Sunday, February 12, 2006
Solomon2 has it just right in his post The dog did not bark. Read the whole (short) thing, but here's a snip:
That, my friends, is LIBERATION, not "occupation"...
Right.
I'll go on to say that we're fighting, I believe Amir Taheri wrote recently, an international Fascist movement, not a religion. Well, it's not a religion, but it's certainly part -- one constituency in -- a religion. Religiously, most Muslims appear to be able to put up with images they don't like without burning things and rioting. Further, clearly the prohibition against images of Mohammed (and other prophets) is not universal, as many such images have been produced by Muslims themselves, and it therefore is clearly not an immutable, never-changing prohibition.
As I mentioned before, the real anger multiplier here is the continuing and wide-spread existence of fear-based, unfree societies, ripe for demagoguery and rabble-rousing.
The problem at home is that the press continues to curbe themselves out of supposed deference to a monolithic entity called "Muslims," when in fact they are abandoning and insulting the people they should be encouraging -- Muslims who are truly ready to make their religion one that is fully compatible with Western standards -- in favor of appeasing the most regressive elements and the faux moderates like the Muslim American Society who lead people in the opposite direction -- the very people they should be pressuring to conform.
For an example, take note of the Globe's ombudsman today once again trying to explain why the Globe won't show the cartoons, and consider that they are failing to give their readers the full story, while defering to the sensitivities of exactly the people they should not be deferring to.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Just who's sensitivities are we deferring to?.
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Solomon2 has it just right in his post The dog did not bark. Read the whole (short) thing, but here's a snip: ...Those "occupied" by Western troops remain Muslims. But they no longer need submit themselves to the will of... Read More
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, p.44
There's a dumb, dumb, op-ed piece by Stanley Fish in today's NY Times, basically saying that strongly held beliefs ought to matter more than some abstract principle like free speech:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/opinion/12fish.html
My favorite quote:
"One of those arguments [that Fish doesn't like] goes this way: it is hypocritical for Muslims to protest cartoons caricaturing Muhammad when cartoons villifying the symbols of Christianity and Judaism are found everywhere in the media of many Arab countries. After all, what's the difference? The difference is that those who draw and publish such cartoons in Arab countries believe in their content; they believe that Jews and Christians follow false religions and are proper objects of hatred and obloquy."
You got that? Fish's claim is that at least the cartoons pub'd in Arab countries reflect sincere beliefs, whereas in the West, sincere or not, we publish anything.
On top of the point's general dumbness, it's also a case of biting the principle that feeds one. I mean: where would Prof. Fish himself be if even august newspapers like the NY Times _weren't_ willing to publish just about anything, including bad op-ed pieces?