Category: World News & Politics

More Papers Publish The Offending Cartoons

Both a French and a German newspaper have reprinted the series of 12 Danish newspaper cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad PBUH, that have sparked huge protests in the Muslim world.

The France Soir daily said it had published the cartoons in the name of freedom of expression and to fight religious intolerance.

Under a headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God”, the paper ran a front page cartoon with Buddha, the Christian and Jewish Gods and Prophet Muhammad sitting on a cloud above Earth, with the Christian God saying: “Don’t complain Muhammad, we’ve all been caricatured here.”

The German Welt daily put one of the drawings on its front page on Wednesday, saying the picture was “harmless” and regretting that the Danish Jyllands-Posten daily had apologised for causing offense.

“There is no right to protection from satire in the West; there is a right to blasphemy”, says Serge Faubert, France Soir editor.

Well it seems everyone is jumping on this bandwagon, and then saying that they did it in the name of “Freedom of Expression”!!
In fact this French daily says it’s also doing it to fight religious intolerance. So, just to get this straight, they’re fighting religious intolerance by attacking another religion and its prophet!
What kind of tolerance is that?!

And do they think that publishing the caricatures with others of God and Christian and Jewish figures makes it better?
Of course it doesn’t. In Islam we believe in God and all his prophets, and we find it unacceptable to portray any of them in such tasteless manners.
And as for Buddha, it’s unacceptable too because we should respect our brother buddhist’s religion as well.

Anyway, I’ll go on with their claims, and I’ll try to convince myself that it’s all in the name of “Freedom of Expression”, although I personally believe that any person’s freedom ends where the next person’s freedom begins, but let’s try to get over that.
But, based on that, aren’t we also entitled to this same freedom of expression?
Isn’t it normal for us too to express ourselves and say that we’re unhappy about these cartoons and act upon it in peaceful ways like demonstration or boycott?
Or is this so-called freedom available to some and not to others?!!
Why are there always double standards when it comes to dealing with Arabs and Muslims?!!

Related Links:
– The Black Iris
– Al Jazeera
– BBC News

The Danish Cartoons

I briefly wrote about the Danish and Norwegian papers that featured Prophet Mohamed PBUH caricatures in my post Freedom of Racism. But ever since that, there has been an explosion of reactions in the Muslim world, both online and offline. The blogosphere has witnessed a huge number of blogs about this topic, people all over the Muslim world are boycotting Danish and Norwegian products, some countries have pulled their ambassadors, …etc.

Over this time I’ve mainly been watching from the sidelines, wanting to write more about it, but just not finding the time to.

Most opinions I’ve read in the blogosphere are totally against what happened, yet some people think it’s not normal and very backward to react this strongly to these caricatures, and that we should just let it go.
I personally strongly disagree with these people. We’ve let go of a lot of things, we’ve tolerated a lot of disrespect and racism over the years, but when it gets to our Prophet and touches our religion, there is no way we can just let go! It is totally unacceptable!!
I’m against any violent reactions or death threats, but I’m totally for peaceful protest and political or economic boycott if necessary.

If the same paper published some caricatures that touched a Jewish figure, the whole world would have stood against it and pointed the anti-semitic finger at them, and ripped them apart.
But the caricatures being about the prophet of Islam, no one cares, and the angry and offended muslims are made out to be backward thinking and untolerant.
Well yeah, we don’t tolerate anyone attacking our Prophet or religion, and you can call it whatever you want!

A bit earlier, I read that the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons has apologized for offending Muslims around the world, not for publishing the cartoons, but for offending Muslims.
“We apologize for the fact that the cartoons undeniably have offended many Muslims,”‘ Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, wrote late yesterday in a letter on the paper’s Web site. He said Jyllands-Posten wasn’t sorry for running the cartoons though.
As for Vebjoern Selbekk, the editor of Norwegian Magazinet, the paper that republished the caricatures, he too said that he “regrets if the drawings were offensive to Muslims.”

Those sound like half ass apologies to me. It’s like someone raping someone and then saying: “I’m not sorry for raping you, but I’m sorry it hurt!”
It’s more of an insult than an apology!

I think they should be able to do a lot better than that!

Related Links:
– The Danish Cartoonist
– Le Boycott : Arme de Destruction Massive (FR)

Save The Whales

The blue whales of the Antarctic are still at less than 1 percent of their original abundance despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not. Only one population, the East Pacific grey whale, is thought to be near its original abundance but the closely related West Pacific grey whale population is the most endangered in the world hovering on the edge of extinction with just over 100 remaining. The number of Antarctic whales is less than 10 percent of what it was before whaling began.

The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. However, Japan has continued hunting for what it calls scientific research – a claim rejected by critics.

“Japan is flouting international agreements and public opinion by escalating its slaughter of whales, especially when everyone knows their claims of scientific research are just an excuse to get fresh whale meat on to Japanese dinner plates,” said Greens leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Despite international protests, Japan has this year more than doubled its planned catch of minke whales to 935. It has also added 10 endangered fin whales and plans to eventually lift the number to 50, along with 50 rare humpback whales.

[More: Greenpeace]
[Via: Pourquoi Pas?]

Freedom Of Racism?!

A Norwegian Christian magazine has published a set of controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed after months of uproar in the Muslim world over a Danish paper’s decision to print the same cartoons.

Repeating a move by conservative Danish paper Jyllands-Posten last September, Magazinet published the controversial drawings in the name of “freedom of expression”.

The editor said he was not afraid of the prospect of facing the same indignation and even death threats that faced the Danish paper after it published the cartoons.

[Source: Al Jazeera]

Since when has racism and disrespect for other people’s beliefs and religions been incorporated into the definition of freedom of expression?!!

[Via: Sabbah]

Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism

“Terrorism” is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason for state-sponsored violence — our violence — which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously…

Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism.

It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale.

— Robert Fisk, The Great War For Civilization

[Via: Lawrence of Cyberia, Salon]

Anti-Arab Violence in Sydney, Australia

Racial tension sparked violence on Cronulla Beach in Sydney, Australia yesterday when around 5,000 people, some yelling racist chants like “No more Lebs (Lebanese)”, attacked youths of Middle Eastern background, saying they were defending their beach after lifesavers were attacked there last week.

Violence then spread to a second beach, Maroubra, where scores of men armed with baseball bats smashed about 100 cars.
More than 20 people were injured and 12 arrested.

Police said a group of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists stirred on the drunken crowd at Cronulla.

Arabic and Muslim leaders said the violence had been expected as Muslims had been subjected to racist taunts, especially since the Iraq war and bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali where many Australians were among the dead.

“Arab Australians have had to cope with vilification, racism, abuse and fear of a racial backlash for a number of years, but these riots will take that fear to a new level,” said Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour.

[Source: Yahoo! News]
[Via: Je Blog]

Lebanese MP and Journalist Gebran Tueni Killed

A car bomb explosion killed anti-Syrian member of parliament and journalist Gebran Tueni in Beirut today.

Tueni is Publisher, Chairman of the Board, General Manager and Editorialist of the Arabic An-Nahar newspaper in Lebanon.

Three other people also died and 10 were wounded in the explosion that blew up Tueni’s armoured SUV car as it was driving in the Mekalis area of mainly Christian east Beirut.

Lebanon has been rocked by a series of bombings and assassinations since the killing of the former Prime Minister, Rafik al-Hariri, on February 14th.
May Shidyak is another journalist who was a victim of one of these bombings a few months ago.

These attacks are totally unacceptable and should be stopped. The truth about who is behind them should be found out and the one’s responsible held accountable and punished.

[More: Reuters]
[Via: Sabbah]

Arabic Language Discovery Channel

An Arabic language “Discovery” channel will be launched soon according to Kuwait’s information minister, Anas Al-Rasheed, who announced the news in London this week while attending a conference about “Extremism and Terrorism”.

The objective of the channel, according to the minister, is to increase the Arabic public’s awareness and interest in science and culture in an effort to naturalize media outlets that support or incite extremism.

The announcement came during a panel discussion on the third day of the conference, which debated incitement in the “media” with regard to terrorism.

I agree that media play a big role in shaping the thoughts of the people and in making them more open to, or against, the ideas of extremism and terrorism.
Anyway I don’t see how Discovery Channel will solve the problem.
Ok it’s got all these cool programs that will raise scientific and cultural awareness for the people who will watch it, as well as do some minor brainwashing, but then they switch to a channel that is pushing destructive ideas at them and we’re back at zero.

I think this is a good idea for its own reasons, and maybe as an option to pull people away a bit from other channels, but it’s no big breakthrough solution.
The solution lies in a lot of different places that have to be touched upon simultaneously.

[Source: Asharq Alawsat]
[Via: Saudi Jeans]

Bush Plot To Bomb Al-Jazeera

US President George Bush planned to bomb Arab broadcaster Aljazeera, British newspaper, the Daily Mirror reports, citing a Downing Street memo marked “Top Secret”.

The five-page transcript of the pair’s talks during Blair’s 16 April 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar and that Blair talked him out of it.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key US and Western ally and enraged the Middle East, maybe even leading to bloody retaliation.

So this is what Bush plans for his strongest and closest allies!
And this is how the leader of the “free” world believes in “Freedom of press, media and expression”?!
Should be very reassuring…

[Sources: Daily Mirror, Al Jazeera]