Denmark warns of new cartoon crisis with Muslims

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Also, at least in France, young people barely recognized themselves in Islam (Islam was barely an identity bearing) until a few years ago. Identitarian Islam is making progresses among our youth of immigrant origin because it gives more of a sense of purpose than 1/ our western values, and 2/ the limbo that is ghetto culture.

Yes, and Identitarian Islam is what happens when western identity-politics meets Islam in an era when the west cannot define its own positive values.

There seems nothing but miserablism and negativity in western politics. When politicians are far more likely to advocate 'hate-speech' laws restricting behaviour than defending free speech, its not hard to see that our core values are being neglected.

Last week or so I suggested that veils - a symbol of division - were becoming far more popular now in my part of the UK, and a couple of posters seemed to suggest that I might be drawing an incorrect conclusion. Then the Jack Straw veils row erupted in Britain, and it seems that it wasn't just me who had noticed this.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
That's a mischaracterization of his point, LotM.

-Arrian

He listed four "interventions" 1. Western bombing 2. Flying planes into buildings 3. supporting opposition movements 4. Shrilly protesting cartoons

He then said islamist "interventions" "mirror" western ones. Well 9/11, the only occasion of flying planes into buildings, preceded our invasion of Iraq. We bombed Afghanistan and Iraq in the 90s, but those were about terrorists and WMDs respectively, not values. We refrained from intervening in Rwanda in the 90s. There were no "color" revolutions in the '90s. The only intervention that 9/11 could possibly mirror, esp the only bombing, would have to be the bombing of Serbia in 1999 (perhaps the earlier intervention in Bosnia). This would be consistent with CortHaus' areas of interest. And this is a thread about Danish cartoons. I can only read his post as drawing a moral equivalence between the Islamist imposition of its cultural values on the West, wrt the cartoons, and the Wests impostition of its values on the Balkans by our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Yeah, if some cultures want to do blasphemous cartoons, they should let other cultures do ethnic cleansing. Everybodys culture is unique, ya know?

While some people think that Israel is a wicked ethnic cleanser, I don't hold that view myself. Sometimes the moral authority of those making the judgements is not to be trusted.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Yes, and Identitarian Islam is what happens when western identity-politics meets Islam in an era when the west cannot define its own positive values.

There seems nothing but miserablism and negativity in western politics.

Spot on

However, affirming our positive values must be done with intelligence.

1. It shouldn't look exclusive. Western values must look welcoming to anybody, not just Christians. For the time being, there are many Muslim immigrants keen of being integrated who think they'll only be considered fully integrated if they become Christians. This impression should be fought.

2. It shouldn't promote antagonism. The message shouldn't be that the immigrants' values suck, but that the western values are good. If we have an antagonizing message, those who identify with Islam will be more likely to rally around the flag than to become convinced by our values.

Since the debate is getting hijacked by the "us vs them" mentality, it is going to be difficult to have #2.

[Cort Haus]

Flying planes into buildings is the token that also symbolises blowing up buses, trains, embassies, nightclubs, hotels. It also includes murdering film-makers and threatening writers with death.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


While some people think that Israel is a wicked ethnic cleanser, I don't hold that view myself. Sometimes the moral authority of those making the judgements is not to be trusted.

If you want to argue that X is not an example of ethnic cleansing, fine. Same way one could argue that Y is not in fact a blasphemous cartoon. But we arent in fact denying that certain cartoons are blasphemous, but that its wrong to allow Islam to impose its dislike of blasphemy on the west. Claiming a "mirror" implies that you think its just as wrong for the West to impose its dislike of ethnic cleansing elsewhere. Acknowledging that the abolition of ethnic cleansing should be a universal value, but that in a certain instance it was applied unfairly, is a far different arguement, and not relevant to the thread at hand. Nations have lied about, say, border infringements. Does that mean that responding to border infringements is an imposition of values that mirrors what Islamism is doing?

[Jaakko]

It's rather amusing, westerners publish something insulting to Muslims, fanatics get all cranky, some Apolytoners start having paranoid fantasies about evil Muslims invading Europe (with everyone's personal fantasy response being THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE THE WORLD).

I can identify two groups of crazy people in the sequence above.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Flying planes into buildings is the token that also symbolises blowing up buses, trains, embassies, nightclubs, hotels. It also includes murdering film-makers and threatening writers with death.

When do you consider that sequence of events to have begun? Certainly not after 9/11, since flying planes into building while it may "symbolize" blowing up buses, certainly also reflects, well, flying planes into buildings. Do you consider as starting at an earlier date? What date do you pick? Be specific. This is important, since you claim it "mirrors" something the west was doing. It can hardly mirror something that came afterwards in time.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Spot on

However, affirming our positive values must be done with intelligence.

1. It shouldn't look exclusive. Western values must look welcoming to anybody, not just Christians. For the time being, there are many Muslim immigrants keen of being integrated who think they'll only be considered fully integrated if they become Christians. This impression should be fought.

that SOUNDS reasonable, except for one oddity. The non-Christian group that has been most visible in western history, that has lived in Europe for 2000 years, and was persecuted there for centuries, is one group that muslim radicals in Europe particularly direct acts of violence against.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Donegeal


I guess your right, whatever point your trying to make is completely missed by me. I re-read your post and my response is: So what? What difference does it make that they protest reresentaions of Jesus as well?

The point, my dear Donegal, is that moslem opposition to portrayals of their prophets is not an opinion held by a few extremists. It is a belief firmly held by 1 billion people. The violent response by the moslem extremists to our citizens portrayals of the prophets is a seperate issue. However, the western trivialization of moslem beliefs is a 'red flag' that will continue to foment extremism amongst moslems. Does that mean that we should be PC and relinquish our cultural heritage? Of course not, but lets not pretend that we are blameless.

EDIT: Let me present this analogy. If two people distrust each other, the first cant be surprised that the second doesnt accept overtures of friendship when the first continues to call the second persons mother a whore.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I can only read his post as drawing a moral equivalence between the Islamist imposition of its cultural values on the West, wrt the cartoons, and the Wests impostition of its values on the Balkans by our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

It's ironic that Bosnia and Kosovo are cited as impositions of western values.

Fikret Abdic was a secular muslim leader in Bosnia who was opposed to the Saudi & Iranian backed Izetbegovic. Abdic recieved the most votes in the 1990 Bosnian elections, supported the concept of a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, and was allied to the Bosnian Serbs. Somehow, though, someone else took the presidency.

Izetbegovic was a WW2 recuiter for the Waffen SS who famously stated in his 'Islamic Declaration' that "there can be no peaceful co-existance" between muslims and non-muslims. He did not want a western-style secular democracy, but an Islamist state. This is the guy that the US decided to back, encouraging him to ignore peace deals like the Cutliero plan, in favour of more war.

In addition to perpetuating the war, with terrible consequences for all sides, the US worked with Iran to import weaponry. Hence Iran was intervening in the Bosnian war with the support of the USA. This is not 'moral equivalence', merely fact.

In Kosovo, NATO allied itself with some of the most reactionary political elements in Europe, the KLA, and used a fabricated Jenin-style 'massacre' at Racak to justify the 78-day attack. Absloutely zero evidence of state-lead ethnic cleansing emerged at the Hague, but a stack of evidence pointing to explicit orders for the correct treatment of citizens was seen.

Using their NATO airforce and propaganda barrage as cover, the KLA were able to permenantly expell over 200,000 non-Albanians from Kosovo and have since been busy destroying the centuries-old Christian heritage of Kosovo, Taliban-style.

Kosovo's coming independence will complete the ethnic purification which is somehow supposed to embody the West's values. Presumably the economy, based on guns, drugs and sex-slaves is another thing Tony Blair and his pals will be proud of.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Spiffor
1. It shouldn't look exclusive.

That shouldn't be hard. Seeing as probably about half of London has immigrant ancestry from through the centuries, it shows that there is something that can be integrated with, whoever you are. Not all cities have good examples, though, which shows that prosperity, or at least a realistic aspiration of it, is important.

2. It shouldn't promote antagonism.

Yeah, but we're learning that the radicals will be antagonised by whatever we do - short of implementing the caliphate. They just like excuses to go and put their rage masks on, and then laugh at us as we then make more concessions, self-censorship, tiptoing round them etc.

I sometimes think we should actually go on a barrage of full-on mockery, to give them so many things to get wound up about at the same time, that they won't know where to start getting upset.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


It's ironic that Bosnia and Kosovo are cited as impositions of western values.

Youre the only one who so cited it. In fact youre the only one whos implied that its relevant to this thread. I would suggest that it is not, and that this is not the place for a debate on the details of that situation.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by SpencerH


The point, my dear Donegal, is that moslem opposition to portrayals of their prophets is not an opinion held by a few extremists. It is a belief firmly held by 1 billion people. The violent response by the moslem extremists to our citizens portrayals of the prophets is a seperate issue. However, the western trivialization of moslem beliefs is a 'red flag' that will continue to foment extremism amongst moslems. Does that mean that we should be PC and relinquish our cultural heritage? Of course not, but lets not pretend that we are blameless.

EDIT: Let me present this analogy. If two people distrust each other, the first cant be surprised that the second doesnt accept overtures of friendship when the first continues to call the second persons mother a whore.

Most westerners DONT make cartoons of the prophet muhammed. I certainly never have. All Ive done is defend the right of the minority who do make such cartoons to do so. Is that defense seen by the mass of muslims as trivializing their beliefs? If so we have a problem, and I dont think we need to accept blame for it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

By trivialization I think he means that most Westerners consider such beliefs, against portraying religious leaders, to be stupid (at least most I've talked to believe it so).