Ironworks Gaming Forum - Gaza gunmen drag EU into Danish-Muslim blasphemy clash

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The Muslim world is like the Christian world in the Middle Ages and Renaissance--you cannot separate the society from the religion. There is no difference.

I agree, and I think the sooner people stop belly aching about the small stuff, and stand back and look at the whole thing that way, the sooner we can just do what has to be done, and be done.

We have freedom of speech here and the publishers of the cartoons would most likely got away with publishing the cartoons the first time.

The second publications however they would have had people tossed in jail because the intent of the second publications was different as it was to promoted hatred, not to demonstrate freedom of the press as some claim. Here the publishers were not just publishing a cartoon to show a point by being funny but behaving as if they were members of the NAZI's or KKK.

Here you can basically publish what you want as long as it is not intended to promote hatred. So NAZI's, or KKK can basically not publish things that spread hatred.

The Muslims in Canada were upset about the cartoons but thay also upset about the way the muslims in the rest of the world behaved with the violent demonstrations saying something along the lines of "While we found the cartoon offensive, the way the muslims are demonstrating in other countries is just proveing what that artist depicted as true, and they are creating a worse image of our religion than any cartoon." 

[ 02-06-2006, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

An article by John Simpson, written in his typically measured style. Worth a read, it gave me pause for thought.

One of the comments to the article probably deserves to be mentioned, a Brad Leeger from Nouadhibou:

Quote:

He is right. Almost by definition, the media only shows that which is sensational. Half a billion Muslims sitting at home ignoring something is not very sensational.

He does have a point.

[ 02-06-2006, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

The whole thing is a bit strange considering there have been pictures made Muslims depicting Mohammed, sometimes with a veil and sometimes without.

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The first deaths have been reported as a result of all the protests, which have definitely turned violent and have been hijacked by the lunatic fringe pushing their own moronic, extremist agenda. I'm wondering if any of these idiots torching embassies have even seen the cartoons. By their moronic acts they have lost the moral high ground and are now being seen as the "bad guys" in this whole situation.

What's even more curious is that these cartoons were first printed FIVE months ago, and we hardly heard anything about them. There were some minor protests in Denmark but that was it. But there are some revelations now that a number of extremist imams actually travelled to the Middle East to whip up a frenzy of anger and hatred about them (apparently some new cartoons "appeared" in the collection that was shown by these imams in the Middle East which didn't appear in the paper originally, which were much worse). If this is true then it's a VERY LOW ACT from these imams, to try and whip people up into hysteria.

One more thing - in the article below it says that protesters threw rocks at passing cars?!? What's that all about. That's just mindless violence. I'd be pretty bloody pissed off if I was driving past a protest and some knobs chucked some rocks at my car just because I happened to be in the area.

After reading this stuff my feelings have moved from sympathy for Muslims for what the Danish and Norwegian paper did to disgust for the boofheads who are ruining it all for you guys with this kind of moronic behaviour.

It's this kind of mindless stuff which gives Islam such a bad name, and to shamrock's point I feel it's the responsibility of Islam's moderate leaders to condemn such behaviour as it's only harming their image and their cause. I know it's important to have solidarity with brothers of the faith, but it's more important to remain true to your values and to the concept of right and wrong. And what's happening now is definitely wrong and should be condemned, simple as that.

Quote:

Cartoon protests turn deadly

Monday, February 6, 2006; Posted: 4:24 p.m. EST (21:24 GMT)

(CNN) -- Tens of thousands of Muslims around the world have staged new rounds of protests -- some resulting in deaths -- over published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Afghan police fired Monday on about 2,000 protesters who tried to enter Bagram Airbase, a U.S. base north of Kabul, The Associated Press reported.

Two protesters were killed and 13 others injured, Kabir Ahmed, the local government chief, was quoted as saying. Eight of those injured were police, he said.

In the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, two protesters were killed and three others injured -- including two police -- when police fired on a crowd after a man fired shots and others threw stones and knives, Interior Ministry spokesman Dad Mohammed Rasa told AP. (Watch the stones fly and police batons swing -- 2:25)

In Indonesia, video from a demonstration outside a U.S. consulate showed a protester with a bloody shirt sitting on the ground next to police.

Islam forbids depictions of Mohammed. Many Muslims are furious at the drawings themselves, one of which shows the religious figure wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

And in the east African nation of Somalia, police fired in the air Monday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, triggering a stampede in which a teenager died, according to The Associated Press. (Full story)

The protests came as Iran announced it had cut off all trade ties with Denmark.

A report on the state-run news agency IRNA said Iranian Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi stopped trade with Denmark as the government's response to the cartoons.

It said that while trade has been stopped, certain machinery and medicine will be allowed in for another three months.

In Tehran, demonstrators protested outside the Danish Consulate and the Austrian Embassy. Austria is currently serving as president of the European Union. Reuters reported that about 200 people threw fire bombs and rocks. (Full story)

Meanwhile in Paris, France Soir -- a newspaper that published the cartoons of Mohammed -- was evacuated for nearly three hours Monday after receiving a bomb threat.

Police and bomb squads searched the premises and found no cause for concern.

The paper's secretarial office said someone called at 12:50 p.m. (6:50 a.m. ET) saying there was a bomb in the building. All 120 people were evacuated immediately.

Also Monday, Lebanon apologized to Denmark for a protest Sunday in which the building housing the Danish Consulate was torched. The protest was planned in advance and well publicized, but Lebanese security still took hours to bring it under control. (Watch the fiery destruction and police confrontation -- 2:48)

Officials on the scene Monday found that the consulate had reinforced its doors, so the rioters had not managed to destroy the consulate itself, which was on the fourth floor of the 10-story building.

Other protests Monday took place in Amman, Tel Aviv, Gaza, and Kut, a city in southern Iraq where about 5,000 people congregated, burned flags and burned an effigy of the Danish prime minister.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, schools and businesses closed in protest over the drawings. Some demonstrators set flags on fire and threw rocks at passing cars. And in the Indian capital of New Delhi, police fired tear gas and water canons to try to break up one protest.

The controversy began in September, when 12 drawings of the Muslim prophet were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was censoring itself over Muslim issues.

In January, a Norwegian newspaper reprinted the drawings.

Some other European papers later published some of the cartoons, as a way of covering the controversy and also, some papers said, as a matter of freedom of expression.

Two New Zealand newspapers also published the cartoons last weekend, prompting street protests in the city of Auckland and condemnation from the New Zealand government.

CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.

Two small weekly Jordanian newspapers recently reprinted the cartoons and, according to Jordan's Petra News Agency, arrest warrants were issued for the editors-in-chief of those papers.

World leaders and some Muslim religious officials have called on members of the faith to use only peaceful forms of protest.

Over the weekend, protesters torched embassies of Denmark and Norway in Damascus and the Danish Consulate in Beirut. No staff were hurt, but buildings were damaged or destroyed.

The protests in Beirut soon escalated into fighting between Muslims and Christians. (Watch as protesters battle security forces in Lebanon -- 2:08)

Iraq's transport ministry also said it was severing ties with the Danish and Norwegian governments, a move that includes terminating all contracts with companies based in those countries.

Meanwhile, London police were under pressure to arrest Muslim protesters who carried signs threatening death and terrorist attacks at a demonstration over the cartoons on Friday. (Full story)

The Danish government has tried to get out the message that it does not control what is in newspapers and that Danish courts will determine whether the newspaper that originally published the cartoons, Jyllands-Posten, is guilty of blasphemy. The government has also expressed apologies for the offending drawings. (Danes feel threatened)

Jyllands-Posten has apologized, saying it did not mean to offend Muslims and that the drawings had to be understood in their original contexts.

The paper's cultural editor, Flemming Rose, said the uproar came after "radical imams from Denmark traveled to the Middle East, deliberately lying about these cartoons," and saying that the paper is owned by the government and is preparing a new translation of the Koran "censoring the word of 'Allah,' which is a grave sin according to Islam."

Source: Click here for CNN article

Quote:

Originally posted by Memnoch:
It's this kind of mindless stuff which gives Islam such a bad name, and to shamrock's point I feel it's the responsibility of Islam's moderate leaders to condemn such behaviour as it's only harming their image and their cause. I know it's important to have solidarity with brothers of the faith, but it's more important to remain true to your values and to the concept of right and wrong. And what's happening now is definitely wrong and should be condemned, simple as that.

Not quite sure which point that was Mems, but I agree with all of your post anyway! Sensible stuff.

We have a problem though when people have different ideas of right and wrong...if only the real world was as black and white!

Personally I wish they'd sit back and let someone's infidel status be determined in the afterlife, if it exists. Let whichever God you happen to believe in do the hard work. That way we in the corporeal world can get some peace whilst radical Muslims can relax and stop witch-hunting, secure in the knowledge that us in the infidel world will be getting a good roasting when we die.

See...everybody wins :)

[ 02-06-2006, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Quote:

Originally posted by shamrock_uk:
An article by John Simpson, written in his typically measured style. Worth a read, it gave me pause for thought.

One of the comments to the article probably deserves to be mentioned, a Brad Leeger from Nouadhibou:

<blockquote>quote:<hr />He is right. Almost by definition, the media only shows that which is sensational. Half a billion Muslims sitting at home ignoring something is not very sensational.

He does have a point. [/QUOTE]The article brings up Salman Rushdie (author of Satanic Verses) moving quietly to America, it's a bit misleading, he's still in hiding as the threat to his life is still quite real nearly 20 years after his book was published.

Ok, now I'm not all that up on my Islam stuff, but in Christianity, the sinner goes to hell, right? Is it a priest's job to accelerate the process? That's what it seems like these Imams are pushing for. I think it comes full circle to this; we can push for peace all we want to. The fact of the matter is, Islam wants no peace with us. Our very existence is a threat to their way of life.

Finally, something more concrete on the 'other images' circulating in the Middle-East:

Quote:

The propaganda factor

One aspect that these governments might also want to examine is how they can counter false information.

Twelve cartoons were originally published by Jyllands-Posten. None showed the Prophet with the face of a pig. Yet such a portrayal has circulated in the Middle East (The BBC was caught out and for a time showed film of this in Gaza without realizing it was not one of the 12).

The finger of suspicion has been pointed at a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders who went to the Middle East in November to publicise the cartoons. The visit was organised by Abu Laban, a leading Muslim figure in Denmark.

According to the Danish paper Ekstra Bladet, the delegation took along a pamphlet showing the 12 drawings. But the delegation also showed a number of other pictures which they claimed had insulted Muslims in Denmark. These also got into circulation.

Western diplomats appear to have missed this entirely and seem to have made no attempt to counter some of the arguments in the pamphlet or to distinguish between the various portrayals.

It might not have made much difference but it shows how rapidly propaganda can add to fuel to the fire.

From here.