Caricature of a Prophet (no image here)

[gijoe9]

Sun Feb 5, 2006 4:45 PM EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the few U.S. newspapers to publish a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad from a series that sparked a wave of protests by Muslims, defended the action on Sunday by saying it was just doing its job.


This is one of those things that can keep a guy like me up all night it smacks of the type of "butterfly effect" thing that although small in the begining becomes blown to epic proportions if not allowed to die off. The trouble here is that the material is offensive to a large part of the population of this planet. The offended parties are reacting with increasing levels of violence. The people who offended this rather large armed Mob are the media. The media refuses to accept that they have crossed a line and refuse to apologise for their offensive behavior. They remind me of the Nazi war criminals ofter WWII "I was just doing my job".This problem would not have happened if the images had been of African Americans being caricatuized in an offensive way because it just would not have been printed here. If it were printed the offending publisher would have been put in chains and hauled off to litigations and the same level of violence would have erupted in the US.
The fact that the muslim religion does not allow anyone to depict the Prophet in an image should tell you something and a little research by the editor of the Danish news paper that started this whole mess would have prevented it.
The portrayal of blacks as "uncle Toms" in the US press was quite common up until the latter part of the last century. Today an editor would be considered crazy and probably locked up for even considering printing racialy inapropriate material and this includes cartoons.
So what is the big deal? The media in my oppion is completely and utterly wrong for their coverage of this in that they have continued to publish these images. The original publisher has refused to appologize for the offense they have caused. The Danish Priminister although trying to placate the muslems has not appologized for the offense either, and has not taken any action against the media in his country.
I'm not talking about censorship here I'm talking about the right thing. Most people in the US would be very offended if the image that represented their country abroad in a foreign publication was a burning cross. The fact that ignorance is involved here does not alleviate the culpabilty of the press in this matter. They were and are wrong and they started something that has created unrest and violence in the world and they should be made to stand up and apologize.
Unfortunately for us the media needs to defend the right of free press. What a nice kettle of fish this has turned into.

[dtucker]

I don't think it's fair to say that the Danish prime minister should apologize. We don't make our leaders in the US or Canada apologize for the ignorant things our citizens make.

I think that it may be wise for the papers who have printed the cartoons to apologize (Jyllands-Posten's the Danish paper that originated the cartoons did apologize).

I think that the people to blame here are the violent protestors, not the papers. The protestors are threatening innocent people (nothing new for them) instead of using peaceful means to show how they feel like most of the world's muslims.

The cartoons were dumb and mean but not as dumb and mean as threatening lives or taking them or torching embassies.

[gijoe9]

Fair enough. The point I was trying to make here is that this would not happen here to any of the minorities in the US or Canada because of the certainty of immediate retribution. I would like to think that the leader of this country, Canada, would apologize first and foremost then sort out who is at fault. Jyllands-Posten's did not apologize until after there was a lot of violence and outrage and the effects to the Danish economy were well established. The initial position of Jyllands-postens was not anywhere near apologetic. I went to their website just after this happened and they were still waving the right of free press around. Seems someone there saw some writing on a wall and the writing had a lot of dollar signs in it. Better late then never on the apology and I hope that it will settle things down a little.
As for your comment on the threatening lives and violence part of things being dumb I agree with you 100% if we were talking about North America but since we are not I think we should not try to impress our values on another culture/religion. A lot of muslems are not violent people but enough are that you cannot ignore the fact that they take their religion "deathly" serious. It is to easy to offend someone who is devout and just because devoutness is looked at askance in our society does not make it so elsewhere no matter how much we would wish it.
Anyhow I am still a little upset by this event because it still rings like one of those events that is the precursor of something really bad. Please excuse me if you feel that I am attacking your point of view I am not trying to do that. I understand your point of view on the violence and I share your dislike of it. I just understand from personal experience what it is like to be around people who believe in something so much that they would give their life to defend it and think nothing of taking a life for the same cause.
Sorry for the soap box epic lol

[dtucker]

Originally Posted by gijoe9

I think we should not try to impress our values on another culture/religion.

Isn't that kind of what they are doing to us? Tolerance works both ways.
We don't riot when they burn American flags. We didn't retaliate against the Palestinians when they held celebrations after 9/11, and that is about the worst thing anyone could do.

[Matt Moss]

Anyone want to know what the pictures look like? I have access to the caricatures, however I don't know if posting them would upset anybody.

[gijoe9]

The images are not important and I think we should not have them on this site. I am not offended by the images at all, I am not muslem. I just understand that they violate a basic tenet of muslem law. I feel we should respect that inspite of the inapropriate and politicaly motivated violence not because of it.