Take That!
You insult Muhammad? We will make fun of the Holocaust. In a war of cartoons that has turned deadly, a group of European Islamists has posted drawings on their Web site that show Adolph Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, and deny that the Nazis exterminated about six million Jews during World War II.
Denying the Holocaust is illegal in much of Europe, banned by hate-crime laws in several nations.
The Israeli paper Haaretz reported today that a Belgian-Dutch Islamic political organization posted the cartoons Saturday in retaliation for several European papers' republication of drawings that ridiculed the prophet Muhammad by showing him, for example, wearing a bomb in his turban.
Even depicting Muhammad is considered blasphemous by Muslims. (Books, Inq. found a post on Muslim images of the prophet through the ages.)
The Arab European League's web site was not viewable when Haaretz wrote its article because requests to view the page exceeded the site's bandwidth. The paper reports that the League wrote that was merely exercising its free speech - the same explanation European papers gave for republishing the cartoons that have caused turbulent reactions in the Muslim world, such as the torching of the Scandinavian embassies in Syria and Lebanon, and now the deaths of four persons.
One of the latest cartoons can be seen here at Atlas Shrugged.
The Haaretz article has attracted hundreds of comments about the latest front in this clash of civilizations. One notes how effective cartoons can be in dehumanizing a people, and links to Jew-baiting cartoons from the Nazi-era Die Sturmer. It is captioned, "Shoah always starts with a cartoon." The poster calls him or herself "Occupation Sucks."
A Bradley Burston column in the Israeli paper notes that Arab commentators have argued a double standard protects Jews from similar portrayals:
"In the West, one discovers there are different moral ceilings, and all moral parameters and measures are not equal," the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat wrote. "If the Danish cartoon had been about a Jewish rabbi, it would never have been published."
It also notes those commentators were silent when a prime-time Syrian series showed rabbis as cannibals.
On this one, count me with Jonathan Sachs, chief rabbi of Great Britain: "The only way to have freedom of speech and freedom from religious hatred is to exercise restraint. The question is: can we learn to respect what others hold holy?"
Interestingly, this whole thing seems to be based on a fairly wacko interpretation of Islam. Muslims themselves have made graphic representations of the Prophet for ages, as this site makes clear. It's also interesting that the paper which originally published these cartoons is a right-wing, anti-immigrant paper, and that the cartoons first appeared in November. Long fuse, eh?
Sorry, Ed, for what looks like a pilfering of your good link. I had added the images of the prophet post at the suggestion of our book editor, who linked it over the weekend. So, you are living there in Europe. What do you make of the conflict? Can we deputize you?
Correction to Ed: The cartoons originally appeared in Denmarks largest daily newspaper Jyllandsposten in September. The newspaper is liberal but cannot be characterized as right-wing anti-immigrant. Why the cartoons? Because the editors wanted to explore the extent of self-censorship amongs danish cartoonist (i.e.artists). Why? Because a danish publisher had reported difficulties in finding an artist willing to illustrate a childrens book about the life of Mohamed.
"The only way to have freedom of speech and freedom from religious hatred is to exercise restraint. The question is: can we learn to respect what others hold holy?" That's profound. It practically means respecting everything, and not making fun of anything. I may like wearing thick black rimmed glasses taped together with white tape and sport a pocket protector full of pens, and complete the ensemble with suspenders. People may find that funny, and they may make fun of me. It's not in the realm of "holy", but there's hardly a difference. One thing that binds a lot of people are what they have in common (obviously), so nerds would be friends with other nerds. and in making fun of one nerd, you are making fun of all nerds. There's a lot of education that goes into the fulfillment of that statement too. I may consider "nerdism" a religion, so people have to find out that it's a religion and that it offends a religion to make fun of people in thick black glasses with white tape. I'm positive there are at least a hundred religions out there that I haven't heard of. Basically, there's no fun in respect. And no meat eating. I'm feverish so it may explain half (or all) of this post.
Let just say I draw a stick figure, (which is the extent of my artistic abilities) and write the name prophet Muhammad next to my stick figure. Would the Muslim World be offended; 1)Because I wrote the name prophet Muhammad next to my stick figure. 2)Because the stick figure may be an accurate representation. 3)Because I am a horrible artist.
I wonder, when they tire of the pissing contest to see who can be more offensive to whom, if they'll grasp the concept of "context".
I think there is one lesson to learn from this: terrorism isn't all due to Israel's existance. Trudy Rubin's Sunday article is well worth reading.
> "context" Don't you get it? Context is what a worldview provides. You do not, cannot share the context in which they see these cartoons. The ugly American still shines brightly through Western liberal media.
The underlying truth of the cartoon is attested to by the reaction of moderate muslims to it over the past few days. Whether or not a cartoon should be printed or not should be based on this notion of containing a measure of truth. If the cartoon's purpose is only to ridicule, then a fatwa should be issued and all non-muslims killed.
Download the sheet music for your current favorites and explore our ... Download sheet music for Grammy®-winning and related titles, composers, and artists...