Danish Muhammad cartoon reprinted

GothicGothicness said:

It went far above that, they found a map of Lars Viks house, and night vision googles, a plan to kill him, by Islam organisation. It is way way way above nutcases making some threats, and the columinist in the netherlands who was negative to Islam already got killed.

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I'm Swedish and quite familiar with the Vilks case. The difference in the fallout is that we didnt see the same large scale demonstrations in the islamic world in the wake of his picture. To some extent this is due to how Sweden handled the issue. Our local muslim organisations were much clearer in their condemnation of the threats than their Danish colleagues, and our government immediately invited embassadors from muslim countries to a dialogue where the PM explained our positions on plurality and freedom of expression.

As I said and you describe the murderous nutcases still responded, but there is a qualitative difference in the reaction of the muslim public. And it is by constructive dealing with the second that we can dry up the recruitment of the former (but not completely eliminate it, as there always will be a percentage of murderous nutcases in any population).

JemyM said:

I do not know. I have been unemployed longer than her and my last employee was a charlatan which eventually lead me to go to trial to get payed. The jobmarket in Sweden is quite bad and Denmark might be the same, being anything less than perfect makes it difficult to get a job. You need either good education, strong social skills or good contacts to get a one.

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Denmark has had a better job market (at least before 2007), but racism is definitely more of an issue (or rather overt expression of it is more accepted, we arent exactly lily-white either) on that side of the sound.

EDIT: While I dont think Vilks picture is in as bad taste as the Danish ones there is the small issue that depicting the prophets face is sacrilige in itself, and that dogs arent considered the cleanest of animals, enough to make the reaction somewhat predictable. The editorial that included the picture treated a very important topic that deserves printing though.

On freedom of speech/press
The freedom of speech/press philosophy was introduced in a time when the Christian church still put people to death for speaking out against them. One should read the original books/essays on it if one wishes to understand how it works, such as John Milten "Areopatigica", John Stuart Mill "On Liberty" and Thomas Paine "The Age of Reason".

Freedom of speech means nothing unless it protects the freedom of the person who thinks different. We have freedom of speech because some people find certain ideas offensive and wants them to be silenced. Freedom of speech is now only stopped at threats and incitement.

The primary reason to be angry when questioned is when you do not know how to make good arguments for believing what you believe. Insecurity is usually the reason someone actually takes offense for being challenged on their beliefs. Eventually ideology that have been tamed can go on to live in a free society because it's contents have been challenged, questioned, tested and thus "cleaned up" from it's most unwelcome ideas while it's best ideas was supported by good arguments.

In a liberal environment every idea needs to be challenged, but whenever you challenge a sacred idea you put your own reputation at risk, but not your life. The beauty of Freedom of Speech is that it goes both ways. It is the right to speak freely and be heard, but it's also the right to hear. For an idea to survive it needs good arguments, not pulling laws and regulations. In this environment, everytime a good idea is challenged, it grows stronger. Everytime a bad idea is challenged, it grows weaker. Thus the good idea survives and the bad ideas die out. This is the most effective and fastest way for a society to improve, and good ideas really survives. One do not need to think long for widely popular ideas in the past that is now in the scrap heap of history due to the right to speak out against them... slavery... racism... women as 2nd rate citiziens... the idea of classes... etc. etc.

When an idea that is known to be good is challenged it's revealed that some people are against it. This rise the question why?

There can only be two answers to this, the first is that the system is not working as intended and school have failed to learn this person the truth about what he speaks about. In that case we benefit from hearing what he/she have to say because we can fix whatever gave him/her such opinions. When the person is instead silenced we have denied ourself to hear what people think. Such views might burn underground for a long time and eventually end up as a bloody revolution or worse.

The second answer is that the person might in fact be on to something that we really should know, because reality might not always be what it seems. There is a reason why someone with the most outrageous opinions reach their conclusions. Crazy ideas that might put someones entire reputation at risk does not come from nowhere. They might contain a grain of truth or historical facts that we are not commonly aware of and such ideas needs to be heard. Even if the overall opinion was wrong, we still benefit from hearing the grain of truth within.

My feelings on Islam
Fundamentalism is wrong no matter religion. Fundamentalism will never earn respect in the west. However, people here are more used to Christianity in it's tamed form than it's untamed form and they are more used to Islam fundamentalism than they are to moderate Islam. This makes it easy to take side with Christianity instead of Islam even when it's wrong to do so.

Moderate Islam is currently mistrusted and feared and it's also challenged by xenophobia. Most people do not know anything about Islam except for whats going on in the middle east. They cannot distinguish different branches of Islam, many cannot even distinguish the arab people from Islam. Every time the traditions of the west is challenged by muslims (even when done by extremists within the middle east) it will put fuel to the fire and will effect the innocent that try to adapt.

There are branches within Islam in the secular west that have adapted to it's new society, paying extra attention to the "good stuff" while skipping the "bad stuff". This community have started to become more vocal in speaking out against the horrible acts done by others of their community and this is a good idea. They are working with society instead of against it. This is the way to go. I have faith that Islam when treated right, can be just as positive as some branches of christianity is today. I also believe that there will always be bad eggs in Islam just like Christianity have KKK and Westboro Bapists. Right now Islam is judged by it's bad eggs simply because people do not know about the good ones.

Assimilation is a tricky business and there are no fast track on getting respect as a newcomer. I do not believe muslims benefit from being in separate faithschools. People of the west needs more exposure to Islam and muslims needs more exposure to western traditions. Having a religious apartheid is just a way to breed segregation and intolerance and will ultimately prolong the issues rather than fixing them. The more people who can say "Hey, I know a muslim, and he/she is not that bad" the more accepted Islam will be.

Your post provoked a lot of thought JemyM. I won't comment on all of it, but your statements about free speech displayed logic and common sense. Free speech is most valuable when it defends the rights of those with contrary ideas. The freest societies are those that entertain new ideas and avoid dogma, which shows that Americas founders were on to something in promoting free speech and the separation of church and state.

As regards to assimilation, I value integration. We in the US went through a period of forced integration and affirmative action to achieve a better assimilation of the races, black and white. While the methods were sometimes crude and painful to both, I think it achieved the greater good. Racial integration is barely an issue now and though equal rights has not been fully achieved, it is far better than it was due to the efforts made to enforce integration.

I wonder how they can even look at the cartoons, Muslims that is. Isn't it a sin to even look at them? It's a clash of cultures, but somehow people will find a what of defending their viewpoint. I am right and everyone else is wrong. Arguing about this sort of thing, though of interest, is rather pointless. For I doubt either side will have the least interest in the perspective of the other, for by definition they are wrong.