Cartoon Violence...

Feb 11, 2006 18:39

Under a cut because I'm sure not everyone is interested.

I prefer Wile E. Coyote's idea of cartoon violence... )

freedom of expression, politics

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Comments 6

perlgirlju February 12 2006, 00:02:49 UTC
Was it the Dutch PM or the Danish PM that they wanted to apologize? I thought it was the Danish one.

One of the things that is annoying me about this is that they are bombing embassies and the like, which are government institutions when their issue is with a non-governmental (as far as I know) newspaper.

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smithing_chick February 12 2006, 00:56:10 UTC
You're right- I should have said Danish, not Dutch. I'll edit it.

I think part of why they're bombing embassies is that they don't understand that the media is not controlled by the state. Hence how they started things off by demanding the PM punish the newspaper in the first place.

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romandruid February 12 2006, 18:55:30 UTC
Yes, this whole thing has me worried -- I'm afraid things will continue to escalate out of control. As much as I can see how the cartoonist was making a valid point (and the Islamic reaction to it seems to bear it out), he chose to do it in a way that is inherently offensive in the extreme to Muslims, given the ban on depictions of Allah. The paradox is that both sides are in the wrong, and both sides have a degree of validity.

However, since the gauntlet has been thrown, who's going to walk away from it now? Ah, humanity, I mourn for thee...

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smithing_chick February 13 2006, 02:10:36 UTC
None of the original cartoons were of Allah- a couple were meant to be of Mohammed, some just appeared to be of generic Islamic men. And we get back to the fact that the worst ones weren't even published in the paper- the one of Mohammed with the bomb in his turban being one. Those were published by the Muslim extremists themselves specifically to foment the anger of the Muslim community.

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romandruid February 13 2006, 11:37:45 UTC
My mistake -- I didn't actually see them. (Nor do I want to.) My point was that Muslims consider it blasphemous to depict Mohammed or Allah at all.

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smithing_chick February 13 2006, 17:42:06 UTC
Except that's not entirely true, either-- only certain branches consider it blasphemy to depict Them. In less conservative branches, such images are fairly common. (I've been trying to find one of the articles on that specific point so I can link to it but can't seem to find it now It started of with the author- a Muslim- talking about how excited he was to find a picture of Mohammed's daughter in a shop only to have the shopkeeper tell him that it was a young Mohammed).

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