How to sell your soul and your country and get nothing in return

[fpb]

There used to be a nasty little joke going around about the more prejudiced sections of the English public: "Heard the last about (whatever war was going on at the time)? Italy has surrendered just in case." I do not seem to hear it any more; probably because people have learned better than to say it in my presence

Comments

[kikei]

however, the thing is, even if you are not a hardliner, drawing a likeness of the Prophet Mohammed (and of any divinely-appointed leaded such as any of the preceding prophets or of the 12 righteous Imams as the Prophet's successors) is actually a grave sin. However, that is not to say we don't have our Islamic magazines and that they aren't illustrated. We have a very beautiful one called Mujtaba, targeting children, and it is heavily illustrated. The only thing is that the faces of religious personalities are obscured and replaced by a representation of the light of Allah that was a characteristic of every Chosen person. Those who wanted the illustrations - and those who did them - could have taken this route, and the fuss would have been unfounded because it is only the strictest of the strict who would have frowned upon such images, since they would not have even shown the Prophet's face. I shall scan in some pages from the magazines that we have to show you... those are very beatiful illustrations, and Mujtaba magazine is sold around the world and is actually being distributed under the auspices of the World Federation of the Shi'a Ithna Asheri Jamaat. There has never been a fuss because the facial likenesses have never been produced, which is what should have been done in this case.

in the case of the obscene cartoons that were published - I do not know who drew them. If it was a muslim, then he has committed a vile sin. If it was not a muslim, then I would say that it may have been an attempt to discredit the religion. This is a parallel to the incident on Australia's 'Comedy Inc' where they made fun of the rituals of prayer by depicting women praying and providing voice overs stating, 'this is the way we bow to our husbands when they beat us' and 'this is how we open our wombs' etc. However, while a large percentage of the muslim population in Australia was outraged, on futher examination, it can be seen that these kinds of expression stem from a lack of understanding and perhaps a lack of willingness to understand. Skimming the surface of the issue and using it to draw attention to what may seem nonsensical to those outside the religion has been a tactic that's been around for ages, but it doesn't make it any less wrong.

On one hand, I do think that the Danish government was right not to interfere. As a journalism student, I'm fully aware of what rights the press is supposed to have, and that there are very few countries who truly uphold the freedom of expression. However, at the same time, I support the sentiments of the Norwegian government because they're upholding another kind of right - the right to be whoever you are without fear of being persecuted, the right of freedom of religion, the rights that every person would like to have when it comes to race and religion. If this had been another situation, and it had been muslims who were disrespecting Christianity, Judaism or any other religion... my views would have been the same.

Just my little opinion on the topic.

-Kiks

[fpb]

Excuse me, Kiks, the issue is: this was work done by non-Muslims, for non-Muslims. If you presume to complain about that, you may as well demand that we pull down all our churches, since they feature all sorts of images of Issa, Ibrahim, Daoud, Suleiman, Ayub, etc... (Jesus, Abraham, King David, King Solomon, Job, etc.) This is neither more nor less than an attempt to influence the way we speak to each other, and as such, wholly unacceptable.

On the other hand, may I say that I appreciate your reasonable tone.