Yesterday, the embassies of Denmark and Norway in Syria were attacked by demonstrators and torched.
Today, demonstrators in Lebanon set the Danish consulate in Beirut on fire too.
From the very start, Muslim religious leaders and clerics have been going on and on about this and telling people not to react violently to these cartoons. And from the video footage of the attacks on the Danish consulate in Beirut, we can see a number of religious leaders trying to stop the people from what they’re doing, trying to stand in their way and make them leave.
And all Arab TV channel have been showing a number of Islamic leaders or Imams condemning these actions and attacks against these embassies and consulates.
I too would like to strongly condemn these attacks and say that they are totally unacceptable. Violence is never a solution to anything. It just complicates things more and adds fuel to the fire.
This is not the way Islam, our religion of peace, tells us to respond!
These violent reactions harm our religion more than the cartoons or any disrespect the west could show!
This has to stop!
If the violent response will make the Europeans think twice before attempting something like this again then the violence might not be totally unacceptable. Cartoons about black people are seen as socially unacceptable because they are racist. Cartoons about Jews are socially unacceptable because it’s anti-semitism. But cartoons indicating that Muhammad started a terrorist religion seem to be completely acceptable because, hey, it’s “freedom of expression”, one of the most “cherished fundamental rights of a pluralistic democracy”.
@saad, i don’t think that “the ends justify the means” (that is essentially what you’re saying). In my opinion arabic states are using the justifiable anger of muslims to tell “the west” (and especially the USA) “you need us”, not just that, “you need us to keep those loonies in check”. Thank god, the majority of muslim protestors weren’t violent. And i think it is the right thing for Subzero to express that.
in reply to saad:
what response will make what europeans think twice about what !??? the muslims in lebanon distroyed lebanese property, lebanese homes, streets, cars and churches of their fellow lebanese citizens (by the way, the lebanese christian leaders have already condemned the caricatures very strictly).
so i don’t understand which logic are you using to state that you understand that such acts took place. what would your statement be if you came and found YOUR OWN CAR burned to ashes? muslims have a serious problem with prioritization and with communication. they are hurting their religion more than anyone else is. they are the champions of making bad moves.
lots of muslims have proved, in the streets of beirut today, that they are stupid and ignorant, beyond words.
A link to the history of depictions of the prophet Mohammad (found originally under the comments section of the ‘Black Iris’ blog):
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
It is interesting that Mohammad has apparently been depicted occasionally in the West in the past and these has not caused any furor. Some of the rules government the depiction of Mohammad during different times and among different people is fascinating.
Before all Moslems throw their hands up in outrage at how a newspaper can be so raciast , look at these snopits from the Arab newspapers. Tell me hypocracy doesn’t exsist.
http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/arab/cartoon_arab_press_080702.asp
Jimmy,
When
To Joe,
Those are
In the United States you can nasty comments about people based on their religious or ethnic group without any restrictions excepting a specific threat of violence. You can also make caricatures, even offensive ones against religious figures.
It is true that in some European countries they do have laws against Holocaust denial, probably because the Holocaust was carried out in these countries. I think those laws are stupid. I don’t know if Denmark has such laws. I also know that some countries have laws that prohibit ‘racist incitement,’ I am not a lawyer and cannot tell you how broad in scope these laws are. These are also very stupid and given the degree of organization and relative success of neo-Nazis in countries such as Germany (as opposed to the United States) they are not even terribly effective. I was told by somebody from Denmark that their country does not have laws stating you cannot insult Jewish religion or customs, however.
You can certainly insult Moses.
The fact that some countries have stupid laws is no reason to put even more stupid laws on the books. All such laws should be abolished. It would be better if all countries had similar standards of free speech to what the US offers.
I don’t think the cartoons were very nice and Muslims can use whatever peaceable methods they want to punish Denmark if they wish. It seems silly to blame the Danish government for what private publications do. Why not boycott those who advertise these papers? Why not write letters to these papers? Many Muslims are running around saying that Muslims have had ‘their feelings hurt’ and that this causes ‘them pain.’ I would rather have ‘freedom of press’ though, then ‘freedom from being offended.’
I also recall how blasphemy laws in some countries have been misused. I remember hearing cases in Iran where people who affirmed their belief in Christianity in that country were arrested for violation of Iranian blasphemy laws. Blasphemy laws are a terrible idea. Religious censorship has been tried in the West centuries ago, it was a failure.
M.A.Khadra:
i like the fact that i am being tought a lesson about understanding people’s points of view from someone who thinks that the lebanese and the syrians should have called their embassadors from denmark and that they should have boycotted danish products.
why on earth would they do that?
wake up people!
those people in the streets are to islam what bugs bunny is to formula one.
if you didn’t like the caricatures, you SUE the frickin newpaper. it’s called civilization. lurpak and lego have nothing to do with it.
in the outside world (outsode your arab empires where people are ruled by an inherited legacy of corrupt families living on whores and gold), people do have the right of self expression. it’s a constitutional right. it’s the LAW.
just like the LAW in KSA OBLIGES EVERY WOMAN (muslim or not) to be vieled and emprisonned and treated like an animal. You don’t see people in danemark burning danish streets because danish women in ksa have the right to by unvieled.
and don’t tell me a word about understanding. i have been VERY understanding yesterday, when i was watching sheikhs orchestrasting terror in my streets and setting cars (which were 5 km away from the embassy) on fire.
watching this and controling my anger is called understanding and tolerance.
watching you vehemently defending boycotting lego because you want the world to function according to your rules is totally repugnant.
as a human, i have all the right in the world to express my points of view. you have all the right to be offended and to sue me. period.
jimmy,
A- Are veiled Christian nuns imprisoned and treated like an animal by all churches across the world? The Answer is NO; they choose to follow their religion. A veil brings decency to a woman in ways the likes of you would not even begin to possibly imagine; equally a Muslim woman that follows her religion is enjoying privileges as a woman in ways the likes of you would not even begin to possibly imagine.
B- Speaking of
A- i am sure that you have never been to KSA and have never seen how women are treated and beaten there by religious police. (my brother’s wife has been beaten for drifting 2 meters away from her husband while they were shopping in a mall. so please cut the crap and don’t talk about women’s respect).
i also really agree with you on the fact that women (e.g. in ksa and afghanistan have real privliedges that i can’t see). i love the fact that a man in afghanistan takes away the spare tyre from the trunck of his car before throwing his 8 wives in it.
today, (unlike what used to happen centuries ago), muslims are being raised to hate civilization.
B- the concept of laicity in public schools is an inherited concept that the french have defended with their blood for centuries.
C- the danish government has nothing to do with what a danish newspaper has to say. its constitutional. i’m sorry that you can’t understand that.
your logic is simplistic. if you can’t see that the muslim world needs to enhance its prioritization and communication skills, then pelase, let’s stop this discussion.
don’t preach me about how loving islam is. i know it very well. actually i never said a word about ‘islam’. i love that religion. i only hate the way ‘muslims’ have modified it (they took away all the concepts of openness, love and tolerance) and replaced it with a hating, terror-loving, discriminating version which is being applied for the past 200 to 300 years. and i think people like you have a lot of work to do to teach muslims to communicate better and hate less.
i am just ashamed to see outraged muslims bitching about caricatures, while keeping a hypocrite blind eye on what is happening in their own lands, on their own people. some arab/muslim countries are still living in the stone era.
Dear Jimmy
I am so glad you answered M. A. Khadra.
You are spot on.
Trying to compare nuns to the veil moslem women wear is silly.Anyway nuns wearing their garments aren’t based on anything written in the bible.
Nevertheless women must wear these things in Islam so that the men will not be seduced and we will beat them to death if they dare seduce a man(as you have ponted out this is a common occurance). Yet a man can wear almost anything he likes. Are we to asume women don’t have feelings and don’t sin. What hypocricy.
Also the Koran says you can hit the woman if you are trying to discipline her. Like children they are treated.
Basic psycology tells us the Agressive dominating person who continues to gegrade and dominate another, the other will get used to and accept even blame him/herslf for the actions , rationalising that they deserve it.
Just ask how many women can divorce their husband on any grounds like the men can do to their wives.
Please don’t shovel us crap about the beauty of Islam. Your words are smooth and very flowerly but unfortunately as Jimmy clearly points out Most Moslems and their countries are living in the Stone Age.
But this is only my opinion, which I couldn’t express in most Moslem countries.
There we go jimmy.
I
M.A, i really find that it has been very opaque and unfruitful discussing the subject with you.
i hope i’ll be excused.
I agree completely to the beginning blog diaglogue, islam is peace, not violence. If we are truly defiant and devoted to god, we as muslims will not be antagonized or manipulated in to attacking everytime someone or some countries slander us, this is not a school yard, we cannot fall for tricks into attacking, they say things to hurt and attack us, but when we do the opposite of what they expect, we give them nothing but hollow words. This is not to say that we take all their**** but, we can choose to be victims or we can ignore their stupidty.
I think that above and beyond the question as to whether the Danish cartoons should have been published, there is the question of the response of many in the Muslim word. It simply will not do to say that of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, only a fraction have protested violently. The number of Germans who actually participated in the genocide of Jews was also a small fraction of the German population–but in order for a regime to carry out such actions it required the tacit, passive support of most of the people for the Nazi regime. And it’s in that sense that those of us who are non-Muslims have a deep-seated suspicion that the violence of a few might also enjoy the tacit approval of the many. Would any media outlet in a Muslim country dare to take a survey of public opinion as to whether Muslims believe it to be fully justified and consistent with the tenets of Islam to kill the Danish cartoonists? I suspect the results would be very disheartening to us in the West, who lived through that kind of religious fanaticism for hundreds of years and managed to put it behind us, more or less successfully, for the past 200. That’s why it is entirely disingenuous for “moderate” Muslims to say that these violent acts (and calls to violence such as the Imam who has offered a reward for the decapitation of the offending Danish cartoonist) do not represent the “true” Islam. A religion is more than just an abstract set of beliefs and dogmas inscribed in holy writ. It’s also the actions of the believers. So just as we can say that the Crusades and the Inquisition were representative of Christianity in that they expressed the beliefs and actions of Christians living at that time, we can also say that violent actions against “blasphemers” are probably an accurate representation of Islam as it is lived and believed in by millions of Muslims today. Since Islam came on the scene around 600 years after Christianity, we can only hope the Muslim religion and its followers don’t take 600 years to “catch up” with Christianity in its approach to blasphemers, gender equality, and the will to dominate the state in the name of religion. Of course, with someone like M.A. Khadra, who believes that the teachings of Mohammad are unequivocal, not subject to interpretation, precise and true in every way, and that his understanding of them is THE ONE AND ONLY TRUTH, there’s no basis for discussion–for his beliefs are beyond the pale of rationally held and defensible ideas.
I fail to understand why the dignity of a man who died over 1400 years ago is a matter of your OWN dignity. That man you see was actually a terrorist. You are badly mistaken if you think Islam is a religion of peace..its purely based on hatred and intolerance towards NON-Muslims, and there are several verses in the Quran that order the killing of the “unbelievers”.. You say Muhammad was a very peaceful man, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, I say MY FUCKING ASS. He spent his whole life fighting battles, killing several people, enslaving many, forcefully converting them and treating the non-muslims like SHIT.
He was nothing but a war-monger..the battle of badr, battle of trench, battle of Uhad, the Tabuk expedition..damn u can just go on and on with the endless list of wars he instigated..
Do you think a mass-murderer like him even deserves the status of being a “prophet”..Look at Budhha, Jesus.. compare them with your UNHOLY prophet..
Seems like Muslims are alien to the concept of freedom of expression and other basic human rights, because they are discouraged in the barbaric and uncivilised religion of Islam…
They want liberal democracies to follow their own
pathetic laws of the arabian desert of the 7th century.. hahaa.. WHAT A JOKE..
Have these Muslims ever protested and taken any action against the terrorists that blow up innocent civilians every now and then? NEVER..
Is that even a serious issue for them..NO.. The dignity of a man that died back in the 7th century is more important to them , but the lives of so many people at stake is not even an issue..Why is the Muslim world quiet? Why aren’t they doing anything against the terrorism?
The irony is that by protesting against the cartoons and demanding the annhilation of the cartoonists the Muslims are demonstrating what the cartoons were supposed to depict..
Sk….words of yours, are to say the least pathetically ignorant and deeply prejudice. What can we say, we can defend and educate you on your racist opinion, but truly it is not worth it, you may try to use historical and political documentation for the foundation on which you speak, but the majority of us can sit back and say you are really stupid. And to be honest…I know that because I beleive in someone more than your mere human self, someone most powerful as god is, I will not need to argue with you to beleive in myself, and to support my values, because when you perish..your soul will pay for your ignorance.
While I cannot share the rant against Islam delivered by Sk, he raises some questions about Islam and its relation to violence and the use of force. No one can deny that the prophet was not above using violent means to obtain his objectives (whether he personally used those means is irrelevant–after all, Hitler never executed a single Jew). For 10 years he and his followers were involved in military operations, both to defend themselves and to expand their influence. If Mohammad had believed that such violence was incompatible with God’s commandments, one would have expected him repudiate the military victories celebrated in his name and in the name of the faith. I don’t believe the historical record shows that. So we are left with the fact that of all the major religions in the world, only Islam’s “founder” was an “armed” prophet. And this raises the question whether there may not be some connection between Islam’s origins in these military
“exploits” and the failure of Islam to generate pacific, non-violent movements of opposition and protest (a` la Martin Luther King and Gandhi). One could speculate that the “spirit” of the Arab and Middle Eastern peoples does not lend itself to such forms of opposition, but isn’t that spirit itself a product in large measure of Islam?