Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Those cartoons

Lots of people have already written lots of sensible stuff about the mess that's going on. Here are a few quick thoughts from me, with an emphasis on what I haven't seen written elsewhere...

  • To the protesters, it isn't about freedom from being offended. It's about the imposition of Sharia law in Europe. That's why there's no incongruity between their offence and the anti-Jewish cartoons which seem to be common in the Middle East. The only incongruity is in their trying to argue it on the basis of freedom from being offended. It's a well-organised campaign as well. I don't think the timing coming so soon after the Religious Hatred Bill went though the Commons is a coincidence.
  • Images of Mohammed aren't condemned in the Qur'an - it's only tradition, and not a universal one at all. There are plenty of historic Islamic pictures of Mohammed. Here's a selection of some, many of which are of Muslim origin.
  • These cartoons seem to have been brought to the attention of the Muslim world by some Danish Immans, presumably the same ones as circulated all the Danish flags for burning. My question is "how did they get enough copies to circulate?" Did they copy the cartoons? And if so, how is that less bad that a newspaper publishing them?

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