liz_marcs | Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

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Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

Still feelling craptastic, although I dragged my butt into work today because...yeah. I'm stupid. That and I'm just well enough to be going out of my skull from boredom.

I may post another part tonight for Facing the Heart in Darkness. Or I may just crawl directly into bed. Depends on how sucky I feel.

I do apologize for the delay, but this stomach bug sucks.

Anyway, I've been seeing some discussion about the Danish Charicature Riots, especially among the Europeans on my FList. As I've been in and out of it pretty much for the past five days, I haven't really gotten involved in the discussion nor have I been able to really think clearly about it.

I did, however, find a very good write up about what happened this past weekend.

Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan who specializes in Middle Eastern Studies has the best, most balanced, and most level-headed take on the caricatures that riled the Muslim world that is very much worth reading.

Sample quote:

I want to underline that few places in the Muslim world have seen violence over the caricatures, so far mainly Damascus and Beirut (which are unexpected in this regard.) Protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere have been nonviolent. This is not to play down the seriousness of what happened in Damascus and Beirut over the weekend — acts which can only inspire horror and condemnation — only to set it in context. There are 1.5 billion Muslims. A lot of Muslim countries saw no protests at all. In some places, as in Pakistan, they were anemic. The caricature protests are resonating with local politics and anti-imperialism in ways distinctive to each Muslim country. The protests therefore are probably not mostly purely about religion.

I really recommend that you read the whole thing...

ETA: A Sign of the Times...
via Atrios

Freaky-ness.

Once upon a time, you'd have to search someone's bedroom and find the diary when you had people like Jacob D. Robida, the New Bedford 18-year-old who attacked patrons in a New Bedford gay bar with a hatchet and a gun and then subsequently died in a shootout with police in Arkansas.

Now, you can always read Robida's My Space page to get a look inside the mind of a killer.

Anyone else just a little creeped out by this? Or is it just me?

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Thanks for your link to the prof at UMich's opinion on the caricature-reaction riots. I haven't read yet, but I've bookmarked.

And damn, I didn't hear until your entry that Robida had been shot and killed. It is incredibly creepy to see his MySpace page. I imagine we'll see more and more of this type of thing, now that MySpace is so popular, especially when we learn more in relation to internet-related crimes, disappearances, web-cam transgressions/soliciting of minors. I keep thinking that I'm used to the greater-access technology world, but then something new to think about pops up.

Isn't there someone on LJ who's been accused of murdering another LJer?

Ahhhh, here's the list of famous and infamous LJers. *shudder* on some of the names.

So, I've already seen something like this, but this is the first time that the "crime" had occured in my back yard (so to speak), so in this case I actually took a look. In the LJ cases, I wasn't nosy enough to bother.

Good god. And here I'd only tsk-ed at the people who have faked their own deaths (or *probably* faked them -- er, that is, they suddenly were alive again, but the jury's still out on whether it was them or others who spread the fake tragic news).

I kind of interested in seeing the Charicature, just for curiosities sake. My country is a Muslim country and so far, we haven't had any extreme riots or protests, the extent of the situation being the resignation of the editor of the lone newspaper that published the Charicature here. Unfortunately, I think that some people are just using this as an excuse to incite unnecessary violence and anarchy against innocent bystanders, eventhough they know that nothing can be gained from these protest. Hopefully, the situation will die down soon.

That is exactly what Juan Cole was pointing out.

That vast majority of Muslim countries are utterly indifferent to the caricatures.

A lot of the controversy has to do with matters other than religion, i.e., politics or protests against European and American imperialist policy in the region.

Personally, yeah, I've seen some of the caricatures (I actually found a link to them here) and really, the ones I "get" are stupid and racist. People have every right to be upset.

On the other hand, I there is a free speech issue and the Danish government is right. There is nothing they can do to stop publication.

The only thing that I can't seem to discover is whether the cartoons originated in a right-wing Danish newspaper that had shown racism in the past. The source of the cartoons is a little muddled to me, but then again, I've been sick so I'm not sure on the deal.

Although I do question why there were smattering of papers in Europe that gleefully picked up all 12 cartoons and re-ran them, especially given the ethnic tensions that are slowly building in a lot of EU countries as a result of racism.

Me thinks there's something just a leeeeeetle bit more than "protesting religious persecution" and "protecting freedom of speech" on both sides of this little argument.

It's great that most of the Muslim world is responding peacefully, but where is the condemnation from them of the people who aren't? And why is it ok to boycott an entire country based on what one newpsaper printed?

What bothers me more than anything is the frequent use of violence in the radical Islamic world in response to offense, and the sheer hypocrisy of it. I've seen the cartoons featured in the Muslim world that portray Jews and/or Israel as devils and pigs and Sharon and Bush as monsters eating Muslim babies, and they are nothing short of sick. The fact that they frequently depict Jews as Nazis while themselves using the exact same anti-semitic propaganda (look at what Jews look like in their illustrations) that the Nazis used is mind-blowing.

<url="http://www.pmw.org.il/cartoonphoto.html">Some <url="http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/arabcartoons.htm">examples.

Whoops. I always manage to mess up the code. Sorry.

Some examples.

*raises hand*

For the record, I think this is a case where both sides are in the wrong. And I certainly am not one to say that some countries in the Arab world has hands clean or any right to talk.

But as they say: two wrongs don't make a right.

What Juan Cole is pointing out is that it seems to him that the riots:

1) Are being hyped in the Western press. The reality is that the vast majority of Islamic countries honestly could care less about the controversy and there is absolutely nothing and no reaction, beyond maybe an overheated editorial or two, assuming the local population even cares or knows about the controversy at all.

2) In countries where there are some protests, the vast majority of those protests are anemic at best.

3) In countries where violence has occured (which, at last count, amounted to two) or in countries where the protests actually drew a crowd (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Egypt), there were other factors that came into play that had absolutely zero to do with religion and far more to do with politics.

I happen to think he's right on all counts. I definitely think there was something a little more to the Mohammed cartoons than I've read. I also definitely think there's a hell of a lot more to the riots than just "religion" no matter how much the local authorities claim that's the motivation. Bullshit on that, I say.

As for why "other" Muslim countries don't condemn. There was a newspaper in Jordan that most certainly did.

But I think we tend to forget is that there are many Muslim countries that stay very, very far away from the Arab-Israeli pissing match. I don't believe many Muslim countries in Southeast Asia, for example, much care. Your more laidback Muslim African nations don't get too excited about the whole thing, either. Why should these nations be held responsible for Shitheads in Beirut? It's sort of like making Canada apologize everytime the United States pulls a dick move on the world stage.

I understand your point, and I do agree with it. I don't think one Islamic country should have to apologize for another; but I do feel that if this is not the stance of all Muslims (which I don't believe it is), then Muslim leaders (not necessarily by country, but clerics) should be making a bigger noise about condemning the violence and making it clear that it is not approved of. I also think there is often a knee-jerk reaction from many people to brush off these extreme reactions and make excuses for it. The fact that Denmark and other European countries have asked their citizens to leave many Islamic countries for fear of their safety is insane and horrifying.

The editor of the Jordanian paper who condemned the violence has been fired and jailed.

I plead illness for not knowing what happened with the editor in Jordan.

Juan Cole (if you read what he wrote) has a selection of Muslim religious leaders who have come out and condemned the violence.

Sunni religious leaders in Beirut did attempt to stop the crowd from engaging in violence but (surprise, surprise) were drowned out by the hotheads and gunfire from government forces.

Syria's Grand Mufti (the country's chief authority on Islamic law) outright condemned the violence and said rioters hurt their own cause and the country as a result of their actions.

Not surprising Afganistan called for calm and there were protests pretty much confined to one town. In Pakistan there was a call for protests, but the local population fell into the "don't care" category. Iran has done practically zip one way or the other (again, another population that just doesn't care).

What I'm trying to say is, there have been Middle Eastern Muslim voices raised in protest and evidence that the outrage is nowhere near as overwhelming as the U.S. and European press has been playing it. That is a completely different thing than brushing it off (which I most certainly am not; what is happening is horrifying). All I'm saying is that we do need to step back, do a reality check, and not just think about what is happening, but why it's happening.

Maybe a slightly different and off-kilter way to look at it, but, as I said, I think there's a hell of a lot more at play here than an argument over a bunch of cartoons and freedom of the press.

I'm also not terribly convinced that we'd even read/hear it in the press if, say, Muslim religious leaders in say, Indonesia, came out and condemned the riots, just like we didn't hear their statement of condemnation against suicide bombers that target civilians back in December as "contrary to the teachings of Islam."

That's true. I do thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that many have tried to condemn the violence. And I never meant to imply that I thought you were someone who was brushing it off- I was speaking in more general terms there.

I know this is an issue that seems to inflamed people on both sides of the debate and I know that anything Middle East will touch of firestorm no matter what, so no worries.

The only thing that I can't seem to discover is whether the cartoons originated in a right-wing Danish newspaper that had shown racism in the past. The source of the cartoons is a little muddled to me, but then again, I've been sick so I'm not sure on the deal.

As far as I know, Jyllands Posten is a well respected newspaper, one of the biggest in Denmark. They commissioned the caricatures and printed them 30. September. The reason is said to be that a guy who had written a children's-book about Islam couldn't get anyone to draw the Prophet Muhammad for the book, because they were afraid.

There were protests in several countries.

On 10.January the tiny Christian-fundamentalist rag "Magazinet" in Norway re-printed the drawings. The editor claims it was because freedom of expression is so important. Nobody with half a brain believes him. He has argued in favor of laws against blasphemy in the past, but that was to protect his religion of course.

The international protest erupted. Other Newspapers printed the drawings. More protests.

Thank you for the clarification.

I know that I remembered something about some racist/fundamentalist paper doing something or somehow being involved, but I wasn't entirely sure when/where. (Again, fever, illness, dizziness and apologies for not being more prepared on the history).

No apology needed. I have a front row seat to this one, unfortunately.

My sympathies for what's happening in your neck of the woods. You just look at something like this and you wonder how things got so bad so quickly.

I suppose that's why I'm looking at the "why" more so than the cause and effect.

I think the "why" is an unfortunate mix of western cultural arrogance and eastern frustration over life in general.

It probably feels good to feel superior, and also feels good to scream and shout one's anger without getting arrested for once.

Once the parties start talking, they seem to reach agreement rather quickly.

5+ people have been reported killed, embassies have been burned, people is being evacuated, death threats. It has already gone too far.

Most norwegians seems to agree that printing them was a bad idea, but that any danish or norwegian should fear for their lives because of it just wrong.

5+ people? I have heard of one demonstrator being shot by the police in Afganistan. Who are the others?

Things have definitely gone too far. The anger are out of proportion to the insult, and this suggests to me that there are other issues at work here.

There are always those who finds it to their advantage to help trouble along. In this case I think we can find such people on both sides. Which to me is a strong argument for staying calm and sceptical.

Like you, I am also being very cynical of news coverage on both sides of the divide.

I'm not denying that there is violence, I'm not denying that it's out of proportion to the supposed insult, and I'm not denying that there are extremists out there who are using this as yet another excuse.

And I sure as hell am not arguing that "angry, rioting Muslims = right" because I'm most definitely not. Burning down embassies, making in dangerous for people of the wrong nationality to even stay in a country, issuing death threats against the cartoonists...no definitely does not fall into the "right" column.

However, Muslims who are insulted by the cartoons absolutely do have the right to call for a boycott on products from X-Y-Z country and they do have a right to argue that they find the caricatures insulting (provided it's done peacefully). These are tactics that are most certainly used in the West and have been for a long time.

Freedom of speech is important and should be defended at all costs. But our peaceful exercise of freedom of speech does not negate someone else's peaceful exercise to counter with speech of their own.

Note the key word being "peaceful" as part of that.

Where I have a problem is the decision to point to peaceful protest and peaceful boycott (which is happening, make no mistake) and putting it in the same bucket as the actions of thugs using this incident as an excuse to be violent. One is not the same as the other, at all.

However, I think there's a very good argument that can be made that this whole issue of the cartoons has long ago ceased to be a religious issue and has crossed the line to actually being about other issues. It hasn't helped that the two sides have been spewing hate for years about each other due to everything from "political convenience" to "keeping the populace united and focused on an external enemy so they don't realize just how fucked up their homeland is."

And that's happening on both sides of the "Muslim" and "non-Muslim" world. In the U.S. for example, whenever President Bush's approval rating tanks yet again, he starts squaking about "9/11" and "war on terra" and "they hate us for our freedoms" and "only we can protect you from the big bad terrorists so sit down, shut up, and stop complaining about your eroding civil rights" like a pull-string Chatty Cathy or a well-trained monkey.

There are, in fact, an awful lot of Muslim clerics out there calling for calm, there are a lot of secular and moderate Muslims that are positively horrified about what's happening.

This is not the "Muslim World" vs. "Non-Muslim World" knock-down, drag-out that's being painted on both sides of the divide. However, I think there are some pretty powerful interests out there (again on both sides) that are invested into turning this chaos into just that.

My big concern is that someone, somewhere is going to use this as an excuse for a war because, damn, wars had started over a lot less.

If cooler heads don't prevail and pull both sides back from the brink, we're all in a lot of trouble.

I think you and I are very much in agreement on this issue.

But I'm not so worried about war. I see this more as the kind of venting that keeps a bad situation stable, than the kind that makes people band together for revolutionary change. I could be totally wrong of course, I'm no expert.

But if we in the West don't learn to share our wealth, the revolution will come, and the only winners will be the cockroaches.

Um, now I'm getting morbid, sorry.

4 people shot in Afghanistan, a 14 year old kid shot in Somalia and one died after jumping of the danish embassy in Libanon. (www.vg.no)

But at the speed things are moving Im not sure how accurate these reports are.

I've seen that the number of dead and wounded are going up now, yes. It is bad and tragic. The victims have been protesters and police trying to control them.

Except a Catholic Priest who got killed in Turkey. And an ordinary Norwegian Muslim family man who got stabbed in the neck by a drunken lout (fortunately he didn't get badly hurt).

There is no excuse for this violence. But there are explanations.

Are you from Jordan? The extent of the protests in Jordan were not just "the resignation of the editor of the lone newspaper that published." The editor in question was fired and has been arrested by the government for "abusing" his freedom of speech in order to publish the cartoon. This is hardly the first time a Jordanian journalist has been arrested for their opinions . . .
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3701173.stm)
. . . so I bet this one knew what he was getting into. He's not the only one who has spoken against the protests at some cost. The Lebanese minister of the interior has resigned, and the commander of their armies has offered to do so.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4685574.stm)

The problem is, can we (US citizens) support those who speak out against abuses like these protests without making their work harder by making it so they can be portrayed as U.S. sympathizers? I'm not sure what we can do at this point beyond buy Dutch products as a sign of support (what do they make, anyways?).

Keith McCullough

That is a tough call, I agree.

But the point I was trying to make (or am trying to make) is that this situation is one that spiraled out of control.

The cartoonists had the absolute right to draw the cartoons. The newspapers had the absolute right to publish them. Hell, they had the right to be even more insulting than they supposedly are.

Muslims have the aboslute right to get angry. They have the absolute right to peacefully protest the cartoons. They have the absolute right to call for and engaging in boycotts as appropriate.

No one has the right to engage in violence, burn down embassies, or threaten to kill the cartoonists and employees at the newspapers. I'm not even the smallest bit sympathetic to these actions or people who are apologists for this.

What I do find offensive is the putting the peaceful protests (and there are) into the same category as the violent protests (of which there are a few). What I do find offensive is that people on both sides of the divide calling for cooler heads are getting drowned out by people who are using this as an excuse to fan a few flames and get people riled up.

Right now, I'm very cynical of news coverage on all angles of the issue becaue I think there is some very powerful interest in a few quarters to blow this situation up and make it worse.

Thank you for that link. It's nice to read a well thought out take on things.

And that myspace bog was upsetting, to say the least.

Juan Cole is actually a rather interesting guy to follow. I think he tends to balance things out fairly well, but he might be a little too "real politick" for some out there.

I've certainly seen him piss off pro-Israeli and pro-Arab people (sometimes at the same time with the same post), but there's no question he has a very deep knowledge of the region. I think he does try to present an accurate picture of the messy network of political movements in the Middle East.

What's worse are the comments by Jake's friends gloryifying him. Seriously scary.

Yeah. That MyWebSpace page is something else to look at. Requires a shower to view.

It's down now, and all that's there is a little rant about people who only care about sensational news and not what's really going on.

I read a good exploration of the cartoons and their origin on the BBC website. It seemed a bit ill-considered to commission them knowing all along that any illustration of Mohammed is considered blasphemous. And hey, it gets notoriety for the unpublished kids book (which according to the BBC, at least one cartoon pointed this out.)

Dane here, with my biased opinion, and I seem to getting more and more biased as time a goes by, sadly enough.

Yes most of the violence seems to be from the countries Lebanon and Syrian, but the situation seems to escalate still in Southeast Asia too. In Jakarta did protester to try storm the Danish embassy see here. And another thing is that even in the "peaceful" protest are there threat of violence and or the call for total destruction of Denmark.

The Arabic countries newspaper written in English, are feeding the fire of the conflict, with their sloppy one-sided “journalism”, there where times where I found factual fact that so far out, that they could only mean they have had pulled the “fact” out of the thin air. And I am biased enough to think that the Arabic versions, are probably not any better more likely worse.

The Danish foreign affair; recommend that Danes stay away from the following countries, except if it is extremely necessary: Marokko, Algeriet, Tunesien, Libyen, Egypten, Sudan, Oman, Forenede Arabiske Emirater, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait.

The newspaper JP is political liberal right wing with a generally good reputation and it’s owned by its own fond, so it doesn’t have to answer over for an owner.

Personally do I find the drawings pretty mild. And I can’t really understand why they are racists, I can see if you called them blasphemy, but racism has to do with race?. All this get me to remember that saw a painting in at art museum with early Danish surrealists. One of the painting that I do remember was with Christ on the crucifix bone thin with a gas mask on his in the background commands catholic priest German soldiers to attack civilians. It was written as a commentary over the Catholic Church involvement in the Spanish civil war. That paining was, at the time it got drawn, almost certain blasphemy in Denmark, which could get you a prison sentences, and in Spain without a doubt. It was not picasso’s ”Guernica” but i am stil glad it got painted.

Hmmmmm, the racism issue...I think this maybe the American definition vs. everyone else's definition in play here.

As someone who isn't Muslim, there are really only two where I can see an insult, a few others I can see as mildly offensive, a few I simply just don't get, but I assume it's because I can't translate something in the cartoons or because I'm culturally ignorant.

I'm also not even arguing that the cartoonists didn't have the right to draw what they did. I'm not even aruging that the don't have the right to be even more insulting if they wish. Freedom of speech ain't always pretty. Sometimes it means letting some real assholes speak, like some of the U.S.'s juicer racist organizations and holocaust deniers and right-wing-nut-jobs that actually advocate killing progressives like me because we're "traitors" and "not real Americans."

I also agree that the level of violence is absolutely wrong and is completely out of proportion to the supposed insult these cartoons are supposed to represent.

As I was saying in my response here, where I have an issue with Western coverage is that there seems to be a push for us to believe that the violence is universal (it's not even close) and that calls for boycotts and peaceful protests is somehow equivalent to the actions of those perpetrating the violence when it's not.

Am I horrified by the violence? Yes. Am I even marginally sympathetic to those who are perpetrating it or encouraging it? No.

I'm just very, very suspicious of the motivations on both sides of the debate that are trying to play up the violence and I think a step back and a real hard look at what few facts are available in this evolving situation is called for.

Admittedly, I've been ill (and actually still am), so I'm playing catch-up now. What I am seeing, though, is an awful lot of hysteria and an awful lot of fanning the flames, none of which is helping anyone right now.

I think there's one or two of the cartoons that I understand can be offensive, one or two I don't get and some of them were pretty amusing. Overall I was rather left with a feeling of "this is what they're burning down our embassies for?"

I've been trying to catch up on facts since they started burning the embassies - the actual printings of the cartoons were in September, so the situation has some build-up.

As far as I understand, a lot of the kerfluffle started with the murder of that Dutch filmmaker. Then a Danish professor was doing a lecture, and was quoting the Qur'an - and wound up getting death threats for this. After that, the community were fairly afraid of what would happen, and so when the children's book author needed illustrations for his book about Muhammed, he had serious trouble finding illustrators who dared do it - and they wound up doing it anonymously. This was the situation Jyllandsposten wanted to prove a point about, by inviting caricaturists to draw these cartoons. Of course, since I don't read arabic, this is a mixture of Danish, Norwegian, British, American newspapers.

Though, Arabic journalists stationed in Norway has stated that they've not reported several errors to their paper regarding who said what, with the result that the head of the press organization in Norway - who was advocating the free press, but not necessarily the drawings, has been portrayed as Editor of Jyllandsposten, and similar errors. The journalists just said that it was something that would sort it self out. (Paraphrasing.)

Then you also come to the part where Denmark's Queen Margrethe is being portrayed as a racist in some of the demonstrations. The reason for that: The Queen's biography was published last year. Parts of it was translated to English. The translator mucked up - and now the Islamic world thinks she's against islam. What she was commenting on was how one should provide alternatives to the very fundamentalistic parts of islam - that might be less violent, instead she was quoted as saying that one should provide opposition to islam. Because of an error in translation. But then again, this whole thing is rather stupid.

I don't think the violence is universal. The media will play things like this up - and relish it for as long as they can. Unfortunately, there are idiots on both sides.

There was an interesting discussion about the whole cartoon issue over on

ursulav's LJ the other day. I kind of agree with her whole premise: They're all morons.
She's not saying that a particular side is moronic, just that the whole lot of them have some seriously skewed ideas. (my words, not hers)

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Yick...the "Caricature Riots" in Damascus and Beirut; Inside the Mind of a Killer

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A Norwegian pipes up

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Terrifying

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