Danish cartoons inflame islamic nations

The 1 billion Catholics on the planet have not revolted, have not
demanded everyone convert to Catholicism, have not threatened
genocide of entire countries ...

What if the drawing was really graphic? Here's a thought. What if...the Catholic Church told their followers to revolt and overthrow their respective governments, would they do it?

Originally posted by MacDonagh
Smirk.

- Very droll.

Didn't the French and the Germans have a hissy fit over Britain's rebate in the E.U? Or is that them playing mind games?

- That is a totally unrelated matter.

The serious debate over that rebate is all about the enlargement of the EU and the consequent funding of it.
Not, as you seem to wish to portray it, as some infantile "hissy fit" or persecution of the UK.

I don't dislike the French. I just distrust them. There is a difference I assure you.

- [sarcasm]I'm sure you personally have very sound reasons too write off an entire nation.
Go on, admit it, you're not a Scot, you're a right-wing American in Scotland, right?[/sarcasm]

The E.U might be just a little hesitant to giving some financial aid if they needed any. That is all Im saying.

- Yeah, I realise that.
The problem is that it all speculation and pure guessing that comes from our own imagination in your own head.

You have no actual basis for making those kind of little slurs and digs at all.

The 1 billion Catholics on the planet have not revolted, have not
demanded everyone convert to Catholicism, have not threatened
genocide of entire countries ...

- Well, not for acentury or two anyway, right?

What if the drawing was really graphic? Here's a thought. What if...the Catholic Church told their followers to revolt and overthrow their respective governments, would they do it?

- Once upon a time that was exactly what they did and what people tried to do.....surely as a Scot (?) you know this.
Historically it wasn't that long ago, hmmm?


[edit on 7-2-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Are you a little angry at me? :/ I DON'T dislike the French. Hung out with a couple of them, after the rugby game. Quite a good bunch of folk to have a friendly drink with. I distrust Chirac I should've said. Me sorry, am bad.

[edit on 7/2/06 by MacDonagh]

Originally posted by MacDonagh
Are you a little angry at me?

- No, really, not in the slightest.

I'm just challenging some of your comments and asking you to consider them in the light of mine.

I DON'T dislike the French. Hung out with a couple of them, after the rugby game. Quite a good bunch of folk to have a friendly drink with. I distrust Chirac I should've said. Me sorry, am bad.

- Yes, there you go, you see?

That was very very naughty of you to be so sweeping and now you have set yourself straight and make a lot more sense.

LOL, I see what you mean. French people are kickass people to hang out with. They have awesome banter. Och, anyway Smirky. What do you think of the naughty protesters with their placards? Were they in the distinct minority? Are papers making too big a thing on it or what?

Originally posted by MacDonagh
Och, anyway Smirky. What do you think of the naughty protesters with their placards? Were they in the distinct minority? Are papers making too big a thing on it or what?

- Probably - although it certainly looks bad at times.

I do think there is an agenda or two hard at work on this one.

Holding up 'their' extremists as justification for the views of 'ours' never seems to me to be a sensible way of going about things.
IMO one lot feeds off of the other and they're quite happy to do so (which should be all the warning the rest of us need about both).
Neither of them really cares about the 'vehicle' they're using, they're just using them to get power and influence and promoting their own wee agendas.

I'm not particularly 'religious', I have some sort of personal 'spiritual beliefs' but I certainly don't have any love for the version of Islam that would have us convert or die but I know enought to know it is not the only version out there.
Just like when Christianity had a similar outlook, that version of Christianity was horrible and well worth ditching asap.

I've seen some very nice things written about Islam lately (like the correct Islamic way to respond to an insulting person is to simply say 'Peace' and move on peaceably by).

Although it's not identical I am reminded of how the powerless and minorities get treated.
Blame them for their anger at their deprived situation and blame them completely for their deprived situation.
We have had it here in Britain not that long ago with Black people ,the Irish.....hell even the Scots going back far enough.....and 'we' do it with poor countries.
That's not to excuse anyone (and anyone caught breaking the law should be nicked and face the law just like anyone else IMO) but it isn't just all about one side and nothing to do with the other IMO.

Mind you, the ME is one thing but here's hoping the hot-heads here wise up and calm down.
I think (and hope) we have it better than most.


[edit on 7-2-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Well sminkey in regards to what I think the EU should do is quite simple. The EU is Iran's largest trading partner. Now the EU commission spokesperson Johannes Laitenberger says that a boycott of danish goods is by definition a boycott of european goods. So logically the EU could retaliate economically or at least place restrictions on what EU countries can sell Iran such as high-tech equipment.

I have reiterate what was said before if the EU will not stand together and united in UNION at the very least to defend the weakest nation among your union then what good is it really.

It appears as though there may be a different reason for the anger than was originally expected:

"If you expose children, even peaceful Muslim children, to thousands of hours of Looney Tunes, you produce a generation of desensitized brutes," according to the unnamed CTW spokesman. "They can’t comprehend the real impact of their violent acts, because animated victims of firebombings, gunshots and beheadings always immediately appear, clean and unharmed, in the next scene. The rioters are innocent victims of exported American cartoon culture."

Source

It looks like the producers of Sesame Street understand who the real culprit is here: America. I guess the same goes for the boycotts, too. They learned that one from so many American's reaction to the French leading up to the war in Iraq. We are the great Satan!

Originally posted by MacDonagh
What if the drawing was really graphic?

Nope. There are already plenty of graphic disgusting
pieces of 'art' out there against Christ and against
the Catholic Church. Still no calls for genocide or riots....
won't be either.

What if...the Catholic Church told their followers
to revolt and overthrow their respective governments,
would they do it?

Yeah, right. The Catholic Church tells it's followers
that artificial birth control is a mortal sin and NOT to use
it ... but still more than 90% of American Catholics disregard
what Rome says and use it anyways. YES .. I have that
figure correct. More than 90% of Catholic Americans don't
listen to Rome or to the Pope.

If they don't listen to Rome on something as simple as that,
then they certainly aren't going to enter into total chaos and
insurrection if Rome told them to.



[edit on 2/7/2006 by FlyersFan]

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey

The 1 billion Catholics on the planet have not revolted, have not
demanded everyone convert to Catholicism, have not threatened
genocide of entire countries ...

- Well, not for a century or two anyway, right?

Not for 700 years ... not since the crusades ...
and there weren't a billion Catholics back then.

I suppose if you wanted to drag people baaaaaaaaaaack
700 years we would all say that genocide based upon
religious beliefs is okay .... but isn't that going in the
wrong direction?

My answer was a serious one to a serious question.
1 billion Catholics. 1 billion Protestants.
They are NOT rioting for genocide of entire continents
because they don't like political and/or religious cartoons.

[edit on 2/7/2006 by FlyersFan]

Crusades and inquistions have passed, and no we don't need a repeat. It's time for Islam to begin its reform and get out of the 14th century cave.

This trend of rolling back freedoms to appease nutjobs and freaks on any side, has gone too far already.

This is the NOW, so can we start living it as such?

[edit on 7-2-2006 by Regenmacher]

This aint the first time

While we look at the circus that is going on across the muslim world about the supposed caricatures of Mohammad it beggers the question, Why is this a problem now ? The portraits of the prophet are not something new or unheard of in the Muslim world. From the early years of Islam through the Ottaman empire and even today in IRan we have portraits of the prophet that have emerged and gone with nary a word from the Muslim world. Also throught out the middle ages in Europe Mohammad has been depicted by many artists and poets in their works. Can we forget Gothe's "The Divine Comedy" where Mohammad is portrayed with his entails hanging out in the 7th realm of hell along with his son Ali ? Also do we not remember the famour Salvatore Dali's portrayal of Mohammad? Apart form these there have been inumerable times that the prophet has been depicted. Yet never till this present episode of "caricature" have we heard any thing from the Islamic world. Has European literature and art suddenly come under Islamic purview ? Or is it that these "protests" are but a culmination of something more? A trend that the Arab world "demands" that the West get used to. Their leverage - Oil and the West Achilles heel.

In Iran today the portrait of the prophet is still sold to devout muslims. Iran the very nation that has banned all danish goods ! Also through out the ages Muslic clerics have depicted the Prophet in various positions. Here are some of them :


But after some sort of hidden consenses on a censor the Islamic artists have cleverly decided to depict all but the face of the prophet. Here:


The above two are from the Ottaman Empire, which described itself as a Islamic Empire.

Why then do these new "caricatures" cause such a storm ?? Is it to say that the Islamic world is free from caricturing other religions and other faiths? Why is that the Islamic world has picked on Denmark of all places when this has happend through out history and through out europe ??
Let us look at the Jyllands-Posten controversy again. The entire controversy started when Danish author Kåre Bluitgen complained that he could not find an artist brave enought to illustrate his upcoming book about Mohammed. The newspaper Jyllands-Posten issued a call for submissions from any artists willing to take up the challenge. In the ensuing brouhaha, the original book was almost forgotten; it has now been released, and does feature page after page of Mohammed depictions. The book can be viewed here.

An entire collection of Mohammad's portrayals through out history has been put up on this site
fillibuster cartoons has summed up the situation thus:


In the end I think it would be safe to say; A heaven without humour is hell.

[edit on 8-2-2006 by IAF101]

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Not for 700 years ... not since the crusades ...
and there weren't a billion Catholics back then.

- 700 years?

No, not quite.

Firstly the Spainish inquisition was founded by Papal bull in 1478; so that's 525 years ago, it ran for some time, until 1858 in fact - that's just 164 years ago - with the last killing supposedly on the 15th July 1834, 172 years ago.
en.wikipedia.org...

Secondly in Britain alone the ideas and attempts to turn 'everyone' into a Roman Catholic were going on from immeadiately after the reign of Henry the 8th in Britain (he died in 1547, so, less than 500yrs ago) and it went on for all of Elizabeth the 1st's reign (1547 - 1603); you'll also find a Roman Catholic plot to wipe out the government (Guy Faulkes 1605) and as for regime change, on a largely religious basis, that was happening at the end of the 17th century (1687-90, James the 2nd) and on up to the Jacobites in the 18th century.

[edit on 8-2-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Weren't there simialr attempts by Catholic missionaries in teh New World to "turn" native peoples in what is now North America?
And, I would think that was the method wherever the missionaries went: convert...or else.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
And, I would think that was the method wherever the missionaries went: convert...or else.

Why would you think that? I would expect it would be more along the lines of, "we can't use our guns. They're not ready for heaven; we are."

JJ, I can't find an online source that actual killing took place, but I know I read it somewhere.

What I did find was this, looks like ....or else to me.

Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations.

Virtually imprisoned in the schools, children experienced a devastating litany of abuses, from forced assimilation and grueling labor to widespread sexual and physical abuse. Scholars and activists have only begun to analyze what Joseph Gone (Gros Ventre), a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, calls “the cumulative effects of these historical experiences across gender and generation upon tribal communities today.”

www.amnestyusa.org...

Hmmmm, as I suspected, this is all about people and principles being used to promote a political agenda, nothing more. -

"Agents of certain persuasion" are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC.

The key "agent" is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP, who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark's leading morning paper last September........

..........Rose traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares "militant Islam" with fascism and communism.

In April 2003, President George W. Bush nominated the rabid anti-Muslim Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace, a congressionally sponsored think tank dedicated to "the peaceful resolution of international conflicts."

mathaba.net...

Well apparently the cartoon row has received new life. Apparently some Italian cabinet minister went on television sporting the images on his T-Shirt. And now the Italian Consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by an angry mob. The minister has now resigned.

news.bbc.co.uk...
news.bbc.co.uk...

Well it isn't apparently a right-wing activist group released video of themselves drawing the images. The Danish government has condemned the drawings and warned Danish citizens against travel to several muslim countries. The Iranian parliament has urged Iranian President Ahmadinejad to break off diplomatic relations with Denmark. Both Iran and Indonesia have summoned Danish ambassadors to their foreign ministries to protest the video.

New cartoon row

Things have just made a twist, showing how some radical muslims really want to use everything in their power to twist their fellow believers minds; Apparently several homepages (Which has been quoted in several newspapers in the middle east) has lately been posting news, that the cartoonist who drew the depiction of muhammed has been found murdered close to the Jylland Posten.

This is totally false; especially considering that there were 12 drawings and cartoonists..

Man..

The article I got the information from, can be read here. (In danish)