stoush.net

Tim’s site seems to be a bit overloaded at the moment.

You can see some slightly clearer images of the same cartoons here.

The cartoons aren’t even good! The only one vaguely bordering on amusing is the “stop, we’ve run out of virgins”

Despite their poor quality, clearly their intention was to offend. I’ve no problem with offensive cartoons that satirise current events.

I wouldn’t want to see them banned, as this would make me just as bad as the wingnuts who continually bay for Leunig’s blood.

Who are these “wingnuts who continually bay for Leunig’s blood”?

Please give specific, linked examples of people seriously calling for Leunig’s death.

I know you must have some examples, because after last week’s humiliation, you would be extremely foolhardy to make any assertions about “wingnuts” without having incontrovertible proof close to hand.

The most they show I think is that we have far better cartoonists in Australia than in Denmark. Personally I think that in the stagnant pool of non-diverse media we have in this country, we have simultaneously the world’s worst op-ed writers and best line artists.
The best cartoonist working in Australia presently, with all respect to TV’s Daily Flute (the Brian Houston of blogging), is David Pope/Hinze.
…
As to Leunig, death, no, but sacking him would be nice. I can’t stand the stinky disingenous self-righteousness.

Metaphor EP, Metaphor! Calling for him to be sacked is what I meant for goodness sake. Type Leunig into tim blair’s search function for many good examples. I can’t do it at the moment, as his site seems to be down.

Oh and whilst were engaging in petty ad-hominems, how’s your book on the French Multicultural model going?

In short, the fuss is over absolutely fracking nothing except some medieval wackos looking to for a reason to bully people.

The longer version of what I think is, as usual, expressed by Tim Dunlop.

Anyway, I happily stayed out of all the palaver about it at LP and elsewhere why I’m weighing in now I don’t know, except its hot, its a Monday and jesus am I sick of religious nutjobs. Need to go watch me some Dawkins to cleanse the palate.

I hate Leunig too. Long standing-ly.

Here’s a link to the fuss at LP. The fuss seems to be all over the Australian blogosphere at the moment. Someone could do us all a favour and put up a good links post :)

Are you writing a book, EP? I thought books were so last millennium.

[link fixed: liam]

David, Evil, Kim, please don’t mix stoushes. Can’t we all just agree that Michael Leunig should have been pensioned off in about 1985?
Amanda, to this:

In short, the fuss is over absolutely fracking nothing except some medieval wackos looking to for a reason to bully people.

…I have nothing to add but my wholehearted agreement.

And here’s a permalink to Tim Blair’s post. The current link in the post here points to his front page not to the specific post.

Really? I felt sure I was about to be called a sectarian.

Ah! But you mean the Danes donchya!

Sorry, Liam, for oppressing EP.

Leunig is way past his use-by date. As soon as he got into politics, he lost his fragile grip on reality.

But moving gradually back towards the topic of this thread, calling for Leunig to be sacked is not the same thing as burning down embassies and making death threats.

There is a great and fundamental difference between expressing an opinion, and threatening violence. A difference that some people don’t seem to be able to grasp.

Oops, wrong link to LP. Never mind, as per Liam’s comment.

I’ll have you know David Pope is one of my biggest fans.

That’s a good idea Kim, a link post would be a useful thing to have. Whoever eventually compiles it (anybody?) should include Guido’s effort, which is as usual on the button.

In the spirit of chaotic stoushing, can I just say that I like a lot of Leunig’s work, although obviously not all of it.

So there.

Done, Liam - Mark’s put one up.

Guido’s effort is crap. He makes false accusations of racism against critics of Islam, thus demonstrating that he is too stupid to know the difference between a religion and a race.

Furthermore, he sneers at the idea that our culture of freedom and tolerance is superior to the Islamic culture of oppression and violence, but doesn’t even attempt to explain why this is not the case. In fact, our culture is vastly superior to Islamic culture, and his own post demonstrates an example of this superiority.

David Heidelberg, you wrote this:

Despite their poor quality, clearly their intention was to offend. I’ve no problem with offensive cartoons that satirise current events.

Why? I certainly have a problem with cartoons whose only purpose is to offend. I don’t think people should stop them being published, or burn down embassies, but I’d lose respect for any Australian paper that printed them. The Courier-Mail has, apparently.

Here’s some news for your EP - most Muslims are from a different “race” than those from “our culture of freedom”. So, you know, often sweeping generalisations about “all Muslims” send the signal that it’s Arabs we’re talking about.

Guido’s effort is crap. He makes false accusations of racism against critics of Islam, thus demonstrating that he is too stupid to know the difference between a religion and a race.

I agree with you though not all critiques of Islam seem to appreciate the difference either…

Here’s news for you, Kim. Many Muslims are Indonesian, African, and yes, even European.

You shouldn’t propagate racist stereotypes about Muslim Arabs, or “grumpy white males” for that matter. Racism is bad, mmmkay?

the behavior of adherents to the religion of peace continually proves that they are barbarians who are not to be trusted living in civilized societies.

They continue to prove what I beleive that all able bodied Muslims ought to be returned to where they came from. Nobody really wants then in the west. Even lefties pretend to support them as they run for cover in case they get their throats cut.

We ought to ban Islam for being a cult and throw these animals out of the country.

Let’s face it, most all publuc pronouncments from Muslims indicates unhappiness in living in the west. So, the conclusion is that they would be happier living in the bombed out shitholes where they came from.
I say we start getting them to leave.

Right, then, EP, so remind me how arguments about “Lebs” are relevant again?

Kim, Lebanese Muslims are a specific subculture which produces violent and misogynist crime gangs in Sydney. Up until now, these gangs have been largely free from police interference because of political correctness.

The fact that Lebanese gangsters and the recent violent, embassy-burning mobs are both Muslim seems to be the only connection between your question and this thread. Though it might be significant that one of the destroyed embassies was in Lebanon. Perhaps the violent Lebanese Muslims in Sydney and beirut are related in some way?

Dunno, EP, I’ll wait for the book to come out, I think.

Good idea, Kim. You could do with a bit more understanding of the issues.

I do visit teh University of the Internets regularly, EP.

Btw - on the point of “Islam is not a race”, there’s a good discussion on the comments thread at Surfdom.

Not doing well with my links today - here’s the corret one.

Tim’s site is back up at the moment.

Kim, most Muslims are not Arabs.

In fact, Indonesia alone has more Muslims then the Arab nations combined. The country with the second largest Muslim population is India.

Liam, My comment was poorly written. What I meant is that I don’t mind cartoons that are offensive, as long as they are intended as an irreverent satirical look at current affairs.

The cartoons in question are obviously not in good faith. They are deliberate attempts to offend and provoke a reaction.

Gary Younge articulates what has happened very well.

As a result they are vilified twice: once through the cartoon, and again for exercising their democratic right to protest. The inflammatory response to their protest reminds me of the quote from Steve Biko, the South African black nationalist: “Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.”

Younge’s comments were made prior to the recent chaos in Denmark, but still illustrate the point well.

So, David, does “the democratic right to protest” include burning buildings and issuing death threats?

And what makes you think the cartoons are “not in good faith”?

I said that Younge’s comments were made prior to the Violence, and no I don’t believe burning buildings qualifies as a democratic right!

This still doesn’t absolve the cartoonists, they were drawn to provoke and to offend, therefore not in good faith. Do you think that they thought the Muslim community would warmly receive such images?

Assumptions:

1) Leunig and the Jyllands-Posten are both exercising freedom of speech in their cartoons
2) Though they are grossly offensive to some people, violence is not a proper response to either Leunig’s or the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

Okay, freedom of speech aside, what does everybody actually THINK of the cartoons? Are they deliberate incitement? Are they art? Are they hate-speech? Are they pertinent satire? All of the above?

I think the cartoonist looking over his shoulder as he sketches the Prophet is exemplary of the lot.

The cartoons were drawn to bring attention to the issue of self-censorship through fear of violence by Islamists.

Thus they were a political statement illustrating the idea that freedom of speech is a fundamental right that should not be sacrificed out of fear, either of causing offence or of the consequences of offence.

The people who deserve the most condemnation are those who engaged in, or threatened, acts of violence in response to these cartoons. The hysterical reaction by Muslims has proven that the cartoons linking Islam and violence were spot-on.

The cartoons are both pertinent satire and self-fulfilling prophecy. Given their impact, they are important works of art.

David, your reasoning is disingenuous.

Do you imagine the right-wing community will warmly receive your rants about “wingnuts”?

If not, why do you continue to publish such inflammatory material, knowing it will cause offence?

If you condemn the Danish newspaper for publishing material knowing that some people would be offended, then you must condemn yourself for the same reason.

Your reasoning is disingenuous, EP. Wingnut is a pretty passive term to describe far right-wingers such as you. As far as I know, there’s not a prescribed text that addresses appropriate etiquette between leftoids and wingnuts.

On the other hand the Koran Clearly states that Muhammad must not be depicted.

I see Heidelberg quotes Biko. Well I will quote a much better and more successful man, Daniel O’Connell

“Irish freedom is not worth one drop of blood”

Surely everyone agrees with me about the media. What is this protest crap? Over nothing.

It seriously questions any legitimate grievances Moslems claim to have when they act like vandals over a political caricature.
Do they even know who they are targeting?

.

And placing a wick on top of the prophet’s “turbine” could also be considered a “passive term”in an artistic sense. So you are being dishonest, David H.

Very weak attempt to change the subject, David.

This has nothing to do with any “prescribed text that addresses etiquette”. It’s about your condemnation of cartoons because “they were drawn to provoke and to offend”.

Your blog posts were written to provoke and offend, so you are guilty of the same actions that you condemn.

You’re a hypocrite.

Very weak attempt to change the subject, David.

This has nothing to do with any “prescribed text that addresses etiquette”. It’s about your condemnation of cartoons because “they were drawn to provoke and to offend”.

Your blog posts were written to provoke and offend, so you are guilty of the same actions that you condemn.

You’re a hypocrite.

Ok Paula

But what’s your point as it seems to come in from left field here. We are just discussing David H’s dishonesty.

David.

Are you feeling a little soft on Islam becaause you were recently caught on a site pretending to be a follower of the prophet.

Huh?

There is offence, and there is offence. I refer to you right-wingers as wingnuts as a jibe, in the same way blair and others refer to lefties as leftoids or moonbats. It’s simply a tag, not intended to inflict or offend the core of a person’s belief system.

Most of the cartoons (well all of them bar one) are crap and almost certainly designed to provoke. At the same time the reaction is way way way over the top.

The only two winners out of this will be conservative religious forces in the middle east and islamic world, and neo-conservative forces in the west.

Well how do you know it doesn’t offend, David? However this is hardly the issue is it?
You have a right to express your self in anyway you prefer and offense is incidental to that right. Kind of like the cartoon issue.

The point is that you can’t have a litle bit of free speech. It doesn’t work that way.

“The only two winners out of this will be conservative religious forces in the middle east and islamic world”.

I don’t quite see that way. For the first time in a while a good portion of the Western media has fought for free speach when it really mattered making restrctions etc. look bogus. Depsite the flair up in the Muslim world we really haven’t seen the a huge outcry other than the usual rabble coming out to protest about the “West”. I reckon it has been a good thing and the dirty linen is in the laundry.

The cartoon about it just being an infidel from Jutland is mildly amusing as well. If we are no longer able to say things that offend people, then I will need to stop telling jokes about Collingwood supporters as well as my New Zealander jokes (purer gold).

As aside, I am wondering how many of those who are defending the cartoons opposed the displaying of the photograph “Piss Christ”? Same deal with just a different religion involved.

I think there’s more useful issues on which to play out the free speech debate (eg sedition laws) than the right to print cartoons predicated on the most basic stereotypes about Islam. The cartoons (with one or two exceptions) aren’t even very good. They’re equivalent to cartoons portraying the stereotyped hook-nosed, money grabbing Jew. They’re not about satire or the right to make informed criticism (free speech I feel worth defending), but instead about kicking a target when its on the ground.

Having said that, I too think the response has been a massive over-reaction

Personally I think that 90% of satire is either not funny or funny on another level.

So what if you do not think that it is funny? It is quite irrelevant to the issue.

Stereotyped, hook nosed, money-grabbing Jews are irrelevant as Jews, despite being Jews are considered a race as well..
Moslems are not…

Which is a tendetious argument in itself as if we are not free to talk about race.

Free speech…. debatable

Free right to parody? undeniable

I think that real threats to free speech, such as religious fanatics who riot, burn buildings and issue death threats, are far more important than over-hyped bogeymen like sedition laws.

Look, this exposes the truth of the ‘war on terror’, the ‘clash of civilisations’ and so on…

The neo-conservative right and islamic fundamentalists need each other. It reminds me of Orwell’s 1984 - it’s not a matter of whether the war is real or if it is not. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or Eastasia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

How does this relate here? Islamic fundamentalists need inflammatory events to boost their numbers, justify their views and continue their struggle against their own people. Consider what political standpoint the Danish newspaper is commonly felt to profess. Consider who probably led the embassy burnings. Get your stop-watch out and count the seconds between the cartoons coming out and Bin Laden and co using the cartoons to justify their murder of civilians. Consider how right-wingers on this list have dredged up their same old arguments about Islam being evil and they should all be deported (eg IRDL), hoping that old wine can go into the new wineskins.

This whole manufactured debate is sickening. But that’s OK, so long as Bin Laden gets new recruits for Al Queda and the neo-conservative right can get more votes and repressive anti-civil liberties laws.

Leunig rocks :)

The cartoons are disturbing, particularly the effeminate one. I do not believe they should be banned. I believe they should be ignored.

I agree with the sentiment of DF’s comments. Extremists of all colours use the actions of the few to justify their own evil. Islamic terrorists focus on the ills of a few world leaders to kill the innocent. Bush and allies focus on the actions of a few terrorists to kill the innocent. Injustice powers emotion, emotion clouds clarity, leaders exploit this, the cycle continues.

What sickens me is the way some people try to pretend there is some sort of moral equivalence between murderous theocracies and free democracies.

Comparing the situation in Iran, where gays are executed and women beaten to death for wearing bathing suits, to our own liberal societies displays an inability to make valid judgements.

It is morally lazy to assume that differences of degree and kind don’t matter. In the present world situation, such laziness is almost culpable.

Hiding behind claims of moral equivalence is a coward’s way of refusing to face the real issues, which call for difficult decisions, not knee-jerk slogans.

EP

The problem I see is that some people fail to realise that all killing etc is fundamentally wrong, not just that perpetrated by enemies. Furthermore, such people often fail to realise that they justifying hideous actions by one group only makes conflict worse. It’s not saying “everyone is OK”, it’s saying “this is hideous”. It’s about aiming to improve the situation, not be a part of the problem.

Want to defeat terrorism and extremists? Start by understanding it!

Okay Stuart give us your insight into terrorists. Tell us who told you to say it?

My problem is that if you consider moral equivalence consider this. Bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalists kill lots of innocent civilians. An illegal war on Iraq perpetrated by White House neo-cons kills lots of innocent civilians. I don’t want to engage in a sickening abacus exercise here but both extremes are killing innocents.

As for the religious theocracy vs free democracy, it seems our society is getting less free by the day with Sedition laws, whilst in the Middle East we are getting the phenomenon of democratically elected Islamic fundamentalist governments (Algeria in 1992, Hamas this year, Iraq this year). I smell a pattern here, free elections legitimising the elimination/denial of basic human rights and civil liberties. An interesting debate we may want to take up is - does a genuine free election legitimise the imposition of Islamic fundamentalism or repressive laws against dissent and for empowering secret agencies?

In the cartoon issue, inflammatory cartoons are published by the Danish newspaper, not to prove a point on free speech, but in my opinion to provoke a reaction amongst Moslems to ‘prove’ their stance on Islam. They get their reaction, and it is only a miracle so far that the Islamic fundamentalists responsible for the violent torching of embassies have not killed anyone yet. So instead of working out ways to remove barriers to peaceful engagement between the secular West and the Islamic world, we have those barriers and hatreds intensified. Isn’t prevention better than cure? Isn’t peace and harmony better than violence and hatred? Do we want to remove the well-spirngs of support for Islamic fundamenntalism? In my view, the neo-cons actually don’t care, because their zealotry is similar to that of Bin Laden and co. Both want to use each other as a pretext for turning their own societies into an image of their ideology. Both take extremist stances from the other side to justify their wrong view of the other. And, unfortunately, both are using violence against the innocent in pursuit of these goals, whether in air strikes in Iraq or suicide bombers in London tube stations.

Stuart, sometimes understanding is precisely what motivates killing. If you truly understand al-Qaeda and its kin, you know that the only way to stop individual fanatics or cells is by the use of overwhelming force.

Understanding that sometimes it is necessary to kill some in order to save many more is one of those difficult thoughts that many people try to avoid at all costs. But it’s a reality.

It’s hideous, but sometimes we have to choose the lesser evil because there is no non-hideous alternative available.

DF,

The Western countries target terrorists and sometimes kill civilians by accident. The terrorists deliberately target civilians.

The fact that you cannot distinguish between these fundamentally different things is anm example of the shortcomings of your mistaken moral equivalence.

From Wikipedia’s biography of the events

The Qur’an, the Islamic holy book, does not explicitly prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry (verses 41 and 52). Direct prohibitions of pictorial art, or any depiction of sacred figures, are present in the Hadith.

What the hell is this crap about? nothing. Just like every other piece of shit the media provokes in society.

[cue the sound of brakes screeching, steering wheels being cranked and mental tyres engaging with the asphalt, turning back to some direction away from that sectarian cliff of we-is-betta, no, we-is-betta]
…
Geoff Honnor wrote here about the obligation of secularists, in the words of one writer, ‘to fart in the face of God’. An interesting phrase and sentiment, to which I can only reply, sure, I’ll fart in the face of my own God, because other people’s Gods are hardly likely to be listening to me.

“all killing etc is fundamentally wrong”

Right. Even if they are trying to kill you, I presume? What about if they’re raping your sister?

Yobbo -> I would probably do the same as you in said situation. Does this prove anything? Possibly in your mind. Would this make killing a good or desirable thing? No.

EP -> OK, I will agree that violence may be necessary to thwart particular extremist cells. However, collateral damage only worsens the situation. Whether they are in the US, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world, people are not comfortable with the idea of their innocent friends and family being killed. I think it is reasonable to target extremists, but when innocent people are caught in the crossfire, the conflict gets worse, and we all lose. As before, the injustice of this fuels the conflict.

Patrick -> Have a nice day.

A slight twist.

Those who have been folllowing this affair since its inception in The Brussels Journal may have already encountered the Arab-European League's counter-attack.

This cartoon depicts Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank.

Words literally fail me, except that I think this cartoon should be widely seen and published throughout Europe.

Trying again for the second link.

Wow, wikipedia. Now we’ve brought the big guns out.

I found two or three of the cartoons to be ok, particularly the cartoonist looking over his shoulder. That was a genuine critique of the situation and delivered a good political message.

Overall I have found the whole reaction so over the top I can hardly believe it. There was a huge outcry to Sinead O’Connors ripping up of JPII’s photo but as far as I am aware most people just dimissed her as an idiot and moved on.

The complicating factor here, and seemingly ignored by some who have commented here endlessly, is that the muslim world has linked this action with other grievances (real and imagined) against the western world. It is not seen as the action of a free press (because to many that idea is alien) and instead is taken as the action of the Danish state and, by extension, the West.

This doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t give it some moral shield, but without understanding how can you hope for a solution??

Yes, they’ll be splitting their sides in the Middle East, jason. Meanwhile, they don’t neglect the serious side of the same message.

O dear…..

Or plain old

http://www.pmw.org.il/tv%20Al-Shatat.html

And here’s one we can all chuckle over.

Since we’re in the business of reproducing offensive cartoons, I recommend to all readers this slideshow and the accompanying quiz.
Chuckles all round, Rob, indeed.

Right-wingers are Nazis?

Gee, I’ve never heard that one before.

haha Arleeshar, haha.

The point is that it is over nothing but.

Bloody media.

Scary thinking about all the comics that have depicted Muhammed.

Those South Park boys better watch out, haha, remember the league of religious super heros?

A quote from Yobbo’s page made Dr Ali, the president of some Moslem group in Australia

“Which is more important? To preserve the freedom of speech, or to antagonise one fifth of humanity who are completely offended by this obscene cartoon?”

Can you believe that, they are victims of the media like everyone else.

More news about these cartoons.

The Iranians have decided that they will publish anti-semitic cartoons in their state owned paper as a result.
This confirms what I already felt, they do not even know what they are angry about.

The SMH is still too pussy to publish them, arguing that they would not publish pornography either. Wikipedia feels no such way and publishes them in their original form http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_cartoons
undoubtedly leaving the pissant wikipedian editors very annoyed about the amount of Moslem vandalism that is now being targeted at their wikipedia.

haha, just read EP’s link to Heidelberg’s apology. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You were Mushtaq Omar?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It says that you are from Frasier Island? So why become involved in something that has nothing to do with you?
It is a Sydney issue that you have no f******* clue about.

patrick, feel free to start blogging somewhere. making multiple comments in a stream seems like a waste of effort when you could simply put these comments in a blog of your very own. and then maybe we wouldn’t have things like at the moment having 7 of the last 10 comments being from you, and they’re mostly where you’re replying to your own comment. can i recomend blogger as a place to start?

Dibo, I have a blog but noone reads it anyway.

[veering further off topic] try the magical trackback - if there’s an issue on another blog that you’ve written about too, leave a link so people can come and have a squiz.

As much as I’d like to live in the magical American sitcom world of Frasier island, Fraser Island is much nicer.

This is my favourite quote:

“They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers,” he said.

Says it all, really.

Does that tool Birmingham think these examples of right wing “humour” are funny, btw?

Shut up Omar

Patrick, if you’re going to stoush stoush properly. There’s no point to plain personal abuse, or unless you’ve got something to say.

Wit is in its brevity Liam haha

=”It is morally lazy to assume that differences of degree and kind don’t matter. In the present world situation, such laziness is almost culpable.”=

Like comparing an insult directed to the heart of people’s beliefs with insults directed at aggressive right wing bloggers?

Pretty fucking lazy, I agree.

Though you could pick up his confusion of wingnut (big ears) with batwing (right wing neo fascist), just to be pedantic.

Getting back onto the topic of the thread, has anybody heard or seen violent protests anout this from Australian Muslims? I haven’t seen any burning Danish flags, or ‘wild’ protests outside embassies here. Feel free to give me examples, but I don’t think these protests have happened here.

What I have heard and read are reasonable arguments from Australian Muslims about why they find the cartoons offensive and would prefer they not be published.

Isn’t this the manner of debate we want in civil society?

Are you saying that political beliefs are unimportant to political stoushers? What makes you able to judge the relative offensiveness of different images to different groups, to neither of which you belong?

Muslims don’t seem very offended by the images of Mohammed which are sold openly on the streets of Tehran. On the other hand, I could be very offended, but simply too polite to burn down David’s embassy.

I find your post offensive. Do you have an embassy?

We did get some veiled threats from Australian Imams, but only two small newspapers published any cartoons at all. So Australia has been relatively quiet, and there could be a number of reasons for that.

Speaking of quiet countries – an Egyptian newspaper published the cartoons during Ramadan last year, and there wasn’t a squeak of protest in that Muslim nation.

Does this violence smell like a setup, or what?

EP, took me a couple of reads to figure out what on earth you are talking about.

I never in any way implied that political beliefs are unimportant. The point I was making is that the Muslim reaction in this country has been very reasonable. You, and others here have been claiming that Muslims are incapable of contributing to rational debate in a liberal democratic society. The reaction to the controversy by Australian Muslims shows that your ‘clash of civilisations’ argument is bigoted bullshit.

For one thing, the cartoons haven’t been widely published in Australia.

For another thing, there aren’t as many Muslims in Australia as there are in the countries that have had riots.

For a third, some Muslim leaders offered veiled threats to discourage publication.

So, while the reaction has been fairly mild in Australia – so far – we can’t be sure that it would be so mild if the newspapers did in fact print the cartoons widely, or if there were more Muslims. The matter is still indeterminate in this country.

Taliban have offered 100kg of gold for the cartoonist’s death…

How about that for proscription. I believe the Roman dictator Sulla only use to offer 50 kg of gold.

Haha

Those Taliban folk are very backwards.

For those who think to publish Mohamet’s image is utterly offensive, I suggest you look at some of the images of him throughout time from both Moslems and Westerners. http://www.outpost911.com/

These Arabic fellows are using it as an excuse to attack Western society. Fuck them.

In April 2003 Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons offering a lighthearted take on the resurrection of Christ to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Zieler received an e-mail from the paper’s Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, saying: “I don’t think Jyllands-Posten’s readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think they will provoke an outcry. Therefore I will not use them.” Two years later the same paper published twelve cartoons of Muhammad, including one with him wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.

Source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060227/younge

An interesting fact that has been overlooked

Osmond, so what?

Denmark is a mostly Christian nation.

Interesting article Osmond, I hadn’t heard that before.

The point, Patrick, is that if the editors were so courageous about exercising their right to free speech, they would have printed cartoons lampooning Christ even if it meant causing a stir in a predominantly (albeit liberal) Christian country.

Its easy to claim that you’re brave in publishing cartoons mocking the beliefs of the poorest and most disenfranchised people in your country. Its obviously much harder to mock the beliefs of the powerful majority. The editor of the Jyllands-Posten should have seen fit to mock all religions, or should have mocked none at all.

My point is that it is a Christian country for the most part so it is obviously going to be weary about publishing deliberately offensive Christian cartoons.

Whether their brave or not is irrelevant. It was the best publicity the newspaper could of ever had.

Hundreds of people have mocked Christianity hundreds of different ways, hundreds of different times. It is not brave or not. It is just freedom of speech and tolerance for the most part by Christians.

Personally I can understand on one point about the Moslems in the middle east, they are too stupid to know better and are pawns of Syrian and Arab strategic and political interests. Stupid but they are poor, badly educated, have a pathetic media etc. anyway.

What I take offense to is Moslems in western countries carrying placards saying “butcher blasphemours”etc.
and threatening physical violence on those that publish them.