to fuck over unbelievers - the common ground in the major monotheistic faiths will be anti-gay, anti-atheist and anti-freedom (because ultimately the individual is not answerable to themselves or the law but to a higher power that acts in peculiar ways). I am more than happy to just tell people to fuck off, or point

Preservation of secularism is also a part of religious freedom (hence no scripture in public schools), by not having the state engage in religious proclamations it ensures that all citizens are not under duress to adopt a particular religion. The state cannot have role in religion, should that happen then freedom of religion is forfeit and other freedoms are rapidly snatched away.

Religious freedom is freedom to elect to believe whatever you want to believe, it includes the freedom to not believe in the divine. To suggest that as an atheist I cannot have a true concept of religious freedom is ludicrous, I enjoy my right to belief and the protections of freedom of religion - an Islamic theocracy though does not posess religious freedoms, atheism is high treason against God in this system. But in a free society you can be a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Satanist, Buddhist etc. and practice whatever beliefs you want to - but the price is that you cannot infringe upon other individuals rights and you must accept that you are not beyond repproach. Religious freedom does not exist in a state where competing religious texts are shredded upon entry into the country and conversion is punishable by death, they only exist when people can elect to believe what they want to believe without duress.

I refuse to respect religions who's tenents and believers proclaim suspension others individual rights or other ideas that are entirely contrary to what is expected within a free society - it may strike a chord that this just happens to include a lot of segments in various religions.

If somebody threatens my right to do something then I will damn well do it or at least defend the right of others to do it.

 

[verte76]

I have to agree with all_i_want here. I don't think we're talking about freedom of speech here. I think it's "license to offend". We've got to accept the fact that we live in a global community and have to respect others who may be different from us. You can't use a "one size fits all" definition of freedom. Someone I'm in contact with recently cancelled a trip to Turkey because of a demonstration in, I think it was Istanbul, possibly Ankara, I don't know because I didn't' see the article about the demonstration myself. I think she was overreacting in the case of Turkey, their prime minister made an eloquent plea for calm in the case of the cartoon controversy and I'm not worried about Turkey, I'm going. Most Muslims didn't want to kill the people responsible for the cartoons. They simply wanted to express their displeasure with peaceful demonstrations and letters to their newspapers and other things that do not affect the lives of anyone else.

 

[nbcrusader]

You are turning Freedom of Speech from a personal freedom to a negative covenant (much like CC&R's). A right exists, but everyone has the right to stop you if it is deemed offensive.

 

[verte76]

OK, there is freedom of speech, but it's not a universal norm. The problem here is that there is no universal norm of freedom of speech. What's freedom of speech for us is license to offend in part of our global community. Both sides went off the wall during the cartoon controversy. The Muslims who wanted blood were being brutes, not people. The people who circulated the cartoons all over Europe were using their definition of freedom of speech but to the Muslims it was license to offend and not freedom of speech. Both were assuming there's a universal norm in these matters. Well, there's not. If you're going to draw a picture of Mohammed with a bomb on his head, that's going to offend Muslims. They have the right to have peaceful demonstrations and letters in their newspapers. If one insists on offending Muslims you've got to respect their right to peaceful and reasonable protests at the very least.

 

[nbcrusader]

I don't think you can declare the intent of the speaker based on the response of the hearer.

 

[verte76]

OK, what was the intent of publishing the cartoons in numerous newspapers? The people that printed the cartoons all over Europe knew that they were doing something that offended Muslims. If they didn't know that, they had a heck of a wake-up call. Now that they know they offended Muslims, I don't think they should print this stuff. If they don't care that they offended Muslims, I have a problem with that. It's about like saying that I have a right to take a pig with me to Turkey. Pigs are unclean in Muslim countries. They believe that they can't go to Paradise if they've touched a pig. Do I have the right to take a pig to Turkey? No. It's a secular state and they guarantee religious freedom, but I have to respect the Muslim sensibilities of my hosts. What's freedom to one person is insult or uncleanliness on the part of other members of the global community. You've got to take the whole situation into consideration, not just one side's.

 

[verte76]

Te expand on my point, I think the Europeans went overboard with the cartoons because they didn't show any respect for the Muslims. If they don't show respect for the feelings of the Muslim people, they have to accept the consequences. I'm not talking about burning flags, destroying embassies, or killing people. That was totally unacceptable. The fact of the matter is that the Muslims were offended, and they have a right to not be offended. The Europeans insisted on having their rights at the expense of the Muslim community. If we are indeed a global society than we have to accomodate each other.

 

[all_i_want]

i am being awfully free with analogies today, but here's another one: lets say youre at a dinner table, then you stand up and spit on the table. this isnt forbidden, you are free to engage in such activity. yet, does that make it ok to do so? so, now by doing that you have disgusted your guests and ruined the meal. congrads though, youve exercised your freedom to the very end. doing offensive things just because you CAN is not FINE, and doing them in the name of freedom is even more stomach-turning than the act itself.

though, wouldnt it be nice if there was no society? you would be able piss and spit anywhere! oh freedom...

 

[verte76]

Very good analogy all_i_want. I completely agree.

 

[A_Wanderer]

i am being awfully free with analogies today, but here's another one: lets say youre at a dinner table, then you stand up and spit on the table. this isnt forbidden, you are free to engage in such activity. yet, does that make it ok to do so? so, now by doing that you have disgusted your guests and ruined the meal. congrads though, youve exercised your freedom to the very end. doing offensive things just because you CAN is not FINE, and doing them in the name of freedom is even more stomach-turning than the act itself.

though, wouldnt it be nice if there was no society? you would be able piss and spit anywhere! oh freedom...

I don't disagree that if people want to engage in a dialogue then they must act with decorum but what you have been saying is that Reliigious beliefs must be put in a special category beyond mockery and possibly criticism. That cannot happen in a free society, there is no double standard on the matter - other religions are open to the same scrutiny.

The best way to react to a blasphemous cartoon or book is to write a letter to the editor or protest peacefully - but the actual response has been burning violence. Hell draw offensive drawing of European ideals, draw the cartoonist in a rude and amusing situation, draw a pro-holocaust cartoon - whatever, they are all valid means of protest.

Fuck peace and tolerance if the price is free speech, if believers all over the world insist on prosecuting their God given right to kill unbelievers then the rest of us deserve our right to mock them and their so-called prophet.

 

[verte76]

I'm not defending the violence. But I'm defending the offense taken. We can't apply our standards to Muslim cultures. In this day and age we have a global community, and there are issues that exist now that didn't used to exist because our communities weren't global, they were local. Heck, I've seen old newspapers that only carried local news and didn't even mention who the President of the United States was because that wasn't local news. The standards that those newspapers ran on are obsolete. When we made our rules about freedom of speech, we were dealing with very provincial stuff, but it was OK because we were only dealing with locals. Now we're dealing with the whole world. We need to adjust our way of doing everything to accomodate dealing with a global community. The old standards don't work anymore.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Im not saying that it doesn't offend Muslims, my point is why should anyone care?

I would hardly care if some iconoclastic Christian took offence at Jesus cartoons. How is the case when it involves Muslims any different (other than the higher probability of a murder plot).

Moderating speech because it can be picked up around the world is a very dangerous slope. People have to have their beliefs challenged, it may just be what wakes them up to reality. Start dolling out special exemptions from offence and let these nuts live in their bubble they may react even more violently when their worldview is threatened.

 

[verte76]

There's nothing wrong with having your beliefs challenged. I have mine challenged all the time. I'm a practicing Catholic who has read "The Da Vinci Code". But there are some places I would draw a line. I personally wouldn't want a picture of Mohammed with a bomb on his head in my newspaper. It's offensive to me because I have Muslim friends who would take great offense to having their religion slighted. If someone is offended, so am I.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Yes because that newspaper would be your property. But what you are talking about is a standard that all people should abide by - that when they want to run MoToons then there has to be a check that it will not offened people on the other side of the world.

What form is this supposed to take?

How would it be enforced?

Would there be punishments if it was violated?

 

[verte76]

I wouldn't want any of this stuff to be mandated by a state. That wouldn't work as we are talking about a whole slew of countries, not just one. And I wouldn't want it mandated in *any* state, including mine. I'm talking about private choice on my part. I choose not to offend Muslims. Like I said, if someone else wants to, I won't stop them. It's a matter of personal responsibility.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Exactly, private choice - the reason that we do not have to surrender freedoms to live in free societies. Something that a lot of people simply cannot grasp: be it censorship, sexuality, recreational drug use, belief or blasphemy.

 

[nbcrusader]

If someone is offended, so am I.

That is a difficult, if not impossible standard to live by. People can be offended on both sides of the same issue - which leaves you in a position of having to choose one side.

 

[verte76]

Yes. I know from personal experience that I can't hack censorship because I'm an artist. I don't want the state telling me I can't offend the Southern Baptist Convention by doing my Islamic-influenced art. It works both ways.

 

[BorderGirl]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
Making a film about Christian misogyny is not going to result in the director being sliced to death in the street and forcing those involved into hiding. I really wish it was in some ways because at least then there would be a genuine cause to say that Christianity and Islam are more or less the same in that respect. [/B]

Why would you want to roll these together?

 

[yolland]

^ I think he may have already answered that here.

 

[verte76]

Why would you want to roll these together?

I wouldn't. This is a case of religion bringing some really bad human traits out, and it's happening in both religions. There's something universal about ideological intolerance, unfortunately.

 

[BorderGirl]

But Christians around the world didn't start demanding boycotts of US goods and the artist didn't get a nasty note pinned through his sternum.

Exactly, and why is that?
To quote nbcrusader "As for how follower should interact with society, Jesus never spoke about overturning the established government".

In Islam, religion and the state are one.

 

[verte76]

That is a difficult, if not impossible standard to live by. People can be offended on both sides of the same issue - which leaves you in a position of having to choose one side.

True, and after more thought I realize that this is impractical. I actually do take sides more often than not. I'm a liberal, and I disagree with conservative opinions. I decided not to attend a demonstration in Atlanta protesting Bush's Iraq policy, but only because I decided I needed to save my money for Turkey. Now is not the time for side trips.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Why would you want to roll these together?

You misconstrue me, every bloody time somebody critiques Islam or specific acts within there are demands to set up direct criticism of Christianity by definition, but in truth in this day and age by magnitutde and nature the violent deeds of believers do not match. It is the height of absurdity, I should have went the other way in saying that it would be better if no belivers ever did anything violent but I find that a lot harder to believe than literalist Christians getting it in their head that violence is sanctioned. It is a bitter statement about what it would take for the equivalence to be genuine not a wish or demand for there to be murder.