I don't advocate the lampooning of anyone's religious icon. If this was Jesus, I'd not want all this parade of cartoons going on. Why is it okay for Malkin to do it?
The newspaper published the cartoons when a Danish author complained that he could find no-one to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Jyllands-Posten wondered whether there were more cases of self-censorship regarding Islam in Denmark and asked twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them. Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.
The publication led to outrage among the Muslim immigrants living in Denmark. 5,000 of them took to the streets to protest. Muslim organisations have demanded an apology, but Juste rejects this idea: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures,” he said. The Danish imam Raed Hlayhel reacted with the statement: “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims. Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world.”
Flemming Rose, the cultural editor at the newspaper, denied that the purpose had been to provoke Muslims. It was simply a reaction to the rising number of situations where artists and writers censored themselves out of fear of radical Islamists, he said. “Religious feelings cannot demand special treatment in a secular society,” he added. “In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”
The affair, however, has also led to a diplomatic incident. On Thursday the ambassadors of eleven Muslim countries, including Indonesia, a number of Arab states, Pakistan, Iran, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, complained about the cartoons in a letter to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. They say the publication of the cartoons is a “provocation” and demand apologies from the newspaper.
Jyllands-Posten was also included on an al-Qaeda website listing possible terrorist targets . An organisation which calls itself “The Glorious Brigades in Northern Europe” is circulating pictures on the internet which show bombs exploding over pictures of the newspaper and blood flowing over the national flag of Denmark. “The Mujahedeen have numerous targets in Denmark – very soon you all will regret this,” the website says.
Meanwhile in Brussels a young Muslim immigrant published a poster depicting the Virgin Mary with naked breasts. Though the picture has drawn some protest from Catholics (though not from Western embassies, nor from the bishops), this artist need not fear being murdered in the street. On the contrary, he is being subsidised by the Ministry for Culture.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/382
I wasn't aware that the Southern Baptists had hijacked airplanes and killed 3,000 Americans in one day. We're in a war against these people. We need to do everything that we can to demoralize them.
Bill
To be honest I have been watching with a little amusement today as the reaction of people pointing to muslim reaction to this cartoons as an example of ISLAM is evil. Unfort most people are forgetting our own Chirstian History as to this that resulted in riots deaths destruction also. Primarly the Heresy of Iconclasim and then the Calvanist rampage against all images in the Churches of Europe esp in England.
If this was Jesus, I'd not want all this parade of cartoons going on."
If it was Jesus,every media outlet would be falling all over themselves to air, print,and shout it from the rooftops.
I said the same thing at the beginning but even when people do depict Jesus shamefully, I don't riot. They are cartoons, these are the people who kill people because they aren't Muslims and say horrid things about them everyday. They want to exterminate every non-muslim in the world and I could care less if their panties are in a wad.
The parallel between Christianity and Islam is false. Short version: If Islam insists on inserting its religion into secular life [church & state] then it is open to criticism, parody, satire, etc.
Ed Morrisey of Captain's Quarters blog says it best:
"Editorial cartoons exist to challenge political thought and expose hypocrisy. Among religions, Islam should be the least protected from this form of speech, as it insists on involving itself in temporal political matters wherever it is practiced. Indeed, it insists on dictating political and legal matters, usually in the most extreme terms, and it uses the life of Mohammed as its claim on political and legal supremacy...That insistence on dictating terms of temporal power makes criticism, by cartoonists or editorialists, absolutely necessary in order to combat the stultifying reach of sharia. Islam sets the terms of debate. It cannot insist on temporal rule based on Mohammed and the Qu'ran and then expect people to refrain from criticizing either one...Islam wants to impose its tenets on us, and if we give up the option of political criticism, we have moved more than halfway towards surrender to the Islamists. For those individuals who cross the line into unnecessary offense, the option to use free debate to argue the point will remain open as long as we defend free speech."
If you read throught the information on Michelle's site it leads you to other sites that explains that a lot of the so-called cartoons were fakes, made up by the Danish Imam and taken on his rebel-rousing tour. One of the photos was taken from MSNBC's website from a French pig calling contest and the Imam took the photo, re-copied it to b&w and passed it off as an insult to Ismal because the guy was made to look like he was mocking Mohammad, not what he was really doing....
Because she's a Christian and the cartoons are a way to demean and belittle islam and their demon possessed criminal pedophile profet.
And she's right, unless you're not a Christian.
malkin was simply trying to show what exactly had certain muslims going off.
as you are well aware,it's not alright for our press to show the raw footage from the WTC,the beheadings,executions etc.in allah's name--so great diplomacy and sensitivity has always been shown toward them.
With all the attention that politicians and the media have devoted to the controversy generated by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it's important to understand this controversy in its proper context. Jyllands-Posten decided to publish these cartoons because it wanted to test what editor-in-chief Carsten Juste described as "an article of self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world."
In other words, Juste contended that there is a real fear of being seen as criticizing Islam in large parts of the Western world, and that this fear has bred self-censorship. Juste is right on both counts. An article that I wrote for the Daily Standard back in November documents in some detail the trend toward criticism of Islam being met with threats or actual physical violence. Examples of this include Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa sentencing writer Salman Rushdie to death after publication of The Satanic Verses; the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh after he directed a film dramatizing the mistreatment of women born into Muslim families; the death threats directed against actor and Muslim convert Omar Sharif after he praised his role as St. Peter in an Italian TV film; Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali being driven underground by threats after admitting in a televised debate that she had left the Islamic faith; and Dutch painter Rachid Ben Ali being forced into hiding after one of his shows featured satirical work critical of Islamic militants' violence.
These are but a few examples of a far broader trend toward speech crticizing Islam being met not with counter-speech, but with threats -- and in extreme instances, with death. So Jyllands-Posten's publication of the cartoons of Muhammad is best understood not as an attack on Islam, but as a reaction to this trend, and an attempt to dramatically reassert the primacy of free speech. In the past, when criticism of Islam was met with threats, Westerners haven't always been vigilant about standing behind speech rights. After a bounty was placed on Rushdie's head, for example, British novelist John le Carré offered an excuse for Rusdie's would-be assassins by stating that "there is no law in life or nature that says that great religions may be insulted with impunity." Likewise, Western legal systems -- through such vehicles as religious vilification laws -- frequently send mixed signals by suggesting that the slander of religion can be punished by law.
So it is encouraging to see that the controversy over these cartoons wasn't met with wholehearted Western self-flagellation and apologies, but rather with defiance. When newspapers like France's France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, Italy's La Stampa, the Netherlands' Volkskrant, and Spain's El Periodico republished the cartoons, they did so not out of anti-Islam animus, but rather because they understood the principles that are here at stake.
Of course, Westerners have not unanimously stood in solidarity with freedom of speech in this latest controversy. In an excellent article published in the Weekly Standard, Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, notes the reaction from the UN's high commissioner for human rights after the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) complained to her about the cartoons:
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour, replied to the OIC, "I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others." She launched investigations into "racism" and "disrespect for belief," and asked for "an official explanation" from the Danish government. However, despite being a professed defender of human rights, she showed no alarm at the OIC's disregard for the Danes' belief in and commitment to a free press.
When the U.S. State Department and British foreign secretary Jack Straw condemn the publication of these cartoons, it only demonstrates that they are either unaware of the threat to free speech -- or else would like to pretend that it does not exist.
The fact remains, though, that the threat to free speech is real. Even in the West, people are threatened and sometimes killed for criticizing Islam. The Danish cartoons struck a blow against the resulting self-censorship. How we as a culture are able to weather the current controversy will say much about our understanding of the importance of free speech rights -- and about our prospects of keeping these rights vibrant in the future.
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/the_danish_cart.html
Well the muslims have done all these things over some silly cartoons. To not show them on TV or other media demonstrates that the MSM is simply afraid of the muslims or have a huge double standard. I think it is a little of both. If you supression of free speech by violence is ok, then maybe you should move to a muslim country, we don't condone it here in the USA.
Seriously, now: if Christendom had been behaving like the Muslim world has for the last several decades, and particularly in the last few years, and somebody printed a cartoon with a critical depiction of Jesus, would you say that it was beyond the pale? Context has everything to do with it: at this point in history, Islam has a very great deal to answer for, while Christianity and Judaism do not. A cartoon is a very mild reproach, yet they respond with characteristic barbarism.
Thousands of fanatics worldwide are rioting because of these cartoons, and they won't stop. The cartoons are newsworthy and should be shown everywhere. And perhaps if every news outlet shows them, the rioters will see the futility in rioting. As it stands now, newspapers are refusing to print them out of fear, though they claim it is out of respect for muslims.
*I don't advocate the lampooning of anyone's religious icon.....
Jesus is not a religious ICON - IS HE GREATER than any cartoon?. He is GREATER than all nations and kings. It really shouldn't bother anyone what is said or written about Jesus. We know that "Greater is HE that is in you than he that is in the world" for the true believer. Our faith is not based on what is published is a comic strip.
What could any one say or write about HIM - that would be worse - than what was done to him - Yet is was for our salvation that HE died. He KNOWS who HE is ... a cartoon won't change that. Aren't you glad that HE is our LORD!
For starters: In this country we have freedom of the press.
The hype is about Denmark's vote against Iran at the UN.
It is NOT about the cartoons, but extortion.