[Flipside]

I think the question of compatibility is a question of what input you use, as it were. I think most societies (except possibly North Korea, which has been allowed by circumstances to become something of a mutant state - and no, I don't mean Genosha ) can be compatible on a certain level, that's why humanity invented Diplomacy, it's not simply a question of 'Political Correctness', it's of finding a manner in which societies can interact despite the differences between them.

Maybe, with more familiarity, this sort of thing will just end up getting shrugged off, but there's a difference between a friend jibing you and a rival insulting you, even if that difference is nothing more than your own perspective.

[MP-Ryan]

Would I personally republish it? Probably not, because I don't tend to publish extremely offensive material as a rule (one of the reasons I haven't posted a number of the Hebdo cartoons directly). 

And this is the exact same point I have been making for four pages now with everyone else saying that they should do it and encourage other people to do the same or worse.

There is a difference between saying individuals should do it and saying media should.  If people in this thread (and I didn't read pages 1-5 that closely) are saying individuals have that obligation, I respectfully disagree.  If they are saying media should then I wholeheartedly agree.  The cartoons are inherently newsworthy, they are integral to understanding the gravity of the story, and people died as a result of their publication. The media frankly has an obligation to reproduce them in the context of their reporting, and any media organization that doesn't (but turns around and publishes other Hebdo cartoons, like the ones insulting politicians or Christians, as our idiotic CBC did) deserves to be scorned for it.  If you are a serious enough news organization to report on the cartoons, you should be a serious enough news organization to show them and not force your readers to Google the damned things.

Does that make the kid right to throw a punch?  Of course not.  But how can we consider this a positive thing when we're the ones escalating it still further?

If the best way to respond to terrorism is to not let it affect you, we failed really ****ing hard if that's our next step.

Under no circumstances should an offensive cartoon be considered an escalation of anything but a war of words.  This is my problem with the whole line of "well, they're offensive and republishing them doesn't help anything."  Actually, it does.  It says "Look, assholes might murder people over these cartoons but we're going to publish them again anyway until other assholes get the damn point that it's just words and images."  It says "We will not cave on ideas just because you threaten to kill people over them."  It shows the world that the right of free expression, even when exerted by offensive ideas, will always be defended because it is a just right that deserves unconditional protection.

All expression has value in the sense that it IS expressed.  If we decline to express ourselves because someone is going to murder us for it, that's worse than self-censorship - that's tyranny.  As I said before, ALL fundamental liberties are based on the presumption of freedom of speech.  Nobody has a right not to be offended.  We all have a very important right - if one that should be infrequently used - to cause offense with words, drawings, and beliefs however and wherever we damn well please.  How that looks in practice may not be pretty, but it's important.  Many people don't have that right - where it does exist, it needs to be defended and promoted vigorously.

I am also really getting annoyed - not specifically at anyone here, but generally in the greater Internet discussion - at the people insisting 1.6 billion Muslims are going to be oppressed and inflamed by ****ing drawings. No.  Stop infantilizing these people.  For Pete's sake, the bloody leader of Hezbollah came out and denounced the people committing these acts and said they place far more shame on Islam than the cartoons ever have.

[Flipside]

It's interesting to hear the word 'infantilizing' being used in a conversation about rude drawings of the central figure of a religion, particularly in that specific context...

So, what you are saying is that the only influence these drawings have is to make people already angry enough to kill even angrier, and has no impact on the sort of people you'd want to talk to anyway?

So.... why are they being created?

Edit : Because if it is, in some way, to turn the former into the latter, I don't think it will work.

[Nemesis6]

So.... why are they being created?

Well, because religions are like the bread and butter of satirists.

[Flipside]

Yup, and if those pictures had appeared in isolation and Muslim groups had got all offended about it, I would, like everyone else, have told them to shut up and put up.

The problem is, it's become a 'thing', this whole Draw Mohammed day, actually trying to make a tradition of it. What's it for?

[Bobboau]

you know what our response to that question is.

[Flipside]

No, I genuinely don't, because if it's an expression of Freedom of Speech, then that still doesn't explain why the Muslim culture was singled out. If it is a fight against Terrorism then it is aiming squarely at its own foot because the only people it affects are those who are just looking for an excuse to take offense in the first place, we are merely supplying it, and by trying to make it a tradition, it just makes it look like policy instead of a spontaneous symbol of unity.

I really don't know what purpose it is trying to serve.

[Scotty]

Under no circumstances should an offensive cartoon be considered an escalation of anything but a war of words.  This is my problem with the whole line of "well, they're offensive and republishing them doesn't help anything."  Actually, it does.  It says "Look, assholes might murder people over these cartoons but we're going to publish them again anyway until other assholes get the damn point that it's just words and images."  It says "We will not cave on ideas just because you threaten to kill people over them."  It shows the world that the right of free expression, even when exerted by offensive ideas, will always be defended because it is a just right that deserves unconditional protection.

I get what you're saying.  I really do, and for what it's worth my ire was directed specifically at the concept of deliberately making more of these images for the singular purpose of pissing people off.  That's the part I don't like.  At that point it's not a demonstration of free speech, it's an organized and deliberate attempt to hurt an entire culture and religion for daring to have a belief.  It no longer targets the people who threaten to kill over it, it targets everyone.

Would you be upset at an organized effort by thousands or millions of people all around the world to post explicit sexual content all around the parts of the internet that your kids visit, because you don't think young kids should be exposed to porn?  I would.  What makes this any different?  That doesn't mean that porn is bad and should be banned anymore than it means that everyone who hates porn should be forced to watch it until they get over their weird inhibitions.  But there is a point at which the target audience becomes a target as opposed to an audience. 

Hundreds of millions of Muslims don't kill people over cartoons of Muhammed.  And yet, Draw Muhammed Day is an organized effort specifically to anger and punish this group of people for something they didn't even do.  This is flooding your kids' facebook (for example) with porn because some TV executive took away Skinemax.  It's a disproportionate response of scale, targeting hundreds of millions of innocent people because a vocal, violent couple of million (at best) did something objectionable.

[Flipside]

The ironic part is, the concept of 'Draw Muhammed Day' isn't a bad one, if you picked a different target each year, so one year it's Kim-Jong-Il, the next it's Vladimir Putin or Obama, the next one it's Jesus etc, if it worked that way, I think it would be an excellent vehicle for Freedom of Speech, where it's inclusive of all forms of speech, not just its current scope.

[MP-Ryan]

Would someone kindly explain to me why suddenly we're talking about Draw Mohammed Day, when we were talking about a satirical publication which publishes crass satirical cartoons of all manner of things, among them things that offend Muslim sensibilities?  Are we talking at cross purposes?  Because generally I think something like "Draw Mohammed Day" is punching down and deserving of scorn - a social consequence of speech.  This Charlie Hebdo matter is another issue entirely.

Something that I think is important about the publication and re-publication of Charlie Hebdo cartoons: the paper never did only satire about Muslims, it never just singled out Muslims, and the cartoons being repeated are not just about Muslims, yet some people are getting hung up on specifically the satirical Islamic cartoons as being offensive.  That speaks volumes about commitment to free speech.  I argued with one writer on Twitter today who argued against publishing the cartoons because it was a powerful group (I guess all cartoonists are white, male, and middle-upper class in some people's minds; nevermind the brilliant satire coming out of several Arab countries, some of it by women no less) picking on a less powerful group.  I didn't know the right to free speech was modified by one's level of "privilege," but the whole concept of theoretical "privilege" espoused by some feminists is something I regularly get annoyed about anyway.  I digress.

It is important that this material - both the satire not concerning Muslims, and the satire concerning Muslims - be republished to reinforce the principle that free speech not be cowed by violence from extremist groups.  This has nothing to do with being offensive to Muslims specifically, and it has nothing to do with relative levels of "privilege" if you subscribe to that particular theoretical bent - this is to tell EVERYONE that ideas will not be quenched and restricted because someone chooses to resort to extreme violence in light of some of them.

TL;DR

I am arguing that free speech means publication without regard for the reaction (or potential offense) of the audience, and also regardless of the merits of the idea being published.

Some of you appear to be arguing we should take other people's feelings and the general utility of the idea into account.  That isn't free speech.  I agree that it's a nice sentiment, but that's it - it is neither a requirement nor an expectation, nor should it be.  Anything is offensive to someone.

[Bobboau]

I really don't know what purpose it is trying to serve.

really? you haven't asked this question and had it answered 50,000 time in this thread already? ok, fine I'll say it again, it is a defense of freedom of speech. it's as much about sending the message to islamist who use terror to silence people they don't like that that doesn't work as it is about sending a message to people in our own communities that  censorship and self censorship is unacceptable.

you want to know the history of it? it came about 'spontaneously' as a result of comedy central's self censorship of a south park episode, which was (both the episode's plot and the censoring) a result of the Danish Muhammad cartoons riots and the murder of Theo van Gogh.

why the Muslim culture was singled out.

they singled them selves out.

[Flipside]

@MP-Ryan

The conversation has been orbiting around the 'Draw Muhammed' thing for the last 5 pages.

I think pretty much everyone has made clear both their revulsion at the attacks and their belief that the paper had every right to publish those pictures without fear of repercussion, that's more or less a given and it's something I've made clear on several occasions.

The discussion has been about the response to those attacks, not so much about whether the paper should have the right to publish those cartoons, but about the impact of them.

@Bobboau

'they singled themselves out'

...

[Bobboau]

...

[Scotty]

Apologies; I got my wires crossed from earlier in the thread when it was being discussed, and the current line of discussion strongly reminded me of it.  Even if it doesn't apply in particular to what you're saying (which I happen to mostly agree with), I think it's important to remember that regardless of whether there is a point at which someone can't do or say something there is a very real point at which someone should be strongly discouraged from doing or saying something.

No, apparently it was Bobboau I was talking to, my mistake. 

The idea that self-censorship is unacceptable makes me wonder how you go through the day, Bob.

[Bobboau]

with a reputation for often saying wacky, off the wall, and controversial things.

[Flipside]

Well, at least we've established that it is apparently for their own good and they bought it on themselves...

Sounds like something a Victorian General would say about depopulating an island, but there you go...

[Bobboau]

for their own good

and I said that?

[karajorma]

There is a difference between saying individuals should do it and saying media should.  If people in this thread (and I didn't read pages 1-5 that closely) are saying individuals have that obligation, I respectfully disagree.

I got into this discussion because of Draw Muhammed Day and calls for everyone to draw Muhammed in protest. I've pointed out several times that to do so would be to open a torrent of trolling and stupidity from the darker corners of the internet and let it lose on the world while simultaneously saying "We're doing this because of what happened". We would basically allow ourselves to be represented not by satirists like Charlie Hedbo but by 4chan and racist groups. Because it is those cartoons that would be the ones that the Muslim world passed around. It would be those ones that got recirculated under the message "This is what the West thinks of Islam"

I've said before that's why I feel that Draw Muhammed Day is a bad idea and that we should "Leave comedy to the comedians" rather than trying to get everyone to make a statement and confusing the issue.

I am also really getting annoyed - not specifically at anyone here, but generally in the greater Internet discussion - at the people insisting 1.6 billion Muslims are going to be oppressed and inflamed by ****ing drawings. No.  Stop infantilizing these people.  For Pete's sake, the bloody leader of Hezbollah came out and denounced the people committing these acts and said they place far more shame on Islam than the cartoons ever have.

The problem is that the people who try to make out that this is about cartoons are also infantilising the same damn people. Cause it isn't about Muslims seeing some cartoons and going all "HULK SMASH" over it. When the original (nasty, bigoted) cartoons appeared in Jyllands-Posten what was the response of the Muslim world? Exactly the same as when this cartoon was published in Norway. The leaders of several Muslim countries made diplomatic protests. So why the difference in outcomes? Is cause Muslims are inherently violent man-children? Bollocks.

The reasons are many-fold but some of the main reasons are

1) The President of Denmark hid behind Free Speech and refused to personally denounce the cartoon. In this sort of diplomatic row, having the leader of the country denounce the insulting material is usually enough to separate "This particular newspaper is written by bigoted arseholes who hate you" and "This country's leaders are bigoted arseholes who hate you"

2) More importantly, a group of radical Danish clerics toured the Middle East with a 100 page document on "Western views of Islam" which contained the cartoons but which also contained material far worse (A cartoon of Muhammed as a pedophile, a Muslim apparently having sex with a dog while praying and picture of a man in a pig mask which was claimed to be the real representation of Muhammed but which was actually some random guy from a French pig-squealing contest). The clerics also allowed the impression that Jyllands-Posten was run by the Danish government to propagate (or that it was owned by the President of Denmark). The dossier the clerics handed out also claimed that Islam was not a recognised religion in Denmark and made out that Muslims in Denmark were mistreated.

One of those clerics has since stated that he should not have done it as it caused so much violence and that the cartoons themselves are ok.

Now I'm pretty certain that if some radical rabbi went to Israel with the picture I linked to above, added some pictures from other sources making fun of the Holocaust and made out that Norway's government supported it, some violent **** would go down at the Norwegian embassy.

When Charlie Hebdo reprinted those pictures they did so against that background. When they later printed an issue with Muhammed as the editor, they reminded people that they agreed with pig-faced Muhammed. Don't kid yourself into believing this is just about some cartoons of Muhammed. To do so is to be just as disrespectful to Muslims as you claim other people on the internet are being.

EDIT : Clerics not imams.

[Flipside]

@Bobboau

You didn't specifically say those words, but then, I didn't say you did, but certainly the general consensus seems to be that it is intended to achieve something in the Middle East, if they didn't think anyone who would be insulted would be looking at them, then no-one would be drawing the pictures.

[Bobboau]

I think you kinda implied I did.