As a Muslim, myself, I don't understand the stances these fringe groups take. Ultimately, we have two issues. Portrayal of the Prophet is a big big no no in our religion, yet Freedom of Speech/Expression is a pertinent human right in most of the civilized world.
Does it offend me to see any portrayals of a man we don't like to have portrayed? Yea, of course. But I'm pretty sure it offends me more to see the reactions from the people involved.
If someone caricatures the prophet as a violent person, how can people [angry extremist Muslims] think that VIOLENTLY rioting and giving death threats will make the person recant that?
"You think Islam's violent!? No, it isn't. And to prove that to you, I will kill you."
I'm offended every time I see things like this - even if I'm a fan of South Park - but I do the sensible thing, I don't watch it. I can go more, say, write to them (sans death threats), or not buy from them anymore, etc. But this response just makes no sense at all.
I fully agree with you kloncks, these fanatics just prove that the correctness of what everybody thinks about them by acting this way. However, there's a common perception in the West that these "fanatics" or "fringe groups" are a tiny minority. I don't think so. Try doing such a gravely offensive thing is Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and you will go to prison or worse. Those are unstable or backward countries you say? How about Egypt or Malaysia?
Some clarifications on the "portrayal issue": (1) Muhammad has been portrayed in many Islamic miniature paintings, always with a veil, though. (2) The tradition in Islam that no likeness of him can be created is coming from his words reported by ahadith, not from the Koran (e.g. see here http://www.answering-islam.org/Muhammad/pictures.html). This was most probably a reaction to Greek-Orthodox Christianity with their heavy use of icons. (3) The fact that Islam forbids pictures is not totally correct, Shia muslims usually have the picture of Ali displayed at a prominent place in their homes.
Interesting. I would most definitely disagree with you there. They are most definitely a fringe group. I will maybe assume that the people in the group are either radical believers or brainwashed ignorant people, though.
I'm originally Egyptian myself, and while it's more Muslim-society and religious conservatism is higher, there are a number of freedoms there since it's a very touristy country. Sure, these things are taboo and people will not take them lightly, but you can say them. Just like you can insult the Catholic faith in the Vatican or the Mormon faith in Utah - it's just simply not the place to do it :P
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan I feel are a very special case. Saudi Arabia is such a staunch conservative country and I don't agree with many of their policies so I mostly agree with you there.
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Regarding the portrayal. Yea, Muhammad when he was portrayed always either has his face covered by a veil or by light. Things that come from the Hadith can't be taken lightly - it's not as powerful as the Qur'an, yes, but it is the second most powerful Islamic text and all Muslims follow it (with the exception of some Shia).
On 3, I wasn't aware of that and I'm Sunni but it might make sense. Usually, Muslims will also not portray Prophet's companions but the rule is mostly for the Prophets, Angels, and God. Also, keep in mind that Shia muslims are a minority, roughly accounting for about 10-15%.
I'm sure you don't agree with them, and you may not even know many people who do, but given that there are (and if my understanding is wrong, feel free to correct me) several Muslim countries/polities where you'd be mobbed in the street within seconds for wearing a t-shirt with one of the Danish cartoons on it, or thrown in jail if found by the police, all of it condoned by the government...I don't know if the radical movement really meets the standard definition of "fringe group".
You give the examples of the Vatican and Utah. Be offensive in the Vatican and you may be escorted out by security; in Utah, I'm pretty sure the worst you'll get is ignored (I've met a lot of Mormons and they're the friendliest people in the world). Not really comparable to offending radical Muslims.
I have to say, from the POV of a true Muslim he makes a pretty airtight case. If you can't make yourself agree with the idea that Trey and Parker have to be killed maybe it's time that you start questioning your beliefs in this religion.
That's a rather interesting mix of good points and religious crazy talk. I think the most pertinent point is that the U.S. has in fact acted in an imperialist way over the past half century or so, and has killed a very large number of people in the process, many of which happen to be Muslim. I don't agree with the theory that this results from a lack of values on the part of Westerners, but I can see how Muslims might feel like they are being attacked on all fronts---both militaristically and culturally.
From that perspective, the idea of refraining from unnecessarily insulting their most important religious leader makes sense to me. In context, it sends very much the wrong message, and is counterproductive. Of course, death threats over the matter are stupid and counterproductive, too, as it only feeds into the jihadist stereotype.
> I think the most pertinent point is that the U.S. has in fact acted in an imperialist way over the past half century or so, and has killed a very large number of people in the process, many of which happen to be Muslim.
I'm not seeing the relevance.
Precisely how does what the US has done explain threatening the South Park guys?
It doesn't excuse it of course, but I think it does explain it a bit. Imagine somebody kills one of your children, then comes back and insults your wife. It's adding insult to injury.
It's kind of like kicking someone when they're down. People in the Islamic world are sensitive as of late, and considering what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan lately, I think it's pretty understandable. The prudent, friendly thing is show a little respect.
Suppose that an orange person raped my sister, would you "explain" if I issued death threats when orange people made fun of my pants?
Of course not.
> People in the Islamic world are sensitive as of late, and considering what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan lately,
Umm, what happened is that we kicked out their govt, which was killing them, and we kill people who attack us (and them). Meanwhile, we build schools and the like.
All they have to do to get us to leave is lie low for a while. Then they can go back to killing each other. (However, since that's what they're going to do, I'm not that excited about them being killed by us. Dead is dead.)
If you're looking for "brutal occupation", the US isn't in the same league as France and Germany.
>I don't understand the stances these fringe groups take
Suppose for a minute the leaders of these groups are motivated by personal power/glory rather than religious purity.
By stirring up this sort of trouble you get exposure, name on TV - fame and glory.
Then if you stir up enough trouble there starts to be a backlash. People start to associate your ethnic group with trouble and react to that.
So you can start saying to impressionable young idiots - see you can never integrate into the society of 'wherever', they hate you. We must fight them, come and join my group.
The bigger your group the more trouble you can cause, the more backlash, the more downtrodden followers.
Works for gangs in LA and kids in Northern Ireland today, worked for a certain mustachioed politician in Europe 80years ago. And was probably working for a bunch of idol worshipers in Ur 6000years ago.
The whole issue is a tempest in a teacup, IMHO. I've never heard of the nut cases (from NY I believe) prior to this incident. Jackasses making veiled threats and TV networks obliging the jackasses by censorship.
There may have been a slight issue if South Park was singling out Islam, but they have not. They have gone after everyone and everything, many times in bad taste, but that is their appeal and that is why I sometimes watch the show.
> Jackasses making veiled threats and TV networks obliging the jackasses by censorship.
Yeah, well: it's all fun and games until someone gets knifed on the street, as happened to Theo Van Gogh. I'm sure the guy who did that was a jackass, too.
My point is that we shouldn't equivocate or relativize on the jackassery of the various parties. What the TV networks did was lamentable but, in light of recent events, comprehensible. What 'jackasses' making veiled threats and those that carry them out do is utterly reprehensible and doesn't merit the lightness of the word you chose. The two types of jackasses you mention are totally different. Ass-covering is surely not so big a sin as killing or threatening to.
Could you please from your perspective explain the reason why a culture which has never historically had any rules about drawing pictures of historical characters should not continue to allow drawing pictures of historical characters?
It's drawing pictures for goodness sake. Who on earth can it hurt?
Drawing pictures, and indeed riduculing and condenming is something very important in a free society.
It's not simply about drawing pictures. In Islam, certain people are considered holy and revered.
Before Islam, notable people in society would be drawn or portrayed after they die, and that would sometimes lead people to worship them or raise their level to holy, which is not right.
Thus, Islam has a very firm policy against depicting anyone who is important in our religious tradition. That will include God, Muhammad, the Angels (Gabriel, etc). Interestingly, portrayal of the people we consider were prophets before Muhammed - Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Noah, Adam, etc - is also very strictly prohibited.
That being said, since Islam's base of followers is oh so diverse, certain cultures (some in India and some in Turkey) have at some points drawn picture stories of Muhammad and other prophets but to the base of the religion that was considered taboo.
Probably an unfair question to you, since you're not one who riots, but if it's strictly prohibited in Islam to draw Jesus and the others you mention, why are there not riots, death threats and killings in response to their portrayals?
Same reason that killing a little kid will bring a lot more legal heat than killing a gangbanger — just because two things are strictly prohibited doesn't mean people respond to them equally.
chc makes a lot of sense and brings up a nice point (see below or above?)
another thing I can think of is this. portrayals of muhammad to this day, compared with those of jesus and others, have been fairly limited. there are cathedrals, paintings, murals, etc of jesus depicted with every skin color and body features. muhammad, on the other hand, isn't that much. but the concept of a drawn jesus, to most of the world, isn't a new thing at all.
so if i were picking a fight...wouldn't i pick one where i don't automatically lose?
The line of thinking is that pictures/drawings can lead to idolatry (i.e. person kneeling before an image of a prophet/saint and asking for this and that).
> As a Muslim, myself, I don't understand the stances these fringe groups take.
The key is that they are "fringe groups". There is no belief so wacky, stupid or nasty that someone, somewhere won't believe it. And with the internet, they can broadcast their nonsense to the whole world.
I don't understand the stances these fringe groups take
I think you understand, but you don't agree. Big difference. As soon as you disagree, you lose, because you'll never challenge the extremists the way they challenge you to be more like them, because they'll win. Hence you merely say you don't understand, which in this respect, is a lie.
From another viewpoint, it only seems to give events more exposure if you deal it with it this way.
Take the Cartoons incident. It was a fairly small newspaper that wouldn't have been seen by tens of millions. In protesting over the Cartoons, the people that were against the cartoons helped show them to tens of millions of more people.
It wasn't about cartoons though was it. It's a power play, can muslims begin to establish sharia law by claiming they are discriminated against - and it seems they can.
The best part of South Park exemplifying the double standard is at the end of the Cartoon Wars episodes where they show Jesus and the American flag in a pretty vulgar scene.
I'm sure Comedy Central received plenty of complaints from offended Christians, yet there was no censorship.
So it seems that by making a death threat getting what you want is possible in the western world today. If you don't want SP to make fun of your religious leader? Just make a few death threats and they will censor the episode. And on top of that all other shows are afraid to touch the topic too.
By what will happen is, for instance, Paris Hilton activists will start making death threats to the SP creators? Will Comedy Central start censoring all references to Paris Hilton too?
Probably nothing will happen since Paris Hilton activists haven't killed anyone yet.
So in fact you can conclude that terrism does work to get what you want in the world today.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
The rights of media companies to print those cartoons in the US are not in question, they still have them. They CHOSE not to run the cartoons. Huge difference.
EDIT: I think my point needs further clarification. It is that they did not give up liberty to gain safety. They chose not to exercise their liberty on a controversial topic. Whether personal safety from death threats was involved in the decision is irrelevant, they can still make the decision. The option to exercise a right is the important part, not the act of exercising the right itself.
Can I suggest you reread your statement and think about it again?
Liberty is not only possible to infringe on via government involvement. If someone made a decision to avoid violence against him/her, that is not a free choice. What difference does it make if they are avoiding imprisonment by a state or private violence?
I still stand by my statement, or at least the intent of my statement.
To say that someone who chooses not to exercise a right, for any reason, doesn't deserve liberty is wrong. They are not giving up the ability to exercise that right for safety, they are choosing not to exercise it for safety. This is the distinction I wanted to make.
Whether personal safety is involved is irrelevant to whether they deserve liberty for choosing not to exercise a right.
But I still don't think you are fully understanding the reasoning behind the BF quote. My understanding of "give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety" is failure to struggle, even slightly, for the sake of a principle. The right, which you (I assume) are claiming is inalienable and therefore we can't say they "deserve neither liberty nor safety," is the right to liberty.
You repeat "choose" not to excercise a right as if a choice for the sake of safety is like a choice for the sake of good manners. But, it's not the same. A choice for the sake of safety is not a free choice. Hence, "give up (essential) liberty."
What BF is basically saying is that liberty is a right that must be asserted, in order to be deserved
I think I see what you are saying. It is my belief that if you feel that something is just, and in your rights to do, that you should do it. I also believe that you still deserve those rights if you choose not to. Perhaps I am more lenient than BF.
If you choose to give up the right to do something for yourself and others (which is my interpretation of essential liberty) because it will make you safer in the face of a perceived threat or otherwise, then you don't value your liberty and freedoms, and don't deserve them.
Do you have to exercise, or assert, a right to deserve it? I don't think that you do, but I think that you do have to protect others' right to exercise it, whether you agree with how they exercise that right or not.
I would like to add I enjoy this discussion. You are making me think this through more thoroughly than I would have otherwise.
That is, I think, the widely held view. I somehow think that BF would not have advocated actual stripping of their rights. More of a social statement, such an act diminishes his respect for them. I think that the motive behind it is probably the fact that practically, these rights must be asserted by enough people in order to exist in a society. Shirking this responsibility is contributing to the demise of these rights.
The only thing I still disagree with you on is your use of the word 'choice.' You wouldn't say that you 'choose' to drive on the right side of the road, pay taxes or get a stamp on your passport when you visit countries, would you?
I think you need to make a distinction between a choice that if free and a "choice" that isn't. Even if you don't use different words this is important because otherwise you can't really have any usable explanation of what is infringing on one's freedom.
>They are not giving up the ability to exercise that right for safety, they are choosing not to exercise it for safety.
To make a hypothetical analogue: You're saying that if I threaten you with death if you leave your house then if you choose not to leave the house so as to live you aren't giving up your right to leave the house only choosing not to exercise that right.
In other words you're saying threatening to kill someone doesn't restrict their rights it just means that if they want to exercise them they'll die. You then appear to be using that as a basis for saying that it's OK to threaten death to someone?
I think you misunderstand the notion of restricting someone rights.
No. I was saying that if you threaten me with death if I leave my house, and I choose to stay in my house for personal safety, that this act doesn't undermine the fact that I DESERVE liberty.
I think restricting others rights by any means (violent or not) is very, very wrong.
So in fact you can conclude that terrorism does work to get what you want in the world today.
It doesn't work for white people though -- that guy who flew his plane into the IRS building didn't get what he wanted, and neither did the Unabomber or Timothy McVeigh.
It seems that we are more afraid of different-looking people than we are of being blown up.
That's a poor comparison. Presumably a small army of white guys pissed off enough by taxation to kamikaze themselves into public buildings does not exist. (Although, see the insurgence of the militia movement, and Palin's "don't retreat, just reload!" rhetoric...)
Given the extreme rhetoric I've seen voiced by various "Christian" groups and individuals in the US over the past few decades, I'd be surprised if there haven't been death threats against Parker and Stone. That we haven't heard as much about them doesn't surprise me either. Right-wing domestic terrorism gets some coverage, but is typically downplayed.
"Islamic terrorism is nothing compared to Christian terrorism".
Sigh.
If you believe it then here's an experiment for you. Go to Vatican City and stand in St Peters square and shout obscene things about Jesus. If you think Catholics are too tame then choose somewhere like Canterbury Cathedral (the seat of the Primate of the Anglican Communion).
Now, assuming you survive(!) go to the Al Haram mosque and repeat the experiment shouting obscene things about Mohammed. If you prefer then I'd accept you doing the same in any major mosque.
I await the side column reports of your death "from trampling" at the Kaaba.
> Christian extremists are quite willing to issue death threats against abortion practitioners and such.
Some Christian extremists are willing to issue such threats, and pretty much all Christians are criticized as a result. (See the above for an example.) Moreover, many Christians do condemn such threats. (That doesn't fit the narrative, so it doesn't get much play and they don't get any credit, but they still keep doing it.)
With Islam, not so much. (The closest we get is that the most heinous acts by folks who just happen to be named Mohammed are excused by their co-religionists with "they were provoked".)
Is the difference because Christians haven't killed enough people yet? Or is it that Islam is "the other"? Or what?
I mean I'm with you and everyone here as far as the censorship..
But in the United States that I'm living in, saying anything bad about "all Christians" is a consistent political death sentence.
And in the United States that I lived in from 2001 to 2006 or so when people cooled off, ripping on "all arabs" or "all muslims" was practically de rigeur.
EDIT: I mean, maybe if you were hanging in the most liberal of circles then the way you put it would be the case -- but definitely not in most circles in America.
> Incidentally, Christians killed people, like John Lennon.
And white people killed John Lennon. And Hawaiians killed John Lennon. And men killed John Lennon. And people wearing pants killed John Lennon. And obsessed stalkers killed John Lennon.
And no one gives any of those groups the sort of pass that Islam gets.
Similar thing happened here with Sikhs.
A young Sikh writer produced a play about child abuse in a temple (you thought catholic priests had a monopoly).
The local peace loving religious leaders threatened to burn down the city run theatre. So the play was taken off. The city then went further to suggest that all future plays with Sikh characters should be approved by the religious leaders.
Since no writer was going to go for that it simply removed all Sikh character from plays and to be careful from tv aswell.
So the result of this censorship is going to be that the only time muslims are seen on TV it will be in news reports about terrorists. Way to go guys!
You didn't say where "here" was, but I'm going to assume it's somewhere where Sikhs are the minority.
I think one aspect of media is that it should be called out when it misrepresents a minority who don't typically get the well rounded coverage that the majority culture gets. For example, Christianity in the US. It's "ok" to make fun of Christians because we are inundated with Christianity; the joke is obvious and there's an abundance of positive portrayals to offset the negative impact of the satire. In the case of a marginal minority, it's a lot more hurtful, and so the response is more dramatic (ie, death threats).
If atheists are to be believed Christians are also in the minority though, so why no protection from infantile attempts to denigrate Jesus Christ.
Case in point - Behzti (sp) was cancelled the month before the BBC airing "Jerry Springer the Opera" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Springer_The_Opera) which was widely criticised as being needlessly defamatory of Jesus. A few Sikhs complain and the the UK authorities react and shut down the show, thousands [of Christians] complain (the most complaints ever received by the BBC apparently) and nothing is done.
Aside: IMO both shows should have been put on. Interestingly the Jerry Springer:The Opera show includes the use of the word "cunt" which from what I can tell is the only word the BBC won't normally allow - exceptions are made if your show is considered blasphemous, obviously.
Sorry here - was the UK. In an area with enough of a Sikh community to have people to protest but still a minority.
Somebody said, you know you have reached equality when it's ok to portray you as the villain!
Ever wondered why Brits are always cast as the bad guys in Hollywood movies. Can you imagine the press if you had a black/female/gay/disabled/minority villain.
I don't know the details of the situation you mention, but severely underrepresented minorities are understandably unhappy when the only TV & Film portrayals they get are negative and one-sided. Efforts like the Sikh American film festival http://www.sikhlens.org/ are proactive solutions to this problem.
I took a course titled "The Asian American Experience" in college. In that course, we learned about how all minority groups start out negatively portrayed, get mad, and find that the only way to earn a seat at the table is to be positive and churn out actors, writers, and directors. :)
Birmingham is home to a very large Sikh community, and as a religious group in the UK they tend to have integrated and adapted to British life pretty well. The events surrounding this play was seen as being very unusual (at least from the perspective of the middle class English)
The result of the South Park episode will be various official (and unofficial) rulings in TV companies that if you put a Muslim character in a show there might be trouble.
It doesn't have to be a picture of the prophet it just has to be a muslim character who isn't perfect, or is a sunni/shia and you get threats from shia/sunni.
Safer to just leave them out - soon they will be as rare as black characters were in the 50s.
Now do you think you would have a black president if the majority of middle americans had never seen a black person in the flesh and the only ones on TV were on America's most wanted?
I haven't read it yet and don't doubt that it's a great op-ed but:
Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important.
What really is a shame is that your comment regarding this submission--which isn't entirely on the mark--is what is at the top of the comments and taking away from the discussion which I am finding (and I'm sure others) very passionate and enlightening.
Sorry, the only thing I added was "Great". The title is the original and adding NYT Op-Ed let the HN user know it was an Op-Ed.
While I understand your concern and deciding to quote from the guidelines, I don't believe adding just the word "Great" was misleading or breaking the rules...
And well, this may be where I get flamed, but if you want to be technical, it isn't a "parenthetical remark".
What really is a shame is that your comment regarding this submission--which isn't entirely on the mark--is what is at the top of the comments and taking away from the discussion which I am finding (and I'm sure others) very passionate and enlightening.
I completely agree. My only goal was to remind people of the guidelines and get one of the mods to tweak the title, certainly not to overshadow the conversation.
This situation really saddens. I hate the fact that people are self-censoring because of a minority of violent people. This lends them legitimacy, when they deserve none. Seeing this after reading about a girls school being poison-gassed in Afghanistan makes me say why kowtow to the violent ones? I've read the Koran and its no worse no better than the bible. My girlfriend is a Middle Eastern anthropologist who loves the culture and speaks Arabic. My research into the history of math show the ancient Arab world as a hot bed of science and literature. Yet nowadays when people think of Muslims they think of death.
The high point of my last week was having one of my university students (during a class on privacy issues) say that nobody has a right to ask you what your religion is on a job application. Unless, that is, you are from somewhere in the Middle East. Then its understandable that you need to ask. WTF...
But, if some Muslim feels the need to show pictures of murdered directors on then website as a prediction of what will happen to you if you make art, then it gets harder and harder to fight these prejudices.
I just wish the non-violent majority of Muslims would (could?) step up to the plate and counteract the extremists.
I'm not a very religious person, but I've done some light research and here is what I came up with as being the difference between violence in the Koran versus Bible. This an extreme paraphrasation and may be wrong, but this is how I understand it as of now:
According to tradition, if the Koran/Mohammad contradicts itself, what ever happened later is to be taken as the accepted rule, however the Koran is not organized in chronological order so it can be hard to tell at first blush what is the "correct" interpretation. In the early days of Islam, when Mohammad had very few followers, it was necessary to gain more followers to espouse peace, rainbows and sunshine. As he grew more politically powerful, his rhetoric changed and "kill the infidels" was the way to go. Since it happened later chronologically this is the "official" stance of the Koran.
Contrasted with the Bible wherein most of the violence is contained in the old testament. Then Jesus came along and essentially said "forget all this old stuff, I'm the new covenant, love thy neighbor, yay rainbows, sunshine and lollipops".
That being said, that doesn't mean a lot of people haven't been killed in the name of Jesus, but in current times I'd guestimate 99.9999% of Christians are peace loving people who don't want violence brought upon someone because they are non-Christian. But I'd also guess that worldwide 97% of Muslims are the same way. Unfortunately the other 3% is still a large number of people who want to bomb markets, fly planes in to buildings or throw acid on girls who insist on going to school.
You're absolutely right, the 97% needs to stand the hell up and drown out this nonsense.
"You're absolutely right, the 97% needs to stand the hell up and drown out this nonsense."
Plenty of people have been trying to drown out the nonsense, but it is not newsworthy (fairly recently a very influential religious figure in Pakistan made very strong statements and fatwa against the 'nonsense'). If it bleeds, it leads. Good works rarely make the news, but jackasses easily do so.
As a Muslim myself, having to 'stand the hell up and drown out this nonsense' makes little sense to me. It implies that I/we are somehow complicit in what the jackasses do. No thanks. I have a family to take care of, a job, etc. and do my personal best to be an example of a good human being, just like the majority of Muslims.
The last paragraph is stirring: "if a violent fringe is capable of inspiring so much cowardice and self-censorship, it suggests that there’s enough rot in our institutions that a stronger foe might be able to bring them crashing down."
But this bit a couple paragraphs up strikes me as complacent: "Happily, today’s would-be totalitarians are probably too marginal to take full advantage." A new one can and will arise. Totalitarians love a vacuum.
xkcd should do a stick figure of prophet mohammed.
This is actually getting really scary. A short while ago a cartoonist from Seattle suggested to make May 20 'Everyone draws Muhammad' Day worldwide. Her cartoon went viral, a Facebook page was created, the exacerbated mix of anger/resentment/stupidity in the air fueled the whole thing -- and now both her and the creator of the FB group want out:
http://guyism.com/2010/04/creator-of-everybody-draw-muhammad...
I can absolutely understand the heat they must be feeling -- it's especially chilling since she's clearly not famous enough to require protection, but might become just enough so that she actually pays the heavy personal toll of constant fear of reprisal.
It's very sad to see this lifelike Prisoner's Dilemma happening -- we would all like to see people of goodwill the world over to show some spine and make a respectful but clear and strong resistance statement. But no one, absolutely no one can afford doing this anymore in an age of exponentials, viral growth, annihilated privacy and geocoded checkins broadcast to the world, where you can rise to (unwanted, in this case) virtual fame in a matter of hours. Anonymity is not a protection anymore.
I sincerely hope that being the first globally connected generation will somehow help us avoid tearing this planet apart over religion in the next 20 years...
The reason this is always such an "outrage" when the Muslim religion is parodied is historical.
The religion was founded on the idea of spreading the itself as widely as possible. Certain leaders (the founder himself even) achieved this through conquering and control. Which was fine thousands of years ago when being invaded was just part and parcel of life. :)
Nowadays the original edicts don't really have any answers of what to do when you get a detractor from the religious teachings (i.e. a parody such as this). Hence extremists turn to literal interpretations and go for violence.
EDIT: hmm, not that I mean to suggest Islam is a violent religion - this was meant as an explanation to the other comments that were wondering why slamming Islam elicits such a violent response from extremists compared to other religions - it is historical.
(I've scrapped all the respectful nonsense - it was a quick opinion at the end of a comment relating to something different. I never intended it to be taken so seriously :))
If we're going to be that respectful of Islam, why are we not going to be that respectful of Christianity? Or, relevant to the current discussion, Scientology?
Because they don't threaten violence anywhere near as credibly? That's a terrible, terrible incentive to set up. (But perhaps you have another answer?)
Perhaps the suggestion of be respectful is the wrong choice of words; probably I mean "avoid inciting the extremist elements" instead (till they become irrelevant).
Respect does not enter into it. It's a word you are using out of context.
One shouldn't be giving any special treatment to faith-based ideology regardless of whether they can amass whacko proponents or not. This isn't anything like 'shutting up and walking away from a fight', it isn't a personal experience or situation; this is a matter of policy and public fucking health (mental too).
Are you familiar with the logic as to why we "don't negotiate with terrorists"? It is not because the people saying that are waving their dicks around and showing off. It is because when you do negotiate, you encourage other terrorists to try terrorism next week. Today's hostages may die, but they are saving tomorrow's hostages, and the next day's, and the next day's. It is brutal calculus, but it is the only sane answer. The cost of being nice here is death; it is a net cost of lives.
My solution is simple: To tell the extremist elements that they can't dominate our discourse, and to meet both threats and any attempts to follow through on those threats with all the force necessary to dissuade them. The "nice" answer is wrong and has all sorts of "not nice" results. And however hard this may be to believe or accept, the potential losses of knuckling under to terrorism are unbounded. Because the thing is, it's not about the grievance they say it's about. There's an infinite supply of grievances, and even if there wasn't, if you leave the decision about whether you've discharged the grievance in the hands of the terrorist they can always decide you haven't done enough. What it is about is that they can get more benefit from the terrorism than it costs them. That is what you must be concerned about, ensuring that the costs of terrorism exceed the benefits, and one easy (and arguably necessary-but-not-sufficient) way to do that is to make sure they don't get benefits. Official "Draw Mohammed" day is a good solution on the side, by raising the costs of terrorism.
Any policy that has the end result of moving the cost/benefit advantage of terrorism in the direction of "benefit" is wrong, especially any that cross from net-negative to net-positive. Regardless of how "nice" it is. Regardless of how well-cloaked in moralistic bibble-babble it is. And it will be so cloaked; the ability of humans to rationalize the short-term convenient answer is nearly unbounded. This is part of the basic contract of civilization and operates at a lower, more fundamental level than most people are used to debating at, in that if terrorists are allowed to tear apart civilization (the ultimate end result if this policy of appeasement is followed), most of the rest of our debates are rendered moot. The first order of business is make sure we still have a civilization in which to have our arguments about what it should be.
I've gone down to this level because it's really important. The US remains a ways away from this being a serious problem, but I am concerned about the number of draws we're making against this account without depositing things; we're a ways from bankrupt here but the trend is strongly negative lately.
I have carefully referred to "nice" policies rather than naming names, but in most cases there are, shall we say, correlations between political parties and the "niceness" of their policies; applying this discussion to their country's policies is left as an exercise for the reader. But there is definitely a time and a place for "not nice" policies, if you actually want your civilization to survive.
Exactly. Whenever we self-censor because of terrorist threats, we send the message that threats work. Threats will get you want you want.
If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," then crazies with agendas wouldn't be able to push the whole world around.
Not that I'd find it easy to publish something, just for humor's sake, that could get me or my loved ones killed. But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
> But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
Just for the record; I entirely agree here! If it is important then it needs to be said.
But if you say something for fun (which I think one should be allowed to do!) and because of it a bomb goes off elsewhere in the world - that is hard to justify.
> If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished,"
Yeh, the problem with applying this to extremism is that, for the most part, it doesn't work. On one hand it gives them ammunition to "legitimise" their actions and on the other punishment isn't necessarily a concern for some. They will kill anyway.
No. If south park had shown Muhammad, and someone had gotten killed because of it, the only people to blame would be the ones who killed them, not anyone involved with south park.
As cliche as it is, if we let them dictate what we do and do not do, the terrorists win.
Yes, to a point. But there is an element of blame too; they must know what reaction their actions would provoke - and yet they choose to continue with them.
There is, perhaps, only a small portion of blame - but it is akin to throwing a red cape between a bull and a man with his back turned.
I think it is morally justified to think: "if I say this will some idiots try to kill other people? perhaps I should tone it down"
What will happen is that in some time there will nothing left to be said.
Mind you, I'm drawing a line between incitement (flat out saying "go and do something wrong") and saying something knowing others, in reaction, will do something wrong.
You're opening the opportunity for every type of speech to be silenced. Example?
If you disagree with me, I will kill every poney in the world.
Now you see, we can't even discuss the chance of having a discussion.
Also, one last point to be made: How do you "tone down" against a belief that EVERY visual representation of a person is wrong?
> If you disagree with me, I will kill every poney in the world.
The only real point there is that is an unlikely threat. I can ignore it. If a substantial number of people developed a long history of killing ponies and then made that threat I might reconsider.
One of two things has to happen in my mind. Either we have to ignore the terrorists - which is my preferred solution, but I highly doubt the media will let us. Or we avoid inciting them for a bit as best we can whilst eradicating the problem.
You know that blame means punishment right? I just drew Mohammed on a napkin. Do you think I should pay a fine, go to jail, something?...
If you think "of course not, don't be silly", then tell me how can I know, prior to expressing my thoughts, if my work will result in a murder. What's a substantial amount of people, how much time is a long history? You're saying there's a line that speech should not cross, because after a certain point bad things will happen.
Where is that line? You're being vague if you say "some people, long history, napkim is okay, cartoon in national newspaper is not". I want to be a law abiding citizen. Should the government publish a list of prohibited things to say? A civilian committee? Should I use "common sense" (as if there's anything common in 2 billion people and 2 major religions spanning 2 thousand years). Or will I only know if what I said was okay after someone killed?
There are serious implications on who you choose to blame, I don't think you've thought this one through.
> I just drew Mohammed on a napkin. Do you think I should pay a fine, go to jail, something?...
You know that's not what I mean :) and it's unrelated. Also your definition of blame is fallacious because punishment does not always take the form of jail/fine (i.e. social blame, personal blame).
Besides your action is not inciting; who will see it? If you now go into the town centre and happen to post it near a mosque athat has potential to be inciting. And you need to consider whether that is the sensible thing to do.
(the answer is; it's probably fine because no one is likely to get killed)
> then tell me how can I know, prior to expressing my thoughts, if my work will result in a murder.
Strawman; there is ample precedent for media, particularly cartoons, to cause offence and elicit extremist response.
> You're being vague if you say "some people, long history, napkim is okay, cartoon in national newspaper is not". I want to be a law abiding citizen. Should the government publish a list of prohibited things to say?
Deliberately so; it's a personal choice, not something anyone else should decide!
> I don't think you've thought this one through.
You skirt around some good points - particularly with regards to "social interference" (i.e. a moral brigade deciding what is right/wrong to publish based on their feeling on what will cause extremist response). However I think you make a few fatal mistakes in rhetoric (mostly by building on increasingly shaking links); ultimately I'm not sure you've thought the counter argument through clearly.
Just to let you know I think we're in a point where the medium doesn't help either one of us to convince the other of anything, so I really would have some additional stuff to say (I do have the modern judicial system on my side, after all ;)) but I'm going to choose not do it right now, here on this board. Agree to disagree?
Im going to kill my other posts because they were rushed and incoherent. But this is my more careful response.
Im disappointed the above thread has got so much support when it is fatally flawed.
The problem with extremism is that punishing the perpetrators is pretty irrelevant as a solution to the issue because, for the most part, they don't care (or to put it more bluntly: nothing you do can negate what God will provide them).
What we need is a solution to the problem of extremist groups.
The comparison to hostages is wrong; it is more like saying "this is the decision between should I go to a hostage risk area or not?".
It is a personal choice and I think what I am mostly saying is: we should individually consider whether our actions/comments are simply inciting the situation. If that is the case it may be reasonable simply not to say it (an example; if things are getting heated in a bar and you think the other guy is an airhead saying it to his face might not be the most sensible way to make your point).
Or more succinctly: why should we hand them ammunition if we don't have to? As you say; they will pick out all manner of grievances but that's not an argument for increasing their choice. Indeed in the case of parodies it is problematic; because it is legitimate to feel angered by them, and extremists can use that to say "hey, so our violence is legitimate".
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
"The problem with extremism is that punishing the perpetrators is pretty irrelevant as a solution to the issue because, for the most part, they don't care"
Surprisingly false, and that's the key. The evidence quite strongly suggests that the extremists on the whole really do make rather calculated decisions about what to push, even if only subconsciously. We can tell, because when we change the incentives, behavior changes.
You are basically arguing that the perfect should be the enemy of the good. If there is an extremist that attacks us no matter what, then frankly our policy doesn't matter for that extremist. We need to be concerned about the ones that are calculating though, because there are far more of them.
(Hostages was not a comparison, it was an observation that most terrorism is in one form or another about hostages.)
Your arguments are contradictory; you invoke extremists so extreme that it doesn't matter what we do, then you say we shouldn't incite them. But by definition, you've created a set of people that are unincitable, they're already permanently incited to the max. Yup, they exist. I'm actually pretty comfortable saying "Kill them". Anybody who truly, honestly wants to make it "Either your civilization dies or I die" must be taken up on their offer. However, these people do not numerically amount to all that much, even in the part of the world that has been deliberately cultivating a large group of people who are supposed to make that demand, making the horror of my suggestion MUCH less than it seems; the damage these people can do to civilization is far greater than the loss. (I can not underscore this enough; the evidence is that my approach is by far the more peaceable, because it produces a situation where civilization is to people's advantage. It is the production of a situation where attacking the civilization is advantageous that produces chaos and death! Second order effects utterly dominate this discussion.)
Your approach is a recipe for increasing the number of terrorists, not decreasing them.
Have you any references for that? (I'm interested, not disputing it)
> it was an observation that most terrorism is in one form or another about hostages.
Ah, now that is a slightly different matter I feel. I was more discussing the idea of indiscriminate killing or direct murder of the "offendor".
> But by definition, you've created a set of people that are unincitable, they're already permanently incited to the max.
How are terrorists made? For the most part the "foot soldiers" are incited by the more calculating leaders. Handing those leaders material that is offensive is ammunition for them to convert foot soldiers to the cause.
Your right - it wont affect the leadership, but it removes some of their ammunition to brainwash others with.
> If there is an extremist that attacks us no matter what, then frankly our policy doesn't matter for that extremist. We need to be concerned about the ones that are calculating though, because there are far more of them.
No, we clearly need to respond - and respond in a cohesive way. What I'm suggesting is that avoiding inciteful actions might make it easier to combat extremism.
> It is the production of a situation where attacking the civilization is advantageous that produces chaos and death!
Bear in mind that I'm not suggesting we make a big thing of "we are not going to incite you". Just that, perhaps, a more careful personal set of actions is justified. Every time a big thing (in media terms) like this happens the death threats come in, more people are scared and there is added potential for people to die. If it hadn't have happened there would be less fear now than a few weeks ago :)
> you invoke extremists so extreme that it doesn't matter what we do
To be fair that was what you invoked - I was trying to sync it into my arguments.
Incidentally a strong argument for my idea is that modern terrorist leaders have realised they don't have to actually bomb anyone significant or even actually respond to a threat. They just have to get it into the news to propagate fear.
Great post. One thing I am torn about is the threats themselves. If we want to encourage freedom of speech and the media to publish whatever they want, even if it offends, it seems like a logical way to do that would be to make even the voicing of threats unprotected speech. That is, even if it is not a direct threat, but a veiled one, such as the one given by Revolution Muslim, the people that sent the threat should be quickly and forcefully prosecuted for committing a crime.
The moral dilemma is that this itself seems to limit free speech. How can we allow the media to publish any parody or mock any religion, and at the same time keep extremists from making threats? I don't think it's sufficient to try to find the killers after they've already killed. I truly think this needs to be dealt with in a "Minority Report" style of thoughtcrime, as scary as that sounds to me.
Because the thing is, it's not about the grievance they say it's about. There's an infinite supply of grievances, and even if there wasn't, if you leave the decision about whether you've discharged the grievance in the hands of the terrorist they can always decide you haven't done enough.
I will never respect Islam so long as it wants me and my society dead or radically changed for the worse. And it doesn't just stop at freedom of speech, as this story only points toward. The fundamentalists are what Islam is all about, it's not my problem that Islam hasn't reformed in the past 1000 years, or that the moderates can't moderate the fundamentalists. The fight for freedom never stops - and you don't win it by taking away someone else's freedom.
For those interested, this week's South Park:
NEW YORK, April 26, 2010 - JIMMY AND TIMMY head off TO SUMMER CAMP WITH ALL THEIR HANDICAPABLE FRIENDS in an all-new episode of "South Park" titled "Crippled Summer," premiering on Wednesday, April 28 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL.
Competition is the name of the game this summer. There is no time for Jimmy and his friends to slack off. They're working to be this year's champions at summer camp. Jimmy suits up and prepares to shred in the annual surfing contest.
Has anyone read an official statement from Comedy Central about this? This situation seems so counter to their reputation and public image I'm surprised they'd let it stand and not respond to all the trashing.
I find the comparison between Apple's lost phone and Muhammad (PBUH) drawing interesting.
While most around here are with Apple's now legal tackling and their defence of their future commodity (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1295964), many are sceptics and sometimes hostile when some call for understanding of why they could be offended of other's 'freedom of expression'.
Man I would love a real Super Best Friends t-shirt (and not the cheap rip-offs on cafepress right now or the the one with the black censor box).
Funny, I was just watching an illegal stream of SouthPark over the weekend and they showed the original superbest friends ep and there was no censorship at all on Muhammed. In fact, they treated him kind of cool, if anything.
So what if Stone and Parker just announce to the world they are now Muslim? Wouldn't that be an easy way to solve this for them and then do whatever the hell they want? Sort of like the dentist on Seinfeld that changes religions 'just for the jokes'?
In all seriousness, it worked for some Fox News reporters a few years ago who were capture by muslim extremist. That's almost a South Park ep right there it so absurd.
Yup, for sure. I was joking hence my comment about it making a great topic for a SouthPark. I guess I'll lay my sarcasm on thicker next time, people are awfully jumpy on this topic apparently.
Not really. The point of the article is not that only Muslims kill for religion but that their tactic is disturbingly effective in getting what they want (speech suppression.) Abortion clinic killings have not achieved anything comparable.
its easy to say something like that, but if you have seen enough south park you would know that they dont really draw any lines.
in the south park film they take black soldiers and strap them to tanks as "protection" to the tanks. they show spielberg and lucas literally raping indiana jones. they have entire episodes dedicated to bashing scientology, mormonism, judaism, and catholicism. an insecure, weak-willed jesus is a reoccurring character. a singing piece of shit is the christmas mascot.
there have been enough reasons for people to protest against south park, and they have, but never do they go as far as censoring characters except when muhammad is concerned. (to be fair, they do censor words that they consider extreme profanity [on occasion])
I believe "Team America: World Police" covered that ground.
"Cowardly", "stupid", "inept bumbling fools", even "homosexual" -- it accused the entire military apparatus of being everything they insist they aren't.
I don't recall it being censored. Or protested.
That said, it didn't air on TV either.
I don't think this piece goes anywhere near "well-stated", to me it read more like a hysterical outburst. Look, I don't know who Douthat is, he's not one of the NYT writers I read (I'd rather read Dowd for her dazzling word games). And I don't care. All I care is the column he's written and that's the way it should be, I think.
Now, the Salon essay's main point seems to be to argue that "threat-induced censorship" is not "a uniquely Islamic practice". I totally agree with that, other groups also dabble in such threats (and sometimes carry them out, too, e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence). However, carrying-out a unified agenda of world-wide censorship through political influence (http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cf...) or down-right intimidation when that doesn't work, is quite unique to Islamic countries.
I know, because I'm a Muslim and I come from such a country.
This particular brand of 'worldwide censorship' is not unique in this day and age - Scientology practices something very similar, using the threat of copyright to discourage talking about their practices.
In any event, it's only recent globalization has made this approach a possibility. Go back two decades, and the Soviet Union practiced similar censorship within their own territories. Go back a few hundred years, and the catholic church threatened excommunication if you didn't toe the party line.
It's the same idea - just the techniques have gotten more refined.
Except that excommunication simply let you know you had removed yourself from the Church, and was a call to repentance. (Same today, though it's rarely used.)
No physical threats, no violence, just a formal reminder from the Church that by your actions you're essentially cutting yourself off. If that didn't bother you, so be it.
The church's excommunication back in the day went far beyond that.
For example, when the Catholic church excommunicated Martin Luther, "It also made it a crime for anyone in Germany to give Luther food or shelter. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther)
Many excommunications were of the form "vitandus", where the excommunicated was to be shunned by fellow Catholics. That's a pretty severe penalty when _everyone_ was Catholic.
"carrying-out a unified agenda of world-wide censorship through political influence or down-right intimidation when that doesn't work, is quite unique to Islamic countries."
What about the war on drugs? What about the millions of people we killed because they preferred communism?
It's interesting to note that both wars were actually started by the communists. I'm all for killing people if they try to forcibly invade otherwise peaceful countries to convert them to communism. It may have been imprudent or wasteful for the US to get involved in Asian wars, but it wasn't a simple matter of killing people over their preferred political system.
I don't think the counterpoint is as valid as you say it is. Receiving some hate mail and phone calls about a "gay Jesus" character is a lot different than killing someone.
There are some small similarities between extremist Christians and extremist Muslims. Bombing of abortion clinics comes to mind, however, let's not pretend that a strongly worded email or phone call is anything like killing a cartoonist because he drew the wrong picture.
"Receiving some hate mail and phone calls about a 'gay Jesus' character is a lot different than killing someone."
Threatening to burn down the theatre, kill the staff, and kill the director strikes me as more than a strongly worded email. See fundamentalists like to use what I'd call the sandwich method. First you threaten to kill someone, then you kill them, and then you take credit for killing them. These threats seem pretty clearly like step 1.
I'm just drawing the distinction between threats, which many crazies are known to leave, and actual killing. Had the theatre actually been burned down, actors/directors killed, you might have a better point.
Yes. But the important difference here is in the actual murders -- the act of going beyond threats. I have a hard time taking that as a minor distinction.
Almost all of Greenwald's counterpoints referred to situations in which public resources were involved: public funding of an art exhibition, public funding of a play via a university, use of public airwaves.
What's somewhat frightening about the South Park censorship is that cable is not regulated by the FCC for indecency as it's not a public resource.
What's really frightening is that the cable company was able to censor the Internet "broadcast" of the episode.
I don't have a problem with Janet Jackson's breast on CBS, but I respect the complaints of those who do. Spectrum is a scarce national resource, so we should democratically allocate it. Cable, and especially the Internet, should be afforded a much greater degree of freedom of expression.
We no longer live in an open and free society when a man with a web site gets to decide what millions of people can and cannot watch.
But this is not a "well-stated counterpoint". The article from your link justified the action with listing all successful censoring actions in the past. It like pointing out how many nations in the world has the Internet censorship and conclude that it is correct thing to do. A list of all actions in the past cannot prove the correctness of the action at all.
I'm disappointed, personally. I would have loved to read someone actually argue that satirical depictions of Muhammed should be censored. (Well, someone who isn't threatening to kill people for it at least.)
South Park parodies stupid and foolish behavior. Being massacred is not stupid nor foolish, it is tragic. A completely unbalanced, bastardized form of political correctness is quite foolish and stupid.
Probably worth while to mention that depicting Jesus in an inappropriate manner is _greatly_ disrespectful to Muslims as well. Jesus(peace be upon him) is among the most renowned Prophets of God in Islam.
I haven't taken a position on this matter yet, but is anyone (credible) looking into whether the hype around this story was generated on purpose as an attempt to smear American Muslims? See:
The Radical "Muslim" Group That Threatened South Park Creators Was Founded and Run by Joseph Cohen, a Former Israeli Radical Who Used to Live in a Settlement in the West Bank
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/bvnsa/
Does it offend me to see any portrayals of a man we don't like to have portrayed? Yea, of course. But I'm pretty sure it offends me more to see the reactions from the people involved.
If someone caricatures the prophet as a violent person, how can people [angry extremist Muslims] think that VIOLENTLY rioting and giving death threats will make the person recant that?
"You think Islam's violent!? No, it isn't. And to prove that to you, I will kill you."
I'm offended every time I see things like this - even if I'm a fan of South Park - but I do the sensible thing, I don't watch it. I can go more, say, write to them (sans death threats), or not buy from them anymore, etc. But this response just makes no sense at all.