Wednesday, February 08, 2006
God help us...
This blog comes to you with quite a few tears, sadly. I've recently been on an international discussion forum. It's usually a friendly forum, with the odd twerp being insensitive - nothing to get hot under the collar about. A lot of current affairs get discussed. Quite inevitably, the subject of the Danish cartoons have come up.Pretty much everyone has blogged about this, but given the current climate, I feel that I should make a few things clear before I get to what I really want to say.
- I don't believe in violence or terrorism as a solution. I don't think that the reaction of certain extremists are justified.
- I don't believe that these extremists are an example of or represent Muslims as a whole. I believe that they are, in a religion that runs to billions, relatively few.
- I believe in freedom of speech, but I believe that you must wield that tool responsibly, and think through the consequences of your free speech. The cartoons display a spectacularly terrible ignorance and insensitivity to the Muslim culture.
I appreciate that this is stating the obvious, but you'll see why I'm doing so shortly.
Imagine my dismay when, in talking about these cartoons, one particular poster used the phrase "F**k those Muslims and their bloodthirsty religion" and "These people are f**king insane". And: "You must know that the race is on to get a nuke inside the United States and light it up. when that happens (not if). I wonder how many will feel for us?"
I couldn't quite believe it. Not only that, but when I tried to paint the other side, I was absolutely roundly condemned by pretty much everyone there.
I'm not one for anti-Americanism, because I think that's too easy and a cop-out, but in a forum that is predominantly peopled by Americans, this comment was made:
"The people who put out these cartoons are "left-wingers." Anyone from Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, or basically Europe in general are "left-wingers." It seems even the most "tolerant" are get a little tired of walking on eggshells for these people."
When asked what he meant by that, he responded: "Speaking as someone who lived in Prague and Amsterdam for quite a while (Prague for 2 years), yea, I'd say they weren't exactly "conservatives" in the American sense of the word. Of course, to be fair, realize that I am from Texas. So "conservative" probably means something different to me. Basically, if you don't wear a cowboy hat and drive a big giant pickup truck, then you are a "leftist." "
Despite repeated requests for some factual basis for these spurious arguments, none was forthcoming until one person actually had the balls to come out and say "based on my gut reaction."
Although this was after he'd posted photos of every single terrorist act by "Muslims" he could lay his hands on, including gory close-ups of the Twin Towers being levelled.
I'm not being selective here. These are just a few examples. There isn't the space to quote everything that was said.
It culminated last night in a very good natured Pakistani guy (who currently lives in the US) being ripped to shreds by people who insisted they knew more about the situation in Pakistan than he did, despite the fact that he lives/lived there, and despite the fact that not only could they not find it on the atlas, they thought it was a "desert in the Middle East".
I was the only one defending this poor guy, who quite frankly had a lot more patience than I did with these people. Of course, by the time the debate had got to that level, pretty much no-one was being constructive and the debate was over.
Many people have expressed both their outrage at the cartoons and their outrage about the reactions to the cartoons better than I have elsewhere, but what both frightens me and saddens me most is that fascism is alive well in the West, and just how far it extends.
Utterly embarrassing.
