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Happy Birthday to me..
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| Shakka |
I'm an old drunken sot. :clown:
But at least I've already filed my taxes.
Yoepus requested these be posted:
| quote: | Combustible Cartoons
By IRSHAD MANJI
February 4, 2006; Page A8
At Davos last week, I observed something revealing. In a session about the U.S. religious right, a cartoonist satirized one of America's most influential evangelical ministers, Pat Robertson. In the audience, chuckling with the rest of us, was a prominent British Muslim. But his smile disappeared the moment we were shown a cartoon that made fun of Muslim clerics.
A fierce fight is erupting between the European Union and the Muslim world over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. Months ago, the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published cartoons that showed Islam's messenger wearing a turban-turned-time-bomb. Although the paper has apologized, the controversy has metastasized: A Norwegian magazine and French paper recently reprinted the drawings, as have other publications and broadcasters to cover this story; the editor of the French paper was subsequently fired.
Bomb threats have hit the Danish newspaper's offices. Saudi Arabia and Libya have recalled their ambassadors from Copenhagen. Boycotts of Danish products are sweeping across the Arab world, and Muslims are pouring into the streets to burn Scandinavian flags. On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians shouted "Death to Denmark!" The Danish government has evacuated its citizens from the Gaza Strip.
Arab elites love such controversies, for they provide convenient opportunities to channel anger away from local injustices. No wonder President Lahoud of Lebanon insisted that his country "cannot accept any insult to any religion." That is rich. Since the late '70s, the Lebanese government has licensed al-Manar TV, among the most viciously anti-Semitic broadcasters on earth. Similarly, the justice minister of the United Arab Emirates has said that the Danish cartoons represent "cultural terrorism, not freedom of expression." This from a country that promotes its capital as the "Las Vegas of the Gulf," yet blocks my Web site -- Muslim-refusenik.com -- for being "inconsistent with the moral values" of the UAE. Presumably, my site should be an online casino.
Muslims have little integrity demanding respect for our faith if we do not show it for others. When have we demonstrated against Saudi Arabia's policy to prevent Christians and Jews from stepping on the soil of Mecca? They may come for business trips, but nothing more. As long as Rome welcomes non-Christians and Jerusalem embraces non-Jews, we Muslims have more to protest than cartoons.
None of this is to dismiss the need to take my religion seriously. Hell, Muslims even take seriously the need to be serious: Islam has a teaching against "excessive laughter." I am not joking. But does this mean that we should cry "blasphemy" over less-than-flattering depictions of the prophet Muhammad? God no. For one thing, the Quran itself points out that there will always be nonbelievers, and that it's for Allah, not Muslims, to deal with them. More than that, the Quran says there is "no compulsion in religion." Which suggests that nobody should be compelled to treat Islamic tenets as sacred.
Fine, many Muslims will retort, but we are talking about the prophet Muhammad -- Allah's final and therefore perfect messenger. However, Islamic tradition holds that the prophet was a human being who made mistakes. It is precisely because he was not perfect that we know about the "Satanic Verses," a collection of passages that the prophet reportedly included in the Quran. Only later did he realize that those verses glorified heathen idols rather than God. According to Islamic legend, he retracted the idolatrous passages, blaming them on a trick played by Satan.
When Muslims put the prophet on a pedestal, we are engaging in idolatry of our own. The point of monotheism is to worship one God, not one of God's emissaries. Which is why humility requires people of faith to mock themselves -- and each other -- every once in a while.
Here is my attempt: A rabbi, a priest and a mullah meet at a conference about religion, and afterwards are sitting around discussing their different faiths. The conversation turns to the topic of taboos. The priest says to the rabbi and the mullah, "You guys can't tell me that you've never eaten pork." "Never!" intones the rabbi. "Absolutely not!" insists the mullah. But the priest is skeptical. "Come on, not even once? Maybe in a fit of rebellion when you were younger?" "Okay," confesses the rabbi. "When I was young, I once nibbled on bacon." "I admit it," the mullah laughs (not excessively). "In a fit of youthful arrogance, I sampled a pork chop."
The conversation turns to the priest's religious observances. "You can't tell me you've never had sex," says the mullah. The priest protests: "Of course not! I took a vow of chastity." The mullah and the rabbi roll their eyes. "Maybe after a few drinks?" the rabbi teases. The mullah wonders: "Perhaps, in a moment of temptation, your faith waned?" "Okay," the priest confesses. "Once, when I was drunk in seminary school, I had sexual relations with a woman."
"Beats pork, huh?" say the rabbi and the mullah.
Clearly, I am as impure a feminist as I am a Muslim. The difference is, offended feminists will not threaten to kill me. The same cannot be said for many of my fellow Muslims. What part of "no compulsion" don't they understand? |
Source
| quote: | Europe's New Dissidents
By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL
February 4, 2006; Page A8
BRUSSELS -- Four months ago, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper published 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. At first, the cartoons elicited little interest.
But in December Danish Muslims circulated them in the Islamic world. They added two particularly inflammatory drawings that had never been published by the paper -- one involved a pig's nose and the other an indecent act with a dog. Street protests erupted from Lahore to Gaza. Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait withdrew their ambassadors from Copenhagen, calling for an apology and punishment of the editors. Danish products are being boycotted in the Middle East, where state-controlled media speak darkly of a conspiracy against Islam. Palestinian terrorists have declared Danes and other Europeans as legitimate targets. Journalists at Jyllands-Posten have received death threats. Danish flags, whose design is based on a Christian cross, are being burned. So much for religious respect.
For four months, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jyllands-Posten staunchly refused to apologize. But this week, with little support from the rest of Europe against this orchestrated assault on Denmark's press freedom, the paper caved in, much to the government's relief.
Were the cartoons disrespectful? Certainly. In Islam the drawing of any image of Muhammad is forbidden and so religious Muslims might feel offended. As might millions of Christians when Jesus is depicted as gay or defiled in a thousand other ways every day. But that's what letters to the editor are for.
Moreover, the cartoons didn't mock Islam as such but its abuse by militant Muslims. One cartoon showed Muhammad with a turban in the form of a bomb. The issue, though, is much larger than the question of how to balance press freedom with religious sensibilities; it goes to the heart of the conflict with radical Islam. The Islamists demand no less than absolute supremacy for their religion -- and not only in the Muslim world but wherever Muslims may happen to reside. That's why they see no hypocrisy in their demand for "respect" for Islam while the simple display of a cross or a Star of David in Saudi Arabia is illegal. Infidels simply don't have the same rights.
The murder in 2004 of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fundamentalist in Amsterdam demonstrated the kind of risks critics of Islam are exposed to these days -- even in Europe. Fundamentalists can find good cover -- and followers -- among the millions of Muslim immigrants on the Continent. Jyllands-Posten decided to publish the cartoons after complaints from an author that he could not find an illustrator who dared to draw images of Muhammad for his book. It was this atmosphere of fear and intimidation that the newspaper wanted to highlight. The Muslim reaction to these pictures only confirmed how relevant the topic is.
Using their combined economic muscle, death threats and street protests, a combination of state and nonstate actors are slowly exporting to Europe the Middle East's repressive system. What Jyllands-Posten's editors are enduring is not unlike what dissidents under communism had to go through. The Islamists can't send the journalists to a gulag but they can silence them by threatening to kill them. Bomb threats twice forced the journalists to flee their offices this week.
Reminiscent of Stalinist show trials, the paper was in the end forced to show public remorse. The cartoons "were not in variance with Danish law but have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize," the paper said Monday. "I would have never chosen to depict religious symbols in this way," the previously defiant Mr. Rasmussen added. But just like the original show trials, the "admission of guilt" won't cut the Danes much slack. Muslim organizations in Denmark rejected it as not "sincere" and the death threats, protests and boycotts continue.
Just as was the case with communism, Islamic totalitarian impulses find their apologists in the West. Last Monday in Qatar, former President Bill Clinton decried the "totally outrageous cartoons against Islam." EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said the journalists "have to understand the offense caused by cartoons of this nature."
The support shown in the past few days by newspapers around Europe reprinting the cartoons is very welcome. But the vast majority of Europe's media didn't join the battle. And so in the end, it was too little, too late, coming just after the Danes were forced to "confess."
"Those who have won are dictatorships in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, where they cut criminals' hands and give women no rights," Jyllands-Posten's editor in chief, Carsten Juste, told the AP.
But what really sealed the Danes' fate -- and possibly Europe's -- was the lack of solidarity from other governments. The European Union likes to call "emergency meetings" for the most trivial topics, from farm subsidies to VAT rates. But when one of their smallest members came under attack for nothing else than being a European country, for defending the values and norms the EU is based on, there was nothing but silence from Europe's capitals. That silence has been heard and understood in the Muslim world.
Write to Daniel Schwammenthal at [email protected] |
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| Renegade |
Wow, this might just be the most political birthday thread ever.
Have a good one man. :) |
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| Fir3start3r |
Happy Bday eh!
From us quirky Canucks... :tongue2 |
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| occrider |
| Happy birthday shakka! :) ... again :conf: |
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| shaolin_Z |
| Happy Birthday man :). |
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| Lepanto |
| Happy birthday! Chug chug chug chug. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Ya, happy birthday! Hope you won't remember a single thing! :) |
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| trancaholic |
| Happy Birthday Shakka. What's that - 29? |
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| Genesis Evolved |
| Happy Birthday :toocool: |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
Happy Birthday Shakka. What's that - 29? |
Unfortunately! The clock is officially ticking. On the flipside, it was one hell of a Superbowl party. Terrible officiating, however.
Thanks all. I'm officially taking the day off! |
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| Yoepus |
Happy Birthday Shakka... how would I get my WSJ articles posted here without you?!:p
Chug Chug Chug!:thepirate |
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