I'm on the fence, taking my time, weighing the options and seeing despair in the pointless violence that so many men justify through religion.
This cartoon thing has had me wondering. Yes, we everybody has the right of freedom of speech, yes we should be allowed to express our opinions openly and without fear of reprisals by those who hold different views. I listen to and read about people who hold different views from mine all the time. They challenge and jostle ideas, they forcefully encourage justifications and ensure consistency.
But can't we be a little sensitive about it all? Can't we foresee the potential for clumsy cartoons being highjacked by extremists with ulterior motives? Can't we decide that maybe this isn't the way to defend freedom of speech? That this isn't the path to follow towards a peaceful world?
This speech was written by a Christian Arab-American, and is very well worth reading. There's also a fascinating 'understanding Islam' forum which has a big section on inter-faith understanding and dedicated members trying to break through the barriers between stubbornly held positions.
I wouldn't class myself as Christian, Muslim, Jew or Buddhist. I would rather not class others as anything more or less than human.
posted by Becca @ 1:42 pm
9 Comments:
Muslims in the third /opressed/coerced world has developed an heightened level of sensativity and emotion. To me it is surprising that media-worthy stories usually tend to be the ones prediting violence and anger.
However, at the same time majority of the Muslims world wide are encouraging and reminding everyone of the Prophetic legacy. They must look in to the teaching of Quran and reflect upon history to deal with this offensive defamation appropriately. They must look at :
- How the Prophet Muhammad dealt with personal attacks
- Precluding punishment for the people of Taif
- Offering kindness to abusive neighbors
- Offering amnesty to former enemies in Mecca
- Ignorance can only be countered by education and personal examples of good character
=====================
The issue is not of freedom of speach, it is of speach of hate. Muslims do not expect non-muslims to follow their believes. Depicting prophet muhammed is prophibited in Islam. That is however a separate issue. The offence is the incensativity and hate protrayed via the cartoons. If prophet Jesus, Moses, David, Abraham, and all the prophets in between were depicted in the same way, the Muslims have an equal responsiblity to react and denounce it. It is only a issue of respect. The secular media responded very reactively in fear of losing its secular democratic policies. Muslims do not have against secular democratic policies so long as it doesn t spell opression on Muslim civilians.
Muslims arnt terrorist. Each on of us can become a terrorist. But considerable propapanda has been done to paint a "terrorist" image in the worlds mind. The mere mention of the word conjures of an image of a eastern looking face covered with green/white or black cherecked cloth with the words "There is no god by God" written in arabic. In my view the fight is between godless opressors, and believing armies of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Muslims in the third /opressed/coerced world has developed an heightened level of sensativity and emotion. To me it is surprising that media-worthy stories usually tend to be the ones prediting violence and anger.
However, at the same time majority of the Muslims world wide are encouraging and reminding everyone of the Prophetic legacy. They must look in to the teaching of Quran and reflect upon history to deal with this offensive defamation appropriately. They must look at :
- How the Prophet Muhammad dealt with personal attacks
- Precluding punishment for the people of Taif
- Offering kindness to abusive neighbors
- Offering amnesty to former enemies in Mecca
- Ignorance can only be countered by education and personal examples of good character
=====================
The issue is not of freedom of speach, it is of speach of hate. Muslims do not expect non-muslims to follow their believes. Depicting prophet muhammed is prophibited in Islam. That is however a separate issue. The offence is the incensativity and hate protrayed via the cartoons. If prophet Jesus, Moses, David, Abraham, and all the prophets in between were depicted in the same way, the Muslims have an equal responsiblity to react and denounce it. It is only a issue of respect. The secular media responded very reactively in fear of losing its secular democratic policies. Muslims do not have against secular democratic policies so long as it doesn t spell opression on Muslim civilians.
Muslims arnt terrorist. Each on of us can become a terrorist. But considerable propapanda has been done to paint a "terrorist" image in the worlds mind. The mere mention of the word conjures of an image of a eastern looking face covered with green/white or black cherecked cloth with the words "There is no god by God" written in arabic. In my view the fight is between godless opressors, and believing armies of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Welcome brainsyke. Thanks for your input.
I agree that it is an issue of respect and sensitivity, which seems to have been misjudged, and highjacked as a way to inflame tensions.
I have to admit though I would not view this as a 'fight' between those who believe in a God and those who don't. A struggle for all people to get the rights they deserve would fit my perspective better.
Just a general comment - sort of.
What you seem to loose and you feel others are using as a big jacket to hide ugly things under (largely covered by the media of course) is not a religion or religious feeling/life. Rather just a belief or belief system.
That said, you are on a right way to enlightment. When you stop believing and you start questioning, you will have the desire to go deeper...
Which is really good in my opinion!
Excelsior,
I hope you're right dezso, but I feel I have a belief system, it just revolves around humans rather than dieties.
But one thing is sure, the questioning will continue and continue...
No, Mussolini my problem is more that once again you are talking about 'Muslims' instead of extremists. Islam *can* exist within a secular democracy, some Muslims are appalled at the violence that has resulted from these cartoons and it is simply not true to say that all 'Muslims fully believe that government should castigate by beheading those cartoonists'. The views of extremist and moderate Muslims vary considerably.
There are some interesting different views being put forward by Open Democracy. I found the part written by the Polish journalist in Warsaw especially interesting.
I'm not sure freedom of speech can be an absolute. It's something I've wondered about before and I haven't come up with a definite answer, rather a lot of questions. Should freedom of speech include freedom to praise child abuse? or to glorify other violent acts such as rape? Sure, we would hope that such distasteful topics would be widely condemned but it's still a question. In an ideal world I would have to say that freedom of speech would be absolute and everyone would have the common sense to use it appropriately. Unfortunately we live in a far from ideal world.
My original post was trying to make the point that freedom of speech is the kind of right that we all should hold. Absolutely. But in using that right we have a responsibility: a whole lot of other concerns need to be taken into consideration, and respect for other humans is one of them.
Obviously the violence is completely unjustifiable, a wrong way of responding to the situation, and with no possible commendable outcome. I don't put the blame on the cartoonists for this violence, but the extremists who have hijacked once again this opportunity to split the world. However, I think the cartoonists have gained nothing by their 'shows of solidarity'.
Can I say that this is becoming a very good blog. Go Becca!
the cartoons thing: is it not possible to, like becca is saying, to stand by the right of freedom of speech, and at the same time say that the editor who published those cartoons - in a reaction to the censorship of a children's book cover - was wrong to do so because it was a childish reaction to censorship.
I would not have published those cartoons because it has not done a lot of good for free speech.It makes things harder,
At the same time, religious people can not be an exceptional group - if I want to ridicule what you believe then you should be free to do the same.
But don't make this just an Islamic thing. Here in Poland we have a creeping influence of the religious lobby in the government. The flight from the Enlightenment continues and is global...
I think that would be *you* classifying me as a pacifist sympathiser towards Muslims actually.
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