I apologize to you on behalf of 'Muslims'

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az
again, not true for the people he mentioned.

Then, quite frankly, you are blind.

[Zevico]

Can you say DL? Pretty freakin obvious. I mean no one should apologise on the behalf of 'Muslims'. The 'Muslims' are not some homogenous group that are collectively responsible for every act committed by any Muslim person anywhere. The title, and particularly the quotation marks, are a dead giveaway.

[Winston]

I would think so too.

Edit:

I would also surmise that the user name 'moustafa' is perhaps a little too convenient, a bit like if a poster named 'tommy' registered shortly after a controversy erupted over some criticizable behaviour by the British Army.

But I think we also have a collective foundation here of taking people for who they claim to be, no matter how improbable. At least that's how I usually view other people's reactions to some of the stuff posted on here.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Actually, you forgot Ancyrean, a member from Turkey momentarily working in some Asian country. He's a reasonable guy

Indeed

And to say that I forgot him despite voting for him in the HoF

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Winston
You are mistaken, and I think you should think twice before accusing other people of something as grave as this. I don't paint Muslims with a broader brush than other people. And if you take a look, for example, at the two threads on the current row over the cartoons, I have repeatedly posted balancing information on news as it is being reported, that some Muslims in Denmark and abroad make a great effort to distance themselves from the violent escalation of the situation. Is that the sign of an Islamophobe?

Well, then I'm glad to be wrong

You twist the context of my categorization of that statement, as others have done before you. I don't see why it is so difficult to understand that if you have a problem with something, you take it on while it's being debated. You don't bring it up out of its proper context several weeks later, to prove a point that you didn't grasp the first time around, or to brand another poster as being some variety of a despicable human being.

I did not explicitly say that it was a neutral statement, that's a fabrication of yours. What I did do was oppose the notion that it was anti-Arab, to the extent of "deserving a prize". One poster said that the above statement should get a prize for being anti-Jewish and anti-Arab at the same time, and I contested that notion, and that he ought to have his head examined, or some such. I stand by that, and I will not have you or anyone else calling me infamous names on the basis of it. I hope I have made myself clear on this.

I now understand why you are taking it so seriously. I don't consider an Islamophobe as a "despicable human being" in the post 9/11 situation: the tensions are so ripe, and some extremistt *******s are so happy to correspond to the stereotypes, that I consider Islamophobia to be a fairly natural reaction, even though I consider it a negative one. I'm glad that I have misestimated you, and I hope you'll continue to have fair assessments on the situation.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Zevico
Can you say DL? Pretty freakin obvious. I mean no one should apologise on the behalf of 'Muslims'.

There are quite a few people on 'Poly who disagree with that.

The 'Muslims' are not some homogenous group that are collectively responsible for every act committed by any Muslim person anywhere.

True, but quite a few of us expect (or at least used to expect) the moderate Muslims to show that they aren't on the same side as the extremists.

[Winston]

All right then, moving on..

[Az]

True, but quite a few of us expect (or at least used to expect) the moderate Muslims to show that they aren't on the same side as the extremists.

?

All of this is like bizzaro world for me.

It's quite clear -
if you judge a person due to their background you're a bigot.
if you judge a person on the merits of their words and actions, you have a brain.

All of this doesn't change the fact that you can pass judgements on societies - their actions, their normas, etc. It doesn't mean that you think that everyone adheres to those ideas.

[Sirotnikov]

Democracy in a Cartoon

By Ibn Warraq

Best-selling author and Muslim dissident Ibn Warraq argues that freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it against attacks from totalitarian societies. If the west does not stand in solidarity with the Danish, he argues, then the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest.


The great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case."

The cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the west going to cave into pressure from societies with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend our most precious freedom -- freedom of expression, a freedom for which thousands of people sacrificed their lives?

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.

Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.


This raises another more general problem: the inability of the West to defend itself intellectually and culturally. Be proud, do not apologize. Do we have to go on apologizing for the sins our fathers? Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before, the institution of elected parliamentary democracy and the rule of law? What of the British architecture of Bombay and Calcutta? The British even gave back to the Indians their own past: it was European scholarship, archaeology and research that uncovered the greatness that was India; it was British government that did its best to save and conserve the monuments that were a witness to that past glory. British Imperialism preserved where earlier Islamic Imperialism destroyed thousands of Hindu temples.

On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus, Newton and
Darwin? Penicillin and computers? The Olympic Games and Football? Human rights and parliamentary democracy? The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.


How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist and to be despised? Why should they, in the words of the African-American writer James Baldwin, want to integrate into a sinking ship? Why do they all want to immigrate to the west and not Saudi Arabia? They should be taught about the centuries of struggle that resulted in the freedoms that they and everyone else for that matter, cherish, enjoy, and avail themselves of; of the individuals and groups who fought for these freedoms and who are despised and forgotten today; the freedoms that the much of the rest of world envies, admires and tries to emulate." When the Chinese students cried and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square (in 1989) , they brought with them not representations of Confucius or Buddha but a model of the Statue of Liberty."

Freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it or it will die from totalitarian attacks. It is also much needed in the Islamic world. By defending our values, we are teaching the Islamic world a valuable lesson, we are helping them by submitting their cherished traditions to Enlightenment values.

[BlackCat]

Where was that published ?

Edit :

[Whaleboy]

Freedom of expression, the separation of Church and State, and the ongoining analysis, study and objective discussion of religion, which involves comedy and satire, is a part of Western civilisation, and has been for hundreds of years. We define ourselves with our level heads and our innate opposition to extremism. If any immigrant group does not like this, then they can **** off.

[Az]

[Krill]

+0

[Zkribbler]

On the other hand, every freedom carries with it the responsibility to utilize it responsibly.

Yes, I have freedom of speech, but I would not refer to an African-American as a n***** or a Jew as a K***.

Nor, knowing Muslim's sensativity of the use of their prophet's image, would I lightheartedly depict his image...especially in the way he is in the cartoon. A bomb in his turban?? Did Mohamet ever do anything remotely like that??

Gravely insulting a person's religious sensabilities is not the purpose of Freedom of Speech. The artist who drew the cartoon could have gotten his point across in a much better way. And by avoiding unsing a false image of the prophet, his point could have been made much more convincingly.

[Az]

On the other hand, every freedom carries with it the responsibility to utilize it responsibly.

Do you want legislation on the issue?
If yes, you lose.
If no, you're wasting our time.