Tuesday, February 21, 2006

From the Horse's Mouth

Flemming Rose - the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten who commissioned and published the "mo-toons" - tells us why. (Free registration required, but worth it)
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name.
Read the rest. And tell me what I missed in this post. Crucially, my core argument - that these cartoons were not "a joke", but were commissioned in response to a serious debate on self-censorship - appears to be smack on the money.

To coin a phrase:
Every time a Muslim complains about, errrr...., complaints about the barbarism committed in the name of Islam, this should be the refrain:
"You should be arguing with them, not with me."

2 comments:

Akaky said...

And they would argue with the jihadis, mind you, but for the jihadis' unfortunated propensity for blowing up those of the ummah who disagree with their practice of setting off high explosives in such high value military targets as Sbarro's and the occasional disco.

The Pedant-General said...

Quite. But that is not really an argument for disagreeing when the unpleasantness of such actions is raised.