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February 13, 2006
Mohammed Cartoon Conflict Grows
As Wikipedia.org notes, "what started with the problem of a Danish author trying to find an illustrator for his forthcoming book about Islam has become an international crisis. It has led to violence, arrests, international tensions, and a renewed debate about the scope of free speech and the place of Muslims in the West, and the West in Muslim countries."
Among the 12 Mohammed cartoons, the most controversial is Mohammed wearing a bomb as his turban.
Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen has refused to apologize for the publication of the cartoons as Muslim leaders have asked him to, and now two armed Muslim groups -- the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committee -- have threatened to "harm Danes, French and Norwegians in the Palestinian territories after newspapers in France and Norway opted to reprint the Danish cartoons" (DW World).
Besides spawning violent debate and bloody riots, the Mohammed cartoons have also inspired a controversial Holocaust cartoon competition, with aims to challenge how free the Western world really is about speech and expression.
Is the Mohammed cartoon conflict centered around legitimate debate about freedom of speech and respecting other cultures?
Posted by Tuck at February 13, 2006 07:32 PM
Comments
I am Christian. If someone made derogatory comments about Jesus or created distasteful drawings of Him, it would bother me, but I wouldn't be rioting in the streets and threatening the offending party with death. If I felt that it was worth the effort to answer the disparaging remark or drawing, I would do so in a rational way. After all, I look to God for comfort and approval. It's not the other way around. My omnipetent God can take care of Himself. He doesn't need me acting like an wild animal to come to His defense. God says turn the other cheek and that is a wise idea.
This is a freedom of speech issue. Unfortunately, with the good, comes the bad. People with class will usually self censor themselves. Not everyone operates that way, though. If you are offended by something someone has communicated, then you can show your displeasure peacefully.
One of the things that I find as being a double standard is the way the Muslim periodicals routinely depict Jews as blood sucking fiends. They also make no bones that we "infedils" who don't believe in their profit Mohammed, are to be dealt with as second class human beings. If Muslims want the respect of those of us who are not of their faith, then they need to show the same respect to us. I don't believe that they do in many cases.
I am sorry that Muslims have become offended by the cartoons, but I am offended about the situation of Christians in Iraq; how they have been subjugated by Muslims for hundreds of years. I am offended by the view that non-Muslims are considered dhimis, or second class citizens and then treated as such in many Middle Eastern countries. I am concerned that Muslims can actively encourage new converts to Islam, but Christians cannot pursue converts from Islam to Christianity. I am truly angry that some Islamists, in the name of Islam, are no more than terrorists who seem to have the general approval of a large part of the so-called "peaceful" practioners of Islam. Yes, they are terrorists, who glorify the killing of innocents in the name of Islam and Mohammed. These people have no respect for human life, the life that God breathed into each and every one of us. Islam's ideas of jihad and martyrdom have led many a person to hell, not salvation.
They are OFFENDED about pictures of their Prophet. How ironic. I am OFFENDED by the evil that is perpetrated by Islamic extremists in the name of Islam. Did the writer of the cartoon, in drawing his cartoons, kill anyone? NO. The Muslim's are the ones killing people. They are so sensitive to something that is so unimportant in the scheme of things. They burn the Holy Bible in Afganistan, and they shoot up churches in Pakistan, and Iraq. They dishonor a church in Israel by occupying the church and committing violence from within it. They then leave it in a mess. Murdering Jewish and American civilians is considered an act of martyrdom. To kill a Christian Copt in Egypt is like killing an insect. Muslims kill their own in Dafur because they are of the black race and not Arabs. Very little is done by the Muslim dominated countries to address these types of offenses. Personally, I am tired of their hypocrisy.
Posted by: JM at February 19, 2006 03:17 AM
I can understand why the Muslims are upset. The USA, in my view, is the biggest terrorist nation in the world. The USA invaded Iraq REALLY for the oil and money. It doesn't give a hoot about the Iraqi people's "freedom" because Bush used that as an excuse to steal the Iraqis' oil. The American soldiers are just like the Nazis and this so-called "insurgency" are the resistance fighters who don't want occupiers in their country. The USA has killed ten times more Iraqis in 2 years than Saddam killed in 30 years. All killing within an occupied country is the full responsibility of the occupiers no matter who does it or how.
The USA kills 5 million people all over the world every year, including a million Latin American kids under 12 by ruining their water supply to make money. The Israelis also bomb innocent folks at will. Israel today is a Nazi state, and Hamas has nothing to with Al Qaeda. The Israelis are occupying Palestinian land. Hamas are resistance fighters and every suicide bomber is the responsibility of Israel.
In Iraq, the USA can always "change" the government if the Americans don't like the newly-elected Iraqi government. This means that the Americans always overthrow a legally elected government if they don't like the government. The current US government itself wasn't elected legally in 2000 and it slaughtered at least 20 million people in the Third World since then. The Nazi Party was also elected legally by the people and yet in World War Two, they slaughtered millions.
These facts prove that the United States of America is the most evil country in the world. No wonder almost the entire world hates Americans nowadays. Bush takes the blame for most of this worldwide anti-American hatred.
Posted by: gerassi at February 20, 2006 06:18 PM
JM, I agree entirely. In fact, someone else said on these forum that the Islamofascists don't really need an excuse to riot and kill "infidels," and the cartoons are used to redirect the blame. I think that's true and I think most of us understand that fact.
I also think what we're trying to do in Iraq is a noble cause and I believe we are gaining ground, despite the media spin saying otherwise.
Have faith in good prevailing eventually.
Posted by: Ted at February 21, 2006 10:46 AM
JM,
Couldn't have said it any better. I wish some of your common sense would rub off in the middle east.
Posted by: Wayne at February 22, 2006 07:41 PM
gerassi,
What country do you live in? Maybe we could pitch in a buy you a ticket to any country you like as long as you promise to stay there.
Have a nice day and let Freedom Ring!!
Posted by: Wayne at February 23, 2006 06:08 PM
JM makes some very excellent points about how Islam has been hijacked by all these extremist psychos. One person on this site asked why don't the Muslim moderates in the Arab world speak up against the religious fundamentalists. The answer is because the jihadists will kill them as "infidels" if they speak against their radical agenda. So the moderates really don't have a choice but to keep their mouths shut.
Hey Gerassi why don't you move to the f--kin' Middle East and join Al Qaeda if you hate us so much?
Posted by: Henry at February 24, 2006 07:09 PM
Let's hope and pray that civil war between the Shiites and Sunnis doesn't break out in Iraq...for the sake of our men and women in uniform and any other innocent civilians there.
Posted by: Henry at February 24, 2006 08:12 PM
Bravo, JM, excellent points! Gerassi, you are free to go if you don't like it here. Actually, I'll warm up for the anticipated return of D.Jones by dissecting (probably spelled that wrong) your comments point by point. This won't take long.
Yes, the US is in Iraq recreating the government in its own image, to create an economic/trade relationship, but not to steal the oil. How are they supposed to steal it? Clandestine pipeline to secret port with camoflauged tankers? Blaming the Israelis for Palestinian terrorism is a fascinating viewpoint. If you transpose that logic to domestic terrorism, after a fashion, than the college co-ed that gets raped and murdered because she looks so fine in those jeans, brought it on herself? Is it the fault of the wife that her husband abuses her? Good God, do you actually think it is the child's fault that he or she is molested?!? That is the natural, logical outgrowth of that sort of mentality. Stay off the streets, son, you are a threat and menace to peaceful society. Better yet, move to Fallujah. You'd be right at home there.
Posted by: Dave (yep, I'm back) at May 6, 2006 10:07 AM
