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Ritzy says, Egypt is closing its dialogue with Denmark on Human Rights and discrimination because of a dispute over cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohamed that was published by a newspaper last month. The diplomatic snub comes after the Danish prime minister refused to meet Egypt’s ambassador, along with ten other ambassadors from Muslim states.
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Islamic Republic has launched a new social networking called “Hadi Net“. Iranian media reported[fa] this social networking is an answer to Shahin Najafi's “insults regarding one Shi'ite Imam.”
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Adam, it’s seems that we’re quite missing the point here. u’ve said that muslim are causing problems in every society they happen to live in with the heavy generization u’ve said could u please tell me why? is it because they refuse to accept any kind of criticism or maybe cuz they are always facing several kinds of discrimination themselves since the 9/11 events and muslims are suffering under the name of terrorism and Mr.ben laden’s frequent threats to the west.Could ask urself what did the muslims do inorder to plant a state like Israel in their lands?always practising terrible kinds of racism and discrimination more than u can imagine or u’re probably gonna tell me that Israel is the land of jews I guess u gotto check it urself,check how was the state of israel established. And what did the muslims in Iraq,Afghanstan do to suffer the USA democracy that came to their lands taking the lives of more and more innocent muslims.Is it because bin laden did something and he’s a muslim and he said that he does that in the name of islam then we should believe him and let every muslim pay this cost..does that make any sense? I just have to say once more that Islam doesn’t tell us to kill innocent people what so ever weather they are christians,jews,muslims atheists u shouldn’t kill innocent people,so that’s what islam said then I guess terrorists should be punished alone not let any muslim suffer with them…
And by the way the point here that one should respect others beliefs,and muslims are ordered to do so but don’t they have the right that people respect what they beleive in…and we muslims believe that prophet muhammad the best of mankind and this insulting cartoons published was so provokative and showing disrespect to him and to islam, believe his great character isn’t allowed even to appear in movies so imagine if it is so rudly used in such cartoons…that what we believe in so what’s the problem??why don’t others respect it as they always ask to respect their beliefs???is it hard to understand?
>…what’s the problem?? why don’t others respect it as they always ask to respect their beliefs??? is it hard to understand?
Karim, I think you’ll find part of your answer in my earlier posting. My Danish compatriotes (and I speak with a certain distance as I am an expatriate, constantly confronted with more fundamentalist Christian foreign colleagues…) consider permissiveness as being equal to tolerance. Please try to understand this – it is vital to the debate. Unlike politically correct Americans who bend over double not to give offense, in Denmark the onus of tolerance is on the offended part to shrug his shoulders and say, “ah well, let them talk”. Anyone who cannot or will not do that is routinely accused of being a nasty piece of work. This is of course borne out of 1200 years’ history of being a closely-knit, homogenous society where abherrent behaviour was smiled at.
Answering now your direct question, the main belief that most people in Denmark would ask you to respect is not Protestant Christianity. No, the central article of faith is the following: all values can be contested, all values can be made the subject of ridicule and denigration. This “tolerance” (as the Danes would see it) has led my compatriotes to accept pornographic representations of Jesus, the portrayal of Saint Paul as a homosexual and repeated verbal assaults on the integrity of the royal family. A vast majority of Danes deplore such outbursts. But they believe (!) that people have a right to make them. And they believe that people who think otherwise should not reside in Denmark. And this, Karim…
…was precisely why that obnoxious newspaper published its cartoons: to make the Danish muslim community overreact, to show how “alien to Danish values” they were. The international backlash, however, came as a bit of a surprise. ;-)
A short summary: Young immigrants and second genration immigrants from arabic countries in Denmark commit more than 4 times as many crimes as indeginous Danes and other new-danes as they are called. No such trouble with koreans, chinese, italians, americans, brazilians, etc. Areas with heavy densities of arabs are relatively dangerous to visit, particularly if you are a girl – verbal and even physical abuse of indeginous girls is quite frequent among arabs here in Denmark. Violence of the really rough sort, particularly knife-stabbings are, while almost unheard of among danes in general, a serious problem with arabs. In short, muslims (in Denmark almost all arabs) are a great problem in Denmark, an dI haven’t even mentioned forced marriages, kidnapped babies and the likes. But the only conection to this argument is to point out that people do not only hear bad things about arabs on TV, they see it in the streets of their own cities. When people ask why the arabs behave themselves in this way, they are met with angry shouts of rasicm, threats and even violence. For some reason, arab immigrants will not adopt the non-violence of the countries they move to, even if the reason for moving from their home countries was persecution and violence in the first place. Thus, many westeners see Islam as religion immersed in violence, and articles like the one in question here are meant to urge muslims to look at themselves and their actions. Not the best way, I grant you, but so far, normal dialogue has proven very futile indeed…
As for Iraq and Afghanistan, well… If you try to remember, Iraq happened to invade a small nation to the soouth of ‘s borders and threaten a larger country even further south, both muslim. Without the aid of the western countries, the middle east could have looked VERY different now, and not in your favor, believe me! Afghanistan was a breeding ground for terrorists and an incredibly oppresive regime in general – the invasion was generally sanctioned all over the world and soldiers from most nations can beound stationed there, including arab soldiers.
Finally, you keep speaking about Islam respecting other faiths… Where do you get this from?! Saudi Arabia, the guardian of the true faith as it were, does not allow the practice of any other faith within it’s borders. The taliban regime blew up Budha idols thousands of years old. My “faith” is science, democracy and the freedom to say what I want as long as I don’t urge violence towards others. You certainly don’t respect the last of my beliefs!
Thanks for making things clear Hans,anyway let me just make a little clarification..well as Adam said criticising the muslim community in Denmark ofcoarse Adam u know more about it and actually if these info are true I’m very sorry to hear them and I don’t know why did muslims living in western communities happen to reach such level? but all what I can say that as a muslim I must tell u that this is not islam,may be there are having more problems than non-muslim Danes like the recent events in France which exploded as a result of many circumstances facing this small ethnic minority of african and arab immigrants such as discrimination,poverty, illness ,unemployment being neglected in this society…maybe the muslim minority are suffering such problems too in denmark,but ofoarse I know u got ur excuse as when u see such people doing such things as they are all following one religion certainly u gotto to blame the religion and u’re gonna believe that it urges them to do that…I just wanna tell u that it’s totally non-islamic,to believe that u may ask urself if a religion urges people to do all these things,kill innocents,rape and let people suffer, and their prophet orders them to fight and kill any non-mulsims would it be the largest growing religion all over the globe? would there have been all these conflicts since these cartoons were published? don’t u think something is missing…anyway,try to believe me though i know it will be hard for you,by the way since u lives in Saudi arabia as u aid before first I’d like to tell u that the Saudi community was never a comfortable one for any non-saudi and as an egyptian I know many people who’ve suffered discrimination and ill-treatment living in such societies like Saudi arabia,Kuwait,Quatar…and they are muslims and arabs so I suppose that reflects personal attitudes not more and unfortunately these personal attitudes may give many terrible pictures about the islamic cultures ingeneral.
Talking about muslim attitudes ofcourse noone can guarantee that all muslims behave like islam told them,certanily u’ll have some varieties and these irregularities or varieties are very few compared to muslims in general.All I ask u is not to accuse islam as morals and ethics are one of the major issues islam urged us with,islam even told us to respect morals during wartime,in the battle we’re not supposed to kill an old man or a woman or chirldren,or preists,or break into any holy places,or cut and destroy plants and trees..it’s true we’re not supposed to do any of these I know that u’re look at what terrotists talking in the name of islam do,but these are terorists and they do not respect any religion and what they do is totally against islam.
Anyway I’d be so happy to provide u or anyone with any topics or links related to Islam and islamic culture if you’d like to, maybe if you read about these topics u’ll belive that nowaday muslims donot represent islam at all, and maybe you’ll find an answer to your question..why is islam the largest growing religion,though all u can see in muslims? here’s my email if anyone wants to contact me manollys@hotmail.com
Regarding the cartoon issue,I think I got the clue..well it’s simply this difference between cultures,meaning,for people living in the middle east region,arab and muslim countries religion is a very sensative case,it’s so related to them,to every thing in their lives and i think I’ve said before that it’s even not allowed to show the character of the prophet muhammad in movies u can even check it from “the message” for Anthony Quin,So what happened here is that muslims found a different culture like the western one which has it’s own rules including the right to criticise anything including religion and even god,muslim found it publishing some rude cartoons that showed disrespect to their prophet that represents a lot to them and to Middle easterns not muslims specifically religion is a very sensative case and it’s a very effective part in their culture .On the other hand you can find that religion doesn’t play an effective role in the lives of westerns nor their culture as in our communities,though it’s an important item in the western societies,and thus this incident seems to be natural and a part of the right to express and here comes the conflict…I guess it’s simple,and by the way after the journal said in their letter to muslims that these cartoons wren’t meant to provoke muslims or insult or show any kind of disrespect to religion or to the prophet peace be apon him,and that they do respects muslims and their beliefs,I think there’s no need to keep talking about that issue any more and I hope things wont get worse, and I believe that if someone knew that he hurt the feelings of another person he’d simply try to appologise and clarify, and that what the journal did and I respect their attitude.
I am a Dane following the present debate with much interest.
By all means, the Right of Free Speech should be defended – newspapers and their journalism is one of our safeguards against totalitarianism as found in many muslim countries…
But the Arabs sure as hell also have the Right to Be Pissed Off.
It is their right to boycott our products – it is their right to show anger by burning flags… all these acts are also a form of freedom of expression.
It is very typically Danish to vehemently defend our right to Free Speech one day, declining ambassador’s visits the next, refusing to apologize etc… and then when the economy is being hit and money is being lost, suddenly to change policy and apologize, begging for the boycott to be lifted. So much for philosophical integrity.
If the Arabs said something like “Your Queen is a whore, but evenso we have this homus and other products we still would like to sell you” I am not sure a Dane would be interested.
Diav:
You’re not saying something that has not already been pointed out. They have every right to get mad and respond in kind if they feel offended by something, be it a drawing, a speech or something else entirely. That´s not the issue here. The issue is twofold:
1 – Muslims freak out over a drawing that was featured because muslims tend to react with outright hostility if critisiced in ANY way. Their general reaction just stresses the truth behind the article. Instead of freaking out, maybe they should consider why the west feel such fear and alienation towards muslims.
2 – The reaction of muslims all over the world is not to respond in kind. Instead, their governments decree illegal (through their membership of the WTO) boycots against another member and the civilian populations threaten all Danes with death, something specifically NOT covered by the rights of free speech. This can only be considered a massive overreaction to a very minor issue – after all, it is just one small article with drawings by twelve artist in one newspaper in a very small country. They just might find other things out there more worthy of their attention…!
where is this cartooon
link needed
well,THE GREAT DENMARK didn`t invited muslims and this doesn`t mean that you have the right to insult our symbols. you think that muslims should leave your country but i`m not in your country to leave it.i live in egypt and my right is to respect my prophet.can can play with any other thing in this life and make cartoons on whatever you want as it doesn`t inslut us.we didn`t make a joke on you symbols. what will you feel if we make a silly cartoon on your father.or if we said that your are a bitch!!!!.you have to know the difference between what you name democracy and insulting people.Democracy allow you to do or say whatever you want but definitly doesn`t mean isulting others.and if you feel that i`m wrong imagine that tomorrow we are going to make a drawing competition on “SHOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DENMARK KING AND THE PIG”.will that make a danish happy???? or this is not a democracy
Osama:
Yes, we have every right to insult whoever we wnat, and so do you in fact. I don’t say muslims should leave my country – I would just like for them to behave themselves and to follow our laws. The fact that you respect your prophet has no consequence on this matter – he is NOT my prophet, and I don’t respect him more than any other human who has ever walked the earth… As for cartoons ridiculling my father, well i’d probably feel offended, but then, my father hasnever bothered anyone, whereas muslims have killed thousands of innocent people (most of whom were actually other muslims!!!) in the name of Mohammed. If anyone has made a mockery of Mohammed it’s the muslims themselves! Go ahead – call our queen a pig if you want to… The point is, it’ll be completely lacking any plausible and therefore cause a lot of anger. The cartoons, on the other hand, did nothing to ridicule the prophet – they just pointed out that muslims are (and have been for many years) misusing his name to condole brutallities too horrible to mention! If no moderate muslims speak out against these atrocities, they just make themselves part of the crime.
These points have been explained over and over agan, but it seems quite impossible to make an impression – can you seriously not see that you are are just making matters worse by proving the point of the article in question?!?!
I think the Danes are just bored with life. Why not draw a cartoon of their King or Queen in an uncompromising sutuation ? Call it ‘Celebration of Free Speech’.