Islam

[Blumf]

Had it been me editing the paper I'd just stuck with the book cover that sparked the article off.

On the one hand, the cartoons quite clearly weren't needed, but on the other, they did prove the point, unfortunately that ends up with at least four people dead so far but could the editor have know it'd have gotten so far out of hand?

And there's Stephen Fry's argument for freedom of speech being the right to offend, there does come a point where you can't tip-toe around an issue.

[Pseudopath]

four people dead

Great quote in that article:

"They want to test our feelings," protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC.

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[jutl]

Apologies for quoting in full; here's an article from Christopher Hitchens

God he's useless. His tone always reminds me of a self-important diner dressing down a waiter. As usual his research is either conducted while pissed or deliberately misrepresented (the prohibition is not on depicting the prophet but on depicting any human or animal shape). Still - even if his style is waspish without being witty, and his facts are often fabricated, what of his main point?

We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

So living together peacefully is impossible because neither the religious fanatics' faith nor the Hitchens' self-love will permit it. If all he can do is spit this kind of half-thought-out baity shit, he really should give it up.

[Still Not George]

"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.

I nearly spat my coffee all over my pretty wireless keyboard then, you bastard.

[All Surrogate]

So living together peacefully is impossible because neither the religious fanatics' faith nor the Hitchens' self-love will permit it.

Why do you say that?  How would Hitchen's self-love drive him to make death threats against people who say (or draw) things he dislikes?  He despises the threat of violence in the protests about the cartoons.  How does that correlate with being unable to live peacefully with muslims (or other religious people)?  Does he anywhere in the article make a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Does he anywhere support a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Who here is making living peacefully together impossible; the person who says "be silent or die", or the person who says that such threats are despicable?

[jutl]

So living together peacefully is impossible because neither the religious fanatics' faith nor the Hitchens' self-love will permit it.

Why do you say that?  How would Hitchen's self-love drive him to make death threats against people who say (or draw) things he dislikes?  He despises the threat of violence in the protests about the cartoons.  How does that correlate with being unable to live peacefully with muslims (or other religious people)?  Does he anywhere in the article make a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Does he anywhere support a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Who here is making living peacefully together impossible; the person who says "be silent or die", or the person who says that such threats are despicable?

...and that it was degrading to try to find a compromise...

[23 Daves]

It's very rarely I chuckle at issues as serious as this one, but that wag with the "Freedom of Speech Can Go To Hell!" placard was a top jester, wasn't he?  

As Nigel Tufnell once said, there's such a fine line between clever and stupid.

[TraceyQ]

My favourite was a woman holding up a sign saying "The REAL holocaust is on it's way". Do you think her brothers and her father know she's out in public and not only that, having an opinion?

[All Surrogate]

So living together peacefully is impossible because neither the religious fanatics' faith nor the Hitchens' self-love will permit it.

Why do you say that?  How would Hitchen's self-love drive him to make death threats against people who say (or draw) things he dislikes?  He despises the threat of violence in the protests about the cartoons.  How does that correlate with being unable to live peacefully with muslims (or other religious people)?  Does he anywhere in the article make a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Does he anywhere support a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Who here is making living peacefully together impossible; the person who says "be silent or die", or the person who says that such threats are despicable and that it is degrading to try to find a compromise?

[jutl]

So living together peacefully is impossible because neither the religious fanatics' faith nor the Hitchens' self-love will permit it.

Why do you say that?  How would Hitchen's self-love drive him to make death threats against people who say (or draw) things he dislikes?  He despises the threat of violence in the protests about the cartoons.  How does that correlate with being unable to live peacefully with muslims (or other religious people)?  Does he anywhere in the article make a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Does he anywhere support a threat of violence against someone for what they say (or draw)?  Who here is making living peacefully together impossible; the person who says "be silent or die", or the person who says that such threats are despicable and that it is degrading to try to find a compromise?

I refer the Right Honourable Gentleman...

[All Surrogate]

I refer the Right Honourable Gentleman...

?

I must be being stupid; please explain.

[jutl]

Who here is making living peacefully together impossible; the person who says "be silent or die", or the person who says that such threats are despicable and that it is degrading to try to find a compromise?

(apologies for my previous odd/fuckwitted mistake)

It's that last point that escapes me. You may despise the threat of violence, but conflicts are not resolved by refusing to consider compromise. It's absolutely typical of the immoderate pompous shit that Hitchens peddles. The overt violence that Hitchens so abhors is balanced by a lot of suffering inflicted by European and American policies in the Middle East. Despite this Hitchens doggedly maintains that Islamic terrorism and anti-Western rioting are somehow in a special category of peculiar awfulness. It's a simplistic, self-serving point of view, which is precisely what I expect from the guy.

[All Surrogate]

(apologies for my previous odd/fuckwitted mistake)

Not to worry; I was being ever so slightly facetious anyway.

It's that last point that escapes me. You may despise the threat of violence, but conflicts are not resolved by refusing to consider compromise.

Who is threatening whom?  Who is disturbing the peace?  Whom does Hitchen's threaten?  You say his stance denies peace, yet as far as I can see, his view is the only one that can ensure peace: that is, do not break the peace, no matter your disgust at another's speech (or drawing).  He has already compromised, in that he is letting them speak without threatening to kill them.  It is a step further than they are willing to go, it seems.  So, I ask you, who is stopping the compromise?

It's absolutely typical of the immoderate pompous shit that Hitchens peddles. The overt violence that Hitchens so abhors is balanced by a lot of suffering inflicted by European and American policies in the Middle East. Despite this Hitchens doggedly maintains that Islamic terrorism and anti-Western rioting are somehow in a special category of peculiar awfulness. It's a simplistic, self-serving point of view, which is precisely what I expect from the guy.

Well, this may well be true, but as far as I can see the article deals with freedom of speech (and drawing), and the violence and threat of violence that is caused by people exercising that freedom.  This violence and threatening, in this situation, he abhors.  Does he threaten them with death because of it?  No.  So he is not a hypocrite in this article.  What he has written elsewhere may well prove him to be a hypocrite.  He may defend himself like this:

Person A writes/draws document Z.
Person B is disgusted with Z, and threatens to kill A.
Hitchens despises B.

Person C tortures person D.
Person D is disgusted with this torture, and threatens to kill C.
Hitchens despised C, and perhaps supports punishment of C.

Hitchens may draw a very sharp distinction between threats due to speech (or drawing) and threats due to action.  In the former situation, the 'initiator' does not warrant threats, in the latter, perhaps he/she does.  This is due to the quality of the action of the 'initiator', and is, I think, a reasonable way to distinguish the situations.  So, he may despise people (such as the muslim extremists protesting the cartoons) because they threaten to kill someone for what that person wrote (or drew), but he may not despise people (such as the US invading / covertly violently influencing other countries) despite that they threaten to kill someone for what they have done (in terms of physical coercion and the like).

We can argue, or most likely agree, about the validity of US (and other) violent intervention in countries, but it is perfectly possible to draw a rational, moral distinction (in theory) between acceptable responses to exercises in freedom of speech (and drawing) and acceptable responses to exercises in freedom of action.

BTW, I'm not a  fan of Hitchens - his book on Orwell was not insightful, his debate with Galloway was awful (on both sides), and his political shift from Trot to Neo-Con places him in the elitist category, to my mind.  Mind you, I haven't read much else by him, so I'm probably talking shite.

[jutl]

We can argue, or most likely agree, about the validity of US (and other) violent intervention in countries, but it is perfectly possible to draw a rational, moral distinction (in theory) between acceptable responses to exercises in freedom of speech (and drawing) and acceptable responses to exercises in freedom of action.

If you're comparing two entirely distinct situations, perhaps. In this case though the response to ridicule of their core beliefs is conditioned to a certain extent by the extremely long-standing injustices which Europe and the US have both perpetrated and supported in Muslim nations. Islamic militancy, and the corresponding hypersensitivity to perceived insults, is partly at least a product of our own actions. Hitchens simply will not admit to any fault on the side he supports, and he will produce specious false divisions in order to justify this extremism.

[All Surrogate]

If you're comparing two entirely distinct situations, perhaps.

Well, they're not entirely separable, being as they are two things which people do - speech and action (as in physical coercion).  But just because there is, perhaps, no clear-cut division between them does not mean that no distinction can be attempted (similarly, deciding the age of consent).  If you allow the distinction between speech and action (as in physcial coercion), then you allow a distinction between judgement upon the responses to speech and judgement upon the responses to action (as in physical coercion).

Hitchens simply will not admit to any fault on the side he supports, and he will produce specious false divisions in order to justify this extremism.

I don't see the division between speech and action (as in physical coercion) as being necessarily specious.
Hitchens attacks the planting of stories in the Iraqi press by the DoD.

[jutl]

Well, they're not entirely separable, being as they are two things which people do - speech and action (as in physical coercion).  But just because there is, perhaps, no clear-cut division between them does not mean that no distinction can be attempted (similarly, deciding the age of consent).  If you allow the distinction between speech and action (as in physcial coercion), then you allow a distinction between judgement upon the responses to speech and judgement upon the responses to action (as in physical coercion).

I could be wrong, but I think you've entirely missed my point... I'm saying that the comparison between Muslim violence over the cartoons and Western violence through slow painful manipulation of Middle Eastern politics is too complex to make any clear value judgements. It's not a question of which action is theoretically more justifiable, when taken in complete isolation. I'd say that the most honest way to view the current tension between Islam and the West is as a genuine conflict of interests. Hitchens uses the ultimate cunt's trick of writing off interests that differ from his own as essentially immature. 'When these Mussulmen have grown out of their childish beliefs then they'll see my point'.

[Borboski]

'When these Mussulmen have grown out of their childish beliefs then they'll see my point'.

But they will won't they?  What's Hitchen's point - that being driven by a strict orthodoxy is incompatible with equal rights movements, freedom of speech, etc?  We know the Koran wasn't written on gold tablets in paradise - I don't see how you can have a debate about it, I am interested as to how the West/secular Asia can encourage less orthodox interpretations...


Hmm...
Just after Hamas got elected, all the newspapers were printing "But Will They Work With Us?"... "Will They Talk?"

And I was thinking - of course they will!  They'll be invited to office space at which buffets will be put on.  And they'll have PAs organising they're diaries, and menial conversations about the sarnies that have been put on - "Eh, you get a much better spread at the Minister of Education".

That's not related.

[Borboski]

Interesting poll results from the Times, only 500 people surveyed, via Harry's Place.

Populus was commissioned by a coalition of Jewish community groups to undertake a poll of 500 British Muslims between December 9 and 19 (of whom 30 per cent were in London and 55 per cent were aged between 18 and 34). The results have now been made available to The Times.

With caveats about sample size, the trends are clear. There is no single, agreed voice for Muslim opinion. More Muslims trust what they hear about what is going on in the Middle East from English-language Muslim channels (68 per cent) than from the BBC (58 per cent). As many people are likely to listen to the clerics at their local mosque to find out about the Middle East as tune in to the BBC. More are likely to turn to the English-language Muslim press (49 per cent) as to national newspapers (42 per cent).

A majority regard the Jewish community and its links to Israel with suspicion. More than half both think that it is right to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day and believe that the Jewish community has no interest in the plight of the Palestinians and has too much influence over British foreign policy.

Nearly two fifths (37 per cent) believe that the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target "as part of the ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East". Moreover, only 52 per cent think that the state of Israel has the right to exist, with 30 per cent disagreeing, a big minority. One in six of all Muslims questioned thinks suicide bombings can sometimes be justified in Israel, though many fewer (7 per cent) say the same about Britain. This is broadly comparable to the number justifying suicide attacks in ICM and YouGov polls of British Muslims after the July 7 attacks.
...
However, according to Populus, 12 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old Muslims believe that suicide bombings can be justified here, and 21 per cent in Israel. A fifth of all Muslims, and a quarter of men, say suicide attacks against the military can be justified, though only 7 per cent say this about civilians.


Other highlights of the poll include the revelation that 46% of Muslims believe that Jews are "in league with the Freemasons to control the media and politics".

(http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/)

I don't what these polls tell you, I recall the one discussed on here about men who thought rape was justified - and just don't believe that the results there were accurate.

[jutl]

'When these Mussulmen have grown out of their childish beliefs then they'll see my point'.

But they will won't they?  What's Hitchen's point - that being driven by a strict orthodoxy is incompatible with equal rights movements, freedom of speech, etc?  

Well that's obviously not true for all orthodoxies - the Western liberal view is as much of an orthodoxy as Islam. In fact it's considerably less schismatic than Islam.... and no, I don't agree that religious belief is necessarily less developed than a liberal humanistic belief. The jury is still out on how best to run a society, I'd say. Leaving all this rarified stuff aside though, Hitchens' dismissal of all religion in a single clause is just a symptom of his generally fevered and immoderate thinking. He can't see that the moral absolutes that he tries to apply to Islamic rioters need also to be applied to his own side.

[Zuffic]

http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1024

Anyone feel nervous?

[jutl]

http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1024

Anyone feel nervous?

I'd be very interested to know what makes you nervous about that... MEMRI usually do a far better job of whipping up terror through selective translation. That struck me as about as reasonable a declaration as could be expected in the circumstances. Do you want a religious leader to not predict the ultimate trimuph of their religion?

[Mediocre Rich]

Do you want a religious leader to not predict the ultimate trimuph of their religion?

Well frankly No.  Especially if he is the democratically elected leader of a nation.  I mean he can say what he likes, they voted for him they can have him, but it still makes me nervous, and I would rather he turned the rhetoric down a few notches.  Similarly when George and Tony come out with thinly veiled threats.  The problem you are going to run into here is that in your efforts to point out the Wests failings you sound like you are endorsing the actions of a bunch of absolute wankers.

[jutl]

Do you want a religious leader to not predict the ultimate trimuph of their religion?

Well frankly No.  Especially if he is the democratically elected leader of a nation.  I mean he can say what he likes, they voted for him they can have him, but it still makes me nervous, and I would rather he turned the rhetoric down a few notches.

I honestly didn't think that that was aggressive rhetoric - that's the point I'm trying to make. Hamas say that Islam will triumph and everyone calls it a Darth Vader style evil plot, while Hitchens and the intellectual wing of Bush's support announce that Islam will fade into insignificance once all Arabs have got an SUV and a narrow choice of secularist capitalist election choices, and we all quietly applaud.

 Similarly when George and Tony come out with thinly veiled threats.  The problem you are going to run into here is that in your efforts to point out the Wests failings you sound like you are endorsing the actions of a bunch of absolute wankers.

I'm trying to point out that the wankers on either side are neck and neck. My perception is that there's a lot of unquestioned acceptance that our Western lifestyle automatically trumps all opposition on here. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it's that assumption that seems to be behind all the: "But these chaps hurt people" hypocrisy.

[Borboski]

Hmm, jutters, in those two posts you sound like a proper apologist and relativist..

The jury is still out on how best to run a society, I'd say.

Do you really think that's the case?  You aren't prepared to say that, democratically elected leaders are better than ones that claim their authority from an external imagined faith?

Or that having private ownership of goods is better than the state claiming full ownership?

Or that a free press is better than a state-controlled one?

I'm pretty happy and think I'm lucky to be in a liberal democracy - and I'd much rather be a social excluded person in this country than in Iran..

while Hitchens and the intellectual wing of Bush's support announce that Islam will fade into insignificance once all Arabs have got an SUV and a narrow choice of secularist capitalist election choices, and we all quietly applaud.

That just seems like a positive result to me...

That struck me as about as reasonable a declaration as could be expected in the circumstances.

Come off it?  Is that really the sort of thing we want leaders to be saying?

I'm trying to point out that the wankers on either side are neck and neck.

Well there you go...

[Blumf]

I'm trying to point out that the wankers on either side are neck and neck. My perception is that there's a lot of unquestioned acceptance that our Western lifestyle automatically trumps all opposition on here. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it's that assumption that seems to be behind all the: "But these chaps hurt people" hypocrisy.

If you agree that the behaviour of the Muslim community is justified by the actions of an aggressive west, then you should also agree that similar behaviour by western communities is justified in defence against the killings of people for expressing their freedom of speech in Europe by an aggressive Muslim community which in turn damages our democratic system of choice. In short both sides are damaging the others society.

To do list:
The West: Sort out government, stop meddling in Middle East
Muslim Community: Come to terms with freedom of expression in the west.

I'd also like to raise the point I made in the other thread about the increased exposure between the two cultures being a big part of the problem. Where as a 100 years ago, even though the west was happily trampling over the Middle East, if such cartoons had been published in a Danish news paper, hardly anyone would have seen them outside of Denmark. Now we have large Muslim populations in Western countries and an active media that'll rub peoples noses in them with 24 hour news and internet connections.

[jutl]

Hmm, jutters, in those two posts you sound like a proper apologist and relativist..

The jury is still out on how best to run a society, I'd say.

Do you really think that's the case?  You aren't prepared to say that, democratically elected leaders are better than ones that claim their authority from an external imagined faith?

Not invariably or even predictably, no. I'm not even sure that freedom is the most comfortable atmosphere for the human psyche.

Or that having private ownership of goods is better than the state claiming full ownership?

No

Or that a free press is better than a state-controlled one?

'Free' meaning controlled by public prurience and private interest? No.

I'm pretty happy and think I'm lucky to be in a liberal democracy - and I'd much rather be a social excluded person in this country than in Iran..

I don't have anywhere near enough information about Iran, or what you mean by socially excluded to be able to comment.

while Hitchens and the intellectual wing of Bush's support announce that Islam will fade into insignificance once all Arabs have got an SUV and a narrow choice of secularist capitalist election choices, and we all quietly applaud.

That just seems like a positive result to me...

That struck me as about as reasonable a declaration as could be expected in the circumstances.

Come off it?  Is that really the sort of thing we want leaders to be saying?

I don't know what you want. It's certainly what his electorate want to hear, I think, and his co-religionists. If you're sure that you know better then you're free to air your views...

[MojoJojo]

If you agree that the behaviour of the Muslim community is justified by the actions of an aggressive west, ...

This is a common misinterpretation that often comes up in any of these sorts of discussions. Saying that the west must accept some responsibility for the rise of Islamic extremism is most definately a different thing than saying that the actions of muslim extremists are justified.

No one is suggesting that the Muslim extremists have any sort of moral justificiation. The talk about the west's interference in the Arab world is not trying to excuse terrorists, it's trying to find a practical way of causing a decline in extremism.

To use an analogy. No one would deny that poverty has a large effect on the rate of crime, but that is not the same as saying that being poor justifies commiting a crime.

[George]

Stormfronts virtual biscuit must be well soggy by now.


Re: the anti enlightenning Islamist outbursts.

The Mohammed caracature (it wasn't a cartoon in the strictest sense) I percieved in terms of the the faith having a time bomb element to it, but my opinion doesn't have currency compared to a Muslim, whose views have more grounded dogma to them, which is saying that only Paedo's are entitled to feel true shame by the BES. Where's Georges Battaille when you need some hardcore iconoclasism?

Tough luck, they are no different than any other faith when it comes to being criticised for (or not being criticized for) their tenets (and Islam lays claim to some pretty fucking large brown eggs....Much more so than Christianity+ does). I consider (and have considered for some time now) that all knee jerk victimisations of this kind are simply babyish.

Someone I've forgotten the name of summed it up pretty nicely for me: that the Islamic outrage is tantamount to all muslims having a special right over other peoples, persuations, and creeds to be offended. At least with Jesus, we're taught to turn the other cheek (aye, a whiff of thine own cheek).  


+ in it's wholesale teaching comapred with Islam, regardless of either religion's violent campaign of dissemination.

[jutl]

in it's wholesale teaching comapred with Islam, regardless of either religion's violent campaign of dissemination.

or to put it another way:

E&OE

:O)

[George]

I'm sorry father Jutl. I've been at the blood of Christ again...


A more pressing question though:

How blasphemous is the Morris these days?



edit: I really should not be posting whilst being 9 hours ahead of anyone else drinking.....