[Grizzly]

http://www.necn.com/Boston/World/Demonstrators-in-Afghanistan-burn-Danish-and-Dutch-flags/1204463851.html

Alright, there were also danish flags set ablaze, but I am focusing on the dutch flags for now, as you all very well know my nationality.

As for the movie. The movie critisicing the Quran is made by a dutch politician wich somehow managed to get 9 seats in our parliament, called Geert Wilders (Doesn't he look like someone familiar?) , and is one of the main reasons I plan on emigrating.  There is much upheavel about the movie. Many politicians say it should never be broadcasted, and possibly be banned (And that doesn't happen often, the only political works I can recall that have been banned were made by Hitler), fearing that the movie will lead to the degrading of relationships with many countries (and possibly terrorist-attacks, there is actually a real threat now, and not just  a way to get re-elected). Already, many countries have protested agains the Netherlands. Geert Wilders said that although the Parliament may fear the Islam and surrender to them, he never will.

The link is not very descriptive compared to what I heard on the radio:

1. The dutch flag was painted Red-White-Purple.
2. Many of the protestors, according to one of the teachers there, had never seen the danish images. None of them has seen the dutch movie (or how most of the goverment thinks about it). Neither has anyone in the Netherlands, as it has not been broadcasted yet. But then again, Geert Wilders has never seen a Muslim.

...

Oh well, feel free to discuss, and please dig up some more news links.

[Shade]

Like it matters. If some people in a far away country want to waste their time burning poorly made replications of a foreign flag over something they've never seen but only been told about by some unreliable pseudo-politician/religious guy, then by all means, let them waste their time.

I stand by my position from last year that this kind of stuff really has nothing to do with the western world, but is merely local politics. The instigators want to improve their status in the eyes of all the other hardliners in the area, and so the grasp at every opportunity to make a fuss.

Oh, and if they decide to start with boycotts and all that (which will end soon enough if they do start - as they hurt themselves more than the people they're boycotting), just start exporting flags

That said, if this guys only intention with that film is to piss people off, and it distorts facts in order to do so, then he's a bloody idiot regardless of the fact that he has a right to make the film. It's one thing if you mean to inform, another entirely if you mean to inflame.

[achtung]

They've been burning U.S. flags for decades.

All I can really say is, cry moar, in the least offensive way possible of course.

[Mefustae]

The movie sounds like a run of the mill cry for attention by a windbag politician who has discovered the secret of free publicity: controversy. Anyway, the bloke looks kind of like Louie Anderson, if that's what you were getting at.

Who cares about a flag, anyway? Free speech ftw.

[captain-custard]

i think that burning the dutch flag for the people of the netherlands would cause worry... it being one of the most socialy progressiv and tolerant of EU nations,

Geert Wilders is unfortunately not alone in europe with the increase of far right politicians through out europe , but european politics have a habit of doing this, a cycle of left and social thinking slowly creaping towards the centre and in one step jumping to centre right with extremest policies...........

lets just hope that this does not go down the franco, musulini , hitler route.......

[Shade]

I don't think you have to worry about that last part. There are minorities who advocate that kind of policies in pretty much every european country yes, but they are just barely tolerated out of respect for the freedoms of speech, opinion and thought and not really liked at all by anyone but themselves.

Hell, we have an official Nazi party here - They do this event every year where they dress up in their white shirts  and swastika armbands and march around some random neighbourhood shouting slogans, after which one of them inevitably managed to get himself into trouble with the police who are there to protect them and it all degenerates into a game of "Bash the Nazi".

The one they did last year was an especially good one, as the guy who ended up tangling with the police was the leader of the bunch, a 300-pound mountain of blubber and bad manners whom I suspect Hitler would have personally driven to the nearest concentration camp had they ever met. So anyway, he decides he wants to attack some bystander that had shouted something at him, the police of course prevent him from doing that, and then what? He hits a policeman. So down he went, all 300 pound of fat hitting the ground hard, with two rather large policemen on top of him. I must admit laughed when I saw that on TV

I'll tolerate their existence, but have no sympathy for them and there are few things I like more than seeing a Nazi take a fall.

[Grizzly]

i think that burning the dutch flag for the people of the netherlands would cause worry... it being one of the most socialy progressiv and tolerant of EU nations,

And one of the countries that Amnesty is worried about because the human rights are not respected here (The Netherlands really takes care of the refugees and immigrants...)\\

That said, if this guys only intention with that film is to piss people off, and it distorts facts in order to do so, then he's a bloody idiot regardless of the fact that he has a right to make the film. It's one thing if you mean to inform, another entirely if you mean to inflame.

it is his intention. You are now a "bloody left-sided naïve fool" in his eyes  ...

[Kosh]

Can we hurry up and nuke them already? They're getting really annoying........

[Grizzly]

Can we hurry up and nuke them already? They're getting really annoying........

Not really. "They" are just one one small portion of the population of Afghanistan that likes screaming and stating random offensive things without checking the facts. Who also does that? Jack Thompson, but he is not really an issue in this discussion, and the guy who made the movie they are protesting against, Geert Wilders. Nuke him, his kind of people are the source of problems.

[NGTM-1R]

Well, really, he's in the same category as the right-wingers off protesting him, so it's all very amusing if you think about it.

[Rictor]

Oh, something's offended Muslims* again, has it? Well better call the wahmbulance, quickly! This is bull**** and they know it. No one has a right not to be offended, particularly when they whine at every opportunity. And in return, they're welcome to say absolutely about Jesus. Yahweh, Odin or any other diety, with my full consent.

*or at least a vocal minority. Not all of them.

[karajorma]

Well, really, he's in the same category as the right-wingers off protesting him, so it's all very amusing if you think about it.

Yep. One idiotic Dutchman says something stupid about all Muslims so a bunch of Muslims say something stupid about all Dutch people. We should just stick them in a game show where they can fight to death about it.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Well, really, he's in the same category as the right-wingers off protesting him, so it's all very amusing if you think about it.

Yep. One idiotic Dutchman says something stupid about all Muslims so a bunch of Muslims say something stupid about all Dutch people. We should just stick them in a game show where they can fight to death about it.

sorry, Iraq has been taken already.


anyway, whining muslims... what else is new.

[colecampbell666]

Who also does that? Jack Thompson

And that's why we nuke the US.

[Flipside]

It's kind of an amusing Dichotomy though, I'm as sick and tired as the next guy with a certain bunch of Muslims leaping up and down yelling about something they have little or no knowledge of, not so much because of what they think, but because in many cases they aren't 'thinking' at all, they are doing it on the religious equivalent of the 'man in the pub' syndrome. Who needs the Internet when you have religious leaders that tell you what to be offended at, and who to demand be killed. We should be grateful, without a pretty large body of religious 'figureheads' we might do such terrible things as accept homosexuality as part of society (albeit an amazingly small part for the attention it gets), we might have ended up content to let people make up their own minds on abortion, heck we might even have let all those witches get away with it in the 16th Century.

God Bless religious fanatics, without them, we would passively go through life letting other people go through theirs, let us be grateful that they are there to point fingers and tell us what to think.....

[Rictor]

The trouble is that Western newspapers/media don't have the cojones to start fully exercising their right of free speech, just out of principle. At which point all the regular suspects would demand that offending people be either censured or killed, further cementing their reputation as loonies who's proclamations should be simply ignored.

But unlike many others, I think they should be completely free to pull this kind of **** in their own countries. If Saudi Arabia or Pakistan wants to outlaw a cartoon, it's their call. Just don't demand that your influence extend to other people's backyards.

[Fearless Leader]

-Joshua-, those f***s have been burning our flags (Im for the US) for a long time, all I can say is wait for them to do something more, then take over their country and s*** on them.

[NGTM-1R]

The trouble is that Western newspapers/media don't have the cojones to start fully exercising their right of free speech, just out of principle.

On this, I can agree.

[Ford Prefect]

-Joshua-, those f***s have been burning our flags (Im for the US) for a long time, all I can say is wait for them to do something more, then take over their country and s*** on them.

That plan sounds way too complicated. I don't get it.

[Flipside]

Thing is, you can't stop people screaming that they want you to die by killing them. Well, actually, Yes, you can, but at the end of the day you may well end up doing the same thing they are. Look at the 'Nuke 'em' comments on here, yes, I know they are in jest and no-one is seriously suggesting we Nuke the Middle East, or at least, I hope not, but they hear what the west has 'done' and start screaming 'Burn them! Kill Them!'. Upon hearing this, the West is so annoyed by these comments that they start screaming 'Judgemental Bastards! Wanting us dead? Burn them! Kill Them!'....