Comments on: A storm in a Quran cup: the cartoons islamic militants would rather we didn’t publish

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:33:40 +0000

Further to this Omar, Jews worldwide are tolerating Iran’s peristent attacks on the holocaust (something they’re “touchy” about) without firebombing embassies and murdering Iranians worldwide.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:31:00 +0000

Omar, “touchiness” is an odd way of describing the murdering of innocents by radical muslims angry with these cartoons. The irony of these attacks in the context of the cartoon’s content would be laughable if it didn’t involve said murders. Some people need a sense of humour.

By: Marco

Marco — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 10:17:20 +0000

Omar is Right. The world’s just so screwed up lately. The Western world is blaming all muslims because of the relatively few idiots we see in the news. At the same time I’m pretty sure I would be considered ‘a white western pig’ if I’d be walking around in Damascus or another middle eastern city. People are blaming millions for the actions of small groups or single individuals. I guess we’re still in the middle ages.

By: Omer Khan

Omer Khan — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:37:04 +0000

I agree with Marco’s comments. As a Muslim, I totally condemn the violence and threats of violence that we’ve seen. This is no way to deal with this (or any) issue in a civilized society. And I am not in the minority. What you see on the news & media does not represent the vast majority of Muslims. It’s like when I have been a victim of racism, not automatically assume that “all white people are racist”. That’s a ridiculous notion, just as is the idea that all Muslims are radicals.

I also wanted to make a couple of other points:

1) The Guardian in the UK today reports that:

“The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny”
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1703500,00.html

It’s good to know that Muslims get a special exemption. And then you wonder why people get upset?

2) Tim Blair’s seems to feel that he took a real courageous step in publication of the cartoons in the name of freedom of speech. He also points to his own survey which shows that 80% of his readers are in favour of the publication. Really Tim? Well take a look at the comments on that post. It looks like all the facists and racists on the web are gathering at your site to add their umm….”thoughtful” comments and endorse your “survey”.

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:32:42 +0000

I don’t understand why muslim organisations are using this thing as an opportunity to deny the holocaust. That’s such a load of crap. Denying a piece of history that did occur as a response. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t think reprinting these cartoons here is a ‘good move’ either. it just pisses people off more and more. It has little to do with free speech.

But what saddens me the most is masses of people screaming in the streets wanting ‘blood’. I saw this guy in the news stating the artist who has drawn these cartoons should receive the death penalty or things would never ‘get well anymore’ when it comes to the relationship between Denmark and the muslim world.

It’s ok to be offended but the sheer stupid fanatism displayed by these people makes me feel very, VERY sad. Like the whole country of Denmark and all of it’s citizens have ANYTHING to do with this one private newspaper that decided to publish these stupid cartoons. Like it’s ok to ‘act on behalf of God’ and start killing people because of this same one newspaper that published these cartoons. The cartoons were not funny. I think they were stupid, I didn’t laugh about them and I agree they serve no purpose but offending people. However the recent things I’ve seen in the news are the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long long time. Sadder than any cartoon no matter how bad.

By: Omer Khan

Omer Khan — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:51:22 +0000

Pretty pathetic of you to re-print these cartoons. Freedom of speech comes with responsibility and adding “fuel to the fire” on something that clearly upsets over a billion Muslims in the world is rather a immature way of handling the situation. Additionally, taking a “lash” at radical Islamists by offending a quarter of the world’s popoulation (most of whom are NOT radical) also shows your ignorance in the matter. Let’s be real here – “freedom of speech” is just being used as a smoke screen by many people to justifiy their hostility against Islam.

If you really believe in freedom of speech, publish anti-semitic cartoons and mock the holocaust. Don’t have the courage to do that? I didn’t think so? Think that would be in bad taste? I agree. Is it that hard then to even conceed that there may be things that other people find as distasteful?

Juan Cole has a good summary of this:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/muslim-protests-against-anti-muhammad.html

“But you don’t have to look far for other issues that would exercise Westerners just as much as attacks on Muhammad do Muslims. In secular societies, a keen concern with race often underlies ideas of social hierarchy. Thus, any act that might bring into question the superiority of so-called white people in their own territory can provoke demonstrations and even violence such as lynchings. consider the recent Australian race riots, which were in part about keeping the world ordered with whites on top.

Had the Danish newspaper published antisemitic cartoons that showed, e.g., Moses as an exploitative money lender and brought into question the Holocaust, there would also have been a firestorm of protest. For the secular world, the injuries and unspoken hierarchies of race are what cannot be attacked.

Muslims are not, as you will be told, the only community that is touchy about attacks on its holy figures or even just ordinary heros. Thousands of Muslims were killed in the early 1990s by enraged Hindus in India over the Ayodhya Mosque, which Hindus insisted was built on the site of a shrine to a Hindu holy figure. No one accuses Hindus in general of being unusually narrowminded and aggressive as a result. Or, the Likudniks in Israel protested the withdrawal from Gaza, and there were dark mutterings about what happened to Rabin recurring in the case of Sharon. The “sacred” principle at stake there is just not one most people in the outsider world would agree with the Likudniks about.

Human beings are all alike. Where they are distinctive, it comes out of a special set of historical circumstances. The Muslims are protesting this incident vigorously, and consider the caricatures insupportable. We would protest other things, and consider them insupportable.”