The recent ruckus about the caricature drawings of Mohammed is curious.
The reactions seems a bit misplaced considering that there have been much harsher criticism published of Islam and Mohammed in various books, papers and tv programmes over the last few years than these drawings.
One thing is clear to me. If there is anything that needs to be kept it check through public criticism so is it religion. The Church too used to try to keep criticism silent by calling upon blasphemy. They
didn’t stop with the calling upon though, but had people arrested or killed too. Either directly our through local governments under their sway. Luckily Europe has left the dark ages behind and through public criticism of the church and christianity the era of englightenment came about.
Today I was shocked to find that the Catholic church dared bring forth a statement that they want to bring back the bad old times where they and Christianity where impossible to critisize. The Vatican stated the following – The right to freedom of thought and expression … cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers. Right, so let the book burning start again eh? I guess they would love to burn the Da Vinci code for instance.
That there are violent reactions in the Islamic world is of little suprise, most of these countries are poor underdeveloped dictatorships, rallying against the evils of the free world is the bread and circus those governments provide for their populations, to keep the population to occupied to wonder why their glorious political and religious leaders are unable to provide them with anything but anger and poverty.
These caricatures are minor issues.
But did you know that Microsoft supported TechCentralStation or the DCI group? They are campaigning against Muslims, look here:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082803M
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=100704G
Will we see Windows burning parties soon?
Isn’t bomb threats against newspapers exactly what the cartoon was depicting. I see that they have learned from their master.
uhumm
> If there is anything that needs to be kept it check
> through public criticism so is it religion.
Rather I would say if there is anything that needs to be kept in check through public criticism it is censorship.
But let’s just agree to disagree.
I guess then, that all muslims are terrorists, just like all blacks will rob you. I am sure that there would be a call to censorship if ones mother, or son, or best friend were to be depicted in a vulgar and unfair way. The mere fact that this is approved of speaks volumes about the way in which “others” view people of color, and they only value what is important to them. I am sure that these people of color have no right to be upset, they are just bitching for no reason right? So were the Japanese in America, back in the day, and the Irish who were also demonized(just to name a few). I hope that thought process works out for you…
http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/cartoons/
anonymous, they have right to be upset and say so, which is what happened in most of your examples. And is what most muslims did in this case. But there are a difference between critizing people and their opinions and make death threats and burn a couple fo embassies.
There is also a major other difference here. People choose their religion. Every morning when they wake up they make a choice to stay or become Christian, Muslim, Budhist etc.
You don’t choose to be black, white, yellow, man, woman, young, old and so on.
Dear Christian,
It is too bad to see such violent reactions from the muslim around the world. But it is not a general theme in the reactions if you seek out more than just what the Media wants to share.
And to generalize things by saying that those reactions only came from anger, poverty or other material things, is a very shallow thought.
Look closer and deeper.
In many ways, it is hard to feeling if you’re not experiencing.
All the best.
-arief
I wonder what’s taken out of the Vatican quote. The words omitted probably distorts the meaning of the statement.
Sort of like how movies quote critics, and distort meaning so that a negative statement because positive, just by leaving out words and using elipses.
Funny, at poor country people that make a violent reactions, but at rich country, the government that make it ;) But, I hate them both.
Maybe for you it is easy to choose a religion, but for someone else that dicision is a searching for a life time.
BTW, in this era you can choose to become white, black, old, young and so on ;)