Egypt’s Prime Minister wants the US government to do all it can to “stop people insulting Islam.”
Time out while I sigh a huge sigh.
No. Shut up. Fuck off.
First of all, there’s no such thing as “insulting” a religion to begin with. “Insult” is a human term. You can’t “insult” socialism or libertarianism or skydiving or birdwatching or apricots or cats.
What you mean is “disparage” or similer. We’re allowed to do that. Everyone should be allowed to do that.
If you tried to persuade the US government to do all it can to stop people disparaging Islam, you would still be doing a silly and bad thing. There’s a lot about Islam that cries out for disparaging, and the US government is very limited in its ability to tell us what to say. It’s a pity yours is not equally limited.
Here’s an idea for you: do all you can to stop mobs getting into stupid rages about perceived “insults” to a guy who’s been dead for 14 centuries.
If he’d asked the US government to try and curb anti-Muslim sentiment, that would be one thing.
If he’d asked the US government to not assume the worse of Islam or Muslims that’d would arguably be noble.
That he asks the US to repress disparaging remarks against his religion makes it perfectly clear Prime Minister Hisham Qandil isn’t interested in saving lives or helping the oppressed. He wants everyone to revere Islam.
Guess everything’s fine then. They can (legally) do nothing and they’re doing that excellently
Yes, quite right. The US government should do all it can, which is do nothing at all.
You had better not make disparaging remarks about agricultural products, though!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws
Think you so?
If these sorts of mobs are targeting random Americans because they hate how our government doesn’t suppress disagreeable speech, I suppose those instigators do hate us for our freedoms. Annoying when the right-wing is even partially correct on something. Though I’ve also noticed how the Egyptian PM is trying to move the blame from the rioters to anyone else… it seems to be a recurring theme. Muslim men can’t be held accountable for rape or violence apparently, as it’s always somebody else’s fault, somehow. I really hope the progressive element in Egypt starts winning ground soon because this systemized justification of Islam-motivated violence and the institutions which support it need to be burned down, vindictively.
Maybe I shouldn’t have responded in anger so quickly without reading the entire article. At least the PM did unequivocally state that this sort of violence is wrong, although I’m not comfortable with how he’s still pushing blame for the mob’s actions onto the film and suggesting that restrictions to free speech should be put into place.
I think we should stop tolerating intolerance. These people don’t want freedom of speech? These people argue against human rights? Let’s humor them:
– Muslims who say that it’s legal to commit any crime, even murder, towards non-muslims, these idiots should no longer be protected by the law. If anyone robs them, rapes them, murder them or whatever they have by their own words given up the right of legal protection.
– Muslims that say they want death penalty of blasphemers. Execute them. This is blasphemy against freedom of speech. If they live in another country put a fatwa on them and grant a reward to anybody that kills them. If they think their laws can supercede ours then our laws can supercede theirs too.
– When any muslim makes a youtube clip that insults the west’s right to freedom of speech we should go ballistic on their embassies and murder their ambassadors. We can play the “innocense”-game too.
– When a muslim advocates that hijab is mandatory then if it’s a man – force him to wear a woman’s burqa or execute him if he doesn’t conform, if it’s a woman tell her that if she wear’s even a headscarf she’ll be dead.
And so on down the list. For whatever harm they express a right to inflict on others they should suffer themselves. Whatever right they wish to deny others it should be denied themselves. They want special treatment, alright, let’s give them special treatment!
stoferb: That’s… really fucked up.
I agree with Happiestsadist.
You bet it’s fucked up. That’s precisely the point.
I’m just gonna third what Happiestsadist said.
stoferb: Nah, your racist death and rape wishes are not saying what you think they are. Take your Mein Kampf 2: Electic Boogaloo somewhere fucking else, creep.
Yes. No thank you, stoferb.
That is some shit right there! You’re awesome.
How do you insult a religion?
More to the point, even if you *could* insult a religion, why is that a bad thing? After all, there are some religions that (sticking with insulting an idea) insult human beings. Why doesn’t the Prime Minister call for Islam to stop insulting human beings? Perhaps then, maybe some humans would stop insulting Islam.
stoferb @8:
You’re a right piece of racist shit.
Ilsma is slowly being placed beyond the reach of any criticism or critical examination; it is gradually becoming the highest law of the land.
How things have changed.
Back in 1999, The New York Times characterised “piss christ” as challenging and wrote up an article praising the work placing it right on the front page of its Arts section.
In 2012 the maker of a crappy 14 minute film lampooning islam’s founder gets hauled in for some tough questioning and his “work”portrayed as anti-muslim bigotry.
And the very same New York Times in 2012 published the story about the attack on the consulate and murder of ambassador Stevens and three other Americans on page four…
@Select
You seem to be saying that since Innocence of Muslims offended Muslims and Piss Christ offended many Christians they are therefore parallel cases. They aren’t. Piss Christ is the work of a Christian decrying the commercialization of his own religion’s iconography. Innocence of Muslims is the work of a Christian bigot created specifically to attack and demean someone else’s religion. Now compare Innocence of Muslims to something like Der ewige Jude and you might be more in the right ballpark.
And that is just paranoid nonsense, Islamophobia.
I confess, I bailed out of ‘The Innocence..’ after less than a minute. I’ll get back to it, but it is so obviously focussed on the oppression of Copts that the generic fuss is even more blatantly contrived than it seemed.
stoferb needs to take several deep breaths. Still, it would be good to have a video sample of flag-burnings, ‘death to America’ song-fests, anti-Semitic lunacy etc. ready at hand to run a few hundred times whenever these bogus protestations of ‘offence’ are trucked out One. More. Time.
Westerners need to grasp that ‘offence’ can be found, and murderous mobs unleashed, on any day and by any ‘leader’ who wants to. Remember, the Danish cartoons? An Egyptian tabloid printed all of them (the real ones, not the fakes) almost 6 months before a handful of criminal imams decided to unleash the flying monkeys.
@Nathair.
So unless you’re a member of the religion you’re lampooning your artwork should be considered bigotry?
So if someone neither Christian nor Muslim posts a Jesus and Mo cartoon, such postings constitute bigotry?
So if the journo who wrote the NYT article praising the Piss Christ wasn’t Christian, his article is then an example of bigotry?
And it isn’t delusional to point out that any and all criticism of Islam is slowly being placed beyond the pale.
There is a growing climate of intimidation and fear surrounding any and all discussion of the subject.
The fact not even the most cutting edge stand-up comics would touch it with a barge pole speaks volumes.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in fact every member state of the OIC, are pressuring the UN, the E.U. AND America, and doing so big-time, to criminalise the more “severe” critiques of Islam and to have such critiques, no matter how reasoned and justified, classed as bigotry.
I shall now recite the shahada ( mustn’t be bigoted!) and then state: “Mohammed was a rotten uncle-fucker.”.
Thank-you.
“Egyptians, Arabs, Muslims – we need to reflect the true identity of Muslims, how peaceful they are, and talk to the Western media about the true heart of the Muslims, that they condemn violence,” said Mr Qandil.”
I… eh… just… WAT.
@Select
That’s a lovely collection of straw men you’ve built there.
You compared apples and oranges. They aren’t the same. You represented baby steps towards, perhaps, some kind of hate speech policy as ZOMG Islam is replacing the Constitution!! That’s hysterical. And now you’ve thoroughly misrepresented me and what I said. It’s a bad habit, histrionics are a poor substitute for accuracy.
It’s pretty obvious that stoferb was attempting satire. It might not be up to Swift’s modest proposal level, but I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
as ZOMG Islam is replacing the Constitution!! That’s hysterical. And now you’ve thoroughly misrepresented me and what I said. It’s a bad habit, histrionics are a poor substitute for accuracy.
Select destroyed your flimsy arguments.
Since when can do you have to be a member of a particular religion in order to critices that religion without being labelled a bigot.
What a lame attempt to sidestep the whole issue of free speech.
And as for censorship with regards to all things islamic?
Perhaps you should question “Zombie Mohammed” about that, Nathair.
And will you be dressing as a “Zombie Mohammed” at halloween this year?
It’d be “hysterical, but you’d prefer to play it safe and go out as “Zombie Pope” no doubt
And as Select stated, the whole domain of stand-up comedy is already pretty much sharia-compliant.
As is truth-to-power Hollywood.
No doubt we’ll soon be seeing a film along the lines of “The People Vs Larry Flint” championing the guy who made “Muslim Innocence”.
Not likely because the threats and intimidation are now such that any project of that nature would get you killed
This guy could use some help
http://www.examiner.com/article/egyptian-atheist-arrested-for-posting-innocence-of-muslim-on-facebook
You don’t. I never said anything of the kind. What I said is that a member of a religion lamenting, through his art, the commercialization of his own religion is not parallel to someone making a video with the intent of insulting and disparaging someone else and their beliefs and thus we should not expect the two to receive the same response from the media.
I did nothing of the kind. At no time did I even suggest that bigoted assholes should not be allowed to be bigoted asssholes or not be allowed to say bigoted things. However, free speech does not mean that Fred Phelps and Nelson Mandella must receive exactly the same kind of press treatment.
Fatwa envy? Grow up.
I did not defend Islam, Sharia or censorship. What I actually said is that the whinging about Sharia replacing the Constitution is paranoid nonsense.
Please try to read what I actually write.
You live in the past Nathair.
Zombie Mohammed was walking beside a zombie pope, but quess which zombie was attacked and guess what the judge had to say about his attacker.
He let the assailant off the hook and accused zombie Mohammed, an avowed atheist, of incitement to religious hatred.
Had an enraged catholic attakced the zombie pope and similarly drawn blood, he’d have been convicted in a N.Y. minute
The judge’s decision was sharia-compliant as are more and more judicial rulings involving a conflict between a muslim and a non-muslim.
Where have you been?
Stuck here in reality, sadly. It sounds like it’s much more exciting wherever you are.
Please stop waving your hands and provide some links or examples of real life judicial decisions which you think demonstrate Sharia overtaking existing law. Then we can move on to you supporting the broader claim of the US actively moving towards becoming an Islamic theocracy. (If you want to rethink and suggest a broad Christian theocratic effort we might have something real to talk about.)
“I dugg some of you post as I thought they were invaluable very helpful”