xiphias | Lemme summarize the Danish Cartoons About Mohammed Situation:

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religion

Lemme summarize the Danish Cartoons About Mohammed Situation:

Here's what snapped it all into focus for me. Flemming Rose, the editor of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, a right-wing paper, realized that Muslims are offended by physical depictions of Muhammad -- drawings and the like. He thought this was stupid. So he decided to get artists to draw Muhammad in cartoons.

So: a person decides to do something offensive, purely because it's offensive, in order to see how the people to whom it is offensive will react.

We have a word for that here on the Internet.

It's called "trolling."

And once you realize that, the whole thing makes sense. . .

September:
Jyllands-Posten newspaper of Denmark:
"MUHOMMED IZ The SUXX0RS!!!1!1! IZLAM SUXXXX! MUZL:IMS SUX!"

Almost every Muslim who hears about this:
"It's a troll. Ignore the troll. Don't feed the troll."

Jyllands-Posten newspaper:
Is mostly ignored.

A couple Muslims, here and there:
"D00d, you're being an asswipe. Stop it."

Nothing much happens. Months pass. Then the Jyllands-Posten newspaper gets it buddies involved -- after all, if your FIRST attempt at trolling fails, get a bunch of friends together and troll again:

"LOOKAETZ THE WEEERD MUSLIMS ALL OFF#ENDED CAUZ MUHOMMED SUXXXORS!!"

Again, not too much reaction, until, finally, JACKPOT! Finally, they get a troll to bite on the OTHER side!

They are given the gift of Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, who bites exactly the way that Jylands-Posten HOPED someone would bite.

"OMG! WTF!1 YOU I KEEEEL j0000!"

Now, things have gotten good -- once you've got trolls on BOTH sides, THEN you're cookin'.

'Cause, at THIS point, you can't even be a REASONABLE person on either side without outside folks thinking you're allied to the trolls. And, in effect, at this point, if you're a reasonable person making reasonable points about the importance of freedom of the press, and secular society, or about the importance of multicultural respect, and treating other people's beliefs with dignity even if you don't agree with them -- well, then you ARE allied to one set of trolls or the other.

At this point, the only thing that reasonable, mature people can do is post the whole thing to LJDrama or fandom_wank, and point and mock the whole kerfluffle.

The problem is that this has become a flamewar with real flames. I mean, when we talk about incendiary rhetoric now, we're talking about actual, literal incendiary devices to go with it. And this rarely happens on the Internet, since few browsers have implemented POIP -- Petrol Over IP.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You're leaving out some important information.

The Jyllands-Posten was writing an article about a man writing a book about children who could not find anyone to do illustrations due to death threats. The J-P wanted to see just how much of a chilling effect muslim offense (and subsequences violence, remember, this was in the wake of Van Gogh being killed in the street) was having on freedom of speech. That's why he called for the cartoons, not just to scream 'Islam Suxxorz'.

You also left out the bit where after several months of nothing happened, imams took the 12 cartoons, and three more they fabricated (a picture of Mo' with a pig's nose, a picture of a praying muslim being raped by a dog, and another one that I forget) and started showing them around. That's when the Muslims went ape shit, and it was only after -that- that other papers started printing the images as a show of solidarity and that they would not be intimidated by a bunch of 7th century savages showing their ass.

er... writing a book about Mohammad for children...

Actually, Mo w/a pig's nose seems to be some French guy in a pig calling contst.

No, I'm including both of those.

Trolls always have a good reason for trolling, at least in their own minds. "Seeing how much of a chilling effect there is" is pretty much one of the main ones I've seen on ssbb -- they tended to call it something more like, "There's this clique here and they shout you down if you say anything they don't like," which is effectively the same thing.

The Islamacist trolls making up REALLY offensive cartoons that weren't in the original one is also an important part of it -- I intended to put that part in, but, yeah, I forgot to. But that's exactly HOW the trolls on the other side got people riled up, yes.

You aren't seriously comparing 'If you do something which I think my religion considers blasphemous I'll kill you' to 'being shouted down'. I mean honestly. The point is, they weren't doing it purely because it was offensive. They were doing it because they believe that freedom of speech is a Western value and there's a big chunk of Muslims living in their nation that apparently don't respect that value. Just how much power does that minority have? It wasn't 'purely because it's offensive'. That's a mischaracterization of what was/is happening.

Also, do you consider the editors of Rolling Stone trolls? I mean, Rolling Stone is a left leaning magazine, and the current cover picturing Kanye West in a J.C. pose is offensive to Christians. They have to know this right? And the only reason they're putting him in that pose is to provoke people, right? Of course, Christians aren't calling for a boycott of the magazine industry or firebombing Barnes & Noble over it.

I'm saying that the dynamics that I'm seeing in this are exactly the dynamics that end up on fandom_wank. 100%. The fact that THIS group of nutcases has political clout and molotov cocktails makes them more dangerous, but not fundamentally different.

Have you met any Christians that are offended by the current issue of Rolling Stone?

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I have, yes. I was talking to my Aunt the other day and she mentioned it. But remember, I live in rural NC. Of course, the response to that offense is just to tsk and go on about their day.

An interesting note (and I'm 100% serious about this), I was listening to Shaun <sp?> Hannity on the way home. He had Pat Buchannon on there, who was essentially agreeing with you that the J-P did this on purpose and thus it was bad. : P

And I'd also state that I think it's likely that the Muslim troll ALSO did this on purpose, and KNEW that the cartoons he was flashing around were bogus. I think you only get this kind of response when you've got people on both sides stirring up shit.

On the one hand yes, I see your point. On the other hand, when you get political power, molotov cocktails, ak-47s, tanks, missles, and an atomic power reactor that can be used to make the really big bombs, you have to act like a civilized grown up. Pick one, real world power, or the ability to play with trolls. On yet another hand, there is a difference in dynamic when one conflict results in angry words, and the other results in corpses and burned out buildings. There's a similarity, but it's just not the same thing.

I thought it was a DoS attack: Denial of Sanity.

Great minds think alike--my first reaction when this started to escalate was, "People, don't feed the trolls!"

"MUHOMMED IZ The SUXX0RS!!!1!1! IZLAM SUXXXX! MUZL:IMS SUX!"

Ish.
Starts off with the paper, yes, planning on being provocative, but probably not anticipating anywhere near this reaction. Beginning of the story is someone who's trying to write a children's book on the life of Muhammed (remember, this is in Denmark) and can't find an illustrator, except for one who might be willing to work anonymously. Because of fears of reprisal for depicting the prophet.

In comparison to some of the lovely stuff one sees in, say, Egyptian papers referencing Jews these were some extremely mild cartoons. (Link to

tomperdue's post about his take on all of this.) Most of them were more referring to the paper or to the cartoonists. There were a few, yes, to which offense was unsurprising.

The folks who started circulating the cartoons, though, over the past couple months .. . threw in also another couple that were extremely offensive. Just to make sure people would get stirred up. (Was particularly fun to listen to Ahmed Abu Laban on NPR this morning, trying to dodge that question.)

silmaril has written a couple of very interesting posts about the whole situation, and gives some background as to why the depiction alone is enough to upset some people. The conversation within has been enlightening.

But really . . . I think Slate has a point. We're watching total outrage over unbelievers breaking a religious precept. This isn't so much "you're demeaning me by portraying my religion horribly." This is more "how dare you do something that is prohibited by my religion."

(btw I'm trying to keep putting all this in Memories under Danish cartoon riots.)

We're watching total outrage over unbelievers breaking a religious precept.

That's not unusual. Pious types don't hold with moral relativism. If its wrong for me to do it, then it's wrong for you as well. If you feel differently, you're wrong, and God thinks you're wrong, too.

Remember all that "War on Christmas" nonsense? Or that guy on Weirdjews who said that handling the Torah should be forbidden because it hurt him? Same deal.

Some pious types don't hold with that.

There are, just for example, plenty of religious Jews who would argue that it's wrong for me to eat pork--but they don't care if

cattitude does so, because he's not Jewish by their lights.

Point taken, and my apologies.

Not Same Deal.

I don't recall Cavuto or O'Reilly (who seemed to be the two personalities behind that whole thing) advocating boycotting all retail outlets. And they certainly didn't advocate, you know, murdering people who they felt were out of line. They presented their viewpoint and asked people who agreed to not buy from retailers doing whatever the hell they were upset about them not doing. And...that's it. That's all they did. There certainly weren't hordes of fundie's torching Targets and Lowes.

And the guy on Weirdjews didn't open fire in a Reform shul either, but they shared the same perspective: "It is hurtful to me that you don't follow my beliefs, therefore a failure to follow my beliefs is an assult on me." Their reponses differ in degree, but not in kind.

Right. But I keep seeing a conflation, here. State Department statement: "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Here are some are anti-semitic images,; the paper, though, wasn't so much printing anti-muslim images (two could be argued to be; most weren't at all) but instead violating Muslim custom and law.

And here, at least, we usually try to be very careful about being sensitive re anti-foo whatever, but we also don't let foo tell everybody else (or at least we're still trying not to - see War on Christmas) how to act.

And here, at least, we usually try to be very careful about being sensitive re anti-foo whatever, but we also don't let foo tell everybody else (or at least we're still trying not to - see War on Christmas) how to act.

And now you understand why the only sane response is to realize that we're dealing wth two groups of trolls, and that they're BOTH wrong.

So... what would've been a non trollish response to a minority of folks threatening violence for someone doing something they didn't like?

To let the police investigate and decide if there was an actual threat, and otherwise, to ignore it.

When I first read your post, I agreed with you, but now I'm not so sure.

After what happened to Van Gogh, Danish illustrators were scared to draw pictures of the Prophet. If we accept that cartoonists aren't that different from everyone else (a debatable proposition,) that means there was a feeling in Denmark that you would be killed if you offended Muslim
sensibilities. A majority of the population felt that a minority was willing and able to kill them.

You can see how that situation could get ugly, fast. People who feel threatened can do things that are...unwise. In that situation, there is value in demonstrating that people's fears are empty, that no one is out to get them, that things aren't as bad as they seemed.

The trouble is, sometimes, they are.

No one was killed in response to the war on christmas. I agree that anyone who wants to be offended by this has that right. They can be offended. They can chant in the street, write editorials in papers and get famous drug addicts to complain about it on the radio for them. But when they actively threaten violence, they have crossed the line. These people went so far across the line they can't see the line from where they are. The reason for thair actions is totally irrelevant. Their response is flat out wrong.

The problem here is that you are conflating at least two different groups of "them." You've got most Muslims going, "Whatever, d00d." You've got some Muslims writing letters to the editor and stuff.

You've got a handful of Muslims annoyed enough to march and have demonstrations.

And then you've got a tiny handful of Muslims who are already Islamist radicals who are using the cover of the demonstrations to perform violence.

Okay, you've occasionally got Muslim crowds where a LOT of the people are violent, rioting Islamists. But that's even rarer than the cases where you've got a couple of militants using the crowd as cover.

A small percentage of a big slice of the world is still enough people to do serious harm. Especially when they drive nations, even small ones.

That's true. But you're still conflating two different groups of "Them", which leads to the situation where one says something that is true about ONE of the groups, but then applies it to BOTH groups. . .

I happen to believe that the interpretation of the events that started all this is that you are referencing is not entirely true.

One thing many Americans discussing this issue are overlooking is European nationalism, because I don't think many Americans realize how much of a force it really is in European politics and society.

Anti-immigration and therefore anti-Muslim issues are pretty strong in Denmark these days, and there is certainly evidence that the strongly right-wing paper that published the cartoons initially did so precisely because they were hoping to set Muslims off.

So yeah, in that respect, I think Ian's troll reference is actually pretty accurate.

I have a question. If you're writing a children's book about Muhammed, and it's an important tradition of the followers of Muhammed that the Prophet not be depicted in representational art, why would you want to include a picture of the Prophet? How can you impart a sense of respect for a religion by violating one of the cherished traditions of that religion?

Surely there are children's books about Muhammed by authors who are themselves followers of Islam, and who have found a way to illustrate their stories without violating the tradition. Wouldn't it be reasonable to look to them for ideas, if the author of the book in progress is unable to think of an alternative?

I think it's important to note that the tradition is to avoid representational art in general, not only representations of Muhammed. Although, given the central role of the Prophet to Islam, representations of him are naturally more offensive.

A comment I thought about making to bimmer is that Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe tells the story of Mohammed and the founding of Islam, and does so without showing the prophet himself, thus respecting their traditions.

Tells a damn fine story and explains a lot I never learned (or at least, never retained) in history classes.

Besides, if the original issue was proving the existence of a chilling effect on innocent images, then you don't go about commissioning extremely offensive ones.

*ding*!

though frankly, i doubt that we'd be seeing a similar outcry if there had been just depiction without trolling. google for images of the prophet, and discounting the influx of danish cartoon gate pictures, there are plenty. and yet none of the "perpetrators" appear to have been firebombed -- i am sure we'd have heard.

I hope you don't mind, but I liked your posts in

food_porn and so I added you to my friendlist.

Cool! Welcome to the insanity that is me!

You know Erica and Gilly! Theater@First?

One thing that particularly struck me about the cartoons (which I have not seen, but have read all the mainstream news articles about) is this:

Most of the cartoons are portraying Muhammed as a deity-like figure. Take, for example, the first French newspaper response to the controversy ... it put Muhammed on a cloud alongside deities with a comment to the effect of "we get it too".

Isn't such a confounding of Muhammed with G-d exactly why Islam bans portrayals of him in the first place? So, it's not just that drawings were published but that some, at least, of the drawings did exactly what that tenet of Islam is supposed to prevent.

I'm not saying this excuses the violence, which I abhor. But there is no excuse for such sloppy thinking, which is a separate issue and is the one that I am attempting to address here.

I linked to them above, if you care to follow.

I thought the other figures on that cloud were Buddha, Jesus, and Moses... While you could argue that Jesus is a deity, Moses and Buddha certainly aren't.

Best. DanishCartoonGate. Commentary. EVAR.

Word.

xiphias, may I link to this?

No reason not to, sure!

If you weren't already married...;)

Violence and killing never make sense.

That's not true, either.

Violence and killing make sense when, in the opinion of the person creating the violence and killing, they prevent or punish a greater evil.

For instance, I believe that killing in self-defense is not only morally justifiable, but, if it is the only available method of self-defense it is a moral imperative. So, in my mind, I have a situation in which violence, and killing, make sense.

The question is whether violence and killing are ever an appropriate response to blasphemy. And we can argue, quite persuasively, that the main difference between medieval thought and Enlightenment thought is the notion that violence is never an appropriate response to blasphemy.

In general, I'd mostly agree with that.

But if I saw someone desecrating a Torah, I'd beat the crap out of them in order to stop them.

Which means that, when it comes to MY holy objects, I have a medieval, pre-Enlightenment attitude. The fact that I wouldn't really care about them making cartoons mocking Jews, that I think that Iran's Holocaust-Denying-Cartoon-Contest is just kind of cute in a brain-damaged puppy kind of way, and that I would probably only give a real good talking-to to kids who spraypainted swastikas on a shul -- those only state that I've got a different place where I draw the line of what is and is not blasphemy.

You write a yod, a shin, a vav, and a hay on a piece of paper, and then spit on it, I split your lip for you.

Morally, I can claim no high ground over the people rioting.

Similarly, that asshole in Congress, Sam Gaskill (R-MO), who wanted to make it legal to beat people up in order to keep them from burning a flag -- he's doing exactly the same thing. So this is NOT an abberation of thought restricted to the Muslim world.

Some Americans will resort to violence to protect the American flag. Some Jews will resort to violence to protect an instantation of the Four-Letter Name of G-d, especially if that is in the form of the Torah. Some Muslims will resort to violence to protect the (lack of a) physical representation of Mohammed. Some Catholics have, in the past, died to protect consecrated wafers and wine -- and I suspect that there are Catholics who would do so again, today.

And what of Protestants? Protestantism arose and spread along with the Enlightement and the idea that symbols were not things in themselves, exactly. And you'd think that such an attitude would diminish this desire to resort to violence to protect symbols.

And you'd be wrong.

So: I disagree with your statement that violence and killing never make sense. I feel that, even in a reasonable ethical framework, there are places where they are necessary and sensible.

I understand, and sympathize with the idea that violence and killing never make sense in the defense of a symbol, and feel that, in fact, that might be as good a one-sentence description of modern, secular society as you could ever come up with.

But I can't, in myself, agree with it. I can TRY to agree with it, but there's a part of me that just can't give up the idea that I have to, in some cases, resort to violence to protect my OWN symbols.

And I'm pretty reasonable for a religious guy. I'm not, really, a rabid foaming-at-the-mouth type -- and so, if I can't give up that idea, if I feel that violence may almost kinda-sorta make sense in defense of my own symbols -- I've got to suspect that there are a hell of a lot of people out there for whom violence and killing in prevention or punishment of blasphemy is perfectly sensible.

*cries*

This is such an incredibly well thought out comment. Here's some of my thoughts:

Even buddhism which is essentially pacifist agrees that if someone is about to harm another person and you are there you intervene even if that person has a gun and you kill them to stop them killing others. It is also believed, but considered sticky because who knows, that you may have helped that person who would have accumulated much bad karma by killing.

The bottom line in buddhism is motivation. For example we kill thousands of sentient beings just walking around but there is no karma attatched to that. If I intentionally kill a mosquito, which we buddhists do from time to time despite our bodhisattva vows, that's another story.

I so admire your willingness to admit there are things that would turn you violent even though you logically know that ultimately they are about a symbol not the essence of what your religion is about. That kind of searing honesty is what the world needs if we are ever to move beyond the us-them dichotomies.

All religions have some form of do onto others. Is there something is Judaism similar to buddhist tonglen practice where you exchange self for other beginning with your own feelings of anger outrage revenge? The Dalai Lama has talked about doing tonglen every morning for the Chinese so that he overcomes his habitual reactions to what they have done to Tibet and the Tibetan people. He said that by training himself in this way, when he hears about a fellow Tibetan, especially someone he has been closed to, being tortured and/or killed his reaction is to be able to feel compassion for the torturer who is causing, ultimately more harm to himself than he can ever inflict on others.

The logic of this is that by training in compassion when we are confronted by others violence we will not add to the problem. It's not about our own spititual development but about instictively not causing harm. I would guess every religion has a similar practice although it may have fallen by the wayside

I think Victor Frankel talked about this in terms of the Nazis and it is also in a beautiful book I can't find right now written by a blind man who led a Nazi resistance movement when he was a teenager. When a child he had learned how to "see" through connecting with the spiritual light and this was so habitual for him that it only grew stronger in the concentration camps.

Wasn't it also Rabbi Akiba (sp?) who was put to death by burning with things put on his skin to make it hurt more who stayed in a beautiful spiritual place through the whole thing?

Most of us will never be at that level but I think combining searing honesty with no blame about where we are at and holding these images of what is possible, again without judging ourselves at lesser which is never productive, that allows us all to keep evolving into compassion. (Sorry about the run on sentence.)

Next time I want to describe how complex, straightforward, wise, and cool you are, I'm going to link whomever-it-is-I'm-telling-about-you to this post.

I am a pakistani christian. you all know pakistan i a muslim country and only 2% to 2.5% are non.muslims.It is a concept of muslims in pakistan that we are allians and we all christans are part of west, they all not belive us part of there country.
So when ever west or USA do some thing against jihad or against any muslim country the hard time stats for christians in pakistan because we are an easy target for them.an d we have lost many friends and relative in last many years and this become worst after 9/11.
it is my question for all of you that why you bring us in hot water beause after the publication of the cartons of muhammad we feel our self again in very hot water.And i am quit confident that we will lose many other brothers and sisters this time.
t is my question for all that you all are living in peace full and liberal countries but you are making our lives harder and harder and I know that the time is not far that there will be no christan in pakistan either we will be killed or push out or may be transfer to muslims but that all because of you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lemme summarize the Danish Cartoons About Mohammed Situation:

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A Letter From Pakistani Christian