Mongoose, you said it yourself, those people are arseholes. No one is talking about how you should self-censor to avoid a comment that gets taken out of context and becomes offensive. What I'm saying is that you've got to think hard when you decide to go out of your way to be offensive. People forget what the comics originally were about, assuming that they were accidental. Here's Noam Chomsky on the issue.
One of the main newspapers, Information, I think, published on 15 February a background of what had happened. They reported that the Minister of Culture in Denmark gave a speech at a conservative conference, where they quoted some abusive, vicious, racist speech attacking the Muslim minority for not being truly Danes, and not conforming to Danish culture, and virtually called for an attack on the Muslim minority, which I think is seven per cent. And a couple of days later Jyllandsposten printed the cartoons. They regarded it as a consequence; they said, yes, it was a consequence of the Minister of Culture’s decision to wage an ideological war on the Muslim minority. It was no issue of freedom of press; it was no issue of freedom of expression. This is just ordinary racism under cover of freedom of expression. And, yes, they should have the right to. The New York Times should have the right to publish anti-Semitic Nazi caricatures on the front page. That should be a legal right. Are they going to exercise their right? No. So if you do it is another reason. In fact Jyllandsposten, as you probably know, a couple of years earlier had turned down cartoons caricaturing Jesus, on the grounds that it would create a public uproar.
The decision of Charlie Hebdo to reprint the comics is more nuanced, by that time there was an issue of free speech. But lets look at the original publishing. Was it a good idea? Did it make the world a better place? Or was it a deliberate attempt to have a go at a minority living in the country it was published in? Bear in mind that the issue was largely ignored by the Muslim world outside of official protests for 3-4 months. It was only when a group of Danish Imams took a trip to the Middle East that one of them has later claimed was completely wrong. So if that trip hadn't happened, would the same people defending the decision to publish still defend it? Or would they take it for what it was, a nasty, racist, attack on immigrants.
What about Chomsky's point about anti-semetic Nazi cartoons? Cause self-censorship around the Holocaust is rife. Should we publish that sort of thing so that people stop being offended about the Holocaust all the time? Does anyone here think that publishing such cartoons couldn't end in violent protests in Israel? Especially if they were done by a Muslim country (i.e a country which is seen as disliking them already).
In the end, people like to make blanket statements like "Self-censorship is bad". Like that draws a line in the sand and they'll never do it again. It's nonsense, we do it all the time. How do I know? Well, we don't all live alone with no friends. Humans self-censor all the ****ing time. It's an attribute of our tribal origins that make us think "Better not say that in this room cause I might offend people I know" but fail to care about anyone outside our
monkeysphere. If you wouldn't walk up to a devout Muslim friend of yours and draw Muhammed in front of him even though you knew would upset him then don't kid yourself about this being about freedom of expression. It's not. It's about the layers between you and random Muslims on the net giving you the freedom to be an arsehole of the sort you wouldn't be in person.
And if you would do that....well congratulations on being an arsehole I guess. At least I can respect your convictions. Doesn't make you someone I'd want to be friends with though, I've seen how you treat your friends.
