Iranian newspaper to run "Holocaust cartoons"
This is rather amazing to me. I guess it puts the ol' "freedom of expression" to the test, huh?
posted by Sean @ 2/08/2006 12:47:00 AM
2 comments
Politics Schmolitics
We are a group of friends and acquaintances -- a merry band of pranksters indeed -- who have been arguing about politics on-and-off, then really on, then a little off... since 1998. On email. But that meant literally thousands of emails a year. That was too many. So here's the blog dedicated to carrying on that spirit of political and pop culture argument and dialogue. You might think of us as "schmoliticians", because while we take politics seriously, we try not to take ourselves quite so.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
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2 Comments:
Wouldn't it have been more to the point to have an anti-Dane cartoon contest, or anti-Christian (whatever type Christians the Danes are - Lutherans?)? This is kind of a non-sequitor retaliation or "test of expression."
Anyway, hopefully they will learn from the world's reaction (disgust) that this is how one reacts to something insulting done that is offensive and in poor taste, with disgust and condemnation, not violence. It seems Middle Easterners and Muslims are always complaining about how we think they are all crazy, violent and backward, when they are not. How does this little demonstration help disabuse us of that faulty notion? They have to realize, when you react to a cartoon by taking to the streets (in multiple countries), throwing rocks and firebombs, burning down embassies and consulates, and threatening the cartoon perpetrators with death, you should expect to be seen in that light. You can't react to every insult and perceived insult with violence.
I mean, if we reacted the same way against them every time they burned one of our flags, there wouldn't be a Middle Eastern embassy left in the world!
Its very frustrating for someone who is not knee-jerk pro-Israeli, anti-Arab to watch this sort of thing and realize how its going to play into the hands of those who would prefer to just say "all Arabs are crazy terrorists" and base policy on that supposed "truth."
There was an interesting editorial about the Mohammed cartoons in the Post yesterday from the Washington Bureau chief of the German newspaper, Die Zeit. His main point was basically that the Middle Eastern governments who are expressing outrage against the intolerance/insensitivity of Western newspapers are the same who practice intolerance towards and repress their own people. To wit:
"In this jihad over humor, tolerance is disdained by people who demand it of others. The authoritarian governments that claim to speak on behalf of Europe's supposedly oppressed Muslim minorities practice systematic repression against their own religious minorities. They have radicalized what was at first a difficult question. Now they are asking not for respect but for submission. They want non-Muslims in Europe to live by Muslim rules."
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