[BartSimpson]

DerbyX DerbyX:

To them their religion is everything. They don't think like us.

You get it.

Derby, you just made my short list of liberals I respect.

[BartSimpson]

Avro Avro:

Yes Bort they are all evil in your mind, I get it.

Move along now, I know it can be difficult carrying that huge chip on your shoulder with a bum knee while on heartbreak ridge.

Answer my question: Is there any demand they can make that you will stand against?

Are you willing to censor Canadian newspapers and this very website to make muslims happy?

Oh, heck, let's get right down to it, Avro; is there anything in your life that's worth fighting for?

[DanishViking]

IcedCap IcedCap:

If the Danish newspaper hadgone ahead and priinted the illustrations for teh children's book that would've been a reasonable respectful approach to questioning this particular Islamic religious doctrine. Instead they chose to print a series of insulting unnecessarily provocative cartoons that they knew would enrage Muslims. All this has done is benefit the xtremists on both sides. The Islamophobes point at the Muslim reaction and claim that this just proves what an intolerant, violent religion Islam is. The fundamentalist Muslims can say this just proves that the West encorages insulting Islam. Both can then claim that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization. Well done Jyllands-Posten and all the other papers who reprinted these cartoons in the name of freedom of speech, you've played right into their hands.

I don’t agree with you restrictions on printing these cartoon – had they been kept inside Denmark all this had never escalated – but given the present situation I can only agree with your conclusion: this could end up splitting Muslims and non Muslims even more.

[IcedCap]

DanishViking DanishViking:

I don’t agree with you restrictions on printing these cartoon – had they been kept inside Denmark all this had never escalated – but given the present situation I can only agree with your conclusion: this could end up splitting Muslims and non Muslims even more.

These cartoons are a deliberate insult, the illustrations from the children's book wouldn't have been.
My opinion in short, the Muslims shouldn't get so violently outraged if someone prints an image of Mohammed, of course they can object peacefully but equally Europeans shouldn't participate in provocative Muslim-baiting

[CrazyCanuck007]

bart, or anyone here, have you been to the middle east?
walked among the people?
talked to the people?

i have, and they are as proud of thier heritage as you are bart of yours. do i think what they do at times is right? no.
but they do believe what they do is right...

they just need to lighten up!

[GreatBriton]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Wonderful stuff. Now let's see if the muslims are really going to prove that islam is The Religion of Peace (tm) by showing how tolerant they are of multiculturalism and diversity.

Or will the usual apologists rush to their defense and excuse them for being intolerant, bigoted, narrow-minded, violent, and ignorant?

I think the Danes were wrong to publish these pictures of Mohammed.

According to the Muslim religion, it is forbidden to hand draw pictures of people or animals, so printing a hand-drawn photo of Mohammed in a newspaper is not a very good idea.

Free speech is one thing - but using it to provoke Muslim outrage worldwide is another.

I've noticed that these photos were printed in newspapers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Holland, but NOT Britain, the world's oldest democracy. Continental countries just haven't got the hang of free speech yet.

[GreatBriton]

Straw attacks 'cartoon' publication
3rd February 2006



Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has launched a fierce attack on the decision by some media outlets to republish the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
The images first appeared in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, depicting Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, and another showing him saying that paradise was running out of virgins.

Media organisations - including the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV - as well as several European newspapers showed the controversial drawings, some with defiant headlines. British newspapers did NOT publish the images.

The cartoons have caused outrage across the Muslim community as Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry.

Danish products have been boycotted in the Middle East while angry demonstrations have taken place throughout the region.

Muslim demonstrators in Britain are due to meet at the Regent's Park mosque in central London before marching to the Danish embassy in Sloane Square.

A further protest will be held outside the Danish embassy in London, organised by the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Mr Straw said: "There is freedom of speech, we all respect that, but there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong."

But Mr Straw praised the British media for showing "considerable responsibility and sensitivity" in its approach to the issue. Mr Straw continued: "There are taboos in every religion. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect in this situation."

The BBC defended its use of the images and said it used them in its news output to provide context and explanation. "We are reporting the controversy over the cartoons in our news output to give audiences an understanding of the strong feelings evoked by the story," a spokesman said.

dailymail.co.uk

[DanishViking]

GreatBriton GreatBriton:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Wonderful stuff. Now let's see if the muslims are really going to prove that islam is The Religion of Peace (tm) by showing how tolerant they are of multiculturalism and diversity.

Or will the usual apologists rush to their defense and excuse them for being intolerant, bigoted, narrow-minded, violent, and ignorant?

I think the Danes were wrong to publish these pictures of Mohammed.

According to the Muslim religion, it is forbidden to hand draw pictures of people or animals, so printing a hand-drawn photo of Mohammed in a newspaper is not a very good idea.

Free speech is one thing - but using it to provoke Muslim outrage worldwide is another.

I've noticed that these photos were printed in newspapers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Holland, but NOT Britain, the world's oldest democracy. Continental countries just haven't got the hang of free speech yet.

I really can’t take you serious at all – no matter what the UK does you are there to support it – if the British media had printed the cartoons you would be in here telling us all how free the media is in the UK. After hearing Jack Straw I on the other hand is of a different opinion:

I see it as his actually imposing a censorship by cheering the British medias mature and respectful handling of this matter by not bringing the cartoons.
– you people should have your self a little revolution and become democratic

[maritimematt]

Now come on, let's not be too hard on the Muslims. After all - we all remember the violent reactions from Christians regarding the depiction of Jesus Christ in a nappy during the Jerry Springer opera? Remember? The armed groups storming theatres, the threats of violence made against the author? Mobs of angry Christians chanting 'death to Springer'? No? Of course not - because it never happened.

This is all about a clash of cultures - Muslims take their religion too seriously to the extent it damages their relationships with other human beings. Muslims have every right to not like the cartoons - to refuse to buy the newspapers in question, to write to the editor expressing their anger - and...err....that's it. Not demanding that the prime minister of a sovereign state make a fulsome aplogy. Just grow up.

[BartSimpson]

CrazyCanuck007 CrazyCanuck007:

bart, or anyone here, have you been to the middle east?

Yes.

$1:

walked among the people?

Yes.

$1:

talked to the people?

Yes. I've also read the Koran, I've learned a bit of Arabic and a smattering of Farsi, I've been shot at by those people and I've got seventeen confirmed kills and 42 probables over there. They're relatively stupid and predictable in a firefight which is why they've moved to using car bombs and suicide bombs - because they make crappy soldiers. Why do you think when the Israelis face 10-1 odds in a battle they consider that a fair fight?

All their focus on their religion addles their thinking. People who don't fear getting killed are easily accomadated.

$1:

i have, and they are as proud of thier heritage as you are bart of yours. do i think what they do at times is right? no.
but they do believe what they do is right...

they just need to lighten up!

They're not as proud as you might think. So far as most of them are concerned history began with the birth of mohammed and everything prior to that is irrelevant - considering the height of Arab achievement was prior to islam (math, language, chemistry, science, astronomy, etc.) it is the best parts of their heritage that they ignore - all they have now is the Koran and they will BRAG to you about that as if it is something to brag about that you've only ever read one book in your lifetime.

[BartSimpson]

GreatBriton GreatBriton:

I've noticed that these photos were printed in newspapers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Holland, but NOT Britain, the world's oldest democracy. Continental countries just haven't got the hang of free speech yet.

No, they have it down correctly. It is you and your country, my friend, who needs to learn about free speech. For the United Kingdom free speech only truly exists from the height of a soapbox in Hyde Park.

[maritimematt]

I'm afraid to say that tomorrow our nation's newspapers will be serving up the usual fayre - footballers, footballers' wives and women with large breasts; all very well and good, but they ought to show the cartoons as well (although not alongside the breasts - that will REALLY put the cat among the pidgeons)

[Mustang1]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

If they want to live in the West then goddamit they need to be Westernized!!!

WE should not have to be more like them to make them happy in OUR countries. THEY should try to fit in or go the fuck back to whatever shithole they left behind.

Those sunzabitches expect you to act 100% muslim when you're in their country and then they want us to do the same in our own countries????

Fuck that.

I agree – if you live in the West then you must respect the philosophical cornerstones of our culture. One of those is individual freedom. If you don’t like it, then you are certainly welcome to exercise your freedom and relocate to a more culturally hospitable location.

If this is, as some Imams are claiming, the clash of civilizations, then so be it. Some things are worth fighting for.

[Tman1]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060203 ... t_drawings

$1:

"Whoever defames our Prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of other angry Muslims in the
West Bank city of Ramallah.

$1:

"Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up," protesters in Ramallah chanted.

$1:

Fundamentalist Muslims protested outside the Danish Embassy in Malaysia, chanting "Long live Islam. Destroy our enemies" and accusing Denmark's Jyllands Posten newspaper, which first published the cartoons, of seeking to incite hatred.

$1:

About 800 people protested in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, chanting "Death to Denmark" and "Death to France," where the cartoons have also been published in a show of press freedom in solidarity with the Danes. Another rally in the southern city of Karachi drew 1,200 people.

$1:

In mosques throughout Palestinian cities, Muslim clerics condemned the cartoons. An imam at the Omari Mosque in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that those behind the drawings should have their heads cut off.

$1:

"We are ready to redeem you with our souls and our blood our beloved Prophet," they chanted. "Down, Down Denmark."

Very colourful wouldn't you say? Hey, then they come out with this:

$1:

"It's an uncivilized act. It's heinous," said Hanifah Maidin, youth wing spokesman of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party. "We want the Denmark government to tender an apology to the Muslim world."

People draw up cartoons and then they spew forth this crap and call them uncivilized and heinous? Even I think this is a touch much. They should apologize just for saying this crap.