And so Al-Qaida turns against Sweden

Just want to say something about this.
It's something I believe and except if you can show me facts it isn't like this or a real good argument then I don't think you'll be able to change my mind.

You do not need to be a terrorist to be against democracy and freedom of speech.

550 swedish muslims in the small city of Uppsala demonstrated against freedom of print, a part of the swedish constitution.
As another reaction, Organization of the Islamic Conference, representing 57 muslim countries, condemned the cartoons and demanded an apology.
The Egyptian ambassador urged for Sweden to change their constitution, alter their school system so that students and journalists respect Islam and finally they wanted the swedish government to open a department that specifically focus on fighting "Islamophobia".

Several of my classmates are immigrants from muslim countries and all of them are not exactly friendly to Islam. I am currently reading the Quran myself. I would not say that I consider radical extremist muslims worse as neighbors than the extremist christians, but if they are, I know what drives them. Quaran is a brainwashing tool. Already book 2 consists of 250 passages why thoose who do not follow the Quaran are fools/lost/sheep/blinded etc. The main difference between the two religions is that there's currently no real christian teocracy.
 
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And you don't have to be an anti-democrat to be a muslim. And being against the cartoons doesn't mean you're against democracy (which in itself has nothing to do with freedom of speech...), or freedom of speech. In fact, a lot of the muslims who argued against the cartoons claimed they weren't against freedom of speech, quite the contrary. They were against how it had been used in this specific case. They found the cartoons highly offensive, and they didn't feel that freedom of speech should be used for offending pepole.

Übereil
 
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Freedom of speech includes the right to offend, the right to be offended, and the right to protest about it.

I agree that in a perfect world disagreements would never be solved by violence, and therefore no-one would have to fear for their safety due to anything they said.

But the world isn't perfect. If you go out of your way to insult someone's religion -- Muslim, Christian, Hindu, whatever -- there will be consequences.

It's also really dumb, IMO. But I think we've already had this discussion, and you know that I don't sympathize with your militant anti-religionism any more than I sympathize with militant Islam.
 
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So threatening people with murder is just a consequence of the world not being perfect? And failing to understand how that works is really dumb?

I honestly don't get it. Sometimes your sympathies are about as easy to understand as your conclusions, Prime Junta. If putting a price on someone's head isn't going too far, then where do you draw the line?

It isn't nice to antagonize people about their religion. But terrorism is criminal, plain and simple.
 
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What bothers me, is that I see 'offensive' anti-Christian cartoons and no-one says anything about it, but something similar done regarding Islam and we have death threats. I'm not really upset by either cartoon, it's not worth the hassle, but I would like to see some consistency in response!!
 
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You do not need to be a terrorist to be against democracy and freedom of speech.

550 swedish muslims in the small city of Uppsala demonstrated against freedom of print, a part of the swedish constitution.
As another reaction, Organization of the Islamic Conference, representing 57 muslim countries, condemned the cartoons and demanded an apology.
The Egyptian ambassador urged for Sweden to change their constitution, alter their school system so that students and journalists respect Islam and finally they wanted the swedish government to open a department that specifically focus on fighting "Islamophobia".

Several of my classmates are immigrants from muslim countries and all of them are not exactly friendly to Islam. I am currently reading the Quran myself. I would not say that I consider radical extremist muslims worse as neighbors than the extremist christians, but if they are, I know what drives them. Quaran is a brainwashing tool. Already book 2 consists of 250 passages why thoose who do not follow the Quaran are fools/lost/sheep/blinded etc. The main difference between the two religions is that there's currently no real christian teocracy.

Even then it doesn't mean that all muslims are against freedom of speech and that is how some people portray them. Some portray all muslims as terrorists. I've even talked to people in England who said that if they see someone wearing the long dresses muslim men sometimes tend to wear and they also carry a backpack and they go to the metro (tube in London), that they feel threatened by it. Also that they see some other people move away from that muslim guy.
Every other person with a backpack is normal except for the muslim one.
Yes, a lot of people protested against it and I understand that it isn't normal to call for a ban on freedom of speech, but then they have the right to express their opinions freely too.

If you feel offended by something, you have the right to respond to it and even ask for an apology. Asking for a change of constitution or other laws is a bit too much though.

@ Corwin : I think that's because most Christians do believe in (close to) full freedom of speech and so let it go very easily without protest.
 
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I believe it's also a cultural thing. One of the arguments the muslims had was that in their culture (we have to respect other pepole's culture IMO, at least to a point) you don't depict dead pepole out of repect for them. And you certanly don't offend dead pepole, since they can't here to defend themselves. And consider the fact that muslims think the Prophet is holy, it's not weird that they're offended by a PICTURE of him, and not only a picture, but a highly offensive picture of him. We don't have that kind of culture here in the west (pepole portray Jesus all the time, especially Christians), and therefore we have a hard time understand that argument (at least I have, and I doubt I am the own). But (I believe) the reason they're so highly offended by it is a cultural thing more than anything else (and maybe the fact that this particular picture isn't the least funny, it's just bluntly offensive).

Übereil
 
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So threatening people with murder is just a consequence of the world not being perfect? And failing to understand how that works is really dumb?

Not a consequence. A feature.

Suppose you walk into a Hell's Angels clubhouse and yell "Bikers are fags!" and subsequently get beaten to death with a tire iron. Courageous or dumb? I say dumb.

Al Qaeda are much like the Hell's Angels, only more ideological. Going out of your way to insult them is dumb.

I honestly don't get it. Sometimes your sympathies are about as easy to understand as your conclusions, Prime Junta. If putting a price on someone's head isn't going too far, then where do you draw the line?

Of course it's going too far.

It isn't nice to antagonize people about their religion. But terrorism is criminal, plain and simple.

I agree entirely.

Squeek, just a question -- you quite frequently respond to my postings, and when I try to engage you, you withdraw into a corner to sulk, sometimes with a nice little insult thrown in. Do you, or do you not, want to talk with me? If you want to talk, I'm always ready, but your passive-aggressive stance makes it... un-fun, and unlikely to get anywhere fast.
 
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Squeek, just a question -- you quite frequently respond to my postings, and when I try to engage you, you withdraw into a corner to sulk, sometimes with a nice little insult thrown in. Do you, or do you not, want to talk with me? If you want to talk, I'm always ready, but your passive-aggressive stance makes it... un-fun, and unlikely to get anywhere fast.
Here's the deal, PJ. IMO, there's not much point engaging you beyond taking opportunities to make clear distinctions. Even then, you dispute those too (like you just did). There's usually no need, anyway. You tend to be clear even when you're wrong, and that's enough.

I'd like to show you the same respect I show everyone else, Prime Junta. It's not easy. I'm not going to explain why, either. IMO, the reasons are fairly obvious. Call it passive-agressive or sulking or anything else you want. I don't agree, naturally, but that's fair enough.
 
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Here's the deal, PJ. IMO, there's not much point engaging you beyond taking opportunities to make clear distinctions. Even then, you dispute those too (like you just did). There's usually no need, anyway. You tend to be clear even when you're wrong, and that's enough.

I'd like to show you the same respect I show everyone else, Prime Junta. It's not easy. I'm not going to explain why, either. IMO, the reasons are fairly obvious. Call it passive-agressive or sulking or anything else you want. I don't agree, naturally, but that's fair enough.

Thanks for clearing that up. I won't be bothering you in the future by trying to draw you out, then.
 
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Even then it doesn't mean that all muslims are against freedom of speech and that is how some people portray them. Some portray all muslims as terrorists. I've even talked to people in England who said that if they see someone wearing the long dresses muslim men sometimes tend to wear and they also carry a backpack and they go to the metro (tube in London), that they feel threatened by it. Also that they see some other people move away from that muslim guy.
Every other person with a backpack is normal except for the muslim one.
Yes, a lot of people protested against it and I understand that it isn't normal to call for a ban on freedom of speech, but then they have the right to express their opinions freely too.

"Terrorists" is a rather American expression. I doubt many here would call muslims terrorists, to us they are just muslims. But there is a line between announcing that you belong to the religion and being a hardcore believer in the holy scripture. Moderates that just call themselves "muslims" are not neccessary bad, but the fundies are creepy.

If you feel offended by something, you have the right to respond to it and even ask for an apology. Asking for a change of constitution or other laws is a bit too much though.

That's pretty much what can be said on the subject. The controversy were way out of line and should by healthy circumstances not have been that great, and that was exactly what the cartoonist wanted to show.
 
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"Terrorists" is a rather American expression. I doubt many here would call muslims terrorists, to us they are just muslims.
Maybe I should have been more clear. There are millions of muslims in America. They refer to terrorists as terrorists too. I've never met or even heard of anyone who thinks the terms "muslim" and "terrorist" are synonymous.
 
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