Sunday, February 05, 2006

Balanced thoughts re:DK/Muslim conflict.

I was just on the muslim blog 'Aqoul reading some wonderful discussion of the issue. Apparently (thankfully) not all muslims are chanting death against Danes, apparently those guys, who are so livid over this issue, are in the minority. Still that minority is what the media shows us (because it is more interesting to look at than people peacefully eating dinner and not concerning themselves) and those people can do lots of damage to the PR of their culture and religion, and can bring about the harm and even death of many. Ugh. Sad. Here is a quote I picked out because it is exactly what I have been screaming, from the lips (or finger tips) of a rhetorically skilled Muslim:

Well, "Islam" is a concept, not a agent. Thus it's not "Islam" that forbids anything, but the (human) authorities on Islamic law. And, it's not the "depiction of the religion's founder Muhammad" that is forbidden, but either the depiction of any of God's creatures (but particularly humans) OR the slander of a prophet - be it Muhammad or Moses or Jesus or Abraham, etc. Slandering a prophet would, however not fall under something like "slander" or "hate crime", but actually be seen as "kufr", i.e. unbelief/apostasy, as the assertion that a prophet was anything but a noble man . Of course, that only applies to Muslims. There is no provisio in Islamic law how to deal with non-Muslims who disparage a prophet, as they already are unbelievers. Also, the legal authorities in the Muslim world are quite unanimous in their verdict(s) that Muslims living in non-Muslim polities (i.e., states) should adhere to the law of the one in which they reside or travel.
(Note: I added the bold letters)

The blog has a running report and commentary on the events as they are occurring. They refer to the rage as manufactured and suggest that it is being used to incite further opposition against the west. Aha! Just as I suspected. They call the fanatics who are perpetrating all of this "cretins." Check out this page of commentary on the events.

Of course, because the only people who will really care about some obscure little idiotic Danish newspaper's idiotic contribution to "dialogue" (via poorly done and frankly many bigotted cartoons) are the pre-offended looking for ways to stir up outrage and promote their own obscurantist agenda.

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"In Iraq, thousands denounced the caricatures during Friday prayers."

What an excellent use of Friday prayers. Obviously the disrespect of some Danish cheese merchants are the most burning question for your worshippers. Not, say, the looming civil war or their coreligionists blowing up other factions of the same.

No, some silly drawings (which I grant were offensive, but they're bloody little cartoons with some stupid little Danish paper) done thousands of miles away, and months ago, are obviously of graver danger


Check out the rest of what they have to say. Definitely worth a read.

Back to the full blog...

3 comments:

Elisabeth said...

For some reason my previous comment posted with the link to the Mohammed cartoons is gone. Well, here it is again, for those who want to see what the fuss is all about.

Elisabeth said...

George was asking me what these cartoon posts have to do with movies, so I thought I'd address that real quick. First, it doesn't really have much to do with movies, but I always said I might write about other things as well, including social issues. Second, I feel that censorship of imagry is relavent to the discussion of film, because it's an image-based medium.

My initial post on the topic was an attempt to open discussions on what responsibility people have to other cultures/religions when creating images. I thought that broad enough to encompass these cartoons and film in general. Now, I am fairly distraught by everything that is going on, so I feel compelled to report on it; make it known. And the ramifications this could have on the world is tremendous and could include state-regulated censorship of film and other media.

It would be nice to have people on here discussing, but I understand if you are afraid to open your mouth on a topic like this. I am convinced that it is because of my open mouth that my blog has been acting screwy lately.

Elisabeth said...

Oops!

The site I got you from said you were muslim. Sorry about that. Dangit, and now I can't remember what site that was.

 

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