No. Muslims who are offended do not need to "get over it". They can be as offended and alienated as they want. The only thing they need to do is uphold our social contracts, none of which require them to be OK with people intentionally offending their religion.
That's the problem with this plan. It doesn't recognize the degrees of antagonism involved. It posits that there is "being OK with cartoons of Mohammad" and "being so not ok with those cartoons as to be incompatible with civilization", and excludes the vast middle ground.
Or, to the extent that it acknowledges that there is a middle, it posits that any social or cultural price is worth paying to demonstrate that we can't be pushed around by a tiny, virtually powerless minority whose actions aren't in any way influenced by these cartoons anyways.
To do that, they will do things to move people from the "rational" column to the "extremist" column.
Being members of a tiny extremist minority, they have little direct ability to move anyone anywhere.
So, instead of simply trying to persuade more Muslims to support their ultimately futile cause, they provoke us into doing the persuading. By making Muslims into "others". Because when the KKK marches in Skokie, we're uniformly disgusted. But when thousands of people draw cartoons of Mohammad, they're lionized.
You have to be --- literally, you have to be willfully ignorant to believe that death threats to cartoonists are designed to cow us into not depicting Mohammad.
What bothers me about this whole thing is not that we're offending Muslims. What bothers me is that we're so easily manipulated.
But in this case fear. It is their most powerful weapon by far.
Individuals and the media can be manipulated into raising their profile and spreading fear. There is an excellent book called "risk" by dan Gardner which deals with the topic in great detail.
So people like those who attacked the professor in sweden are all coordinating to get the media all riled up and scare the shit out of me and thus making me ripe for manipulation by evil politicians? I think not. My strategy is easy. Repeat the pattern of (almost complete) secularization of jews and christians in europe. Treat violence against people who offend religious sensibilities like you treat violence against jews or africans; punish those who do it and make all association or expressions of sympathy with the perpetrators unacceptable.
So how does reacting to bunk threats (threats, not actions) like this fit?
It's fear; pure and simple.
As to the first bit - your just constructing an idiotic scenario that doesn't exist. The attackers in Sweden are not deliberately trying to cause fear - thy are just trying to hurt a guy. However at some point in the background is someone who understands the impact of their actions on a wider scale.
Many men exist within the echelons of terrorists. Many may not communicate together - but they don't really need to. The plan is brutally simple and uncomplicated; cause terror.
I don't think it is possible to claim there isn't a climate of fear in the western world. We see it every week almost.
Not trying to create fear? I think they knew that they were causing fear and that they got a kick out of it. I feel pretty certain you're white and not that tough.. Imagine yourself in a room with lots of black guys talking about ending AA or something like that and they attack you while people in the background sing kill whitey. Thats how the professor felt. This whole Islam vs Liberalism thing is not terribly important to me (I'm only proczastinating tonight) but had I considered speaking up about something that would piss muslims off that would have been the kind of thing I was afraid of. The dutch filmaker was killed by people like that. The swede needed police protection to show a youtube video with anti islamic art. In Oslo Ali is the most common name, a fifth of the population is muslim and there is a fusion of gang violence and muslim identity politics. Being hated by the muslim population would be very uncomfortable. It would be like being a high profile KKK member living in a black neighborhood.
I'm sorry but I have no idea what you are on about. The original point under discussion was very simple - I don't know where your headed with these scenarios, so I can't help. You sound a bit confused though.
"The attackers in Sweden are not deliberately trying to cause fear - thy are just trying to hurt a guy."
What I was trying to say was: of course they were creating fear, they must have know that they were, wich is why I find the statement "they did not want to create fear" puzzling.
And, to extend your silly analogy to its logical conclusion, imagine that as a result of that experience we declared a national day of "making sure black people know they can't push us around anymore".
The reason it's called an analogy is that it's not exactly the same thing. Afro americans are not swedish muslims, they are both more violent than the majorities in their respective countries and thus scary to old white guys tough. But, yeah, demonstrations are great to show contempt for racial violence and other problems, heard of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches.
I really can't understand why you think Draw Mohammed Day is an expression of fear! It's uniting together to show confidence in ourselves and our liberal society. Censoring South Park was an expression of fear. This isn't.
Sure, they might be caused by gays initially feeling scared when they're alone and isolated. But joining together to march for something you believe in is an attempt to overcome this fear by uniting.
That's the way I see Draw Mohammed Day. Safety in numbers. It's a response to fear, not an expression of fear. South Park was censored because the TV executives were scared. We want to show we don't have to be scared.
No of course not; because they unite behind posiive symbols. Symbols that a straight guy like myslefwould even stand behind - as you say, to show unity.
This isn't really showing unity thought. The threats are non-credible but you are giving them credence. It does feel a lot like a fearful reaction. And very little to do with unity - because the chosen symbol alienates Muslims from the protest.
Think of it this way; if someon blogged random death threats because of a cartoon of George w bush would weaigh and ignore it? Why the double standard here then?
There is no credible threat, but some appear afraid enough to see it as one.
Theo van Gogh was murdered! A Danish cartoonist saved himself and his granddaughter from murder by hiding in a saferoom. IIRC a man was arrested this week for attempting to murder a Swedish cartoonist.
These threats are highly credible.
I'm sorry if many muslims are offended by this, but that's really to do with their own lack of self confidence. Nobody's lost an eye, limb or a life by the actions of Mohammed drawers. It's a picture, for goodness sake!
Perhaps we disagree about what a positive symbol is. I happen to believe the artistic result of freedom of expression is a positive symbol.
No, those threats were credible - and clearly must be reacted to in the right manner.
But this protest is reacting to the wider majority of empty threats.
The rest of your post is just worrying. You may not understand why offense is taken at a picture, I agree and to me it seems silly.
But that doesn't give us the right to essentially say "shush, you're being silly. Let us get on with our protest please". It's a bit patronizing :-)
think of it this way: all Muslims are discluded from this protest. How is that unity?
(also, this ain't freedom of artistic expression. It's a deliberate attempt to get at the terrorists with imaea they don't like... That's a negative image in my mind :-))
A hundred years ago those positive symbols of gay lust would have merited a beating by riot police. A prison sentence was a very real fear for otherwise "respectable" but (somewhat) openly gay men. That stopped when people refused to back down for the riot police. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
>>The only thing they need to do is uphold our social contracts, none of which require them to be OK with people intentionally offending their religion.
The social contracts are codified in our laws. And the laws says that blasphemy is legal.
Nobody protests against the right of individual muslims to feel offended. People protest against the tendency for (some) muslims to try to impose their religious rules on nonbelievers by actual violence and the threat of violence. In the wider perspective this is a protest against the tendency to silence criticism of religions (or anything else)
by using violence against the critics.
It is not a straw man, laws need to be considered just, as far as possible.
Blasphemy used to be illegal all over the Western world, but isn't anymore. Death sentence were metered out in e.g. mid 19th century Sweden -- for much less than Ecce Homo (see previous comment) and Piss Christ.
It is important to lampoon and jeer at ideologies/religions, especially those that insist they have the ultimate Truth and are above criticism.
(Racism/slavery went the other way; it used to be accepted -- but like intolerance to blasphemy, it was put behind us, at least in the West.)
That's the problem with this plan. It doesn't recognize the degrees of antagonism involved. It posits that there is "being OK with cartoons of Mohammad" and "being so not ok with those cartoons as to be incompatible with civilization", and excludes the vast middle ground.
Or, to the extent that it acknowledges that there is a middle, it posits that any social or cultural price is worth paying to demonstrate that we can't be pushed around by a tiny, virtually powerless minority whose actions aren't in any way influenced by these cartoons anyways.