Cartoon Clash of Civilizations

``Newspapers do not call Blacks ``niggers`` to test their tolerance,``

dost-mittar sahib:
you are missing the background of fear and intimidation of last few years. Newspapers have a duty to rise upto defend the values of a society, given what was done to Theo Van Gogh, a suitable case can be made that journalists did the right thing to stand up to the bullies.

I am glad that someone had kicked this off again;

Because hidden deep behind the cartoons is a fundamental issue; The issue of fundamental Muslims trying to live a hypocritical life in Westren countries. Muslims should know that the freedom they experience in Westren countries come at a price; that their religion and beliefs would be attacked and scrutinized.

The reaction so far, except for a few pockets, only exposed the hypocricy of extremist Muslims living in free lands. The civilized world had been silenced before. One Theo Van Gogh can be killed but what will they do when a thousand Van Goghs come up..

Having said this, I also completely support the economic boycott of Danish goods and all the peaceful demostrations on the part of peaceful Muslims.

Thanks,
Avkrishna

Re: # 16 Care to throw light on `some` of these details?

i agree that all pakistanis must shun, ban and starve and boycott jaish-e-mohammed and its affiliated for using the prophets name...only after that they have ANY right to protest insults to the prophet.

so from tommorow onward, whenever you see a jaish chanda box, keep walking with you hands firmly in your pocket, and call your local police (or FBI office in gulberg).

Bina Shah
In case you don`t know it is French, Scandinavian, Dutch and other European troops who have been and are going to be killed by suicide bombers in Afghanistan. These same suicide bombers have killed Afghan school teachers, Afghan election workers and Afghans watching a wrestling match.

These suicide bombers are not suffering Afghans, they are those who have been ideologically motivated to think they will get n number of virgins. As a Pakistani you can afford to be flippant about suicide bombers, unlike the Europeans you are not going to be killed by them- your govt. shelters them. I think it is high time Pakistanis need to make up their minds whose side they stand on, suicide bombers or those being killed by them.

A cartoonist view of the present row over Danish cartoons:

One Picture, A Thousand Outcries

I draw to help prevent a world where others make decisions for me. And I’m willing to risk being called anti-Muslim for it.

By Signe Wilkinson

As someone who has been picketed and protested for her blasphemous, insensitive, anti-Islamic cartoons, I have nothing but sympathy for my Danish colleagues who have incurred the wrath of the godly by publishing a portfolio of cartoons making fun of one of the world’s great--but apparently humor-impaired--religions.

However, I also have compassion for the members of humor-impaired religions. After all, I am an empathetic Quaker.

It’s been my experience that most groups are humor-impaired when outsiders make fun of them.

On MSNBC.com, readers were asked to vote on whether they thought the Muslim protests were justified. The vote was running 82 percent against the Muslim reaction when I checked Thursday night.

But let’s just change the image.

What if it were a cartoon showing someone burning the American flag? What if it were a depiction of Jesus with a smoking shotgun as a comment on Christians shooting abortion doctors?

What if it were the Star of David used as a hoop that a politician must jump through to get elected?

I’m guessing the approval rating would plummet. Actually, I don’t need to guess because at various times in my career I’ve penned (and my newspaper has published) cartoons along those lines. Lack of humor ensued after each one. A number of my cartoons have caused boycotts, lost advertising for my newspaper, and elicited streams of phone calls and/or picketing in front of our building.

My editors have had to explain the nature of cartooning to the offended representatives of various faiths, ethnicities, and political groups. And I am not alone.

Nearly all cartoonists worth their salt have enraged some portion of their readership, often when religious symbolism was part of the cartoon. Most of the ensuing protests are loud, sometimes intimidating, but generally peaceful.

I don’t go out of my way to poke fun at the religiously faithful. I have no grounds to criticize other religions, when my own is such a quirky (though perfect) little cult.

This said, readers should know that cartoonists working for mainstream American newspapers--and there are more than 80 around the country--generally try to avoid negatively caricaturing any group just to make fun of them.

American history is filled with examples of published images that would not run in newspapers today, our most egregious sin being the racist portrayals (without comment) of black Americans in cartoons, advertising, and illustrations.

As the civil-rights movement revealed the injustice behind those racist images, those cartoons went from being humorous to hideous.

Blacks weren’t alone in trying to influence how they were portrayed in popular culture.

Long before 9/11, Arab-Americans asked for cartoonists to be more sophisticated in their depiction of Middle Easterners. Early in my career, I received a heads-up from an Arab-American group pointing out that all Arabs aren’t head-scarf-wearing sheikhs.

At several of our The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists conferences, representatives from Jewish, Latino, Arab, and other ethnic groups pled for relief from what they saw as derogatory stereotypes that we cartoonists routinely used as shorthand.

Our images have changed over the years, though many of us still draw sheikhs with scarves because they feature prominently in the news.

If you wear dresses and scarves, cartoonists are going to draw you with dresses and scarves. But I think if you did a study--and I haven`t--you`d find that more cartoons about the Middle East now feature Arabs who more resemble an American teenager at a mall.

Of course, sheikhs get to choose what they wear. Many women in Islamic societies don’t.

My encounters with Muslims have mostly come over cartoons protesting the treatment of Muslim women.

After one such cartoon, a local woman called me to defend the headscarf. I said I had no problem with anyone freely wearing a headscarf or any other religious outfit. I then asked her, ``But you wouldn’t force other women to wear a headscarf, would you?``

After a pause she replied, ``Well, if it was for her own good.``

So there you have the reason I go to the drawing board every day. I am drawing to help prevent a world where someone else decides what I must wear for my own good. And, I’m willing to risk being called anti-Muslim to do it.

I’m guessing the Danish cartoonists were trying to do the same thing. The cartoons were criticizing violence and suicide bombing in the name of Islam.

The cartoonists have the right to publish.

And, in a free society, Muslims have a right to protest and publish their own cartoons in response.

This is not a right granted to cartoonists or protesters in some Muslim countries.

I hope Muslims will come to know that they aren`t the first, and won`t be the last, to be offended by a political cartoon.

I know cartoonists will take into consideration the reaction to this caricature when drawing their next ones on Muslim issues.

If the reaction of the “Arab street” continues to be violence whenever they don’t like something they see in someone else`s newspaper, then I predict more such cartoons are on the way.

My suggestion is that instead of threatening to draw blood, Muslims should pick up their pens and draw return cartoons instead.

---

well Ms Wilkinson the trouble with that tit for tat is that both Jesus and Moses happen to be ALSO the holy prophets of `humor-impaired` Islam.

There are plenty of Arabs and Sheek stereotypes and of course the cartoonist`s delight bin laden is well and alive -- why bring the prophets into the melee....

Correction #21

I think it is high time Pakistanis make up their minds whose side they stand on, suicide bombers or those being killed by them. Any selective outrage in this matter doesn`t work.

If one is under threat of being killed by suicide bombers invoking Islam then one has every right to draw cartoons of anything in Islam one well pleases before one is killed. No point in trying to have it both ways.

Friday, February 03, 2006 The Daily Times Pakistan

R E G I O N: Danish govt okays more Afghan troops

COPENHAGEN/ PRAGUE: Denmark’s parliament on Thursday decided to send 200 more troops to the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.

The troops are to leave in May or June and will be based in Afghanistan’s troubled south, where NATO will take over peacekeeping from US forces. ``

``NATO-member Denmark currently has 160 soldiers based in the Afghan capital Kabul. ``

``well Ms Wilkinson the trouble with that tit for tat is that both Jesus and Moses happen to be ALSO the holy prophets of `humor-impaired` Islam.

There are plenty of Arabs and Sheek stereotypes and of course the cartoonist`s delight bin laden is well and alive -- why bring the prophets into the melee....``

and to my chooee tuo mooee Muslims -- so what if the Dumb Danes Did make a crummy cartoon of the prophet -- why do the Muslims care -- for Allah will surely punish them for their poor penmanship......or HE will laugh and throw the piece in HIS trash can -- mumbling basstards.....

All those who insult the Beloved Prophet in any way or find fault with him (alayhisalatu wa salam) are infidels and destined for Hell and any Muslim who agrees with it becomes an apostate and the Shariah punishment for this is death. (Applicable in Islamic countries only).

In the West we are obliged by Islam to respect the laws of the land we live in and so protests and economic boycotts are the best solution forward in such circumstances...

Good article, Bina. The end part contains some sensible advice.

(I am glad to see that you are still around and not swallowed alive by fire-breathing lady dragons, for example.)

The sad reality is that newspapers, radio,TV, and other media always take jibes on individuals, institutions, and icons all the time until the cost of doing so exceeds its benefits (in terms of publicity). This web site itself is probably one of the most egregious offenders, in my view, but the world carries on anyway!

Raw_Dust#17:

I have a somewhat different take on this issue. I think that the West, especially its liberal elite, are largely responsible for their woes. I firmly believe that when one comes to a a new society, unless as a conqueror, one enters into a social contract with it, which is that the newcomer will partake in the benefits of that society and at the same time abide by the rules of the host society. This should be as true of a Hindu or Christian who goes to Saudi Arabia knowing fully well that he or she will not be allowed to practise his/her socio-religious-cultural practices there as it should be of us desis coming to vilayat or dur-vilayat, i.e, North America for those who cannot fathom potohari.

This is exactly how those of us who came here in the 60s and early 70s behaved, as Nasah bhaijaan could tell you. We did not demand special holidays for Diwali or Eid, we did not ask for special prayer rooms, we did not ask them to change their textbooks, we did not want to wear hijabs or kirpans; heck we did not even insist on wearing beards or unshorn hair. We were even careful in our cooking so that the smell of our spices did not offend our neighbours. We were just happy that we were allowed to earn a living and allowed to live like everyone else. But then the lefty liberals came up with this notion of diversity, multiculturalim and the freedom to live our lives anyway we wanted. The logical culmination of this process has been that we have created our own little Indias, Pakistans, Palestines and Somalias. We forgot that there is the other side of this bargain, too, which is that we would live by the Western values of tolerance, freedom of expression including the freedom to blaspheme. The West, especially the Europeans, came to their senses only after the episodes like the Theo Van Gogh. But they are, in reality, harvesting what they seeded.

Naqshbandi#26:
I have always respected you for your complete devotion to your faith. But also because you have this ability to take off your religious hat and think out of the box when discussing secular subjects. I would request you to do precisely that when reading the following:

Yesterday, at least two rather sedate listeners to our sedate CBC radio contrasted the response to the offensive cartoons with that to the Tabliban`s destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas a few years ago. I understand that from your perspective the Bamyan Buddhas` destruction could be justifiable because they were not even a place of worship. But from a non-muslim perspective, which happens to be the perspective of the 4/5ths of humanity, they were a priceless human heritage and their destruction was far more offensive than a mere cartoon in an obscure newspaper. And yet, there was hardly any protest from Muslims when those statues were demolished and most of the criticism that took place was in the context of how it gave a bad image to Muslims and not that a heinous crime had not only been committed but was justified in the name of Islam. More importantly, while there are nearly as many Buddhists as Muslims in this world, there were no burnings, violence or threats of bombings by Bddhists anywhere in the world. This contrast perhaps explains why Islam gets such poor PR in the West today.

In our circle we are doing everything we can to support the danes and danish products.

There is a long history of violence and murder having to do with anyone who offers an opinion on islamic culture. As an indian I am familiar with the howling mobs pouring out the mosques on friday afternoon and burning down a newspaper office, goverment building etc. The ``provocation`` usually turns out to be some minor innocuous reference to Mohammed (the prophet guy) name or life or something else. There was a famous case in Bangalore in the 80s in which a newspaper office was burned down because a cartoon was published with a reference to a dog/animal named ahmed.

The painter MF Husain has painted hindu gods and goddesses engaged in sex. He has been targetted by Shiv Sainiks and hindu extremists. Naturally, I dont support them. I support their right to have an opinion but not their extreme expression.

Similarly I dont support the fascist Shiv Sena-like behaviour and despicable words of islamic *GOVERMENTS* and *INSTITUTIONS* threatening newspapers and editors.
What a bunch of no-good hypocrites!! Jews are routinely caricatured in the most despicable ways in the middle-east. Hindus are described in the most disgusting way possible in Pakistan!

And these authoritarian fascists dare tell us what is ``right`` or ``wrong``?

I am off to the grocery store. Next up is Danish furniture.

sadna #23 {`` ...If one is under threat of being killed by suicide bombers invoking Islam then one has every right to draw cartoons of anything in Islam one well pleases before one is killed. No point in trying to have it both ways.``}

Sadna,
This is a very stupid statement - asinine and irrational even by your standards. So, if anyone, including BJP/RSS/JS/SP/SS/BD criminals threaten Muslim lives while invoking Hinduism, then Muslims have the right to draw cartoons, trash deities, ridicule, and insult everything about Hinduism. I think you get the point, lady. :)

`` Muslims have the right to draw cartoons, trash deities, ridicule, and insult everything about Hinduism``

It has already been done, and without any threats of violence from Hindus. When Saraswati was drawn naked it was called art. Pat Robertson goes to India and addresses a huge crowd calling Hindus devil or Satan worshippers. Ridicule of Hinduism has been political ideology of at least 3 major political parties in India, the 2 Dravida parties and Mayawati`s BSP.


And if Hindus kill in the name of any Hindu deity, you bet people have the right to ridicule that deity.

#31 Sadna {``Pat Robertson goes to India and addresses a huge crowd calling Hindus devil or Satan worshippers. Ridicule of Hinduism has been political ideology of at least 3 major political parties in India, the 2 Dravida parties and Mayawati`s BSP. ``}

Sadna,
Mullah Robertson and Sister Mayawati are hardly representatives of Muslim action or thought. But, maybe the Dravida parties and BSP are offshoots of Jaish-e-Mohammed (PBUH). :)

Are you really for free speech, or are you just for free speech as long as your holy cow isn`t being slaughtered - a selective vegetarian?