Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not... [4x]

[nettime's infatigable cartoonists <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Table of Contents:

	From: miguel leal <ml@virose.pt>
		Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...
	From: "Bodo" <bodo@niatu.net>
		Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...
	From: "Jody Berland" <jody.berland@sympatico.ca>
		Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...
	From: minx@bway.net
		Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...


From: miguel leal <ml@virose.pt>
Subject: Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 13:25:08 +0000
To: nettime <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>



On Feb 16, 2006, at 6:01 PM, Jody Berland wrote:

>  For instance,  it wasn't just the fact that the cartoon "mocked"
> the religion that was the problem; it was that it violated a sacred
> prohibition on showing the face of Mohammed.  It was thus a direct 
> assaults
> on the freedom to practice that religion.  It is too simple just to 
> say they
> can't stand being mocked in cartoons.  It is too simple to say it is 
> all
> about freedom.

You are right. It's not about freedom of speech, its about stupidity. 
In 10 years or so we will be laughing on all this. If we are to respect 
all taboos it would be impossible to exist outside a cave. There are so 
many interdictions in so many different cultures... Are you prepared to 
refuse all that allow, only to say it shortly, this simple discussion?

best

ml



From: "Bodo" <bodo@niatu.net>
To: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Subject: publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not "freedom of thepress"
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:58:51 +0100


see this text in context:
http://www.niatu.net/transfictiontrek/tom/tom02_06_en.html

Trekkie of the Month February 2006: Al-Shihan, Frankfurter Rundschau et
al.

Surak Price for Logical Conflict Management

"There are conflicts, in which you can do many mistakes and hardly any
right. The controversy about the cartoons of Mohammed is one of them."
With these words, which could also derive from Benjamin Sisko, Stephan
Hebel, editor of the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, opens his comment
on the decision not to reprint the cartoons of the Danish colleagues of
Jyllands-Posten.=20


Apart from the Frankfurter Rundschau, other European newspapers, among them Le
Figaro from France or Politiken from Denmark realized the freedom of the press
within their responsibility for an intercultural Europe and international
dialogue. Jihad Momani, chief-editor of the Jordanian weekly Al-Shihan, pursued
this intention under reverse indication. He published three of the cartoons to
explain his readers the subject of the conflict. Meanwhile Mamoni was sacked
because of this decision and arrested for violations of Jordan's press law, which
forbids insults against religion. Asked for an answer to all this, Momani points
out in an interview:

"We have to talk to each other face to face and resolve our problems frankly. What
we are seeing here is a conflict between civilizations, West and East. We must put
an end to this struggle because it simply isn't good for our future. We have to
rebuild these relations and to do something positive to stop what is going on. And
we have to start at home."

This unexpressed alliance of the sober-minded may throw some illuminating light on
the cartoon controversy. What we are seeing here is not so much the often
confirmed contrast of sacred freedom of press to the interdiction in Islam to
produce an image of the prophet Mohammed in a "clash of civilizations", but
right-wing-conservatives and Islamist demagogues, whose enmity is connected by a
strong interest in cultural separatism. Against the background of the long and
mutual evolutionary history of the two monotheistic religions of Islam and
Christianity - alongside Juadism, as the oldest family member - this seems
especially absurd or rather it is cast into the right light.

Particularly because of these similarities, the cartoon controversy reminds of the
conflicts on Vulcan in the decade before the establishment of the United
Federation of the Planets. The Syrrannites form only one of the groups questioning
the orthodox interpretation of Surak's peace philosophy, the founder of Vulcan
civilization, by the governing High Command. The struggles are dominated by
bombings and political intrigues, governmental prosecution of dissenters and the
stigmatization of heretics. The social inability for balancing cooperation
articulates itself on the planet Vulcan in the decade of the 2150 years as well as
an ideological conflict, as a question of "right faith".

Societies, which are open in relation to different ways of thinking and different
ways of life, cannot be established on pure faith and stiff principles. For a
successful venture of a world society established on difference and
reconciliation, beliefs and principles must be put in relation to current
conflicts consistently. Exactly here they must prove whether they still meet the
needs of the members of such an open society, or if they require adjustments.

Both the European editorial departments, who consciously decided against a
reproduction, and the editorial department of Al-Shihan with their decision to
document the cartoons for the purpose of the explanation of the conflict acted in
this sense. Therefore we award them the Surak price for logical conflict
management. (February 14, 2006, w. & b.).

Incomplete list of Arab and European newspapers that regarded liberty of press in
responsibility to liability under their respective regional context:

Aftonbladet (Sweden)
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)
Ekstra Bladet (Denmark)
Le Figaro (France)
Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany)
Politiken (Denmark)
Al-Shihan (Jordan)
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)
Sydsvenskan (Sweden)

Please feel free to forward further newspaper names (including
document)!

Context: Cartoons of Prophet Mohammed

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the military invasions in Afghanistan and
Iraq, the recent aggravation of the conflict in the Middle East after the
landslide victory of Hamas and the conflict about Iran's nuclear ambitions, the
Mohammed cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten gave reason to
escalate intercultural tensions between and inside the civil societies of Europe
and the Muslim world.

The cartoons ignored the interdiction in Islam to produce an image of the prophet
Mohammed and equated the key message of Islam with terrorism. Against the
background of the racist sentiments on immigrants in Denmark, the representatives
of the Danish Muslim community did not have interest in escalation. Only four
months after the first publication in September 2005, Islamist groups used what
Jyllands-Posten had presented them on a plate, to arrange a diplomatic crisis
between the Muslim East and Europe. Conservative newspapers like Die Welt and
France Soir responded with the reproduction of these cartoons. They reasoned that
it was necessary to defend the highly regarded "freedom of press" and expressed
their solidarity with the Danish colleagues. Behind the high values claimed by
conservative Europeans and Islamist Muslims, they - very often - conceal
explicitly domestic interests:

Right-wing Jyllands-Posten is eager to enforce racism against the - mostly Muslim
- immigrants in Denmark. Hamas interests in Palestine territories are about
radical-sounding affirmations of its supporters after a confusing victory at the
Palestine elections. Ahmadinedschads regime in Iran does not only want to distract
from its sociopolitical pledges during the election campaign, which it failed to
put into existence. Hisbollah fights against its own inability to transform itself
into a civil political party after withdrawal of the Syrian troops from Lebanon
etc.

In February 2006, Western right-wing populism and Islamist fundamentalism are as
close to their common ambition to generate a "Clash of Civilizations" as never
before: Even Daniel Cohn-Bendit, representative of the Green party in the European
parliament and well known advocate of a multicultural society, recently affirmed
the racist formula during a panel concerning the riots in the Muslim world.


----------------------------

From: "Jody Berland" <jody.berland@sympatico.ca>
To: "miguel leal" <ml@virose.pt>, "nettime" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not...
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 12:39:51 -0500


There seems to be some problem here with understanding that I am merely 
pointing to the underlying terms of the discussion.  I am not making a 
policy.  I am not saying that we should respect all religious rights (or all 
forms of freedom of speech either).  I'm just talking about how we talk 
about it so we can try to get past the impasse and find a more reflexive, 
cross-cultural and politically aware language, so that 10 years from now, 
we're not having the same argument.

Jody



From: minx@bway.net
Subject: link for Washington Post article
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:09:43 -0500
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.746.2)

sorry. complete link to Washington Post article on at  
www.newsgrist.typepad.com




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