Cartoon Clashes Spread, Turn Deadly

It is OK to be upset with the cartoon, but it isn't a reason for violence. So much of the Mideast is loaded with fanatics, just looking for a reason to drag their guns out, and display violence. The whole area, with the exception of a few countries, is a powder keg looking for a reason to explode.

Buzzm1 said:

It is OK to be upset with the cartoon, but it isn't a reason for violence. So much of the Mideast is loaded with fanatics, just looking for a reason to drag their guns out, and display violence. The whole area, with the exception of a few countries, is a powder keg looking for a reason to explode.

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Totally agree!

Poor countries are like that.

what scares me is that they control by violence...sooner or later, everyone gives in to them because they are afraid. our free speech is disappearing.

Buzzm1 said:

It is OK to be upset with the cartoon, but it isn't a reason for violence. So much of the Mideast is loaded with fanatics, just looking for a reason to drag their guns out, and display violence. The whole area, with the exception of a few countries, is a powder keg looking for a reason to explode.

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I hope they never watch South Park.

JBean said:

I hope they never watch South Park.

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I admittedly have watched a few episodes of South Park, only recently. It gets pretty funny at times. I had never watched it before.

hallowedbe said:

what scares me is that they control by violence...sooner or later, everyone gives in to them because they are afraid. our free speech is disappearing.

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They are being somewhat sucessful at getting other countries to pull out of Iraq. I expect that one of these days, when the U.S. asks England, "what are we going to do now??" England will say, "What do you mean, "We."

It could be a very rough road in the, not too distant, future.

Buzzm1 said:

I admittedly have watched a few episodes of South Park, only recently. It gets pretty funny at times. I had never watched it before.

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They make fun of everyone and everything, including Muhammed.

There is some really good coverage of this topic on Dan Riehl's site. It's worth reading.

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/

Now it is being called a "global crisis." Buzz, I agree with you.

Check out the AP article:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060207/D8FKCILG3.html

Why doesn't the media report it for what it is? Anti-free speech riots?
If you're religion can't stand a little (accurate) ridicule without attemptonng to kill the person making the joke, then it's not much of a religion , is it?

Funny you don't see other religions, en masse, rioting and killing when they are offended. What's wrong with these people? And yes, the media is spinning it in an odd way. I'd be offended too, but I wouldn't resort to violence!

Now an Iranian newspaper is commissioning cartoons re the Holocaust to see if the West can "take it". What they'll discover is that they'll be widely ridiculed and some people might protest, but no one is going to try and set fire to embassies, march in the street, and kill innocent bystanders.

And shame on the media and governments involved for not pointing out that this is an anti-free speech issue, not a religious issue.

Plus--these cartoons ran 5 MONTHS AGO!!!:loser:

In the case of the cartoon "blasphemy," there is a culture clash at play, but it's not freedom-loving versus freedom-hating. It's about competing notions of religious expression and of the role of religion in society. Middle East expert Juan Cole's illuminating post below explains what line was crossed by the caricature, and how we in the West also observe certain taboos. In fact, Cole notes that the same paper that printed the Mohammed image refused to publish cartoons mocking Jesus Christ on the grounds they would "provoke an outcry."

Westerners mostly live in secular societies where religious sentiments have themselves been marginalized. Second, the Muslims honor Moses and Jesus, so there is no symmetry between Christian attacks on Muhammad and Muslim critiques of the West. No Muslim cartoonist would ever lampoon the Jewish and Christian holy figures in sacred history, since Muslims believe in them, too, even if they see them all as human prophets. Third, Westerners have the security of being the first world, with their culture coded as "universal," and widely respected and imitated. Cultures like that of the Muslims in the global South receive far less respect. Finally, societies in the global South are less policed and have less security than in Western Europe or North America, allowing greater space to violent vigilateism, which would just be stopped if it were tried in the industrialized democracies. (Even wearing a t-shirt with the wrong message can get you arrested over here

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060207/cartoon_controversy.php