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Point/Counterpoint
Free Expression and the Sacred: Should There Be Limits?
Your Comments
With
the ongoing worldwide discussions that were triggered by the recent
publications of cartoons that ridiculed Prophet Muhammad in the
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and with IslamOnline.net's
continued commitment to dialogue as a stepping stone for
understanding, the Muslim Affairs section introduces this heated
debate between British journalist Felicity
Arbuthnot and
American cartoonist Signe
Wilkinson
over
whether there should be limits on freedom of expression when it
comes to the sacred in religions. Below are some of the comments we
received from our readers.
What
do you think of this dialogue? Which argument do you support? E-mail
us your comments: cartoondebate@islamonline.net
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Muslims
are using people like Arbuthnot to make themselves look like
pious martyrs to the rest of the world. |
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With
regard to whether Muslims are being singled out for harassment and
vilification, I say "Doctor, heal thyself!" Muslims are
using people like Arbuthnot to make themselves look like
pious martyrs to the rest of the world. They cannot (and will not)
look at the response of the rest of the Western World in a rational,
thoughtful way and it's starting to cost them.
If
there were worldwide riots of Muslims protesting people who were
truly blaspheming their religion by screaming
"Allah is the Greatest!" as they sawed off the heads of
innocent women and children, rammed planes loaded with innocent
people into buildings loaded with thousands more innocent people and
hung the charred bodies of innocent people from lighthouses, I would
have understood their point and possibly agreed. However, the
silence exhibited by the vast majority of Muslims around the world
concerning these true blasphemies tells me everything I need
to know about Islam.
Oh
sure, most Muslims will condemn these actions if you ask them. But,
you never see a protest sign. After all, which is really
worse: the destruction of innocent people’s lives or an ink and
paper drawing of Muhammad?
Joseph
Thinn
May
13, 2006
The
cartoons perpetuated the stereotype that Muhammad, and all
Muslims, by extension, are terrorists. |
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The issue
is about the right to caricature the founder of a world religion or
one of its sacred symbols, and by implication to stereotype the
adherents of that faith. The Danish cartoons did just that: they
perpetuated the stereotype that Muhammad, and all Muslims, by
extension, are terrorists and will kill indiscriminately to get the
virgins of paradise.
Most
people would agree that one's rights are not absolute; rather, they
must be balanced by the rights of others, the dignity afforded to an
entire people and the effects of such insensitivity to the beliefs
and historical memory of a people. Hence, anyone in their right
minds would hesitate to caricature the suffering of Jews during the
Holocaust. To make fun of such suffering in order to make a point is
mere foolishness.
Most
Muslims will not have a problem if you caricature any person
within the Islamic World to draw attention to a political or
social issue. Most will, however, have a problem if you caricature
the founder of a religion or a sacred symbol of that religion, as it
reflects a deep insensitivity on your part to the adherents of that
faith. It does not matter whether you believe in the faith or not.
The
above is the hallmark of civilization: a mutual respect for the
dignity of people. When this is absent, all people will be subject
to attack; and the most vulnerable will feel the brunt of it. It's
the first step towards genocide.
Mohamed
Khadim
May
12, 2006
Felicity
Arbuthnot describes the cartoons in the Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten as blasphemous and Islamophobic, raising
the question yet again whether that person is commenting on
something she has never seen. First, I fail to see how they
— collectively or individually — are "Islamophobic."
They range from a simple portrait of Muhammad to sharp commentary on
the practices of his alleged adherents to sharp commentary on the
process of cartooning on the issue.
To
demand that religious beliefs should dictate what
unbelievers do or say would abolish all notions of
freedom. |
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Second,
they are "blasphemous" only if one accepts the premise
that Islam outlaws images of Muhammad (questionable), and that Islam
rules the world. Blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder, and to
demand that religious beliefs should dictate what
unbelievers do or say would abolish all notions of freedom.
I
don't think the United States was built on "racism and
xenophobia." It was built by immigrants from
hundreds of different countries. Racism and xenophobia were
(and are) no more present or persistent in the United States than
radical terrorists are in Islam. It's ridiculous to complain of
stereotypes yet employ them in the same time.
Margaret Manning
Los
Angeles, California
May
12, 2006
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