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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 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?
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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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.
no subject
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.
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Some examples.
no subject
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.
no subject
The editor of the Jordanian paper who condemned the violence has been fired and jailed.
no subject
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."
no subject
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A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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).
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
I suppose that's why I'm looking at the "why" more so than the cause and effect.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
But at the speed things are moving Im not sure how accurate these reports are.
Re: A Norwegian pipes up
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.