Actually, it'll be interesting to see which papers in the UK decide to bite the bullet and reprint the images - or what tortured justifications they use for not doing so.
A couple of the images seem calculated to cause offence, but the others just seem kind of lame or pointless. Two (the ones with the orange in the turban and the one with the kid pointing to the blackboard) actually don't depict Muhammad at all and actually seem intended to mock the 'controversial' paper in which they originally appeared.
The one with the virgins jest is closest to 'funny' but fairly poorly executed and any insult behind it is not so much directed at Muhammad as at suicide bombers; certainly, the portrayal of Islam is fairly crude, but no worse, I'd have said, that what's regularly doled out to Christians in Western media and - particularly - to Jews in papers throughout the Middle East.
I don't know. The whole farce is, for me, summed up by the reaction of nutters in Palestine, who seem to think the best way to protest about western caricatures of Islam is by surrounding the relevant embassies with masked gunmen. Yeah, classy.
Question is:
Should British papers publish the cartoons to show 'solidarity' with Danish and French editors?
OR
Would publication of the 'offending' images be a cheap act of provocation against a community that already feels under seige?Posts: 8657
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posted
Those are some shit cartoons. Reproducing them isn't a blow against extremists, is it? It's not like the cartoons were of Mohammed in bondage gear sucking shit from the bum of a Jew or anything. Or Mohammed getting raped by a pig. Or Mohammed's mum rimming him while he injected heroin into his scrotum and spunked smack all over her beard.
posted
Once again our Islamic friends are hopping about madly. That said, if a newspaper had produced similar cartoons of a vampiric, bloodsucking Jewish arachnid all hell would have broken loose - and the 'government condemnation' would have been faster than the rat that scurries up the drainpipe in Fritz Hippler's most famous cinematic release.
Frankly, I am in favour of free speech on these things - or, at least, some consistency in how we look at this issue; an issue that is perhaps even more of a talking point given the recent case vs. Griffin and Collett. FWIW I agree with Ben that the cartoons were in essence pretty lame, bar the 'Virgins' one that did elicit a curled upper lip.
O and Benno - what in hell are you doing using German politically incorrect websites as a source? Meh.
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quote:Jordanian independent tabloid al-Shihan reprinted three of the cartoons on Thursday, saying people should know what they were protesting about, AFP news agency reports.
"Muslims of the world be reasonable," wrote editor Jihad Momani.
lol
'let us all exercise caution in reproducing these cartoons,' added editor HolyCrusade Brown of the London Times
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I don't think any of these cartoons are comparable to that, do you?
One makes out that the Jew is a blood-sucking vampire, the other that the Muslim is a born terror-monger. Sounds like the same kind of deal to me.
Well, firstly none of these cartoons seem to be dehumanising the Muslim as was, for instance, the case with Nazi portrayals of Jews as lice and rats.
Secondly, maybe I've just not "got" these weak cartoons, but only one of them seems to be about terror-mongering (specifically suicide bombers -- nothing to say this includes all Muslims). The bomb-turban could be read as indicating a terror attack on Islam, just as a besuited gentleman wearing a bowler-hat bomb could be used as a stereotypical image of attacks on London. (Both would be pretty feeble.)
I understand that part of the offence is simply the portrayal of Mohammed per se], but surely to many readers, the figure in these cartoons could just be any bearded, be-turbaned Muslim?
posted
As I understand it, ANY depiction of Allah or Mohammed, whether painted lovingly in oils on the ceiling of the world's finest mosque, or clumsily drawn in lame cartoons is not only offensive, but actively prohibited. So that naturally puts the Muslim caricaturisation on a different satirical level to the other religious cartoons.
Obviously the reaction is self-defeatingly over the top, but it's not particularly surprising.
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The "cartoons", which are about as funny as Leonardo da Vinci's, were published in September last year. Then, nothing till the end of October when, presumably, someone must've phoned up the Affronts To The Most Holy Hotline and asked how they felt about this shocking insult.
Even then it's taken more than three months to actually filter through to the average flag burner on the street in Islamabad or wherever. In fact, it's probably all been stirred up by the flag manufacturers. They had a surplus of Danish flags in stock, being a generally quite inoffensive country (although they are well-known producers of bacon of course).
I'd love to start a newspaper which just went round the world reporting on people not giving a toss about anything, which is the case with most of the world's population.
"Fuel prices rise: Lorry drivers threaten to shrug and just get on with it as usual"
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: As I understand it, ANY depiction of Allah or Mohammed, whether painted lovingly in oils on the ceiling of the world's finest mosque, or clumsily drawn in lame cartoons is not only offensive, but actively prohibited. So that naturally puts the Muslim caricaturisation on a different satirical level to the other religious cartoons.
Obviously the reaction is self-defeatingly over the top, but it's not particularly surprising.
Stewart Lee was on the Today programme this morning and made this point adding, very sensibly, that there was a big difference between taking the piss out of a culture of which you are a part (ie Christianity) and having a crack at someone else's beliefs from a position of ignorance.
The guy from the Muslim Council of Britain, who normally makes pretty unhelpful comments in these sorts of situation, actually made the reasonable point that the issue wasn't so much about free speech/censorship as about restraint, taste and decency - the newspapers make decisions all the time about what details to include or omit (whether text or images) from their pages. A number of the images were shown on the tv last night (in the context of a news report) and didn't cause any upset - so I guess there's a question of how intentionally provocative you're setting out to be.
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posted
i can't be bothered with this shit, but did you know the UNHCHR is investigating. Yes, really! And Syria and Saudi Arabia have withdrawn their people from Copenhagen. Because an independant newspaper in a free and democratic nation did something offensive. What is the Danish PM supposed to do? I guess Syrians and Saudis don't understand the concept of free speech, just like the beknighted Saracernie doesn't get that homophobia is as bad as Islamaphobia, but whatevs, Voltaire is dead to the liberal left.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: The guy from the Muslim Council of Britain, who normally makes pretty unhelpful comments in these sorts of situation, actually made the reasonable point that the issue wasn't so much about free speech/censorship as about restraint, taste and decency
oh ok, cool. nothing like the taste of your own medicine.
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posted
If we're serious about challenging militant Islam we surely need to do so in a bit more mature manner than publishing a bunch of second rate cartoons?
Who seems likely to benefit from this row? Hizb ut-Tahrir and the BNP I'd guess.
About the only sensible thing I've seen about Islam in the past 18 months was William Dalrymple's fascinating and moving survey of the place of music in Sufism around the world. It strikes me that the tone of sympathetic engagement that characterised that programme (Sufi Soul, it was called, if it gets repeated on More4) is probably likely to achieve and reveal a lot more than drawing battle-lines and digging Voltaire and Diderot up again.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: About the only sensible thing I've seen about Islam in the past 18 months was William Dalrymple's fascinating and moving survey of the place of music in Sufism around the world. It strikes me that the tone of sympathetic engagement that characterised that programme (Sufi Soul, it was called, if it gets repeated on More4)
I think I saw that one. Did it include the whirling dervishes? If it's the same programme I'm thinking of then it was truly lovely. I think I mentioned before, but one thing on my (very short) list of Fings To Do Before Age X is to go to the Fez Festival of Sacred Music. Where the hell the term "the Devil has all the best tunes" came from beats me. Quite the opposite.
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posted
sorry, yeah i went a bit french / childish there. um, sympathetic engagement is obviously good. i do find it hilarious that the leaders of appalling nations like syria or saudi could in all seriousness complain about a few fucking cartoons. saudi doesn't even let jews set foot on their sweet soil or allow christians to practice their faith (this may not be factually correct, but who's counting?). man, that meeting must have been teh funny.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: hey did the press get all worked up by david irving too? is he still in prison?
He was never in prison. Thorough and proven research by many experts has shown that Austria simply does not have the resources to imprison celebrity historians and press reports to the contrary are simply heresay and propaganda.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: adding, very sensibly, that there was a big difference between taking the piss out of a culture of which you are a part (ie Christianity) and having a crack at someone else's beliefs from a position of ignorance.
I don't think this adds up. There are, I would guess, regular cartoons published in the UK that feature Christ, God, the Pearly Gates, Hell, angels and so on. In what way are the creators of those cartoons a part of Christianity? Because Britain is officially a Christian nation and they're living in Britain? I wouldn't say that most British people regard themselves as inside a culture of Christianity -- surely most people who create mildly blasphemous or mocking cartoons of Jesus count themselves outside that culture, rather than as gentle parodists of something that belongs to them.
quote:Originally posted by ben: The guy from the Muslim Council of Britain, who normally makes pretty unhelpful comments in these sorts of situation, actually made the reasonable point that the issue wasn't so much about free speech/censorship as about restraint, taste and decency
I got the impression people didn't agree with me though.
quote:Originally posted by dang65: This [Sikh temple] play, as I was saying, is a classic situation. It has offended a certain group of people so much that they have tried to protest about it and finally lost their patience and taken violent action. We can't condone that can we? But what if the play was about rape and violence in a tabloid newspaper office, or about routine child abuse on an Essex council estate? Would the tabloid newspapers or the residents of Essex council estates be going, "Ah, that's fine, no problem with a bit of Free Speech"? Or would they be going, "This is fucking disgusting and portrays us in a completely inaccurate way and we want it taken off right now." It's a case of defending "Free Speech" for the hell of it, which is often just plain silly when the Free Speech is just plain offensive and of no value to anyone.
posted
you know how sometimes the government helps out human-offal-with-british passports when they get arrested abroad? english roses caught with half a pound of smack at bangkok airport and the like. yeah? do you think the british government are lobbying to get david irving released?
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quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I don't think this adds up. There are, I would guess, regular cartoons published in the UK that feature Christ, God, the Pearly Gates, Hell, angels and so on. In what way are the creators of those cartoons a part of Christianity? Because Britain is officially a Christian nation and they're living in Britain? I wouldn't say that most British people regard themselves as inside a culture of Christianity -- surely most people who create mildly blasphemous or mocking cartoons of Jesus count themselves outside that culture, rather than as gentle parodists of something that belongs to them.
While people may or may not identify themselves as Christians in terms of religion, Christianity is part of the warp and weft of our culture. Our calendar, art, holidays, architecture and literature are all saturated to a greater or lesser extent by the imagery and values of Christianity and the laws and moral framework - rickety though it may be - of the British run mainly along lines drawn explicitly from scripture and a myriad of precedents established in times when we were more religious.
As such, whether we like it or not, we're pretty well acquainted with Christian culture from the inside.
A Jewish comedian may not necessarily observe the Sabbath and all that, but they're no less qualified to make jokes or skits about a culture of which they're more or less a part.
posted
Going back to ben's point about the difference between taking the piss out of your own culture and other people's...
Would it have been ok if the editor was a Muslim? Or if the proprietor was Muslim? Or is the fact that it's a newspaper in a Christian culture enough to mean that even if the entire staff were Muslim it would have been different as the intended audience weren't part of the same culture as the one to which the joke relates?
quote:Originally posted by ben: While people may or may not identify themselves as Christians in terms of religion, Christianity is part of the warp and weft of our culture. Our calendar, art, holidays, architecture and literature are all saturated to a greater or lesser extent by the imagery and values of Christianity and the laws and moral framework - rickety though it may be - of the British run mainly along lines drawn explicitly from scripture and a myriad of precedents established in times when we were more religious.
As such, whether we like it or not, we're pretty well acquainted with Christian culture from the inside.
A Jewish comedian may not necessarily observe the Sabbath and all that, but they're no less qualified to make jokes or skits about a culture of which they're more or less a part.
Yes, because this comedian is still Jewish. Living in a country that features Christian churches and has holidays called "Easter" and "Christmas" (along with many other secular festivals like Guy Fawkes, Halloween), and whose laws are derived broadly from Christianity, does not make one a Christian by any means (you could live within this society and be a Muslim, of course) so the comparison just doesn't work.
By your argument, a British person (presumably one who hasn't declared explicitly for another religion) is automatically "inside" Christianity and so has a right to take the piss out of it and attack it.
I don't think someone who actually identified as a British Christian would feel especially forgiving towards a British atheist who drew satirical cartoons of Jesus, on the grounds that, despite being an atheist, they're somehow by virtue of their geographical location "inside" Christianity and mocking a culture they "belong" to.
quote:Originally posted by Niffer: Would it have been ok if the editor was a Muslim? Or if the proprietor was Muslim? Or is the fact that it's a newspaper in a Christian culture enough to mean that even if the entire staff were Muslim it would have been different as the intended audience weren't part of the same culture as the one to which the joke relates?
I think it would definitely have been presented and received in a different way from what actually happened.
A Muslim editor and publication might have been regarded as a dissenting or extreme voice within their own community - whereas a reactionary provocateur paper having a crack at a beleagured minority was bound to produce a situation in which an us-vs-them battleground was rapidly established.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Living in a country that features [...] does not make one a Christian
I didn't say that it did - I said that British culture is so closely entwined with a Christian heritage (religion literally carved out the contours of the United Kingdom) that we can talk about aspects of that culture with a degree of understanding (or, at the very least, a personal stake of some kind) that can't be dismissed out of hand.
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: By your argument, a British person (presumably one who hasn't declared explicitly for another religion) is automatically "inside" Christianity and so has a right to take the piss out of it and attack it.
Not '"inside" Christianity' but certainly 'inside' a culture that, for better or worse, has been more influenced by the legacy of Christianity than by any other creed or body of thought.
Do you really think the fact you don't attend church on a regular basis somehow deprives you of access to that legacy and that tradition - and consequently, a right to criticise and ridicule aspects thereof?
Joyce wouldn't have had a lot to write about if he'd just sat there in Zurich thinking, "To be sure, I'm through all that now, so I can't rightly comment."
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I don't think someone who actually identified as a British Christian would feel especially forgiving towards a British atheist who drew satirical cartoons of Jesus, on the grounds that, despite being an atheist, they're somehow by virtue of their geographical location "inside" Christianity and mocking a culture they "belong" to.
Well, I would say 'by virtue of the culture in which they've been brought up' which is somewhat different from mere 'geographical location', surely.
fwiw some of the least 'forgiving' people I know identify themselves as Christian, so I'm not sure your point really hits the mark.
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quote:Originally posted by vikram: you know how sometimes the government helps out human-offal-with-british passports when they get arrested abroad? english roses caught with half a pound of smack at bangkok airport and the like. yeah? do you think the british government are lobbying to get david irving released?
This is slightly off topic, but I am glad someone else has asked this question. The answer is no, the British government are doing sweet bugger all while Irving is sitting awaiting trial for alleged 'hate crimes' (lol) in an Austrian jail.
Of course, lobbying for a drug trafficker is one thing, but a man who has been accused of the most heinous 'crime' of questioning the Holy-caust? Imagine the furore that would ensue!
Oh and Vikram - if you want to contribute to the legal fund they are still taking contributions.
Kovacs - I was not comparing the Danish Mohammed cartoons with those that depict Jews as rats or lice, but those which show the Jew as some mighty spider or octopus - an allusion, of course, to their having their legs/arms/tentacles everywhere.
Like this one:
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