Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not....
These are political thugs who wrap themselves in the cloak of religion. First they come for the cartoons, then they come for you. Robbin Murphy THE THING, Inc. That's true of freedom, too. That's exactly my point. Respect for freedom of speech on one side, respect for religion on the other, thugging away at each other with their unequal armies. Jon Stewart likes to count the number of times Bush uses the word liberty in his speeches, and no one accuses him (Stewart, that is) of being a postmodern moral relativist. No one wants to turn back the Enlightenment, but you can't understand it usefully -- or employ its insights -- without acknowledging the history of imperialism and colonialism that then and now have formed its dark side. Jody Berland # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
You are mistaken. It remains perfectly legal, courtesy of the US Supreme Court, to burn an American flag (if you own it) as a form of expression. It may not be advisable, because we have thugs here too, but most likely you would just be denounced. People get arrested for all sorts of legal things, but then, usually, they get let off without being convicted. You don't say what happened to your relatives. It is however illegal to sing in front of a foreign embassy in Washington DC. During the anti-apartheid protests, I was one of many arrested for that in front of the South African embassy. The DC government had already announced we were not going to be prosecuted, however. I was planning to plead innocent, on the much attested grounds that I can't sing. Best, Michael --- Michael H. Goldhaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Feb 16, 2006, at 10:01 AM, Jody Berland wrote: You can't burn an American flag, for instance, although you can make bikinis out of it. I have had relatives arrested for burning their own draft card. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
via The Washington Post [excerpt]: In Art Museums, Portraits Illuminate A Religious Taboo By Paul Richard Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, February 14, 2006; C01 All depictions of Muhammad -- or so we hear daily -- are now and have always been forbidden in Islam. Art's history disputes this. True, that strict taboo today is honored now by almost all Muslims, but old paintings of the prophet -- finely brushed expensive ones, made carefully and piously by Muslims and for them -- are well known to most curators of Islamic art. There are numerous examples in public institutions in Istanbul, Vienna, Edinburgh, London, Dublin, Los Angeles and New York. Four are here in Washington in the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall. Three are in the Freer Gallery of Art. The fourth is next door in the Freer's sister museum, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. These portrayals of Muhammad are not big or new or common. Most were made for the elite. And most were bound in books. These were lavish volumes that were political in purpose, and were designed to celebrate and dignify self-promoting rulers. What their paintings show is this: Once upon a time -- in the era of the caliphs and the sultans and the shahs, when the faithful felt triumphant, and courtly learning blossomed -- the prophet did appear in great Islamic art. Old portrayals of Muhammad come from Sunni lands and Shia ones, from the Turkey of the Ottomans, the India of the Mughals, from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran. The oldest that survive were painted circa 1300. The newest were produced about 200 years ago. Three such pictures, from Turkey, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Contrary to widespread assumptions today, says a statement issued by that museum's Islamic specialists, the traditional arts of Islam, whether Sunni or Shiite, often did reverently depict the prophet, as abundantly attested by manuscript illuminations ranging in time from the 13th to the 18th century, and in space from Turkey to Bengal. Pictorial representations of the prophet remain accepted by many Shiites to this day, although they have been generally frowned upon by most Sunnis since about the 18th century. Of course such depictions exist, says Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America. What is important to remember is that they were never widely available. Had they been, the common people surely would have resented them. But they were made for powerful dynasties, and no one could take them to task. Today the consensus is strong. From Morocco to Indonesia, our tradition prohibits such images. Those rough cartoons from Denmark were intended to enrage. They do what they set out to do. Published in a bunch, they disrespect the faith. The paintings of the prophet found in grand museums aren't like that at all. They were once imperial luxuries. The rulers who commissioned them were attempting to ally themselves with God-approved, courageous figures of the past. The paintings of the prophet were not made for walls. They stayed in costly bindings. Sunlight hasn't dimmed them. [read on...] # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [3x]
scandal being great for business ... btw many begin to find it's far too expansive for some pety stupid bad tasted (reminber yes its that way that proceed)scribble. nothing is stronger than market force for finding habermasian consensus..hoaa er be sure the greed of scandal is here good only if it's a buziness routine..sometimes it's hard to recycle an hammering of duchampian urinal..but one find always a solution at last. if the scandal is without ROI then it's simply irrational, bad tasted, a non emerging evenment as would say my tasted bud baudrillard. for instance google in china is it a scandal or a bad tasted investment ?..touchy..you need to go in hight bizness school for judging, er..i i am quite incompetent you ? we also looked at salman rushdie, an indian muslim with uk citizenship, living in new york, no fatwa was issued against india, uk or us, or even his publishers his publishers ? but it's civilised here! .. he alone was held responsible and because he was a muslim should have known better, but for some danish cartoonist with no knowledge of islam or responsibility toward it, how or why would we blame countries, peoples or dairy cows ... these 18 - 22 year olds from small cities villages, understood generally agreed that this was blown up out of proportion that governments had no real control over commerce (media) er ha i see your tractatus, you see a direct link beetwen liberty of trade liberty of expression..more even you think it's the first that proceed the second..as i dont know ..as if the queen expressly wanted all chineese had the right to smoke opium..well have i to remind georges bush is ofizialy upset we mocked at the believers? have to remimber margaret thatcher was oficialy 'uterly shocking' by salman's bad tasted book ? hum ? cause it's bad for bizness good bizness is the proof god is in your side be sure this is the best autoprophecy ever found on this earth...holy yahoo that the individual cartoonist was the person responsible that he probably did not know that he was engaging in such a controversial act, but will profit from it with fame maybe fortune ... baaah of course not...visibly you dont went in high bizness school, you are quite irrational perhaps more bad tasted zan me in one word i wonder if god will ever be in your side..btw i tried to hatch machinate a zatanizt church for having all the bunch of lucifer behind..dont you know luci in the sky is quite an ass idiot ? dont need to go in hight bizness school, just needed to kill a chicken or two (flued) burning 1 or 2 $ bill..hoaaa no just fake one..you know the ones the cheneeses burn for their deads... just drone on yah yah..with some naked dancing chicks mignons around, the only universal inexhaustible thing in good decent religion. are you ok to join ? # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
Here's the word freedom being used again. Nietszche did a genealogy of morals. Wendy Brown did a genealogy of identity politics (See her book: States of Injury (1995) Princeton University Press), anyone watching tv commercials today and comparing the use of the word revolutionary now in front of new products or fads and thinking back to the word's use in the 1960s must be forced to some thinking. now... Nik Rose has written an interesting genealogy of the word freedom, more than just the easy punch against the use of the word by liberals (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom, etc) but actually looks at the use and importance of the word in more radical political projects Nikolas Rose, Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:13:21 +0100 From: sascha brossmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... snip [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So why defend this matter in the name of freedom of speech? For those snip i ardently disagree for several reasons. first, the only price for the freedom of speech is paid by those who do snip second, freedom might not regarded as a set of communicating vessels, snip third, the sad fact that freedom is not as well spread as it should be - End forwarded message - # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
jody berland writes well about the american sacred cow of free speech, something observed more in the breech than universally, as it was often observed that americans have the RIGHT to speak out, but most do not do so, moreover, getting their voices to a PUBLIC audience is controlled by private media, which are commercial enterprises more concerned about their profit margins than any abstract concept of either fairness or public need to know ... here i would refer to Constructing the Political Spectacle an academic perspective from Murray Edelman the grandfather of political communication studies. Edelman also cites both historically embedded and emerging policy processes used by the US government to control information. After all, what is speech without communication, or free with a price tag on it? so, ms. berland offers us an insight into american secular religion wrapped around the fictive holy ark of the trinity =97 declaration of independence, constitution, and bill of rights. But this religion also finds its roots in Calvinist theocracy =97 rule by god =97predestination, and the individual, as subverting the secular trinity by one nation UNDER god. the real litmus or touchstone of american religiousity, however, is SUCCESS, a measure within the theocratic episteme, predestination =97 god shows whom he has selected by his favours of material and social success (financial merges with social capital), therefore failure is damnation in this life and the next ... success, or the hell of poverty in this world, which is an indicator of eternal hell ... so a fear-based driver to material success underpinned by Calvinist theology. It is this subconscious driver that accounts for the rapid rise of prosperity gospel, especially among the poor, black americans in particular, who have been steeped in biblical metaphor and values. Here is the reality: american religion is inseparable from politics, and vice versa, as the two sides of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) episteme are wedded into a secular religion that mirrors its theological/theocratic self. the other is any ideology or praxis outside of that episteme, or even threats from within, such as liberation theology (already suspect as a roman catholic subversion of WASP dominion), or mainstream churches that preach an oecumenical gospel of love and charity, such as the sermon on the mount ... or chasing money lenders out from the temple. all this ties into manifest destiny, god's chosen people =96 WASPs=97 = and promised land =96 America, new jerusalem, city on the hill all those similar metaphors for which many trees have fallen to provide paper in a publish or perish system. so jody berland has it right, it is a social formation particular to the USA, developed out of WASP theological theocratic roots, destruction of the infidel (natives) to build the new jerusalem. it has, however, diffused through the infestation of WASP globalisation, embedded in the ideology and materiality of a global hegemony by Anglosphere =97 UK, USA, and including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and remnants of White South Africa, which share in part this WASP disease. this contagion is carried by Brits as they buy up property in warm climates to create their insular communities with cricket pitches, infiltrate pub life. that said, brits and anglo colonials have moved on, having passed from Cromwellian WASP into more balanced social formations, albeit still having a born again WASP PM like tony blair to guide them into continuation of empire, only now as second fiddle to the purist WASP ideology of the USA. the analysis should be continued to look at how europe may divide between protestant, roman catholic, and orthodox, in the way that free speech differs in its ideological construct among varying social formations. imho, it divides into individualist versus corporate constructs of state and society ... and whether those freedoms are directed internally at the self / collective self, or externally at the other in this case can we perceive an embedded ideology of europe (a geographical fiction) and ask how it has evolved throughout conflict, rise fall / expansion contraction of empires, shifting national identities and state boundaries, north - south, east - west differences in cultural perception of self and other, as well as how those compass points differentiate north africa from southern mediterranean, and the levant (eastern mediterranean coast) from europe ... the fault lines between balkan - levantine muslim civilisation, which dominated southeastern europe for five centuries, and the byzantine-greco-slavic orthodox world squeezed between islam and the roman catholic-protestant west then we should expand this to the rest of the world, indic states, whether muslim, hindu, buddhist, and the indo-chinese realms of mainland southeast asia, the insular islands of indonesia, philippines, malaysia, with their mix of ancestral commonalities overlain by
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 06:29:00PM -0500, Jody Berland wrote: Freedom of speech amounts to a kind of religion in American culture. It is only useful to term it a religion if you acknowledge that it is a civilizational ideal and political common sense for American culture the same way other kinds of beliefs are for other cultures. your focus lacks orientation as much as your argumentation lacks insight. freedom of speech is not of american origin but mainly a genuine product of enlightenment, part of which was exported to america and since remained of some value there, despite the hordes of fundamentalist religious nuts who arrived at nearly the same time. If the free speech advocates were acknowledging that theirs is a specific political ideology (...) i.e. specific to the historical formation of the American subject, plain and simple: bollocks. see above and below. it would be easier to find a way to discuss these issues with others with different political formations. (...) It's not that I think an ideal dialogue of rational understanding is always or necessarily possible, but this lack of geopolitical reflexivity on the part of people saying free speech is always, necessarily and absolutely a higher value than all other values, is giving me a pain. oh yeah, sure, and while we're at it, let's discuss the whole imperialist catalogue of human rights or just toss that crap right away, because everything is oh so relative in the end, and who would dare to judge. tell you what: i do. actually, i don't think that you really know what you're saying there. for some more clarity, please substitute free speech with any other human right in its neighbourhood. in case you forgot: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html -- may i cite? Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. the basic fault in the short-witted argument of cultural relativity is the hidden assumption, that all practiced concepts are of equal worth and value. i disagree. and so did the general assembly of the UN that proclaimed upmentioned declaration. there's a word in the title that is quite telling. it reads universal. go figure. Let's have some global self-awareness here. oh, i think we do. you just don't recognise it. when this thread started i was already unpleasantly touched, but meanwhile it is getting tremendously atrocious. if one takes a look back towards the origins of this list, it is rather unbelievable. sascha -- :: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ::. :: .. :... . . . . . . . :: www.brsma.de :: ..: .:. . :.. ..: . . . . . . :: im [EMAIL PROTECTED] .. :: . ::. .. . .. . . . . :: public key id 0x2EA549A0 ::.. :: . . . . .... . :: fingerprint 0A0C AE42 62F5 DB65 C5A1 E335 53FB 3888 2EA5 49A0 # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not...
On Feb 15, 2006, at 6:29 PM, Jody Berland wrote: Let's have some global self-awareness here. These are political thugs who wrap themselves in the cloak of religion. First they come for the cartoons, then they come for you. Robbin Murphy THE THING, Inc. Russian Chief Rabbi Echoes Muslim Leader in Protesting Gay Pride in Moscow Created: 16.02.2006 20:01 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 20:01 MSK, 4 hours 19 minutes ago MosNews Three days after Russia's top Islamic leader called for violent protests against this spring's planned gay pride march in Moscow the country's Chief Rabbi has joined him in denouncing gays. Rabbi Berl Lazar on Thursday told Interfax that if the gay pride parade were allowed to go ahead it would be a blow for morality. Lazar, who also holds U.S. citizenship, did not go as far as calling for violence, but warned the Jewish community would not stand by silently, 365gay.com website said. On Tuesday Chief Russian Mufti Talgat Tajuddin said gays could be beaten if they go ahead with pride celebrations in the capital. Muslims' protests can be even worse than these notorious rallies abroad over the scandalous cartoons, Tajuddin, of Russia's Central Spiritual Governance for Muslims, told Interfax. Rabbi Lazar on Thursday said that anything promoting what he called sexual perversions does not have the right to exist. I would like to assure you, that the parade of homosexuals it is not less offensive to the feelings of believers than any caricatures in newspapers, Lazar said, linking the pride parade with the current furor over the cartoons of the Islamic Profit Mohammed published in Denmark. Nikolai Alekseyev, one of the organizers of the pride festival called the comparison outrageous. Any comparison between the march for human rights and against discrimination with the publication of cartoons is nothing more than an attempt to incite hatred toward sexual minorities, Alekseev said. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the city of Moscow said a parade permit would not be granted to the LGBT rights groups. Moscow authorities will not allow the conduct of gay pride in any form, Sergei Tsoi said on Thursday. The Mayor of Moscow said firmly that Moscow government will not allow the conduct of gay parade in any form=A0=97 neither open, nor indirect, = and all attempts to organize non sanctioned action will be severely suppressed. Alekseyev said any attempt to prevent the march would be countered with court action. In case of denial to conduct the match of sexual minorities we will immediately sue in court. The right to meetings, marches and demonstrations is guaranteed by the Russian Constitution to every citizen of Russia including gays and lesbians, he said. If necessary the organizers will go all the way to the European Court of human rights in Strasbourg, said Alekseyev. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [2x]
Table of Contents: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Jody Berland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 13:11:09 -0500 From: Jody Berland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance (United Nations 1948). What we need to ask from an ethical point of view is not whether we are defending our own freedom of speech but whether we are impinging on another's. - - Original Message - From: Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jody Berland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 8:15 AM Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Am Mittwoch, 15. Februar 2006 um 18:29:00 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Jody Berland: It seems to me that in the midst of this intelligent conversation, the elephant sitting in the room is being missed. Freedom of speech amounts to a kind of religion in American culture. I am not American. And I live in country that, as a whole, didn't have something that remotely qualified as free speech before 1989. Even today, freedom of speech and expression is severely limited over here, with blasphemy laws, film and video game censorship, an excessive ... -- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:04:29 +0100 From: Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Am Donnerstag, 16. Februar 2006 um 13:11:09 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Jody Berland: What we need to ask from an ethical point of view is not whether we are defending our own freedom of speech but whether we are impinging on another's. The Danish caricatures might have been a lot of bad things - but certainly not impinging on the freedom of speech of Muslims. - -F - -- http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70 gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [3x]
weighing in again, thanks to siraj ... look! 90+% of people world over are ignorant, irrespective of how intelligent or educated... most humans are so absorbed in their own micro worlds of social struggle, family problems, pleasure escape that they hardly know anything about the objective world around them, much less about others except for stereotypes that make easy pigeon holing of the other whichever other happens to be the other of the minute flavour of the month target to put down .. of course this situation suits the real rulers of all societies, who continue to control by soft or hard means, keeping a reserve army of labour unemployed as a threat to employed workers ... geopolitics of diminishing natural resources, plays a key role .. on this side (arabia --dubai -- where i live work in an environment of global village 130 nationalities) the government controlled any demonstrations, allowing a token street march, but no banners, flag burning, etc., leaders urging moderation making sure that local media carried that message .. but in general there is a difference between successful middle class professionals whether indian or brits, the ignorant labouring masses who only know what they hear through their ethnic grapevines .. we are talking about people who have never been empowered, much like new orleans' black underclass .. for the past week i have been having discussions with my students, all girls in black cloaks scarves, but dior - polo - levis T's underneath ... we have come to an understanding that they know very little about their own country, ironically i know more general information than the lot put together even thought they have a depth of local knowledge invisible to me .. we then contrast this to what they know about other cultures ... zilch! so the analogy is what do they know about you? zilch as well. so if no one knows much about either self or other how can we blame lego butter or government .. especially when teh press is all commercial enterprises trying to maximize profit whatever sells ads or copies, is good, scandal being great for business ... we also looked at salman rushdie, an indian muslim with uk citizenship, living in new york, no fatwa was issued against india, uk or us, or even his publishers .. he alone was held responsible and because he was a muslim should have known better, but for some danish cartoonist with no knowledge of islam or responsibility toward it, how or why would we blame countries, peoples or dairy cows ... these 18 - 22 year olds from small cities villages, understood generally agreed that this was blown up out of proportion that governments had no real control over commerce (media) that the individual cartoonist was the person responsible that he probably did not know that he was engaging in such a controversial act, but will profit from it with fame maybe fortune ... jamil brownson uaeu - al ain, uae3 # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [3x]
Table of Contents: RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Joe Lockard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... sascha brossmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:42:52 -0700 From: Joe Lockard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... I write this from Poona, in India; last Friday there were huge protests on the streets here about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in faraway Denmark and unfortunately innocent Europeans filming were subjected to anger and taken into shelter though the protests were otherwise non-violent. Its unfortunate that the persona of the Western Artist should seek to defend the publication of such cartoons in the name of Freedom of Expression but fail to see through the political agendas behind such cultural production. The attempt to blatantly provoke and naturalise the representation of Others in our media to secure an electoral backlash for the calculated ends has become a formula for success; sadly in Europe today ? in Denmark, the Netherlands - this is precisely what sanctioned European political parties and politicised Islamist agents are intent on delivering to their electorates. In a postcolonial networked world, the cultural Kristallnachts can be anywhere. But this is not the mid 20th century. So why defend this matter in the name of freedom of speech? For those of us who BELIEVE we have the (or the luxury of) freedom of expression, enjoy the belief! but bear in mind that there will be those who are paying the price for this. Just like all the other inexhaustible pillars of Modernity - like infinite availability of energy, and so forth - everything has material and political limits and nothing is inexhaustible or universal. [...] Siraj Izhar [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Siraj, Any advocate of not publishing cartoons of Mohammed should consider that the demand here is essentially for a free pass on lampooning or satire of any nature. This position demands that critics of Islam or any other religion should respect 'cultural sensitivity' and refrain from visualized critique of religious figures or practices. Polite deportment in a place of worship or compliance with another household's expectations is a matter of good manners and respect for neighbors. A grant of immunity to religion from negative representation on grounds of sensitivity is quite another and quite impossible, since the very concept of critique here lies in discomfiting the certainties and practices of religious faith. An affirmation of a right to blaspheme -- that is to say, a right to express a different or counter-opinion towards sanctified 'verities' -- is at the heart of the Enlightenment. It appears in texts such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar', which recognizes that both Moslems and Jews have a right to their own non-Christian 'heresies'. There is no cause to surrender this Enlightenment-born and hard-established tradition for some fairly blas=E9 Danish cartoons. All religions are subject to critique, and it seems predictable that the faithful will deem satirical representation as blasphemy, racism, or whatever might stick. Poor taste has the same legal protection as good taste. Which is good and which is poor are not legal questions. The very notion of 'taste' implies that there will be that material adjudged in 'poor' taste alongside that elevated to the status of 'good' taste. Those standards change as a culture itself changes, and in a multicultural society there will be many tastes, often in conflict. In a multicultural society it becomes even more important to emphasize the legal status and social value of free expression irrespective of 'cultural sensitivity', given that these societies need to express their internal conficts openly in order to resolve them. That strong strains of xenophobia and racism flow through contemporary Europe is unquestionable. Public education is far more effective response than censorship, even if a slower means of social prophylaxis. Joe Lockard - --- Joe Lockard Assistant Professor 209 Durham Languages and Literatures Bldg. English Department POB 870302 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 Tel: (480) 727-6096 Fax: (480) 965-3451 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.asu.edu/english/who/lockard.htm Antislavery Literature Project http://antislavery.eserver.org/ -- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 15:57:09 +0100 From: Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [5x]
Am Sonntag, 12. Februar 2006 um 14:20:13 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Nettime: From: Ryan Griffis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [...] The other question i have is about Florian Cramer's buy or not buy argument... Really? So it all comes down to market forces? Where did I talk of market forces? A counter question: If the caricatures hadn't appeared in a newspaper, but in the Internet, would there have been same reactions relativizing media freedom on this mailing list? Would people have said that such an online publication went too far and needed to be regulated? If that were the case, then Nettime's cause of net culture has come a long way... I can't believe what I'm reading here. -F -- http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70 gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [5x]
Table of Contents: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [7x] porculus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime-l-digest V1 #1700 Jody Berland [EMAIL PROTECTED] RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [7x] Ayhan Aytes [EMAIL PROTECTED] publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... Ryan Griffis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Aras Ozgun [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 11:48:59 +0100 From: porculus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [7x] a. not funny; and b. extremely poorly drawn. but you all know free speech was always gotten in fight in blur period motives for most of time saying huge bullshit, as the king is an ass, my boss is a fuckard my mother the greatest bitch the world ever done not as the legend say..as 'my name is fritz kurtz, i born in 1215, the earth turn around the sun, i claim it but i would never be in a dictionnary what disgust me is to know it's another one would be in dictionnary at my place..cause he retracted this fucking coward' baaah these drawing are just ordinary dayly cartoon product, no more good no more bad saying this is really an offense to all truckdrivers of my familly i want you all under fatwa of kick in the ass belgium muhla entartement threat.. 'not funny', 'extremely poorly drawn', 'stupid', 'idiot', 'nasty' 'bad tasted'.. chance you have these words resounded for making just me to think of the beloved spitting image of my best friend..otherwise -- Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 11:37:33 -0500 From: Jody Berland [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime-l-digest V1 #1700 Let us take into account that the individuals, cultures and countries most likely to oppose any limits on freedom of speech are those culturea and countries who have something to gain from unlimited freedom of speech. As communication scholar Anthony Smith wrote in the 1980s (and I understand the present irony of this statement), only the United States could advocate a complete free flow of information without any concerns for its impact on democracy. By free flow he means transborder flow of cultural commodities, of course, not freedom of speech, whose blatant trampling in U.S. politics probably encourages people to defend free speech unconditionally and without regard for its more complicated repercussions elsewhere. In Canada, we have limited regulation of freedom of speech; we have legislation banning hate speech, and I'm glad we do. I wouldn't say that it has banned racism from our midst, but it has probably reduced physical violence and made it easier to isolate unredeemable racists. The legislation suggests that the freedom of individuals to vent toxic spleen might need to be balanced against the need of societies to learn tolerance and respect. In the last 20 years, advocates of unlimited free speech have invariably founded their argument on the distinction between symbolic and physical violence. This is a valid and interesting distinction, but it has little to do with the real practices of violence in the world. It seems to me deliberately dumbed down. I don't think that everyone who sees an ad for a hamburger condones factory farms, or that everyone who sees a photo of a naked woman condones rape, etc, but that simply means that we need a better understanding of how culture and images work. If we oppose racism, imperialism, violence, and warmongering, then I think we have to oppose racist, imperialist, totalizing acts of contempt against groups of people who are already the subjects of racist, imperialist, totalizing military and social violence. None of this is to justify any acts of physical violence that followed the publication of these cartoons. I don't agree with the publication of cartoons and I don't agree with social violence to protest them. (I don't think it is just the cartoons that are inspiring this protest, either.) All I'm saying is, they are part of one picture, part of one history of racism and imperialism, to be blunt. That history predates the publication of these cartoons and probably won't change significantly until people change the tired old arguments they use to discuss the issues. Jody Berland -- Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 13:45:04 -0800 From: Ayhan Aytes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [7x] Isn't that a very liberal capitalist view
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not [7x]
Table of Contents: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Lennaart van Oldenborgh [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... John Hopkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Heiko Recktenwald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Jamil Brownson [EMAIL PROTECTED] RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Joe Lockard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr David Irving [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 17:41:39 +0100 From: Florian Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress Am Freitag, 10. Februar 2006 um 11:12:51 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Andrew Bucksbarg: There seems to be a problem with extremes in either direction here. We tend to forget, in our examples of democracy, that the freedom FROM something is just as important as the freedom TO something. The freedom from refers to not be coerced into acts. Since these caricatures appeared in a newspaper people were free to buy or not to buy, I fail to see how these caricatures were forced upon onto anyone. It would be a different case if they had been course material in schools, for example. There are no clean divisions between symbolic and physical action, otherwise burning a cross in someone's yard or burning the flag are pointless acts. I certainly see it as anyone's freedom to burn whatever flag s/he likes (as long as they bought that flag themselves and burn it in their own yard). Burning in a cross in one's yard indeed oversteps this freedom. But those caricatures were not put up in the yards of muslim people. Most people who demonstrated against them hadn't even seen what they were demonstrating against, just like the militant Christian groups that rallied in front of movie theaters against Ingmar Bergman's The Silence in the 1960s or Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. - -F - -- http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70 gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc -- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 17:30:54 + From: Lennaart van Oldenborgh [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress wow it took a while for this debate to surface here but it's good to finally hear a subjective Danish point of view from Louise Moana Kolff; I wholeheartedly agree with her statement that So in the light of this political and public climate, the cartoons have less to do with the freedom of press, and more to do with a continuation of the role the press has been playing in general in hyping the issue of the Muslim threat and the foreign invasion to an all time high. and we all know - especially in the Netherlands - that this isn't applicable in Denmark alone. surely if these if these publications are prosecutable (and that's a big *if*) it should not be under some outdated blasphemy law but rather under some anti-racism or anti-hate speech act. but if they may not be prosecutable then at least they are despicable and the muslim protests in denmark (though not necessarily elsewhere) deserve our solidarity. Lennaart - -- - - Lennaart van Oldenborgh 26 Oxford Road London N4 3EY tel +44 (0)7768 610016 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 11:13:45 -0700 From: John Hopkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... on the issue of 'rights' -- Simone Weil suggested that people who are driven to demand everything from the society they live in by a 'bill of human rights' would instead be better grounded morally to consider and act upon their 'human obligations' towards their fellow humans... and also a side note to ponder -- that it was at the Ecumenical conclave in Nicaea in the 7th century when the Christian religion definitively broke from the traditions of the middle east -- when the iconoclasts were defeated by those in the Church who wanted to allow representations of Christ and the saints into the Church ideology. Previous to that time, Christianity largely followed a ban similar to Muslim -- against any form of re-presentation of the Spirit or flesh of God.It is hard to imagine
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
Freedom of art is not the freedom to stir up hatred against a people because of their religion or nationality or sex, etc. -F gotcha also cause drawing is now some 'populist' art, i mean art for the hoi polloi then its leonardo of carnival fartmen michelangelo are out of any protection care, they are no more arty fetichised clergymen but secularised producer aktivizt, that could be sacrified for the 'harmony of civilisations sake' or worst that have to selfcensor their 'heavy stupid' envy.. i even read as we are under war (yaa terror) we could have some exceptional restrictions...merde ! the harmony of civilisation need respect first of all, selfrespect, to each one to be up to his own : so i wish long live to all caricaturists i propose they could engrave on their bucle of their belt 'gott mit uns' what could impress men girl when in holliday in texas. i suppose europe for being united need to restore its family fortune, it's a good occasion # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
The responses of Ronda Hauben and Florian Cramer essentially recapitulate that of the Vatican, which released an unsigned statement that The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion. I could not disagree more profoundly with such a position, and see it as seeks to privilege religion and religious prophets as being beyond critique, satire or parody. It is particularly disturbing to watch how easily some elements of progressive political thought capitulate to claims for the sacralization of civic discourse, as if the principles of free expression could be sacrificed because some legally-protected expression alienated millions of adherents to one religious faith or another. There are many of us who view religious faiths as atavistic, fictive, erroneous, patriarchal, violent, class-ridden, and alien to humanistic values. In their humanity, these faiths simultaneously are capable of ethical wisdom, beauty, and moving works of art, music and literature. Works of art, such as the Danish cartoons, that puncture through the negative ethos of a religious faith do not invalidate its positive social and cultural contributions. Progressive politics function under obligations of democratic courtesy and a modicum of tastefulness, but that is not an obligation that extends to imposition of censorship by those who view anti-religious expression as illegitimate. Blasphemy is, at root, the name for critiques that religious faith and theocratic authority cannot abide. Blasphemies and heresies -- including antagonistic representations of prophets, saints, or religious symbols (viz. Piss Christ) -- are the stuff of human progress. A newspaper's political history or current conservatism has no relevance to this argument, especially as the history of the European press will reveal significant social ugliness in almost any newspaper with a sufficiently lengthy history. The Times of London could be condemned on similar historical grounds as Jyllands-Posten, none of which bears on a legal right to publish freely in the twenty-first century. Much of this present argument recapitulates ground covered regarding publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, as if nothing has been learned in the interim.20 What does bear immense relevance lies in the social context of this cultural conflict in the specificities of anti-Moslem discrimination in Europe and the United States, and the growing global antagonisms between the Islamic and an amorphously-defined Western world. For discussing these specificities, the Danish cartoons are only one starting-point. Joe --- Joe Lockard Assistant Professor 209 Durham Languages and Literatures Bldg. English Department POB 870302 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 Tel: (480) 727-6096 Fax: (480) 965-3451 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.asu.edu/english/who/lockard.htm Antislavery Literature Project http://antislavery.eserver.org/ # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
RE: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
There are three issues that need to be addressed when discussing this matter which is generally neglected 1. Christians criticizing Christianity is one thing, Christians criticizing, Jews, Muslims, Gypsies is another. Europe had learnt that with one of the hardest lessons of the history. 2. The representation code is differ rent in different religions and imposing the codes of Christian iconography over other cultures is a violence that is an extension of Orientalist motives. 3. Larger context. Denmark is one of members of the holly alliance that is currently invading Iraq. If this caricature had published somewhere else its effect would have been different. So, let's drop this freedom of speech pedantry and try to look closely what is really happening. Our concepts of discussion should be based on the examples of Nazi era caricatures that represents Jews, which also could be discussed under the terms of freedom of speech, but we don't do that. Because freedom in democratic countries is not the freedom of the powerful to oppress the weak. The meaning of democracy is to give the weak a voice and secure it in every condition. In Denmark the freedom of minority is being oppressed with this example. Ayhan Aytes # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
Am Donnerstag, 09. Februar 2006 um 14:27:51 Uhr (-0800) schrieb Ayhan Aytes: No I mean the violence in its literal sense, in this case through cultural means of political oppression of minorities. We should remember that Muslims in Denmark are minorities. The Atheist response to Christian majority culture can be supported when they use the Jesus cartoons to stand against this oppression. But when the majority uses the same method against Muslim minority it becomes a totalitarian tool to oppress Muslim minority. Allow me to disagree. Totalitarian implies that it's more than just symbols, but a physical oppression program. If the latter were the case, then there would be a justified reason to consider it political oppression of minorities. In any case, I am an atheist, and I wouldn't consider it oppression if Christians in Europe, Muslims in Arab countries or Jews in Israel would depict atheists in the way Muslims have been depicted in Denmark - although I might not be amused. Protest against these caricatures is fine by me, but it's never okay to deny other people the right to draw such caricatures, or even worse, hold whole nations responsible for them. You may support the Nazi era propaganda cartoons but I hope not in the mainstream media for the purpose of oppressing Jewish people in Europe and creating the propaganda platform to exterminate them. See, I consider the politics of extermination the crime, but not the propaganda. Of course, I find the propaganda despisable and would criticize it in every aspect. But it's a difference of considering something unethical - but not illegal - and considering something a crime that should legally prosecuted. This is why I am opposed to the fact that a film like Triumph of the Will is banned in my country. If this is the case then I hope Muslims are not the new Jews of old Europe. I agree. But banning caricatures doesn't help a bit - in fact, it makes matters worse because it would camouflage those sentiments. Yes. Denmark has a law providing for fines and up to four months in jail for anyone who publicly offends or insults a religion that is recognized in the country. Sorry, I probably mixed it up with the Netherlands. I am strongly opposed to such laws - and even more to the fact that some religions are recognized by the countries and apparently some others not. If this newspaper had earlier rejected publishing Jesus cartoons based on the same law they should have acted consistently in this case too. I agree. But this is a matter of editorial policy and its ethics - which might be questionable -, but not of legal prosecution. Their double standard is the sign of their insincerity in their excuse on behalf of freedom of speech. I agree, too. I know that they aren't a good ally for my own views. But as Rosa Luxemburg said, freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently, too. To believe that a drawing oppresses the freedom of people means to leave the grounds of rational discourse. To believe otherwise with no discrete sense of the political use of representations is welcoming Nazi era propaganda as freedom of speech. Not welcoming, but tolerating. That's a very important difference. The freedom of speech can only be protected when its meaning is preserved against this erosion through Orwellian totalitarian rhetoric. Not rhetoric, but politics. If freedom of speech can be eroded through rhetoric alone, then the concept is meaningless. If you want to capture the true meanings of things always mind the subject. I find the concept of a true meaning of things highly problematic by itself. -F -- http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70 gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - 19th-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not... [4x]
Table of Contents: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr porculus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr sascha brossmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Louise Moana Kolff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepr Andrew Bucksbarg [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:34:03 +0100 From: porculus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - 19th-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard it's main bout freedom of drawing here...or is it possible duchampian 'non ocular art' would be just the historical worn out iconoclasty revival the prevalence of verb.. for instance hombre if i describe one of my prefered cabu's poster done when jp2 came in france. jp2 is handcuffed beetwen 2 cops beneath you could read 'a big opium-for-the-people-dealer has been caught at roissy airport' you could believe all is done. no, you miss the sketch itself, the main i couldnt reportwith words.. btw i bet the legendary sad kierkegaard would laugh in seeing it, but it's just my opinion, yes there is some impudence to puppetise - specialy for a laugh- the dead ones -- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:45:10 +0100 From: sascha brossmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 02:27:51PM -0800, Ayhan Aytes wrote: No I mean the violence in its literal sense, in this case through cultural means of political oppression of minorities. We should remember that Muslims in Denmark are minorities. sorry, but i fail to see how the muslims in denmark are deprived of their rights as minorities, as i don't see any reason for any religion or other belief systems to be protected from *any* kind of criticism. what about the beliefs of atheists and agnostics who are also minorities? shouldn't they be equally protected? it might for example hurt my deepest religious feelings if people pray aloud to any god, carry out religious ceremonies in the open and such. consequently i ask e.g. the states of iran, saudi arabia, syria, and others to immediately stop that incredible blasphemy. they have absolutely no right to trample upon my religious truths in any way. and if they don't i might quite well issue a decree that their imams are to be shot by any true non-believer and every successful execution of those heretics will be rewarded by 100 pounds of gold. get it? your whole argumentation is absolutely selective with blind spots everywhere else. in other words: plain rhethorics. NB, how about the minorities in countries in the middle east who would be also worth protecting by the same principles? i have not yet heard anybody who claimed a special right for e.g. muslims to not have their belief mocked by e.g. caricature to claim the same for e.g. jews, americans, and other minorities in whatever publications from the middle east. now how about double standards? The Atheist response to Christian majority culture can be supported when they use the Jesus cartoons to stand against this oppression. But when the majority uses the same method against Muslim minority it becomes a totalitarian tool to oppress Muslim minority. bullshit. this is about the freedom of anybody to say what he likes versus anybody who - naturally - does not like it. with everybody being free to return anything *with the same means*. not with lawyers, not with policeman's truncheons, not with sniper bullets, not with any other means of that kind. Yes. Denmark has a law providing for fines and up to four months in jail for anyone who publicly offends or insults a religion that is recognized in the country. a shameful atavism of danish jurisdiction. it should be abolished ASAP. If you want to capture the true meanings of things always mind the subject. sorry, but i don't know anything about a true meaning of things. i would rather prefer to leave such truths to the far too large hordes of religious nuts on this planet, may their gods be called whatever you like or even missing. those people have caused more casualities throughout the course of history than every lethal desease. may they rot in any hell they can come up with - if there is one. best, sascha - -- :: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ::. :: .. :... . . . . . . . :: www.brsma.de :: ..: .:. . :.. ..: . . . . . . :: im [EMAIL PROTECTED
nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
Whatever the reason for the republication and defense of the cartoons, in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, newspapers which republish them in the name of freedom of speech or freedom of the press are seriously misrepresenting what freedom of speech or freedom of the press mean. The publication and republication of the cartoons are an example of sensational journalistic practices, an effort to use the press to provoke people, which is traditionally something that the press has been used for. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to stir up hatred against a people because of their religion or nationality or sex, etc. It is not satire to misrepresent religious symbols of a people as a terrorist with a bomb. These cartoons were commissioned and printed by what traditionally had been a right wing Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten. There is obviously some fight going on in Denmark that the commissioning of these cartoons was connected to. According to a wikipedia entry on this, the newspaper has played a right wing role in Danish politics. The entry states: The paper is historically known for taking a clear right-wing line. Thus, the popular Danish nick-name Morgenfascisten Jyllandsposten (the Morning-fascist Jyllandsposten). (1) During the 1920s and 1930s the newspaper supported the rise of fascism, of Hitler and Mussolini, according to the Wikipedia entry. Also the newspaper welcomed the fascism into Denmark in the 1930s. While freedom of speech and the press is to be protected, it is important to understand the difference between such important rights and the effort to provoke people against each other. In the US the right to freedom of speech and the press is contained in the Bill of Rights. This is because there is a need to protect journalists to be able to critique corrupt government practices. If newspapers are supporting the provocation of the people of one religion against the people of another religion, this may very well have its roots in government activity. It would be an appropriate role for a newspaper to try to unmask which government officials are supporting such activities. It would be a proper journalistic role to support a debate about views, that explores the issues behind the differences in the views. But all this is different from a newspaper commissioning cartoons that are intended to be offensive about the religion of a set of people. If other newspapers want to help to sort out the issues in this problem, they can do so. But to reprint the offending graphics in the name of protecting the so called right to freedom of the press or freedom of speech does not help to identify the issues involved. Instead it only seeks to provoke a further inflaming of an already harmful situation. Newspapers in various countries have been used to try to inflame people against other people, or to invite people to attack others. To encourage ridicule of the religious beliefs of Muslim people is to act in a way so as to encourage attacks against them. The problem then is only deepened. While debate over various ideas is important, it is important to determine how to encourage such debate rather than to try to inflame those on opposing sides. In the 1940's there was a rank and file newspaper among the auto workers in Flint, Michigan. Someone submitted an article to the newspaper praising the Klu Klux Klan. The editor-in-chief, George Carroll, was a catholic trade unionist. He published the article but also published his refutation of the article. He didn't solicit the article. He didn't solicit inflamatory material either pro or contra the Klu Klux Klan. Instead he tried to encourage an environment in the newspaper where constructive debate and discussion would occur. This is the challenge for journalism. It is ever more important that there be serious discussion and clarification of what freedom of speech and the press mean in a time when the terms are being so abused. Distinguishing the practices of yellow journalism from the practices of responsible journalism is a serious challenge for society. Publishing news that is sensationalism and intended to enflame people against each other is a form of yellow journalism not an appropriate practice of those who support freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Notes (1) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten (2) See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism -- ronda # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
Re: nettime publication of Jyllands-Posten cartoons is not freedom of thepress
Am Sonntag, 05. Februar 2006 um 13:14:28 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Ronda Hauben: Whatever the reason for the republication and defense of the cartoons, in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, newspapers which republish them in the name of freedom of speech or freedom of the press are seriously misrepresenting what freedom of speech or freedom of the press mean. The publication and republication of the cartoons are an example of sensational journalistic practices, an effort to use the press to provoke people, which is traditionally something that the press has been used for. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to stir up hatred against a people because of their religion or nationality or sex, etc. Whatever the reason for the reproduction and defense of Robert Mapplethorpe's Piss Jesus, media which republish the picture in the name of freedom of speech or freedom of art are seriously misrepresenting what freedom of speech or freedom of art mean. The publication and republication of Piss Jesus are an example of sensational artistic practices, an effort to use art to provoke people, which is traditionally something that art has been used for. Freedom of art is not the freedom to stir up hatred against a people because of their religion or nationality or sex, etc. -F -- http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70 gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net
