Everybody freeze
Yelena Shesternina in the Kuwait Times gives us all a damn good scolding.
Far from everyone in the West has learned a lesson from the first cartoon war in 2005, when Jyllands-Posten, a little-known Danish newspaper, managed to cause an uproar in the whole world with just one publication. Its cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) offended 1.5 billion people. Islamic traditions prohibit the publication of any images of people, not to mention the prophet.
What lesson was everyone in the West supposed to learn from the first ‘cartoon war,’ do you suppose? That if some people decide to over-react in a deranged, disproportionate, violent, and unpredictable manner, then all the rest of us should thenceforth be afraid to say anything about anything, and act accordingly?
And then…what are we supposed to do about the fact (if it is a fact) that ‘Islamic traditions prohibit the publication of any images of people’? Close down all publication of images of people anywhere in the world? But lots of traditions prohibit lots of things (some of which necessarily contradict each other); are we all supposed to obey all of them? If so we might as well be newts, or toadstools. There’s no point in having a mind if you’re forbidden to use it.
It is time for the politically correct Europe to come to its senses and stop defending its democratic principles at all costs. The value of human life overrides any liberties, even freedom of expression. If the ultranationalist shows his movie, there may be dozens of victims (I’m not talking about his life). Or are the Europeans ready to sacrifice dozens of Muslim lives so that Wilders can enjoy freedom of expression?
So…if the ultranationalist shows his movie, dozens of Muslims will be killed? Why would that be? Why would it be Muslims who would be killed? Is Shesternina trying to imply that the movie will inspire people to rush out and kill dozens of Muslims? Maybe so – at the beginning of her piece she said that ‘About 50 people fell victim to pogroms and demonstrations’ – without saying ‘pogroms’ by whom against whom. Maybe she wanted to make us think there were ‘pogroms’ of Muslims by non-Muslims – but that’s not what happened. So what exactly is the causal mechanism that will result in dozens of Muslims being killed as a result of Wilders’s free expression? She doesn’t say. No; she just says pc Europe has to come to its senses and stop defending its democratic principles at all costs. Well what a pretty thought. Overboard with the democratic principles, because Islamic traditions prohibit the publication of any images of people. Understood?
Just, wow.
‘The value of human life overrides any liberties,..’
So shut or I’ll stab some random passer-by. I win.
Great system.
AFAIK, none of the cartoonists actually killed anyone. If she is so concerned about human life, maybe focus on the people taking it.
Ah but you see it’s really the cartoonists’ fault. It’s not the fault of the people who actually perpetrate the violence; oh no; it’s the fault of people who drew some mild cartoons for a newspaper. That’s morality for you.
And ain’t it wonderful.
That’s because they are muslims, OB. They cannot be expected to understand “European democratic principles” like freedom of expression or democracy or (god forbid!) equality. It all goes to their head and obviously when they start killing people they cannot be held responsible.
Ah! The wonderful casual racism of the enlightened world citizen!
“Everybody dance”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSEE-MX5DfI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-JAP7Kf1cI
Beannachtai Na Feile Betsy!
My favourite bit was this:
“It is time for the politically correct Europe to come to its senses and stop defending its democratic principles at all costs.”
Now…er…I thought that “political correctness” (especially when it has, in the words of the Daily Mail, “gone mad” – who’da thunk that BSE could leap the species-‘abstract concept’ barrier so successfully?) actually lead people to curtail the ‘freedom’ of their speech?
And if ever there was something genuinely *worth* defending about this bedraggled corner of the planet, then I’d have thought that our “democratic principles” (even if we’re deeply unrepresentative in practice) would make most folk here’s top 5 list…?
But we have to give them up, or the puppy gets it?
Ah, well, fair’s fair, can’t argue with that, right enough…
:-)
“It all goes to their head”
And to that of their own women, for forevermore – if they do not comply with the wishes of their fundamentalist Muslim compatriots. Bullying the world seems nowadays to be a common hobby of the latter. And everyone everywhere (inclusive of the media) is falling for it. That is indeed also applicable to Yelena Shesternina (international commentator for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti – MCT).
All the wrong kind of arrogance. If some Kuwaitis were making cartoons of something I held dear, I would think, ignorant barbarians, what else would you expect of them and haughtily shrug my shoulders at their crass foreign ways. Why give a stuff about what a bunch of Danes think of your religion?
“It is time for the politically correct Europe to come to its senses and stop defending its democratic principles at all costs.”
She really doesn’t grok “political correctness”, does she?
For some reason the author’s logic reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles where the new black sheriff averts lynching at the hands of the white townsfolk by pointing his gun at his own head and saying “Nobody move or the nigger gets it.”
That line was very much my favourite too – that’s why I squashed it into the News teaser as well. Funny old pc Europe, defending its democratic principles at all costs. So silly! Don’t they know how much fun the other kind are? Dictatorship is such a barrel of laughs!
I wish there was a way to type a one finger salute(flipping the bird)I would email it to this newspaper!
This woman writes for the Russian state media? I find that frightening. What’s coming out of Russia these days.
Spot the difference:
“.. it was enough for Muslims to hear that the film exists to start burning all European flags, and to threaten to kill not only its author but all Western politicians who dare show any support for his views.”
“The value of human life overrides any liberties, even freedom of expression”.
Apparently this “value of human life” is not appreciated by Muslims.
Also: it is interesting that having written of “pogroms” and death-threats by Muslims , the author ends without comdemning these reprehensible acts. On the contrary, it’s time for “politically correct Europe to come to its senses”.
But then Yelena Shesternina works for Novosti, which used to be the Soviet Information Bureau. So her ng “black is white” is to be expected.
In view of the rapid demise under Putin of such democratic principles as Russia managed to temporarily acquire post-Gorbachev I see this as a clever attempt to get the rest of us down to their level…
Roger, you can’t know how happy you made me by using the verb “to grok.” My day is just that much better now. . ..