When cartoons are not funny
well... i'm sure we have heard much about the troubles that arose due to the caricatures of the Prophet in the European press. someone wrote that in actual fact, there have been earlier depications of the Prophet.
yes... it is fine and well that there have been depictations of the Prophet. but there are certain sects (perhaps now more mainstream sects) who feel that pictures of the Prophet is blasphemous. should the Danish press not be sensitive to those group of people?
also, even if there have been depictations of the Prophet, i don't think they showed him in the negative light that those caricatures did. i feel that the caricatures seem to imply that Islam is a dangerous religion, which exalts its followers to war and blow people up. i feel that the Muslims have every right to be outraged at that.
now of course we could say that the Muslims who took umbrage to the caricatures simply have no sense of humour and thus it is thus their fault that they feel offended. if that is the case, then i can call anyone a "motherfucking bastard" and he/she should not have the right to do anything to me. is that reasonable?
of course, we can defend the right to freedom of expression of the Danish press. of course they are free to say and print whatever they want. in that case, then the Muslims are free to express their anger by burning embassies, protesting, boycotting, etc.
Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. our rights stop at another person's nose. everyone is free to express his/her views, but should accept responsibility for what he/she says. in this case, i feel strongly that it was irresponsible for the Danish paper to publish those caricatures and even more irresponsible of the other papers in the rest of Europe to fan the already raging fires.
to be fair, i think it is highly irresponsible for the sectors of the Muslim which reacted violently. though... i wonder, given the superiority complex of the 'West', whether there were other ways of making the 'West' realise that they can't expect everyone to accept their views.
posted by rench00 at 11:23 PM
15 Comments:
now of course we could say that the Muslims who took umbrage to the caricatures simply have no sense of humour
But rench, they do have a healthy sense of humour. Their newspapers have rather hilarious caricatures of Europe and the US as Jewish puppets, modern Hitlers, and so on!
11:17 AM
yea ya, you think real life world is a rflection of GP essay style?
2:32 PM
I wonder if that barb was aimed at me or rench. It's rather easy for anonymous posters to throw one-liners - they aren't responsible for articulating ideas that have been worked out from painstaking thought.
11:40 PM
i think i'm stupid... i don't understand what the fucking hell that anonymous guy is saying.
what is GP essay style? does that mean well-balanced? if that is the case, no. i know the world is not well-balanced. but i do know that we can dissect bits down and look at both sides of any issues.
and i think this anonymous person is so presumptious. what makes you think you know more of life than i (or Akikonomu)?
12:48 AM
Hey, stop blabbering around what you think what someone else presumes, it's bad for your health.
Thinking someone who is presumptious is exactly presumptious as well.
IF you can't take the heat of having anonmynous commenting then take it offline, personally I can't stand those self righteous kind of comments in SBP too (esp those defending the very well paid ministers) so if you like you can take it offline. Hehe.
7:04 AM
to anonymous (not every anonymous, but the one/ones who have posted commments in this post)
no... i delight in anonymous comments. it just demonstrate how unwilling people are to take ownership of what they say, how it is so easy talk about freedom of expression when one does not need to be accountable for one's actions. go ahead anonymous, show us all how cowardly you are.
and what is worse than the anonymity of the comment is that it absolutely does not make any sense.
btw, i am not presumptious. i am judgemental. and my judgement of you being presumptious is based on your comment. if you don't know the difference, then you are fucking stupid.
and why is being presumptious bad for someone's health anyway? can you prove it? if not, you are just making an idiotic baseless claim.
it is people like you that make censorship necessary, i.e. people who are irresponsible, presumptious, unable to reason and justify what you say.
and because of people like you, good people like the editors of the SBP and my good self have to suffer.
i blame you, anonymous, for providing dictatorial regimes an excuse for depriving reasonable, intelligent people fighting for a better tomoroow our freedom of expression.
12:22 PM
Frankly I don't see the problem. You don't have to take it offline, just disable anonymous posting =D
Surprisingly enough, that's actually standard procedure in many credible groupblogs...
1:00 PM
aiyah... no la. i like anonymous comments. reminds me how cowardly some people can be. besides, i do know some friends who leave credible comments but are too lazy (yes, i know... i have friends that lazy) to even leave a name...
1:13 PM
You give rather good reactions. Fun.
And Akiko, taking anonmynous commenting offline is the same as just disenabling it isn't it? Or is that some pendentic penchent of Singapore educators to differentiate precise meanings?
Being judgemental is all nice and good, good luck.
2:36 PM
anonymous:
who exactly are you? why are you so reluctant to leave a name? is it cos you are afraid? do i actually know you?
4:57 PM
Given the content of the notes-- specifically the "GP essay style comment"-- I suspect that the answer to the question you asked me has now been answered. What do you reckon?
Besides, someone too ashamed to leave his name to his work is not someone you _want_ to know.
He's not even someone you want to peel off the sole of your boot.
9:47 PM
XH:
actually... no... i don't think that "anonymous" guy is who you think it is. i think it's someone else that i don't know.
and i've always tried to maintain an open mind, always with the hope that people can be changed for the better.
11:41 PM
The Danish press can (and do) accept responsibility for what they have said, but they can't accept responsibility for these violent and irrational reactions of Muslims who burn embassies and threaten to kill Danish (maybe not just Danish) citizens.
Volunteers who pay visits to homes for the elderly can, and are more than happy to accept responsibility for making the place livelier and reducing the loneliness of the residents, but they cannot possibly be fully responsible for what the residents feel (happy, sad, disappointed, joy, nostalgia etc). We are fully-developed, civilized human beings because most of us, most of the time, have control over what we think, feel and say.
As morally decent, conscientiously authentic human beings we should--we must--accept responsibility. But it doesn't mean we should be held fully accountable for everything and anything that happens as a consequence.
Don't you think that these violent reactions are the most irresponsible ones out of this whole 'fiasco'? Who is being more intolerant here--the Danish press and cartoonists who mock, not just Muslims, Islam, but also themselves, or, are the reactionary Muslims being more intolerant?
2:03 PM
you are right. the Danish (and some of the other European) press cannot accept responsibility for the violent reactions. that belongs to those fanatical Muslims.
BUT the Danish (and some of the other European) press must accept and bear the responsibility for causing the violent reactions. the Danish paper has the defence of ignorance. that perhaps the editors did not know that the caricatures would invoke such a violent reaction. but ignorance is not a good enough defence to absolve them of responsibiity.
the other European papers who reprinted the caricatures are even worse. they were simply asking for more trouble.
however, the issue is not to find out who the bigger bastard is.
the point i want to make is simply that the stupid Danish press should not have published those caricatures and those other idiotic newspapers in the rest of Europe should not have fanned the fires, masquerading those actions as defending freedom of expression.
and as i have said in my comments in SBP, i denounce the violent reactions too.
that does not change my position that those idiotic people who started it all should be punished. and most severely so. and that this serves as a lesson to all of us that before we spout any rubbish, citing freedom of expression in our defence, we should think and censor ourselves. or put simply, there are times when, despite our dying urge to say something idiotic, we should just shut the fuck up.
4:42 PM
Actually, using a less emotionally-charged example, one might talk about Pokemon as an analogy. Broadcasting the episode of Pokemon with flashing lights that triggered epileptic fits in the viewers was unfortunate but may be viewed as "one of those things". Rebroadcasting that section on the national news and causing epileptic fits in the people watching the news-- now _that's_ the kind of incpompetence that makes the mind boggle.
5:49 PM
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