Flashermac Posted February 7, 2006 Report Share Posted February 7, 2006 Oil is thicker than blood ... p.s. I remember when Saudi Arabia "officially" ended slavery. It was when JFK was the Prez and Martin Luther King was campaigning for African-American rights. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitney Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 Religion, ain't it just great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evel_Penivel Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 OCgringo said:Seems stupid for all the other newspapers to print these cartoons months after the Danes nothing like poking the tiger to piss it off ! OC How far are you willing to go in appeasing a very small number of Islamic fanatics? At what point do you say enough? In the world's democracies, religion has become a matter of personal conscience, not of public responsibility. Nor can the governments of democracies censor the media prior to publication. AFTER publication, numerous laws or sanctions can apply to either print or electronic media and even private individuals - libel, slander, revealing offical or trade secrets or some types confidential communications, etc. But blasphemy is no longer a crime in most of the world and Muslims will just have to live with that. Millions upon millions of Christians are offended by abortions and gay marriages as well as the portrayal of Jesus, the Pope and other sacred figures in art, movies, cartoons, etc. They, too, will just have to accept that most people won't let their lives be guided by the religious beliefs of others, no matter how deeply held. I understand where you are coming from. It's the same principle that keeps KKK members from using racial invective against Mike Tyson. Whatever satisfaction they would get by such utterances would be outweighed by the damage Tyson is likely to do to them. That's a very good way to deal with people face-to-face in daily encounters (don't poke the tiger), but it can't be applied to a free press. Newspapers in Denmark, or anywhere else, have the right and sometimes even the duty to publish articles that some readers will find offensive. Otherwise, the press isn't free, whether constrained by government censors or self-censorship. Freedom of the press and expression is one of the "slippery slope" situations. Making any compromise leads to more compromises. After books and political cartoons, what comes next? Islamic fanatics have objected to the pattern the top of soft ice cream makes when dispensed from machines in fast-food outlets. Supposedly it resembles the first letter in the Arabic word for "Allah" and was therefore disrespectful of Islam. The King of Sweden had to change the name of his dog from Ali to Charlie because Ali was the Prophet's son in law. At a library close to where I live in the U.S., a volunteer was criticized for reading the story of the "Three Little Pigs" to an audience of preschool children that included a few Muslim children. At a nearby public school, children aren't allowed to build or even draw snowmen any more because a local imam objected. These examples come from areas where Muslims make up less than 2% of the total population. In a country where Muslims rule according to Sharia law, they can apply their own feudal laws to their own people. But the rest of us don't have to live according to their ritual proscriptions. If I chose to live or work in a country under Sharia, I would be prepared to follow the local rules, laws and traditions. The same should be expected of Muslims in Europe and North America. If they want to fight about it, I won't take one step backwards, nor should the governments of democracies anywhere in the world. Evil Penivel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iuytrede Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 well said Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 Hi, Yep, fully agree as well. I think this sums it up: "If I chose to live or work in a country under Sharia, I would be prepared to follow the local rules, laws and traditions. The same should be expected of Muslims in Europe and North America." Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 khunsanuk said:Hi, Hmm, hardly that offensive. Wonder what would happen if a Muslim drew / published similar cartoons of Jezus? Actually, I have a pretty good guess... nothing. Sanuk! Such cartoons exists already, a Swiss or German TV showed them a few days ago, printed in different Arabic newspapers. The cartoons were made before the Danish ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted February 8, 2006 Report Share Posted February 8, 2006 February 3, 2006 What would Prophet Mohammed have done? By TAREK FATAH The Globe and Mail Keep to forgiveness (O Mohammed), and enjoin kindness, and turn away from the ignorant.- The Koran, Chapter 7, Verse 199 During his lifetime, Prophet Mohammed endured insults and ridicule on a daily basis. His opponents mocked his message and used physical violence to stop him from challenging the status quo. At no stage during this ordeal did the Prophet lose his temper or react to these provocations. Tradition has it that he would, instead, offer a prayer of forgiveness to those who showed contempt for him. Today, however, many followers of Prophet Mohammed are acting the exact opposite. Reacting to the provocative Danish cartoons about the Prophet, they are burning newspapers, threatening journalists, issuing bomb threats, yet claiming they are standing up for the Prophet himself. I have seen the cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. There is no question they are meant to hurt the feelings of Muslims. As I saw them, I had to restrain my anger. Once more, Muslims were being depicted as a violent people. (One particularly derisive cartoon showed the Prophet wearing a turban with a bomb inside it.) No one in the Muslim community is willing to buy into the notion that these cartoons were not meant to promote racism against Muslims. The editors may say otherwise, but the community knows better when it is depicted as the "other," to be scorned and sidelined. Caricaturing racial minorities has been a tradition in Europe and North America since long before it became acceptable to deride Muslims. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn't uncommon to see Jews and blacks depicted negatively. Today, thanks to the great work of many civil rights and anti-racism activists, no newspaper would invoke press freedom to depict Jews and blacks or their leaders the way the Danish paper depicted the Prophet. Having said that, the way some Muslims have reacted to the provocation leaves a lot to be desired. Provoked, they walked blindfolded into a trap set for them, and came out worse than what they started with. In Canada, we had a similar case, if not of the same magnitude. In the mid-90s, a Toronto man distributed highly inflammatory literature against Islam and the Prophet. Unlike our European colleagues and some fanatics of the Middle East, Canadian Muslims took up the case with the police and the gentleman was charged under Ontario hate laws and convicted. End of story. In the Danish case, the Arab world's reaction, led by the Egyptian government, suggests there is more to it than meets the eye. Thousands in the Arab world have protested against the publication of the cartoons. The Danish paper has received bomb threats. Two armed groups threatened yesterday to target Frenchmen and Norwegians in the Palestinian territories,as well as Danes, after the caricatures were published in their countries. Many believe that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government is acting not for the love for Islam, but for love of the power it has usurped for decades. Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, a regular columnist for the London newspaper Sharq AlAwsat, wrote in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dastour: "Perhaps the Muslim governments who spearheaded the campaign -- led by Egypt -- felt this was an easy way to burnish their Islamic credentials at a time when domestic Islamists are stronger than they have been in many years." For the Arab League to demand that the Danish government shut down the newspaper Jyllands-Posten shows how deeply entrenched dictatorial practices are in many Muslim countries. They are so accustomed to closing down their own newspapers, they could not understand why the Danish government could not issue a decree closing the Jyllands-Posten. This posturing by Arab governments and Islamist movements is not in the tradition of Islam. These zealots should ask the question: What would Prophet Mohammed have done when faced with this insult? He would, I suggest, have said a prayer for the cartoonist and "turned away from the ignorant," as Allah commanded him to do in the Koran. -------------------------------- Tarek Fatah is host of a weekly TV show on CTS-TV, The Muslim Chronicle, and is the communication director of the Muslim Canadian Congress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lusty Posted February 9, 2006 Report Share Posted February 9, 2006 Time to even the odds up a bit.Lets OFFEND the God botherers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 muslims are the most intolerant people on earth but they insist on the most tolerance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted February 10, 2006 Report Share Posted February 10, 2006 Who has not seen enough pics and cartoons of Mohammed ? Follow this link and make sure to click on all other links at the bottom of that page. BB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.