On the one hand we have caricatures, arguably unfunny and in poor taste, but still within the bounds of legal free speech. On the other we have people who not only want that free speech muzzled, but are threatening, with all too much credibility, to kill to make it so.
Now one can understand why they'd react, understand their past grievances, one can do all of that, but still not condone, or lose sight of what is at heart a pretty simple case of people threatening murder to quell free speech. If there's a case that should be easy to take a stand on for the left, unpretty in its details as the case may be, this should be it.
How many freethinkers in our own culture have not only been threatened for ridiculing, often in bad taste, our own prophets of right religious thought through the years when they still wielded power, but even paid with their lives for it? And can we now condone those who would mete out the same punishments, no matter what their background and just grievances in other matters? Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.
I personally don't like the Evans toons either. imho they were crudely drawn, leaning lazily on anti-semitic stereotypes -- again conflating an anti-semitic emotional buzz with his legitimate (imho) criticism of Israeli policy and the Occupation. But not much worse or better than the 'Mohammetoons' to my eye, so where was the worldwide rallying to his defence, or the taking-up of his toons by a dozen papers in hot defence of sacred free speech and Enlightenment/democratic values? The debate over Evans' firing was limited to NZ, I believe, and his only defenders appear to have been unsavory white supremacist types. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
And second, are you seriously comparing someone getting fired for drawing anti-Semitic cartoons to threatening to kill cartoonists, newspaper staff, and people wholly unrelated to the matter other than being from the same country? Is that what you're saying here? 'cause I think my eyes must be going. Who spiked my drink with methanol? Was that you, Sirocco? Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.
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 ...
