Free Speech
I’m with Shane on this one. Europe should not be bowing to pressure to abandon our principle of free speech.
If you want to see the cartoons that have caused outrage around the world, click the more button below.
Don’t mis-understand me, I have respect for peoples widely differing beliefs, but I feel strongly about everyones right to free speech and for them to have those beliefs. (and me to not have them)
Anyway…. There is no specific, or explicit ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad – be they carved, painted or drawn. I looked it up.
The nearest you get to it is chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran which says: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth… [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him.”
If you can twist that to mean, “though shalt threaten to kidnap and kill people who don’t follow your faith, when they print a cartoon of Allah” then you’re a smarter man than me. I urge the muslim world to prove you are tolerant of other faiths (as is always claimed) by respecting our belief in free speech.
And before anyone acuses me of bias, or “religious hatred” I remind you of my favourite film… the life of brian.
So in the name of equality, here is my favourite section from that film:
“look all I said was, that halibut was good enough for Jehova…”
“ooooh he said it again!”
“you’re only making it worse for yourself!”
“How can it be worse? I’m being stoned to death?? Jehova, Jehova… Jehova”
Clicking this more link will show you the cartoons in question, I include them here so that you can make your own mind up about them :
Just to clarify (in response to an email) – please feel free to post any intelligable views on here!
I understand why they find it offensive, I find it offensive that muslim men make their women sub-serviant and hide their faces… I just accept it’s part of their culture in the same way cartoons are part of a long tradition in mine.
I’m all for Free Speech Luke but I believe there is a line. That line should be about repecting other people’s feelings and views.
That’s the counter balance, which unfortunately people don’t seem to have grasped here – including yourself.
Those cartoons are deeply offensive to the Muslim faith, to a level that is not on a par with any mainstream Western religion in the 21st Century.
I believe in Free Speech. But I believe by having the luxury of Free Speech it should be used wisely – this does not include printing or otherwise, material that is extremely offensive.
I could walk down the street right now and tell the next guy I see that I think his mother’s a c**t. Is that really me exercising my right to Free Speech?
Oh I do understand, but, no-one I’d spoken too had actually seen the cartoons in question so I posted them here partly for that reason and inside a more link so anyone who may be offended by them did not have to see them.
A lot of people seem to also miss why these were printed in the first place, the paper in question (ironically enough) was trying to create discussion about inclusion…
“By publishing these cartoons, we are saying to the Muslim community in Denmark ‘we treat you as we treat everybody else’.” That’s a quote from the editor of the newspaper which first published them… mis-guided maybe… but hard to argue he intended offence or that the response that was whipped up was in any way justifiable.
Oh come on!! Don’t care who you are or what you believe in. If you’re born into this world you have to live in it right? Every religion, belief or sterotype takes a battering at some point. Including mine! You just have to accept that’s part of life and carry on believing and living your life the way you see fit.
In my opinion the cartoons are very funny. The key words being ‘MY OPINION’. If other people find it offensive, well that’s life. The ability to laugh at ones self is an attractive quality. I don’t laugh at the cartoons maliciously. I have plenty of muslim frineds who would laugh along with me. I probably wouldn’t choose to be friends with the ones that didn’t!