afaik the original demands were for formal apologies, retractions in print, and some calls for penalising or firing editors or cartoonists.  but this was considered "unthinkable" or "ridiculous" or whatever, and the grievance has escalated as grievances do when met with stone-faced obliviousness and disregard.  second to being actively insulted (or perhaps even worse) is being treated as irrelevant and ignored;  it causes fury and, I think, was calculated to cause fury.  have you ever gone to a customer complaint counter and had the clerk pointedly turn his back and continue a casual conversation with a co-worker while ignoring you?

anyway, the Evans case is of interest merely as suggestive evidence that the "civilised world" is rather selective when it comes to zealous defence of press freedom and the "right to offend."

do I have to keep repeating that I don't condone death threats, defend them morally or even find them strategically wise?  however I also don't find waving red rags at bulls to be strategically wise.

I think Malooga's comments over at the Moon are insightful:

Again, who profits from all of this? Centralized Governments, Religions, Corporate Media, and a few bad artists. All of this is almost comic relief--more "buffo caricato", than "buffo nobile,"--from the major issues of war, poverty, imperialism, resource depletion, and ecologic catastrophe confronting mankind.
[...]
Each time the media has been breathless in fanning the flames of rightgeousness and indignation. It's a circus that has never brought people closer to understanding and respecting each other. Rather, it is more an idealization of a certain puerile adolescent state when one simply must break away from all authority figures, and indeed, the whole world [...]
It should be obvious to all that corporate media has no real interest in exercizing any particular freedom to tell greater truths, and that intelligent, thinking and feeling Muslims these days have far more on their plate than taking the bait and thrashing around like a hooked fish on an issue that was not of their framing, and not essential to the greater struggles they face.
[...]
What I am attempting to do, is comment upon a culture that holds subversion of convention, provocation, and intellectual tittilation above human values such as the universality of suffering, and the longing for social justice. That's the greater frame into which this discussion should be placed. (It seems almost unnecesary to point out how difficult to craft, and rare, good art--representational or modern--that upholds these human values, truly is. Picasso, usually an extraordinarily quick worker, spent months of studies tweaking and retweaking the emotions and symbols of suffering in various ways before painting "Guernica.")

The boldface text for me is the "moi aussi" bit, so the boldfacing is mine not M's.


The difference between theory and practise in practise ...