Muhammed drawings and free speech

[ughaibu]

It's no revelation that freedom of speech has limits, copyrighted materials are a large body of examples.

[Qfwfq]

That it is opening up to other perspectives and historical allusions is good.

Now that it's getting into the history of Zionism, I think it may get out of hand with biased statements and biased replies.

 

The protests are certainly about far more than those cartoons, it's no surprised if USA and Israel are being mentioned by the demonstrators.

 

I'll be ignoring, from now on. Have fun.

[Buffy]

Oh boy, I saw this one come across the rss feed a few days ago and regretted not having the time to join in, and it sure looks like you folks are havin' fun!

 

I read through the entire thread and most of what I thought would transpire has. Not so oddly to those of you who know me, I mostly agree with Tormod, C1ay and very much Orby. Some observations:

• A quote I can't find right now from a Palestinian who went nameless at the time, so it doesn't really matter: Its a part of Arab culture to 1) overstate the magnitude of offenses (as an excuse for why the Israelis shouldn't get so upset about the offensive statements about Zionism, etc), and 2) portray themselves as victims ("succumb to victimology" in right-wing-speak, or "out-Jew the Jews" ("we've suffered more than the chosen people so we're the *real* chosen people!") in cynical Holy Land historio-theology). Supposedly, you shouldn't take offense at your embassies being burned down, its just "over-statement"....
  
• As hinted at in several posts above, this "event"--those pictures were published uh, 5 months ago--is being heavily exploited by various groups for political purposes--the only violence has reallly been in Syria (where the government probably bused in the demonstrators to get attention away from accusations of murdering Lebanese political leaders), Iran (ditto, but diverting from nuke-bomb attention), and Lebanon (where the demonstrations probably fomented by the Syria-Hezbollah (read Iran) Axis did the busing in of demonstrators, has still been balanced by peaceful demonstrations by everyone else there). The Arab world has in fact had many very serious rifts *exposed* by this. There is no singular "Muslim reaction" to the cartoons, it is multifaceted and complex.
  
• Freedom of speech is painful. It is also almost unknown in the Arab world. Much of the virulence of Arab cartoons that are just as offensive to Jews and some Americans, is not too different from what you used to see in the Berkeley Barb in the 60's, or screams of "Commie" or other similarly devastating epithets thrown at now mostly-revered personages like Upton Sinclair and Jonathan Swift. I actually agree with last week's cover of The Economist that pushing blindly for democracy in the Arab world is one (of the few) things that Bush has gotten right: its going to be painful and ugly for all of us ("may you live in interesting times") but in the long run (just like most economic shocks), its probably for the best.
  

Those of you who like black and white solutions to everything are prolly vexed by this thread. All I can do is repeat my oft-stated admonition: read Melville....

 

“Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!”

Buffy

[Tormod]

[*]As hinted at in several posts above, this "event"--those pictures were published uh, 5 months ago--is being heavily exploited by various groups for political purposes--the only violence has reallly been in Syria (where the government probably bused in the demonstrators to get attention away from accusations of murdering Lebanese political leaders), Iran (ditto, but diverting from nuke-bomb attention), and Lebanon (where the demonstrations probably fomented by the Syria-Hezbollah (read Iran) Axis did the busing in of demonstrators, has still been balanced by peaceful demonstrations by everyone else there).

 

Hey Buffy, good to see you join the party.

 

Just wanted to add that there has also been violence in Afghanistan, where Norwegian soldiers (part of the UN Peace Keeping forces) were attacked a few days ago in what has been declared an "act of war" by the Norwegian government. 6 people (all Afghans) were killed as far as I know.

[Tormod]

Now that it's getting into the history of Zionism, I think it may get out of hand with biased statements and biased replies.

 

The protests are certainly about far more than those cartoons, it's no surprised if USA and Israel are being mentioned by the demonstrators.

 

No it's no surprise and in fact underlines the point several of us have made from the beginning, that the reaction to the cartoons are NOT reactions to the cartoons.

 

The cartoons are merely a useful trigger for violent revolt, a revolt I believe is not a random occurence but highly organized. We may have seen only the beginning. The initial reactions were small, but half a million people marching is not something that just happens.

 

Why, for example, was the mob in Syria (which has a well developed security police corps and has a reputation of being extremely violent) allowed to burn down the Norwegian and Danish embassies but stopped before they reached the French embassy? The police in Syria would *never* let anyone burn an embassy, let alone two, unless they found it acceptable.

 

The issue of the cartoons as a free speech was conveniently used by you to claim that those of us who see it as such are ignorant of the larger issues at hand, and that we in general must understand that the cartoons would trigger violent reactions (implicitly suggesting that we are responsible for it). You seemed to imply that those of us who did not see that the cartoons were offensive were, in fact, anti-Islam and ignorant of the fact that reactions would occur - whereas I have been mostly interested in finding out *why* the reactions are so violent, why they suddenly occured FIVE months after the printing in Jyllandsposten, and why the upsurge in violence happened after a tiny, right-wing Christian Norwegian paper with a handful of readers happened to publish them.

 

I'll be ignoring, from now on. Have fun.

 

Fine.

[Tormod]

It's no revelation that freedom of speech has limits, copyrighted materials are a large body of examples.

 

Copyright has nothing to do with freedom of speech - if you think so, please start a new thread on it as it is irrelevant to this discussion.

[Buffy]

Oh and...

 

Comparisons to yelling "fire" in a theater usually completely obscure the issue of immediacy of threat-harm-reaction being the reason it is "restricted." There's much consternation about stifling "hate speech" here in America, although its codified in many European countries ("Holocaust denial" is illegal in Germany, but not here), and oddly, its a *conservative* opinion to be *for* protecting "hate speech" here. This is why more progressive conservatives like questor avoid trying to censor things like "Piss Christ" which has become the canonical example of this problem in America. No matter how offensive, its been clear that the people with truly offensive views--like our long history of KKK and neo-Nazi types--never really ever get any where *unless* you make a big deal about their foolish rantings.

 

If you don't like what someone says, *don't give them free advertising*!!!

 

"It is better to be thought a fool,"

Buffy

[Qfwfq]

Welcome ho Buffy!!!! :angel:

 

Well Tormod, we seem to keep agreeing but misunderstanding our agreement, and my ignore will be specific to a certain type of statement about historic events concerning 20th century Zionism (I'm still chewing the cud from some of the straw men of well more than a year ago!) and if you reply to me then you don't truly consider it fine for me to step out! :hihi:

 

Although, I am also busy, I'm trying to work out an improvement to the Newton-Raphson iterative method, might even publish it if it seems to improve convergence...

 

Why, for example, was the mob in Syria (which has a well developed security police corps and has a reputation of being extremely violent) allowed to burn down the Norwegian and Danish embassies but stopped before they reached the French embassy? The police in Syria would *never* let anyone burn an embassy, let alone two, unless they found it acceptable.

I dunno maybe France has a nuke and Scandinavians don't. :rain:

 

The issue of the cartoons as a free speech was conveniently used by you to claim that those of us who see it as such are ignorant of the larger issues at hand, and that we in general must understand that the cartoons would trigger violent reactions (implicitly suggesting that we are responsible for it).

I tried to point out misconceptions posted by some.

 

You seemed to imply that those of us who did not see that the cartoons were offensive were, in fact, anti-Islam and ignorant of the fact that reactions would occur

Not quite that, I was implying that publishing them was a contribution to hatred based on ethnic-racial-national and cultural-religious grounds. I don't see why over here people only talk about blasphemy, which of course the fundamentalists mention most.

 

Blasphemy alone annoys me, but doesn't enrage me, and only when someone is offending a religion of which they don't consider themselves. Today I'm listening to Clemencic's CDs of the Carmina Burana many of which are highly goliardic, these performances of them are very in line with this, the mock functions even have rude noises in the background as a finishing touch. Don't purchase if you're a bigot.

 

whereas I have been mostly interested in finding out *why* the reactions are so violent, why they suddenly occured FIVE months after the printing in Jyllandsposten, and why the upsurge in violence happened after a tiny, right-wing Christian Norwegian paper with a handful of readers happened to publish them.

I suspect Hamas was holding its horses during the election campaign.

[CraigD]

If I'm not mistaken, didn't Egypt, Syria, and a couple of other countries Attack Israel in 1967? (forget real date, The 6 day War ) Only to get their ASSES' handed to them! and subsequently they lost the Gaza strip and Golan heights? Then they're Still pissed? :angel: ( thats like me throwing the first punch in a fight with all my friends there to help, and when everyone gets beat up, I cry Unfair! )

Though Egypt, Jordan, and Syria undeniably had their asses handed to them 6/5–11/1967, the history of war in and around Israel is not quite so simple as this.

 

Israel was at war of some degree with effectively all of its neighbors from the moment of its independence from the UK on 5/14-15/1948. The people of what would become the state of Israel had been, since the mid 1930s, in a continuous state of low-intensity guerilla war with their Arab neighbors and UK colonial overseers. This was an ugly time, for while the UK protected the roughly 500,000 Jews in that was then called Palestine from the hostile Arab majority, and prevented interference from neighboring Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, they also struggled to limit Jewish emigration at a time when refused Jewish emigrants were going to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps.

 

The UK plan for Israel went through several significant changes, often summed up by key documents

• 1917 – The Balfour Declaration – Create a “national home for the Jewish People” in Palestine
  
• 1922 – The Churchill white paper – “Home” =/= “state” – Jews in Palestine should be citizens of the same state as the indigenous Arabs – “the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian”
  
• 1922 – The Palestinian Mandate – The short-lived League of Nations makes it the UK’s responsibility to create a stable, single state of Palestine containing both Arabs and Jews.
  
• 1936-1938 – The Peel Commission and the Woodhead Commission – Partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states
  
• 1939 – The MacDonald White Paper – Back to a single Jewish & Arab state.
  
• 1947 – UN Resolution 181 – Back to partitioning – plus, the UK is no longer responsible for the whole mess as of 5/15/1948
  

To understand all this waffling over a combined vs. separate Jewish and Arab states, it helps to consider UK and US popular attitudes. Following VE Day (5/8/1945), the general public was confronted with the reality of the Holocaust. The idea that a few hundreds of thousands of European Jews, many concentration camp survivors, left in a single majority Arab state, might again face genocide, was clearly unacceptable. The idea of a separate, Jewish-only state, once unacceptable because it seemed oppressive to the indigenous Arabs, now seemed the lesser of 2 evils.

 

IMHO, the partitioning of Jordan into separate Jewish and Arab states, which continues to this day in such doctrines as the 2002 US “road map for peace”, is a terrible and tragic blunder. I believe that, had the original single state plan been adhered to, Jews and Arabs in Palestine would have become good neighbors, just as, historically, Jews and people of many religions and ethnicities are good neighbors throughout Europe and America. The real question now, I believe, is whether it’s possible to reach such a state, or if generations of hatred and bloodshed have made this impossible. I’m hopeful that human nature, regardless of religion and ethnicity, is just and forgiving, and that eventually the borders separating people, cultural and geographical, will give way to people’s natural inclination to “all just get along.”

 

I fear that hard-liners on all sides of current conflicts, who call for violent, uncompromising solutions to problems fueled by hatred and violence, are hurting, not helping this natural, healing process.

[ughaibu]

Tormod: A person using copyrighted material without permission is liable to legal repercussions, they have been granted no right to use such material, they have no freedom to use it, this is definitely a freedom of speech issue.

[questor]

the hate Muslims feel toward the US and Israel is merely a focus for their general hatred for almost everything and everybody. they hate because they consider themselves victims. if it weren't for the US, they would be wealthy and happy. they have never considered that they alone are responsible for their own shortcomings and their miserable lives. there is considerable wealth under their soil and they have the choice to join the progress of the world, so what is their reply? hate, murder, riot, and barbarism. they deserve to be at the bottom of the food chain.

[Tormod]

Well Tormod, we seem to keep agreeing but misunderstanding our agreement

 

Exactly. :)

 

if you reply to me then you don't truly consider it fine for me to step out! :rain:

 

Exactly! :cup:

 

I dunno maybe France has a nuke and Scandinavians don't. :confused:

 

Exactly! :hihi:

 

I suspect Hamas was holding its horses during the election campaign.

 

Exactly! :angel:

[Tormod]

Tormod: A person using copyrighted material without permission is liable to legal repercussions, they have been granted no right to use such material, they have no freedom to use it, this is definitely a freedom of speech issue.

 

Please - this is a different issue. It is well worth a new thread but please keep it out of this one.

[Qfwfq]

:angel:

[TheFaithfulStone]

What is this thread meant to be about?

"You do not screw around with God's Chosen People" but screwing around with muslims, even suicidal terrorists, is everyman's birthright??

 

The thread is about free speech and Islam, and whether a few overreacting nut jobs should be able to hold the Western World hostage.

 

That post was a joke.

 

TFS

[there reallly needs to be a /sarcasm tag]

[Qfwfq]

There are plenty of cute little icons! :hihi: :rain: :angel:

:cup:

 

In any case remember: We are sitting on a powder keg. Absolutely no smoking or naked flames within 10 AU. All electric devices must be compliant with intrinsic safety standards and any apparatus must be antideflagrating. Any violations will justify immediate arrest and removal.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Hey! It had a wink! :angel: A wink I say!

 

TFS