Flagburning is one thing, but this is unacceptable and frankly, infuriating. Both Norway and Denmark now rightly consider breaking off diplomatic relations with Syria. The world's northernmost desert wind.
A pleasuree I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Popular speech requires no defenders. It's when the free speech of those we may view as misguided is trampled, that out principles and our actions are weighed.
I had expected so much more from this community. I am stunned. Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.
I know you may not have time to read all my posts...this maybe the reason why you make such an off-mark remark.
I will always defend the right of anybody to be racist.. but I will never defend or respect rascism....I am glad that you are stunned because the sentence "free speech defenders are needed in tough time" was also used by an all time racist I know in Spain....funny he did not use the same sentence when a book making fun of jews and the shoa was forbidden by the Spanish Supreme Court.
It is not tolerance of the intolerance it is just don't giving a damn about racists and nuts...If you want my opinion you just have to read the editorial of the Guardian. They sum up it nicely
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Instead, this has become an international event because of the free speech issue, not the racism issue.
Or you mean that by using the freedom of speech debate we have made this a global issue when it need not to be, since this was supposed to be a purely racist remark in a small corner of Europe?
You mean it is better to use the racism frame , the freedom of speech or just ignore it all together?
I, myself, would liek to recall that it was started by racists and then other radicals took the issue which at the same time helped other radicals.
I just thought that using freedom of seppech as a theme will ake everybody involved and the moderates, as always, will be drowned out...but in this self-created discussion (as you seem to say the KKK would have loved this kind of publicity) is always difficult to know exactly what to do.
All I'm saying is that once the story made it out of Denmark, it became a free speech issue. Within Denmark, readers of the newspaper had every right to condemn it, cancel subscriptions, etc. Outside of Denmark, the calls to muzzle the newspaper editors were more inappropriate than the cartoons themselves, IMO.
However, our editor's upstanding and personally courageous - I posted the drawings on his explicit request - defense of free speech has made me conclude that it is.
Thank you, Jérôme Guillet. I haven't said this in so many words before, not being the butt-kissing type; but you are one of the persons in this world that I admire most. The world's northernmost desert wind.
Saying that only thanks to Jerome you are here and that "rubbish" (you seem to imply) like me drive you out this site is highly insulting by anyone defending a contrary position. Actually I do not think wy defending the osition of the guardian will drive you out of this site...
In any case, I will never fell so self-righteous to want to be out of here just because you or Jerome does not agree with the Guardian.
I am sad...Nothing more to say.
I wasn't thinking specifically of you at all. Indeed, I actually took you to share my own view: that the drawings are bunk that shouldn't have published in the first place as a matter of editorial restraint, but that freedom of speech implies the right to publish them - a non-negotiable right for which we now must take a stand. I obviously misunderstood you.
I am perfectly entitled to decide where to spend my online time based on congeniality of a community to my own fundamental convictions. Whether you think this "self-righteous" is of no concern to me. The world's northernmost desert wind.
I also had not seen any, as Migeru, a reduction of the congeniality. I normally say it up front if a sense any of these breaks. As in your case I felt it could be.. and I know that it is difficult to express feeling online and difficult to know.. this is why I I try to post and expression of feelings...That was my previous post.
You know, if it would have been any of the people I know in barcelona I would have guessed it was a cheap shot :).. but it was weird coming from you. That is why I asked for clarification...it is reallly dificult to ask for one because you really do not know what's going on before you receive the answer. Sorry if I did not ask for it properly...I just do not know more.
I am sad that you felt that the level of friendship diminished....I did not answer you before so whoever might have gave you that impression (maybe real) think that maybe he/she did not actually meant anything wrong or actually write anything with mala baba.
Take care
I agree with the latter argument, but I do think the first group has a legitimate argument. In any case debate is interesting and helps us question our views, even if it rarely changes them. It's a useful and enjoyable exercize, though sometimes emotions run high. Certainly no reason to feel like slamming the door on Eurotrib.
Although my take is that the images should be avoided in the same measure than other images that attack jews and catholics are avoided...The bar should be raised or the diminshed at the same time. Just to point out more clearly :)
I love your post.
That I care more about one side of the arguments today does not mean that I do not care about the arguments from the other side.
Personally, I am glad that such an intense debate could take place with almost no irrevocably nasty words written. But this is probably not over yet... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
To me, this entire debate flows from freedom of speech. It's a positive thing that there is such a vigorous debate going on here. If it were not, we all would be reduced to pundits professing the same "wisdom" and preach to the choir. There are enough of those out on the net; in fact ET partly stands up to them. If any, this debate proves why everyone should stick to ET.
This may sound like weaseling out, but it isn't, I think. I have made my own position clear, forcefully, but I am glad that others have made the opposite one just as forcefully and intensely - and I will certainly admit that many of their arguments make a lot of sense. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I mean, if the same thing happens in Saudi Arabia being freinds of the US and not foes it will be very interesting to see the reaction of the authorities and people on the ground...
Hmmmm. Yes, well, it's the Saudi regime that's friends with the US, not necessarily the people, although I gather that there is a very wide variance in attitudes.
But does anyone here know what Denmark and Norway's relations with Saudi are like?
A government has a responsibility to protect foreign embassies. Embassies are extraterritorial and under international law the Danish embassy is basically treated as part of Denmark. Syria is now in violation of the
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
22. 2. The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.
Don't mind me, I'm just tired and grumpy. I am aware of the Vienna Convention protocols, and I would never in a million years defend the torching of an embassy. I hope you don't think I was doing so.
It really does create a problem for Syria. I am also quite sure that they could have protected those embassies if they really wanted to. People do not protest in Syria if they do not believe it is sanctioned by the state.
I imagine that the severing of diplomatic relations would be a unilateral action that Denmark and Norway could take, but since the treaty is to apply even in the event of severed relations, it must be enforcable by the UN, regardless of the state of relations between the states involved.
Which means, I guess, that sanctions could theoretically be on the table... which would make the Bush administration soooooo happy. Sigh.
45. If diplomatic relations are broken off between two States, or if a mission is permanently or temporarily recalled: (a) the receiving State must, even in case of armed conflict, respect and protect the premises of the mission, together with its property and archives;
In the case of London... Well, three of the bombers were British born and the fourth was Jamaican.
As for 9/11, at least one turbaned Sikh was murdered by a self-styled "patriot", and the US secret service does a good job of protecting foreign embassies, as Michael Moore found out when he was making his latest film. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
I and the public know what all school-children learn: those to whom evil is done do evil in return.
(Auden)
Has anyone but me had the passing thought that free-speech fundamentalism is also, well, umm, a fundamentalism? This gets us into an interesting realm of questioning: what do we think is fundamental? What I think is fundamental is, perhaps, Buddhist in tone even though I am not a practising or believing Buddhist. This old atheist thinks that the fundamental ethic, the touchstone, is to reduce the amount of cruelty and violence going on. That for me is the core value.
So... when absolutist freespeechism is used as cover for committing cruelty or provoking violence, then in my view it becomes ethically invalid. We could have all the free speech in the world and still live in Hell, without the values of kindness, respect, and diplomacy... Similarly I have a great regard for science and the scientific method, but scientific results obtained by torture (as in the Andaman Islands penal colony where British doctors tortured prisoners, or the Nazi death camps or the Japanese POW camps) to me can never justify the methods used to obtain them -- the cruelty taints the science. The rule of law is a good thing, but when it is used as a shield for the privileged to taunt the powerless I lose some of my respect for the rule of law. Javert was not a sympathetic character.
I am not sure that absolutism about free speech doesn't alarm me in something of the same way (though less acutely) as absolutism about prohibiting the Prophet's image or absolutism about Marx's theories -- if it is used to justify bad behaviour to living human beings. Absolutism about things I agree with is much less scary than absolutism about things I disagree with -- because it's less immediately threatening to my own person. But I think I have to say I am at odds with absolutism in general. And I think that one of the debates that has been going on embedded in this interesting wrangle, and perhaps unacknowledged, is a debate between moral absolutists and situational ethicists. The situational ethicists (myself among 'em) say that what is right and wrong may depend on the specifics of the situation (there are more than two sides to any argument and both can be wrong and both right); the moral absolutists say that there is an abstract principle which transcends any specific situation and no compromise is possible (you're either with us or against us?)
At each point along the way in this sorry brouhaha [not this ET thread, the real-world affair], decisions were made to hurt people. The cartoonists decided to direct racial stereotypes and uninformed religious slurs at a minority in their own country; the editorial board chose to publish, knowing that feelings would be hurt (and knowing the degree of racial tension in the country, that some kind of fracas might well ensue); the newspaper and other media chose to ignore the complaints of resident Muslims; the government chose to insult the pan-Arab ambassadors by ignoring them; and so on. At any point a modicum of empathy or kindness or generosity could have defused the situation, at low cost -- but now it has escalated and gets harder and harder to control; A's bad behaviour is the perfect excuse for B, which then excuses more and worse from A... As the Buddhists would say, anger and ego-desire breed suffering and more suffering. So to me the moral failing in this situation is present on both sides and started with the original offence, it did not start only when some opportunist Muslim rabble-rouser decided to get a bunch of guys worked up with the exciting prospect of death threats and blowing things up. Someone handed him that opportunity on a plate.
And still the question haunts me -- did the Danish muckymuck refuse to see the pan-Arab ambassadors -- a gesture which might have saved face and cooled tempers all around -- because he believes so fervently in freespeech, or because A White Man Does Not Apologise to a Wog? Does he even know, for sure, in his own heart, all the reasons for that refusal? Can we ever be that certain of the purity of our motives, certain enough to justify absolutism?
Lastly, Lupin, though I agree on a gut level with your impatience with organised religion and all the rest -- I can't really see this as a conflict between modernity and antiquity ("us enlightened folks" vs "those historical losers" in other words): the publication of scurrilous drawings and doggerel insulting enemies of the state (or just people the artist or his patron hates), is at least as old as graffiti on Etruscan latrine walls. Nothing modern about nasty toons. "Nyah Nyah Nyah" might be the oldest words in any language... and the insulting of the vanquished foe's gods is at least as old as Empire itself. Hardly modernist, nor are artists guaranteed to be in the forefront of anything other than the cause that their patron is paying them to promote. [PS I hope your voluntary exile is still proving delightful!]
I think a debate on situational (how about Situationist?) ethics vs absolutist (rights and law) ethics might be an interesting way to discover more about where our differences of opinion come from... and perhaps explain some things about schisms and factionalism on the Left and other interesting phenomena. I appreciate everyone's effort to keep a grip on their tempers, too; a remarkable civil discussion considering the emotional and ethical conflicts involved. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I just hope that, if ever the time comes, when your free speech is shouted down with death threats and the arsonists are at your door, that people of good judgement will see the case for what it is, and be able to muster up something better in your defense than an apologia for the people with the pitchforks and torches, and half baked "dorm room at five in the morning" philosophical mutterings about horrid free speech fundamentalists.
For shame! Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.
Love your post.
I would put a little more emphasis on the fact that free speech was an excellent frame that helped the west a lot...to reduce violence within our borders. SO I will also defend it always if there was a level playing field. There is not such a level field.. so one has to respond to both radicals...and as MIgeru said.. maybe a little bit more strongly to those we can identify more.....I will protest more a decision of a western government than one from a muslim country just because I am in a western country...this does not mean I will not give my opinion about the dictators over there but I will not get to the streets for that.
By the way , you can always write a diary...:)
