Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Do not look at the Little Brown Square

Maybe this is something which is blindingly obvious and I'm simply failing to see the pulped wood for the trees, but I'm at a genuine loss as to one aspect of the offense caused to Muslims by the publication in a Danish newspaper of some cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Put simply - if there are no images of the Prophet on display to the mass of Islam, how can anyone know that the cartoons do depict him, other than the fact that the cartoons say so? And at what point do you decide that 'yes - that is an attempt to portray Mohammed'?

At what point in this image to the right (from the ever reliable b3ta) does the brown square represent the Prophet sufficiently for Muslims to become offended - or is the mere intention to portray Mohammed enough?

If something more than intention is required, then just what are the requirements for actual offense? Human features? Arab features? A speech-bubble which says 'Hello. I am the Prophet Mohammed'(would a more basic 'Hello. I am Mohammed' still count)?

It does seem a very little thing to get sufficiently enraged about that threats of death are being bandied about and one Arab newspaper has launched a competition for the best Holocaust denial cartoon in retaliation (against the Jews presumably although what their link to Denmark is, I'm not sure).
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3 Comments:

Blogger Divemaster GranDad said...

...or perhaps it's Islam's justification to start a new Jihad? Everyone knows they have enough against Bush and Blair, but now it looks like it's a reason to take it to the entire Western world.

The old saying goes that "xxxx is the root of all evil" (insert whatever descriptive noun you'd prefer to use in place of xxxx), but my firm belief is that Religion itself is that root...

11:16 am  
Blogger Stuart Douglas said...

I think it's a both a little more complex and a little more simple than that. Certaintly certain of the riots in places like Syria have been orchestrated by radical groups, but in the main I suspect it's a combination of genuine offense on the part of some muslims and - in the UK at least - bandwagon-jumping by younger, half-wits who are looking for an ewxcuse to parade about being offended (liek the clown in the suicide bopmber suit and the idiots with the Fantastic 4 placards).

I think it's a bit dangerous to say 'Islam' would do anything like want to start off a Jihad - the vast, vast majority fo muslims I have ever met or come across were people liek oyu or I - it's a platitude but they, like most people, just want to get on with their lives quietly.

TBH, I'm currently far more terrified of what George W Bush is intending to do to Iran than anything a crowd of demonstrators against the world's least funny cartoons are likely to do on the streets of London. Bush and the Americans who voted for him in their brain-dead millions (with the ever compliant Tony Blair at their heels) is the greatest danger to world peace now.

9:08 pm  
Blogger Divemaster GranDad said...

A debate that could rage on for a looonnngggg time... :-)

2:13 pm  

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