The Guardian has been a bastion of faitheism and mush-headed religous apologetics, the home of Madeleine Bunting, Andrew Brown, and now — the ultimate apologist — Nancy Graham Holm. In a piece published today, called “Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism,” Holm blames the recent Muslim attack on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on “prejudiced Danes” who “failed to respect religious belief.” (Westergaard is the cartoonist who depicted Muhamed wearing a bomb in his turban.) The Danes shouldn’t have humiliated Muslims! The Danes brought this on themselves! If only they’d just shut up about religion!
Why did the editors of Jyllands-Posten want to mock Islam in this way? Some of us believed it was in bad taste and also cruel. Intentional humiliation is an aggressive act. As a journalist now living in the same town as Westergaard, I thought some at Jyllands-Posten had acted like petulant adolescents. Danes fail to perceive the fact that they have developed a society deeply suspicious of religion. This is the real issue between Denmark and Muslim extremists, not freedom of speech. The free society precept is merely an attempt to give the perpetrators the moral high ground when actually it is a smokescreen for a deeply rooted prejudice, not against Muslims, but against religion per se. Muslims are in love with their faith. And many Danes are suspicious of anyone who loves religion.
Rightly so!
Holm’s piece is contemptible nonsense, disgusting even by the low standards of religious writing in the Guardian. What the cartoons expressed was not “intentional humiliation,” but criticism of a sexist, oppressive, and lethal form of Islam. And by blaming Islamic reaction on the Danes themselves, Holm allies herself with those religious loons who find “offense” everywhere, and with the benighted Irish who passed the blasphemy law.
My online dictionary defines “prejudice” as “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason and actual experience.” Where do the cartoonists’ sentiments about Islam come from, if not from experience?
Unabashedly I support your comments on Ms. Holms article.
“Muslims are in love with their faith.”
Isn’t that sweet? Love affairs trump everything!
Actually, let’s accept her premise that the original publication was intended to humiliate. Let’s accept that the editors purposefully acted as badly as they did. What follows? Is she saying that this in some way goes to justify breaking into someone’s house and trying to cut them and their child open with a knife?! And not in the heat of the moment, either, but many months later. Does she think that attempted murder is in some way a rational and appropriate response to having your beliefs mocked? And if she is not saying that, what precisely could she mean?
And she wonders how people could have become deeply suspicious of religion.
I meant to say “…acted as badly as she says they did.”
I found myself wondering if Nancy Graham Holm would find herself using the same tactic to excuse rapist’s because their victim “looked a bit sexy” or maybe excusing serial killers because their victims fit their pattern. “If only you’d thought not to be blonde whil wearing a red coat, he’d never have murdered you” she could sigh…
Denmark in general and Westergaard in particular have acted bravely and apropriately in the face of the real “petulant adolescents” of Islam.
Shame on the Guardian for this cowardly piece of endorsement of censorship.
I find it a bit distasteful that you’re putting ‘the Irish’ on the same level as this idiot without having any real understanding of Irish public opinion on the blasphemy issue. Fact is, the current Irish government was elected in 2007, and it has long-since lost it’s mandate after the previous Taoiseach/PM resigned in shame, and the default replacement made some rather unpopular decisions. This crowd will be booted out in 2012 at the latest, and hopefully then we’ll be able to scrape together the pennies to have a referendum and fix the constitution.
Dave, the Irish deserve a hell of a lot more criticism than has been leveled at them to date. There has been hardly a squeak from them since this bill was proposed out of the blue and brought into law. The only comments from Irish journalism to the loss of the right to free speech has been one of approval for the legislation. I happen to understand Irish public opinion very well after spending the first twenty years of my life there and this lack of protest from the public surprises me not in the slightest.
Remember Dave, this is the same public that went to church every weekend and gave money to support the protectors and enablers of child rapists go about their business, none of which was a secret. Does that same public think that it is more offensive for an atheist to draw a cartoon making a joke of a religious figure or for a church from its base to its leader harboring serial molesters from justice and releasing them on unsuspecting communities?
Sadly the experience of the Irish lack of reaction to the horrific abuse reports and the approval shown to the idea of silencing anything offensive to the religious shows the answer to that one.
Of course they’re protecting themselves from being terrorized by devotees of the Religion of PeaceTM by claiming that giving in to terrorism is the proper course.
But hey, against people who won’t kill, main, or destroy to keep their fantasies from being questioned, they’ll continue to maintain their brave stance in favor of free speech.
All one has to do to protect freedoms is to do nothing at all. Or something close enough to that for the Guardian.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
People strapping themselves with explosives and killing many people = not humiliating to muslims.
Depicting such violence in cartoon form = humiliating to muslims.
Something has gone horribly wrong here. Bomb after bomb has been going off, yet the problem is a cartoonist portraying such violence? Why isn’t it that after every attack that Muslim leaders aren’t flocking to the media outlets and shouting down how humiliating it is for them? Yet someone produces a piece of anti-Islamic commentary on the matter and it’s their fault that they get attacked?
What has gone wrong with western liberal thinkers…
Kel, have to make a remark analogous to that which Dave makes about putting ‘the Irish’ in with the author of this article – please, don’t put all western liberal thinkers in with this twerp.
I don’t think all liberal thinkers are “in with this twerp”, why does this keep coming up. It’s like complaining about the religious influence on a religious person where the familiar response is “Not all religious people are that bad”, where that was never the implication in the first place.
I’m not meaning to imply anything about the totality of liberal thinking or liberal thinkers. Just that this kind of apologetic nonsense is coming out of such schools of thought. Cultural relativism, post modernism – these are also stemming from the modern academic left, but that doesn’t mean that all liberal thinkers are plagued by this idea.
Or to think of it another way, religion is the main driving force right now against equality for homosexuals. It would be fair to say that people are not only influenced by their religion but using that kind of thinking as justification. Does that imply that all religious people are homophobic bigots who want to stifle equality?
Fair enough, Kel. Just wanted to get that clear, and you do.
To add briefly to this thread — “extreme multiculturalism”, i.e. the kind that says that, for example, honor killings need to be understood in a cultural context rather than labelled as simply murder of the most vile and despicable sort, is a very real cancer on Western liberal thought. Our resident deisidaimon is right to point out that this is not fundamental to Western liberalism, but it’s a real problem with far too much influence at present. So it’s worth condemning it whenever it comes up, as Kel has done.
@James: That’s called “cultural relativism” – everything is fine as long as you claim it is part of your culture. Female genital mutilation is a good thing because it’s part of people’s culture – and how dare you want to deprive someone of their culture. The bhurka as a tool of oppression is part of culture – why ban it. Gee, I remember when Western culture had something similar – veils – as everyone knows, the sight of women is offensive to the christian god so they had to hide their face in church. I guess if they don’t hide their face they get raped by god, as in the case of the virgin Mary – and surely Mary deserved what she got.
No. The direct cause of the cartoons was a worrying case of selfcensorship among Danish illustrators who turned down the offer to illustrate a new book about the life of Muhammad. Now, admittedly, that incident was then milked for all the publicity it was worth by the author (as is illustrated in at least one of the drawings).
A lot has been added to the debate subsequently, but the initial impetus was not to mock Islam, but to demonstrate that non-believers are not beholden to the dogmas of fanatics. They were a strike against not Islam, but against accomodationism.
Also, for all its faults, the Grauniad has a damn fine weekly science podcast that unashamedly dabbles in atheism with reports on for instance the Bus Campaign and Nine Lessons.
Sili is correct.
To add further info, the guy who wrote that Muhammad book used to be on the (dangerously) far left and has since come to his senses. He is still somewhere on the left side of the spectrum, though, even in a Danish context where everybody is to the left of Obama.
What a bass-ackwards apologist. Rather than ask the religious fanatics why they’re such murderous bastards she wants people to respect the murderous fanatics?
I highly recommend this antidote to Holm and other apologists for murder and unfounded belief in sky fairies:
http://www.zipperfish.com/zf-toons/yaafm-12-muslims/
Oh, please do appease the murderers – surely their victims deserve what they get?
Crimony! Wasn’t political satire invented in Limeyland?
Could be; Roberts Burns was a vicious critic at times, but he was Scot – but that dates back roughly to the period of the American Revolution. Burns even preceeds Charles Dickens (though honestly I prefer Burns to Dickens).
My initial reaction was identical to Gordon’s (#5). Ms. Holms seems to be supporting a notion identical to “blame the rape victim for looking sexy.”
All religion is (and SHOULD be) fair game for criticism and analysis… just as politics, art, science, and literature are. If the adherents to a particular religion don’t like it and become violent, the fault is not of the critic or analyst.
Of course, criticism and analysis is not the same thing as wanton hatemongering, as (some) right-wing pundits are prone to doing.
The editors who published the Danish anti-Islam cartoons were rightwing cowards and christianists. There is no doubt that they would never have published cartoons mocking anything connected with Christianity. To characterize them as some kind of heroes for free speech is simply the height of naivete.
Contrast their behavior with that of the great Frank Zappa, a genuine champion of free speech and freedom from religion. On his immortal Sheik Yerbouti, he sang an hilariously offensive song about Jewish American Princesses. Every single Jewish group in the country demanded his head; Zappa feigned surprise (he was nobody’s fool)and declared he had nothing against Jews, especially Jewish girls.
On a subsequent album, Zappa sang “Catholic Girls” an equally offensive ode to the sexual availability and proclivities of young women from the faith from whence Zappa came. In the fadeout, Zappa counterwove the melody from “Jewish Princess” with the theme from “Catholic Girls,” a brilliant – if little noticed – feat of compositional virtuosity. Needless to say the Catholic League and numerous other Catholic groups leaped to attack him.
That, my friends, is an honest mockery of religious pretenses, sparing no one and no body. The Danish editors were attacking an despised ethnic/religious minority. It was bigotry, plain and simple, and had nothing whatsoever to do with criticism of religion.
It goes without saying, or should, that the Islamic response to these cartoons was insane. But it was a response that was deliberately provoked by rightwing bigots.
Again, there isn’t a single mainstream paper in Denmark that would dare release a series of cartoons deliberately mocking Christians.
These people are not your allies.
I really don’t care if it was “provoked” by right-wing bigots. We tolerate Fred Phelps, so as far as I’m concerned people who were offended by those cartoons can take a fucking seat. When Westboro Baptist Church gets burned to the ground by angry homosexuals, then we’ll talk… (Oh wait, that would never happen. Ever.)
In fact, we “tolerate” Fred Phelps to the extent that anyone, no matter how stupid or insane their ideas, has the right to express them. In the same way, I think it is appropriate to
“tolerate” the right wing bigots who published those cartoons.
However, it is quite another thing to describe them as paragons of free speech, let alone freedom of religion. These bigots wouldn’t dream of distributing hateful cartoons about Christians.
Absolutely, the response from Muslims was insane. No argument there. But that response was deliberately provoked by bigots. To come down on “their” side because you think this is a free speech or religion issue is hopelessly naive. They’ve exploited a liberal cause celebre in order to advance a nativist, rightwing, and christianist agenda.
Tristero, have you looked for cartoons by these people attacking Christians and Christianity? Or does acknowledging such exists mess with your world view?
Mohammed and his successors made mistakes when putting Islam together, much as Jesus and his successors made mistakes when crafting Christianity. As with every institution crafted by Man Islam is flawed and in need of fundamental reform; but so long as it remain sacrosanct and inviolable it will not be reformed as it should be.
But I don’t expect you to face up to that, for you have your targets and you’re not about to give them up. Not hating means surrendering your reason for living, and finding a new reason is beyond your capabilities.
Utter lie. Except if you take the word “series” very seriously.
Jyllands-Posten reprinted this one from Sweden, for example:
“a devil defecating into the mouth of Jesus on the Cross”.
I know there are many others (because I have seen some of them) but it turns out to be amazingly hard to google for caricatures :/
Granted, Jyllands-Posten would not be the first place one would look for mocking of Christians and Christianity. For that, one should probably look at Politiken.
Btw, the two newspapers merged some years ago. That they have different editorial lines is because they target different segments of the market.
OMFSM! Another lier for Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh! Why would I be surprised?
Let’s see … cartoons mocking christianity? Bah – they’re as common as sand on a beach. You’d barely get a twitch out of the pope and a whine out of the fundamentalists. I don’t see any jesus cultists going on a murderous rampage. When a newspaper prints a caricature of the pope, his office at the Vatican may whine but the rest of the world just laughs. I don’t see the Swiss guard bashing down people’s doors in the middle of the night – that sort of thing hasn’t happened since the end of the last Italian crusade in the late 19th century.
When the Danish cartoon violence was in full swing, one of the things that really disturbed me was that in the Have Your Say section of the BBC, the most liberal thing I could find by anybody who self-identified as a Muslim was, “The violence is terrible, but those cartoons should never have been published!” Far more common for moderates was the even lamer, “Those cartoons should never have been published! But the violence is terrible…” (See the difference?)
Holm’s terrible piece is more of the same. “Yeah, the violence is bad and stuff I guess, but ZOMG teh cartoons!!!111!!” Despicable. Contemptible. No matter how offensive and juvenile you think the cartoons are — and FWIW I think they were a valid critique — it’s still just a CARTOON, and even talking in the same breath about setting fire to embassies and how you dislike a cartoon is just… inhuman.
This is the most dangerous problem with moderate religion. (There are others, but this is the worst one) In the absence of extremist forms of religion, moderate religion wouldn’t be so bad. But when the extremists get all extreme and shit, instead of unreserved condemnation, the moderates want to equivocate, they want to be balanced, they want to say, “Well yeah, those guys are extreme, but you godless heathens hate Mohammed/Jesus/Zeus/FSM! It’s just as much your fault as it is the perpetrators!!!”
Moderate religion may not cause anybody to commit religious violence, but it sure does weaken people’s resolve to condemn it.
So in one hand, we have people who draw Muhammad with a bomb in his head.
In the other hand, we have people who, as an appropiate response, burn buildings and kill people. Because someone published a drawing.
I don’t care how offensive it might be– it’s still a DRAWING.
And Holm put herself along with the building-burners and murderers? Really?
One thing, the cartoon does not show a bomb in a turban, the cartoon shows a bomb as a turban. I’ve heard the artist intended it as a comment on how the fanatics are using Mohammed as an excuse for committing acts of terror, and how that violates the Prophet’s teachings. If anything, the bomb as turban cartoon is more pro Mohammed and pro Islam than violent anti-cartoon actions ever were.
“… and how that violates the Prophet’s teachings.”
I guess the artist knows nothing of mohammedanism then. The “prophet” was a historical person (unlike the mythical jesus); he was a murderer, thief, rapist – you name it – and he most certainly did not preach about peace.
I have a piece on the same subject in the same place today –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/04/religion-islam
I flatter myself that it’s a shade more reasonable than Holm’s piece.
I wonder whether YUP would even consider publishing a book that included anti-Jewish or anti-Christian cartoons unless it was in the clear spirit of condemning such stuff as racist, xenophobic, etc. Even then, I doubt that they would publish it.
Of course, it is outrageous to respond to drawings with violence. That’s not the issue. Nor, I submit, is the issue really free speech. Of course, the Danish publishers have the right to publish to whatever tripe they want to. The question is why would they publish anti-Islamic cartoons when they wouldn’t dare publish cartoons mocking another religion.
That is why my sympathy for them doesn’t go beyond a simple affirmation of free speech for all. They aren’t heroes, in my book, but bigots. Simply because they have the right to publish bigoted garbage – and they didn’t become violent – doesn’t mean they deserve any respect. They’re still bigots.
You’re completely missing the point — no one is defending the individuals, just their right to say what they want. Yes, they’re bigots, but the whole point of free speech is that everyone, bigots or no, should have the right to speak freely. Defending someone’s right to say something offensive is not the same as endorsing their worldview (after all, the ACLU has defended Nazis).
On the contrary, Tulse, I completely get the point. Others on this thread have gone out of their way to condemn the outrageous, disgraceful violence of the Muslims. I couldn’t agree more.
However, to defend the free speech of bigots without acknowledging that they are bigots is to provide the Danish editors a moral virtue they don’t deserve.
Yes, defend their right to say whatever the hell they want. But let’s not forget that these are very bigoted people who deliberately decided to provoke a minority group because they knew no one in a position of power within Denmark would object. In fact, they knew they would approve.
Had the same people dared to mock Christians – they never would have – they would have been boycotted and run out of town.
To fail to acknowledge that piece of the story is provide bigotry a status it doesn’t deserve.
So of course it would simply be unthinkable that someone would, say, put a Christian crucifix in a glass of urine and call it art, or make a statue of the Christian Virgin Mary out of dung, or suggest that the Christian Catholic Church leaders intentionally perform sex with boys at the urging of a giant spider.
Are Andres Serrano, Chris Ofili, and Trey Parker & Matt Stone bigots? More to the point, does it matter for the purposes of free speech?
Clearly you didn’t read my comments carefully. I’ve said numerous times that, yeah, sure, bigots have the right to be bigots and say bigoted things. Nothing excuses the violence in response.
But that is not a sufficient explanation of what happened. A failure to recognize that these Danish editors were bigots is to provide them a moral status they don’t deserve.
As for your counterexamples, I’m not talking about Andres Serrano, a single artist – of Catholic background, incidentally – who is making a single artwork outside a network of large corporate and government networks and who is criticizing part of the dominant culture.
I’m talking about a group of rightwing conservatives who,cowards that they were, cynically provoked a despised minority in their country and would never dare mock the religious sensibilities of the majority.
(Your other example I’m unfamiliar with.)
Nor am I talking about Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, which is satire by a former Muslim directed at Muslims. That is a whole different kettle of fish than a bunch of cowards humiliating a minority.
The free speech issue is the least important issue here because it is so bloody obvious. The more important issue, by far, is the blatant bigotry of the people who are exploiting free speech sensibilities in order to advance a nativist agenda.
That is what I consider the most relevant issue here. The right is extremely clever at manipulating liberal memes – like freedom of speech – to advance their anti-liberal, anti-enlightenment objectives. If you ignore the intentions behind their stunts, or dismiss them, you are providing them moral status they don’t deserve.
So only Muslims can criticize Muslims, and Catholics Catholics? I have indeed read what you’ve written very carefully, and you are clearly saying that only certain kinds of people are allowed to say certain kinds of things. That is not free speech.
Tristero’s beef is that we are attacking Moslems, the new niggers. Niggers being any group too precious and too delicate to ever be criticized.
Don’t you dare point out their flaws. Don’t you dare hold them responsible for their deeds. The nigger can’t be held responsible for anything for the nigger is a childlike creature who must be protected against the perils of existence.
Thus Tristero exhibits a vicious patronizing bigotry, and a fussy streak that would make a cat proud.
That’s right Tristero, I said you’re prejudiced. What will you accuse me of, definition of character?
Maybe I just missed it, but why have I not seen an opinion piece in the mainstream media that says what we all know to be true – that the attack on Westergaard goes beyond underscoring the truth expressed in his cartoon, but also offers as proof positive that those offended in to violence are criminally insane? Could it be that the terrorists are succeeding in suppressing dissenting opinions?
‘These bigots wouldn’t dream of distributing hateful cartoons about Christians.’
According to Wikipedia Westergaard ‘has in several cases provoked religious readers by creating cartoons critical of Christianity or the state of Israel’ but I guess 30 seconds research would have been too much effort for Tristero.
Why risk derailing a good rant with facts?
It is actually worse than it seems.
She’s taught at our school of journalism since the early nineties. She’s even been department head!
The name “Holm” is Danish so I wager marrying a Dane is the reason why she ended up here.
It is hard, even for an American, to live for almost twenty years in a country, teach (almost) at university level, and be married to a native without learning at least a bit of the language and culture.
In other words, she has had all the information available.
She knew bloody well what Sili wrote above. She knew bloody well what the touring imams did. She knew bloody well that they come from the most abhorrent Muslim congregations in Denmark. She knew bloody well that most Muslims here didn’t raise an eyebrow at the time of the original publication. She knew bloody well that it was a purely Danish affair and not directed towards the entire world.
She also knew bloody well that it was not a “stick of dynamite protruding from the top” in the turban but a bomb, btw.
Or maybe she just forgot what the whole thing was about?
Or that free speech is one of the most important things to a journalist? That satire is one of the most effective ways to speak truth to power?
Or maybe she just forgot what the whole journalism thing was about?
Sorry, I was called away. To reply to the comments
“you are clearly saying that only certain kinds of people are allowed to say certain kinds of things. That is not free speech.”
Nope. I am clearly saying that the most important issues here are not free-speech issues – of course, they have the right to say whatever hateful things they want, and of course, the violence in reaction was insane – but the nativist humiliation of a despised minority by wealthy conservatives. That is all I’m saying.
You brought up, as an example, a Catholic-born artist who dunked a crucifix in urine (an ambiguous symbol by the way, which Serrano himself acknowledges). My comments refer to that context. Obviously, anyone has the right to criticize anyone. That said, it is the height of naivete not to take into account power relations and status within a culture. In the case of the Danish editors, they were mocking the most despised members of their society. What brave people!
“o long as it remain sacrosanct and inviolable it will not be reformed as it should be.
But I don’t expect you to face up to that, for you have your targets and you’re not about to give them up. Not hating means surrendering your reason for living, and finding a new reason is beyond your capabilities.”
Oh, I hate George W. Bush, no doubt about it. And I hate violence, no doubt about that, either. And I hate certain rich people who, smug in their unearned bigoted superiority, use their media access to mock the poor and the destitute out of ignorance.
I don’t hate Muslims, or Islam, or Christians, or atheists, etc. All of these have wonderful aspects, and deplorable ones.
I love art and science.
“tristero’s beef is that we are attacking Moslems, the new niggers.”
Nope. You have the right to attack and mock whomever you want. The questions are always what is behind the attack – eg, is it reasonable or sheer prejudice? – and the quality of the attack – eg, are the arguments sound? And they’re called “Muslims,” pal.
“Niggers being any group too precious and too delicate to ever be criticized.”
I’m afraid you have for too many emotional problems dealing with people who are different than yourself for me to wish to engage you further.
“According to Wikipedia Westergaard ‘has in several cases provoked religious readers by creating cartoons critical of Christianity or the state of Israel’ but I guess 30 seconds research would have been too much effort for Tristero.”
In fact, I couldn’t find that in a 30 second search, but did learn that Westergaard grew up a conservative Christian.
I stand corrected. A few cartoons, not 12 on one date, were published over the years that attacked other religions. But!
The publication of cartoons mocking other religions than Islam is far more cautious, which supports my thesis. From Wikipedia’s entry on the Danish Cartoons:
“While Jyllands-Posten has published satirical cartoons depicting Christian figures,[114] it also rejected unsolicited surreal cartoons in 2003 which depicted Jesus,[115] opening them to accusations of a double standard.[116] In February 2006, Jyllands-Posten also refused to publish Holocaust denial cartoons offered by an Iranian newspaper.[117][118] Six of the less controversial entries were later published by Dagbladet Information, after the editors consulted the main rabbi in Copenhagen,[119] and three cartoons were in fact later reprinted in Jyllands-Posten.[120][121] After the competition had finished, Jyllands-Posten also reprinted the winning and runner-up cartoons.[122]”
This demonstrates considerable sensitivity towards religious objections which the editors didn’t show towards Danish Muslims.
Again, for the zillionth time: Of course, the Danish editors have the right to publish whatever trash they want. Of course, the violent protests were completely insane, including the attack on Westergaard. But the important issue here is that those cartoons were disseminated by a bigoted group of wealthy conservatives who were mocking and humiliating a despised minority.
Again, I hold up the counter-example of Frank Zappa who didn’t merely mock one ethnic group, but mocked them all with equal humor and venom, including his own. That is an honest satirist. The Danish editors were, and are, cowards.
Let me add one further example, which is far better for the point you are making than these despicable conservative ideologues. PZ Myers has a great post about doing google searches. Here’s the link: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/google_is_being_sensitive.php#comments
That deplorable self-censorship on Google’s part demonstrates precisely the issues of suppression of expression many of you are trying to make, without giving an inch to christianist conservative bigots.
I guess you missed the death threats and actual attacks that resulted from the cartoon publication (or for that matter the fatwa against Rushdie). Yes, it was brave.
To clarify, I don’t think that anyone disagrees that some people will say things out of objectionable motivations. But again, if you are committed to free speech, those motivations shouldn’t matter. Or do you really think the ACLU should only defend anti-semetic comments by Jews, and not by Nazis?
Tulse,
I think we’re getting somewhere here, but let me respond in order.
As mentioned numerous times, I am very aware of the violence and the threats and find them insane. If you think “insane” is the wrong adjective, please substitute whatever one you feel is appropriate and I would probably agree.
Rushdie and the Danish editors are completely different. Rushdie was genuinely shocked and horrified by the reaction from Iran (which was actually a way to distract Iranians from the financial problems of the Islamic Revolution at the time; not to excuse Khomeini, simply explaining it). The editors deliberately provoked a reaction and they welcomed it.
“I don’t think that anyone disagrees that some people will say things out of objectionable motivations.”
I’m glad YOU don’t disagree. That is not so clear from other commenters!
My point is that the “objectionable motivations” are the major issue here BECAUSE the free speech issues are so clear.
As a longtime card-carrying member of ACLU, I never considered resigning when the ACLU defended that scumbag North or when they defend Nazis. But that is as far as I go in defending their disgusting behavior and attitudes.
Yes, they have the right to say whatever the hell they want. Yes, that right is precious and must be protected against encroachment. But ultimately, Nazis are Nazis. They are not free-speech heroes – or brave- when they walk down the streets of a Jewish neighborbood. They are pigs, thugs, and psychopaths.
The Danish editors are not Nazis. Nor are they heroes or brave. They are coddled members of the highest echelons of the upper reaches of Danish society. Their publication of those cartoons demonstrated their prejudice and nativism, not their commitment to the liberal value of free speech.
Absolutely, the violence was obscene. But let’s not caricature – that word, again – the cultural/political situation in Denmark as merely a clash between freedom-hating Islamic extremists and staunch defenders of democracy. That is naive and gives the worst elements of Denmark’s ruling class a moral status they most certainly do not deserve.
To clarify, I find great beauty and wisdom in the Koran, of which I’ve read about 2/3’s. And I find much that is objectionable. This is true of all great religious texts, in my opinion. I never condone, defend, or excuse violent behavior for any reason, certainly not religious/intellectual/cultural reasons, for example.
My personal religious beliefs, or lack of them, are private. No one, not even my wife and daughter, know what they are. I love science profoundly, and have written numerous full-blooded attacks on creationists, including the IDiots.
You can characterize, if you want, the Danish cartoon story as the insanity of religious extremism, and I don’t disagree. But another important piece of the puzzle is conservative nativism and xenophobia. To ignore that is to miss an important component of the story, in my opinion, one of the most important to focus on, because it gets short shrift due to the madness of the violent response.
I really don’t think, therefore, we have too many fundamental disagreements. You may be more concerned with free speech in this instance, but I see that point very clearly. I’m more concerned with the nativism here, but you seem to understand that as well.
tristero, I really appreciate the even-tempered nature of your replies (even in the face of what may be less-tempered postings on my part). I agree that we’re not that far apart. You’re absolutely correct that there are power differentials involved here, and that the motivations of the original publishers were not necessarily pure. My concern is that by emphasizing that aspect, one implicitly justifies the response. As I see it, it doesn’t matter that “the editors deliberately provoked a reaction”, because the reaction itself was completely unjustified.
I guess I can put my position more simply — a free society has to tolerate people who say objectionable things, but not people who resort to violence to silence others. The publishers fall into the former category, whereas the more extreme reaction falls into the latter. By this criteria I have far more sympathy for the publishers than those who attempted to use violence to avenge their statements. The publishers, however racist, are still adhering to the tenets of a free society, whereas the extremists are not. That is the crucial difference.
Tulse,
Thank you, but for the record, I don’t find your responses “less-tempered.” I enjoy a good argument, obviously, and have been trying to understand the issues you were raising and have felt that you have been doing the same.
It is a common notion that, by explaining a complicated context in a charged situation, we are somehow justifying/condoning/excusing/trivializing outrageous, even murderous, behavior. There are times that despicable people certainly do this. For example, I heard Jerry Falwell say, with a perfectly straight face, “I condemn violence against abortion clinics but I understand perfectly why the attacker chose to do so.” It is difficult to articulate a difference between that kind of cynical nod to liberal niceties and where I stand.
But because it is difficult is no reason not to attempt to understand a complex event, like the Danish cartoons, in all its complexity. Hopefully, intelligent people – any reader of this blog qualifies – can cope with complexity without losing their heads. I, for one, do not think that the violence perpetrated in this story is in any way, shape, or form justified by the provocation. Nor do I understand at all why anyone would kill or get themselves killed over a drawing they found offensive. That’s crazy.
And I completely agree with this:
“a free society has to tolerate people who say objectionable things, but not people who resort to violence to silence others. The publishers fall into the former category, whereas the more extreme reaction falls into the latter.”
Where we part, and perhaps we should just leave it there, is here:
“By this criteria I have far more sympathy for the publishers than those who attempted to use violence to avenge their statements. The publishers, however racist, are still adhering to the tenets of a free society, whereas the extremists are not. That is the crucial difference.”
First, to carp over words, I would not use the word “sympathy” in this context: the editors are cynical people who would mock those who sympathize. Rather, I believe that certainly, legally and morally, they are in a very different position than the violent protestors. That is as far as I can go.
I submit that the publishers are not so much “adhering to the tenets of a free society” as exploiting one of its most basic values: untrammeled free speech. Just as Larry Flynt’s right to publish a cartoon that offends Falwell needs defending, so do these publishers. Both are testing the limits. None of these people are moral exemplars, even if they are legally and morally less culpable than murderers.
My larger problem is this, which I may not have made clear in this thread:
Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern of rightwing exploitation of liberal values, such as free expression, for the purpose of confusing issues and gaining mainstream legitimacy. A perfect example of this is “intelligent design” creationism which exploits and distorts the language of science to advance an anti-scientific agenda. And no one doubts that the ultimate aim of IDiots is not “equal time” but rather the suppression of scientific facts/theories that conflict with their wacko beliefs.
I may be wrong, but the whole Danish cartoon story smells to me of this kind of rightwing exploitation. No one in their right mind would defend the murdererous response – certainly I never will! But that makes the publishers “right” only in a negative sense: they are not as bad as murderers. Okay, they’re not even close to as bad as murderers. That is mighty faint praise, but that is all I think they deserve.
“Toleration” is different than “approval.” (I know that you know the difference). My concern, in this particular situation, is that it is quite easy for the rightwing to confuse the two.
Approval is something the nativist right will never receive from me. I tolerate their behavior, but disapprove strongly. (Such disapproval does not imply a desire to ban it or them, of course.)
The Google example that PZ Myers blogged about, however, is quite clear. Google is behaving like a bunch of cowards and the suppression of speech by intimidation – the issue that concerns both of us regarding violence response, or even the threat – is clear as a bell.
Perhaps we should leave it there? I think we have different emphasizes in this situation and I think that difference is clear. I think in others, we’d be on the same side, unequivocally. And our differences here are fairly slight, given the amount of importance both of us attach to free speech.
I’m happy to leave it there, tristero — I agree that our differences are ultimately not that great.
I guess I’ll have to change “lier [sic] for Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh” to “incompetent analyst” then.
As for the main argument it seems driven by a side political agenda against “wealthy conservatives”, which I frankly can’t understand, it is too contrived (as in lack of evidence, mouthfuls of meaningless emoting). Apparently we all agree that the magazine had the right of publication.
[I would make an argument against the purported bigotry. It isn’t much evidenced, and among other things a refusal to support historical lies is used. But that is neither here nor there as bigotry isn’t a crime.]