You find the voice of reason in the most unlikely places

[andrewducker]

On balance, we have chosen not to publish the cartoons but to provide weblinks to those who wish to see them. The crucial theme here is choice. The truth is that drawing the line in instances such as these is not a black-and-white question. It cannot be valid for followers of a religion to state that because they consider images of the Prophet idolatry, the same applies to anyone else in all circumstances. Then again, linking the Prophet to suicide bombings supposedly undertaken in his honour was incendiary. The Times would, for example, have reservations about printing a cartoon of Christ in a Nazi uniform sketched because sympathisers of Hitler had conducted awful crimes in the name of Christianity. another, quite indefensible, assertion.

Muslims thus have a right to protest about the cartoons and, if they want, to boycott the publications concerned. To move from there to holding ministers responsible for the editorial decisions of a free press in their nations, to urge that all products from a country be ostracised or, worst still, to engage in violence against people or property is to leave the field of legitimate complaint and enter one of censorship enforced under threat of intimidation. That free speech is misunderstood in much of the Islamic realm shows how much progress has yet to be made.

Consistency would also be a virtue. The anger directed at these cartoons by certain Muslims would carry more weight if pictures that crudely insult Jews and Christians were not found regularly in the Middle East. To contend that faiths of many forms merit a degree of deference, but not absolute protection, is one notion. To insist that this principle be applied selectively is another, quite indefensible, assertion.

From The Times. Sums things up very well, I think. The rest of the piece is worth reading too.

Comments

[0olong.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anyone is actually insisting that the 'principle' quoted should be applied selectively? That is - the fact (if it is one) that 'pictures that crudely insult Jews and Christians' are found regularly in the Middle East is really neither here nor there unless they're being drawn or published by the exact same people in uproar about these pictures. Otherwise it's like pointing at Daily Mail headlines to ridicule liberal positions being taken by anyone who happens to live in the 'Christian' world...

Did you see the Bookish entry about this? Interesting to get more of the original Danish context I thought...

[andrewducker]

If we were talking solely about individuals choosing to demonstrate, you'd be right. But we're talking about Islamic governments trying to exert pressure on Western governments to stop the press saying things, while allowing their own press to say horrible things.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Oh, well if we're talking about Islamic governments trying to exert pressure on Western governments to stop the press saying things, while allowing their own press to say horrible things, then yes, that's different.

The piece didn't actually say anything about government pressure though; it talked about the inconsistency of Muslims In General. Or rather, it said it might take Some Muslims more seriously if it weren't for some of the stuff printed by Some Other Muslims in newspapers. If it had been couched in far less general terms (like what you've used in your response to my earlier complaint, say) then I wouldn't have had a big problem with it - although I would be inclined to just check to make sure that what you've said is indeed true...

[andrewducker]

Check out the second section here:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf15.html
for some anti-Jewish stuff. I don't have any handy references for anti-Christian stuff, I'm afraid.

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Even if that is the case, how do democratic ideals and a belief in a freedom of speech equate to 'they're doing it so I don't see why we shouldn't.'

[andrewducker]

I don't see how what I said equates to what you said. Would you care to try again?

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Your quoting of the Times article implies that you agree with the fact that "The anger directed at these cartoons by certain Muslims would carry more weight if pictures that crudely insult Jews and Christians were not found regularly in the Middle East."

[andrewducker]

I'd modify that somewhat to "The pressure exerted by various Islamic governments would carry more weight if those governments did not allow their own media to publish cartoons that insult Jews and Christians."

I have nothing against individuals protesting about it and saying they don't want to deal with people who create (or publish) things that offend them. I do not think that they should be able to prevent them being published, and I think that the governments in question are being hypocritical.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and that comment is still not the same as 'they're doing it so I don't see why we shouldn't.' - it's the same as "They're doing it, so they don't really have a leg to stand on when insisting we stop."

"Them telling us to stop" and "Us deciding not to do it" are two very different things, in my opinion.

[diotina.livejournal.com]

Speaking of anomalous povs being published in the The Times, you might like to take a look at this.

[andrewducker]

It's a good piece, with which I largely agree.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

"The anger directed at these cartoons by certain Muslims would carry more weight if pictures that crudely insult Jews and Christians were not found regularly in the Middle East"

If this sentence hadn't been in what you quoted, I'd have agreed with you.

If this sentence had named specific countries where this was likely to be true than being such as massive declamatory generalisation about a fairly large area, I'd have agreed with you.

If this sentence hadn't been the kind of generalisation that I'd expect to see in a shitty tabloid, or curiously similar to the kind of propaganda claim you might expect to have seen during the cold war between the US and the Soviety Union..... then I'd have agreed with you.

I agree with the -rest- of it, and what Jack Straw said.

But that sentence smacks of the kind of generalised "dodgy middle-easterner" generalised racist doctrine that has infected people across the board. You might want to read the BBC article about one of their reporters growing a beard and getting treated with suspicion/hostility/fear for where this kind of statement leads.

Yes, I'm sure there are countries, or at least groups in countries where that is true. But making a generalisation like that in this context, especially in the context of that kind of article is ridiculous.

"That free speech is misunderstood in much of the Islamic realm shows how much progress has yet to be made"

This is also pretty laughable.

I'm glad the Times isn't my general source of news, since if it was, it wouldn't be any more after this kind of thing. They might as well have a comedy sketch taxi driver saying "I'm no racialist but those dodgy islamics, eh?!".

It's a sickness. A fucking sickness that is blighting the nation is thinking like this.

[andrewducker]

I don't actually know enough to know if all the countries that have been trying to exert pressure _also_ have allowed their own press to say inflammatory things about Jews/Christians. It's possible that The Times does know this. It's also possible they're generalising wildly. I'm not even sure how I'd find out.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

To start the data coming in, here's what the Indonesian president has said...

"The denigration of religious symbols has injured the feelings of Islamic people," said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, adding that he "could understand the reaction and protests that occurred after the cartoon was published."

But "as religious people, we should accept the apology extended by the Danish government through its ambassador in Jakarta and from the newspaper," he said.

What their newspapers publish about others and other religions I wouldn't know, but that at least covers the leader of the most populous Muslim nation.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

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<citeWhat their newspapers publish about others and other religions I wouldn't know, but that at least covers the leader of the most populous Muslim nation.</cite>

Though one which isn't in the Middle East, so doesn't invalidate the point made by The Times with which, fwiw, I agree.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Sorry - forgot the source...

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20060204142929&irec=1

[nameandnature]

Assuming Jack Straw's quotes are the ones referred to in the Guardian, I'd strongly disagree with them. The republication of the cartoons in other European newspapers seems to have been a show of solidarity with the Danish newspaper (at least in the case of France Soir, where the paper published another cartoon with various religious figures saying they'd all been mocked). It's unacceptable that the paper should be cowed by death threats, and it's to the other papers' credit that they stood alongside the Dutch one. The odd belief held by some people that they have an invisible friend should not automatically mean that everything associated with that belief is accorded an astonishing degree deference. I was disappointed not to see a far stronger statement in support of freedom of speech from Straw.