Cartoon Clash of Civilizations

In every arab newspaper, EVERYDAY - hateful images of jews. Radio programs in which jews are claimed to eat children alive on purim, jews fled WTC before 9/11, on and on, a river of hatred.

In pakistan, a river of hatred towards hindus. In every urdu newspaper, the most ugliest generalization and hateful thought towards the idol worshippers.

BUT GUESS WHAT THE REAL PROBLEM IS? some cartoons drawn in a danish newspaper.

SOcieties based on hate dare to critcise others? But what do you expect? These are noble warriors with brains made of stone.

Hopefully, europe will understand what they are dealing with. The goverments will stop accepting garbage in the name of multi-culturalism. Right-of-centre goverments will be elected with a mandate for danda and straight talk. Quietly, immigration from latin america. china and india will be encouraged in place of the believers.

And so it goes...

teshah sir:
i was referring to Blasphemy punishment in Shariah Law as Naqshbandi also pointed out.

Pakistani blasphemy laws can be modified by the state and hopefully it will happen one day.

ballukhan:
That seems to be the case.

omar_r_quraishi:
in the legendary words of Mohammad`s alter-ego:
109.006: To you be your Way, and to me mine.





:

Re: 78
``It is because, once criticism of this excellent individual is allowed, the floodgates will open, and people will feel free to start openly discussing and criticizing his MANY heinous actions.``

indeed. this is why the intensity of Hellfire for punishment of naysayers increase in direct proportion to the level of incredulity with which they approach Islam

:-)

believe firmly from the core of my heart and mind that publishing Prophet`s cartoons or any other religious cartoons are hate crimes, reflecting the extreme and cruel hatred those who created and published the cartoons have toward Prophet Muhammed and Islam.
They say that their interpretation of democracy differ from that of ours. But a democracy can’t function without freedom of speech - and if one group or another is able to determine what can or cannot be said, then you don’t have freedom of speech and you can’t claim to be a democracy.

In Denmark, you can speak out about Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Islam, or any other issue that motivates you and - unless you are advocating violence - no-one will stop you. But, if you want to enjoy the right to say what you like regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others, then you have to accept that others have the same right to say things that you don’t want to hear.

{{{{Now, most recent report on this issue is, some people sent humiliating cartoons of Jesus to the same Danish news paper to publish, which they rejected based on bleshphamy and accountability.}}} and sensitivity of the issue.

So, this is the hypocrisy of Europe.............................................
But, even if they do or don`t care about other`s feelings, their publications were useless and stupid to create such a chaos. I suggest, all muslim countries should ban the products of Denmark.

PS:- It is not that I am emphasising on Jesus`s cartoons publications, but, i am merely pointing out the exact intentions of Danish media. I will be equally offended if they will publish any prophet`s cartoons.

Freedom is the core of the democracy, it is the right to lives, liberty, human happiness, dignity. All these rights are safeguarded by democratic institution. Free Press is the basic foundation for democratic mindset. Press is feared, but, this fear must be out of respect and faith of different people as the security guards. Now, in an uninhibited press, there is no pre censorship. This has put more responsibility on the shoulders of press for the principles of collective responsibility and accountibility.Even in democratic constitution, there are dos and don`ts under executive, legislature and judiciary institutions, same way press has specific role and is expected to functions under guidelines. If, they disregard these guidelines,there will be chaos and jungle kaa kanoon.I am all with total freedom of press and freedom of expression, press deserves it`s own freedom to work for the betterment of society.But, freedom of press must accompany a sense of accountability, sense of responsibility with subjective fairness and analysis of freedom. Freedom of press is for society, for people to be well informed of the facts via a medium called press, again for the well-being of the society. Absolutely not for the restlessness or not to create havoc and disruption. Press doesn`t deserve freedom, it is people who deserve this freedom. Press is for people. So, if, well-being of people in any way is being threatened, damaged and disruptive, then press should reconsider it`s freedom ... it means it is not serving it`s right purpose. Press freedom is more of respect of faith, and we expect press to use this right of freedom with more responsibility and restraints in the issues of social, national and international integrity to abide by ,``self-censor`` policy. Freedom of press is a right to be given to the people of the country, not a license to hurt and hound and ultimately kill innocent people. I believe press cannot be insensitive to peoples needs in hurting and hounding them illogically.

With provision of ,``Law of defamation,`` can help people in having fast judicial system against intentional character assassinating press and also against mutual responsibility to humiliate others faiths and beliefs and religions. Again, greater responsibility to make sure freedom of press is acting judicially and cautiously lies with in the press itself.

Printing Islamic central figures cartoons for the sole purpose of humiliation of Muslims is the abuse of press freedom. Now, some people raise the issue, that Muslims should have reforms in themselves, they are not right, they are not worth it, they are weak, they shouldn`t do this, they shouldn`t do that, bah, bah, bah..................................

This is absolutely NOT the question of how Muslims should be or shouldn`t be. The whole point is, press freedom should be more responsible in self censoring controversial issues, and exclusively the ones, which lead to killings of innocent people and dismantling and disrupting their lives.................................................................You abuse people`s emotion and then expect them to stay calm.................No way.

Every other religion (other than islam) has its icons displayed in a variety of (objectionable to some) ways. How about a broadway play with Jesus having sex with Judas. Been done. India`s most famous (muslim) painter uses hindu dieties as subjects.

But in other case does a cartoon published in an obscure Norwegian paper in Sep 2005 gain wide publicity and affect remote corners of Afghanistan.

I dont see how muslims can coexist in pluralistic societies if they are not willing to be open to satire and criticism.

The US media unfortunately has resorted to a lot of self censorship on this issue. Even some article on Newsweek has been taken off line.

NEW YORK, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The editors of a New York alternative newspaper which drew criticism last year for making light of Pope John Paul`s failing health resigned on Wednesday over what they called their managers` refusal to publish controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

The cartoons, one of which showed the Prophet Mohammad with a turban resembling a bomb, have sparked fury from some Muslims and violent protests at Danish embassies and other European targets in the Middle East. For many Muslims, Islam forbids images of the Prophet.

In an article on the New York Observer`s Web site on Wednesday, Harry Siegel said that he and three colleagues on the editorial board of the New York Press resigned after being ordered not to print the cartoons in an issue dedicated to the controversy.

``New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles,`` Siegel wrote.

Peter Polimino, general manager of the New York Press, said the images were not critical to allowing readers to make an informed opinion on the issue and publishing them could ``further fan the flame of a volatile situation.``

``We came to the same conclusion as many other responsible newspapers and media outlets that have chosen to not run the Danish cartoons,`` Polimino said in a statement.

The cartoons were first published by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September but the dispute erupted in earnest last month and several European newspapers have reprinted them in what they say is a defense of free speech.

Moderate Muslim groups have condemned the violence and urged restraint.

Only a handful of U.S. newspapers have reprinted the cartoons, which have been circulated widely on the Internet.

The New York Press is a small alternative publication with a history of needling authority. Last year it came under fire for making light of the failing health of Pope John Paul II in a column headlined ``The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope.`` Then-editor Jeff Koyen was reprimanded and chose to quit rather than accept a suspension.

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.
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.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1703501,00.html

Re: #82 by Raw_Dust

[indeed. this is why the intensity of Hellfire for punishment of naysayers increase in direct proportion to the level of incredulity with which they approach Islam ]



The intellectual - and thereby the rational - foundation of Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that Islam is the truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the Muslim`s imagination, precisely because Islam coincides in his mind with the irresistible logic of things.``27
This insight elucidates many things which those who deal with Muslims on a regular basis can readily observe. It explains why Muslim apologetic defense of Islam is so often very elementary, even childish, in its presentation, and often quickly breaks down into name-calling against the infidel who has refuted Islamic arguments. It enlightens us as to why Muslims will loudly trumpet the ``logic`` and ``rationality`` of Islam while simultaneously defending their faith with circular reasoning and other errors of logic. This is why Muslims can, without any apparent irony, claim that Islam is a ``religion of peace``, even when the testimony of both history and current events bellows the opposite. For most Muslims, the idea that an infidel could reject Islam because of a sincere concern for knowing the truth is absolutely inconceivable. Hence, the infidel must be lying when he or she present facts and arguments against Islam, and the infidel must be an especially tricky liar when the facts and arguments cannot be answered by the Muslim. Hence, the resort to taqiyya to turn aside infidel lies so that the logic of truth, a priori defined as anything Islamic, will stand firm.

So all good Muslims are boycotting Danish products.

This is great news!

Now, what every country has to do is to publish those cartoons in their newspapers. That would lead to the total boycott of the world by the Muslims.

They wouldn`t then buy spare parts for their factories from anybody. Their factories would stop functioning. They wouldn`t be able to make any pesticides or fertilizers. Their food production would go down. Diseases would increase, what with their inability to make vaccines or antibiotics.

We might actually be rid of Mohammad`s scourge in a couple of decades.

Hey, let us go for it!

Re: # 79

Sadna, I never quite understand the point of your questions. You ask intelligent people to ``give comments`` on issues that really have only one correct answer, as if hoping that they`ll trap themselves into saying something that you can gloat upon and twist in your next interact. Next you`ll be asking me if I approve of the suicide bombing that took place in NWFP on Ashura. This kind of sly trickery really doesn`t impress me much and I wish you`d give it a rest.

``Next you`ll be asking me if I approve of the suicide bombing that took place in NWFP on Ashura. This kind of sly trickery really doesn`t impress me much and I wish you`d give it a rest.``

No she did not ask you about suicide bombing but anyone can. If there is only one correct answer to a question, then say it out loud. Certifying yourself as one of the `inteliigent people` does not impress anyone at all. Actually somebody to speculate on what Allah did with his angels during the earthquake seems utterly childish.

However once you claim to have that knowldedge, it is logical to ask your opinion about Allah`s will about Danes and Muslims losing lives over cartoons. Are there more than one correct answer to my questions? If so, please tell us all. Do you want me to repeat the questions? Are you strong enough to look at the cartoons now?

In a country, where millions can not afford hydrogenated oil, to complain of addiction to imported Danish butter smacks of spoiled rich feudal brats. Does Pakistan need Maoists?

You have had too much of Lurpak butter for one lifetime. Give it a rest.

#89
Huh? Your article is about the offense caused by cartoons about Mohammad. This guy`s been condemned to death for such an offense yet I`m the problem here. Good for you.

this article gives some interesting background info on Mohammad`s iconography historically and avoids framing the issue as pro- or anti-freespeech.

---

article link


CULTURE CLASH

Bonfire of the Pieties
Islam prohibits neither images of Muhammad nor jokes about religion.




BY AMIR TAHERI
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

``The Muslim Fury,`` one newspaper headline screamed. ``The Rage of Islam Sweeps Europe,`` said another. ``The clash of civilizations is coming,`` warned one commentator. All this refers to the row provoked by the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper four months ago. Since then a number of demonstrations have been held, mostly--though not exclusively--in the West, and Scandinavian embassies and consulates have been besieged.

But how representative of Islam are all those demonstrators? The ``rage machine`` was set in motion when the Muslim Brotherhood--a political, not a religious, organization--called on sympathizers in the Middle East and Europe to take the field. A fatwa was issued by Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Brotherhood sheikh with his own program on al-Jazeera. Not to be left behind, the Brotherhood`s rivals, Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party) and the Movement of the Exiles (Ghuraba), joined the fray. Believing that there might be something in it for themselves, the Syrian Baathist leaders abandoned their party`s 60-year-old secular pretensions and organized attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and Beirut.


The Muslim Brotherhood`s position, put by one of its younger militants, Tariq Ramadan--who is, strangely enough, also an adviser to the British home secretary--can be summed up as follows: It is against Islamic principles to represent by imagery not only Muhammad but all the prophets of Islam; and the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. Both claims, however, are false.
There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Muhammad or anyone else. When it spread into the Levant, Islam came into contact with a version of Christianity that was militantly iconoclastic. As a result some Muslim theologians, at a time when Islam still had an organic theology, issued ``fatwas`` against any depiction of the Godhead. That position was further buttressed by the fact that Islam acknowledges the Jewish Ten Commandments--which include a ban on depicting God--as part of its heritage. The issue has never been decided one way or another, and the claim that a ban on images is ``an absolute principle of Islam`` is purely political. Islam has only one absolute principle: the Oneness of God. Trying to invent other absolutes is, from the point of view of Islamic theology, nothing but sherk, i.e., the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One.

The claim that the ban on depicting Muhammad and other prophets is an absolute principle of Islam is also refuted by history. Many portraits of Muhammad have been drawn by Muslim artists, often commissioned by Muslim rulers. There is no space here to provide an exhaustive list, but these are some of the most famous:

A miniature by Sultan Muhammad-Nur Bokharai, showing Muhammad riding Buraq, a horse with the face of a beautiful woman, on his way to Jerusalem for his M`eraj or nocturnal journey to Heavens (16th century); a painting showing Archangel Gabriel guiding Muhammad into Medina, the prophet`s capital after he fled from Mecca (16th century); a portrait of Muhammad, his face covered with a mask, on a pulpit in Medina (16th century); an Isfahan miniature depicting the prophet with his favorite kitten, Hurairah (17th century); Kamaleddin Behzad`s miniature showing Muhammad contemplating a rose produced by a drop of sweat that fell from his face (19th century); a painting, ``Massacre of the Family of the Prophet,`` showing Muhammad watching as his grandson Hussain is put to death by the Umayyads in Karbala (19th century); a painting showing Muhammad and seven of his first followers (18th century); and Kamal ul-Mulk`s portrait of Muhammad showing the prophet holding the Quran in one hand while with the index finger of the other hand he points to the Oneness of God (19th century).

Some of these can be seen in museums within the Muslim world, including the Topkapi in Istanbul, and in Bokhara and Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and Haroun-Walat, Iran (a suburb of Isfahan). Visitors to other museums, including some in Europe, would find miniatures and book illuminations depicting Muhammad, at times wearing his Meccan burqa (cover) or his Medinan niqab (mask). There have been few statues of Muhammad, although several Iranian and Arab contemporary sculptors have produced busts of the prophet. One statue of Muhammad can be seen at the building of the U.S. Supreme Court, where the prophet is honored as one of the great ``lawgivers`` of mankind.

There has been other imagery: the Janissaries--the elite of the Ottoman army--carried a medallion stamped with the prophet`s head (sabz qaba). Their Persian Qizilbash rivals had their own icon, depicting the head of Ali, the prophet`s son-in-law and the first Imam of Shiism. As for images of other prophets, they run into millions. Perhaps the most popular is Joseph, who is presented by the Quran as the most beautiful human being created by God.

Now to the second claim, that the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. That is true if we restrict the Muslim world to the Brotherhood and its siblings in the Salafist movement, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda. But these are all political organizations masquerading as religious ones. They are not the sole representatives of Islam, just as the Nazi Party was not the sole representative of German culture. Their attempt at portraying Islam as a sullen culture that lacks a sense of humor is part of the same discourse that claims ``suicide martyrdom`` as the highest goal for all true believers.
The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads as the answer to satirists. Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade. Both Arabic and Persian literature, the two great literatures of Islam, are full of examples of ``laughing at religion,`` at times to the point of irreverence. Again, offering an exhaustive list is not possible. But those familiar with Islam`s literature know of Ubaid Zakani`s ``Mush va Gorbeh`` (Mouse and Cat), a match for Rabelais when it comes to mocking religion. Sa`adi`s eloquent soliloquy on behalf of Satan mocks the ``dry pious ones.`` And Attar portrays a hypocritical sheikh who, having fallen into the Tigris, is choked by his enormous beard. Islamic satire reaches its heights in Rumi, where a shepherd conspires with God to pull a stunt on Moses; all three end up having a good laugh.

Islamic ethics is based on ``limits and proportions,`` which means that the answer to an offensive cartoon is a cartoon, not the burning of embassies or the kidnapping of people designated as the enemy. Islam rejects guilt by association. Just as Muslims should not blame all Westerners for the poor taste of a cartoonist who wanted to be offensive, those horrified by the spectacle of rent-a-mob sackings of embassies in the name of Islam should not blame all Muslims for what is an outburst of fascist energy.

Mr. Taheri is the author of ``L`Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes`` (Editions Complexe, 2002).

Re: # 92
Many thanks R_D, another excellent article by Mr Taheri.

PS Bina Shah

I suggest you make it a habit of stating your pov fearlessly without waiting for a sympathetic or honest audience.

There are many benefits of this. For one, that is necessary if a society is to attain any sort of freedom of expression being discussed here. For another, it is much easier to misinterpret your silence than it is to misinterpret your words. In this case, your evasion can be (possibly wrongly) interpreted to mean you don`t wish to speak against a death sentence handed out for blasphemy.

Of course that might even be true in which case this whole discussion should be about respect for the Prophet not about Western norms of freedom of religion or speech.

The fact remains, by publishing a cartoon, a newspaper in Europe advertantly or inadvertantly took a stand against death for blasphemy. I salute that newspaper for it. In contrast people in Pakistan who are nursing their feelings after being offended by that newspaper should just lump it - they are not going to die from being offended. The guy sentenced to death gets more meaningful support from the newspaper`s stance on cartoons than from his compatriots` hurt feelings.

warpster#85:

``I dont see how muslims can coexist in pluralistic societies if they are not willing to be open to satire and criticism.``

I think that it is too simplistic a statement in the context of the present controversy. The cartoons were published by the Danish newspaper not for satire or to be funny but with the clear intention to provoke and offend. The cartoons were republished in the European papers, on the other hand, as a reaction to the protests and burnings and in sympathy with the Danes; you could call this a reaffirmation of their cultural values on their part.

aquarius#86:
``In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.``

The editor of the Danish newspaper, Fleming Rose, had a two-point response to this accusation:

1. He was not the editor when the earlier incident happened.

2. The Mohammad cartoons were published in the context of an atmosphere in Denmark where their freedom of expression was constrained by the fear of the terror created by Muslims. The editor of the newspaper, therefore, solicited cartoons to deal with this atmosphere of fear head-on.