Mohammed Cartoons Part III: Who Says I Can't Ridicule Believers in God?

Whether Saudis actually set this little tinder fire ablaze or not is important as it links to Arab-International affairs, no doubt.

"Is that a bomb on your head orange are you happy to see me?" jokes aside, the link to the Dane's attempt (from my post below) to extend for the rest of us an insight into how inoffensive the cartoons appeared to Jyllands-Posten's average readers (including Danish Muslims) is equally important for an entirely different reason. The interpretations she he gives in most cases suggest that the images don't represent Mohammed at all, but twists of concepts regarding freedom-of-speech and religious behavior and sensitivity (IMO over-sensitivity) in the context of a pluralistic, secular society.

Juan Cole posts an article here with a long selection from the BBC of responses to the cartoons from papers throughout Iraq. Those responses vary in degree of anger and blame-placing from publisher to province. The one most startling to me was from Al-Sabah newspaper which is government sponsored:

"...if the law in a country allowed a writer or an artist to express their opinion any way they liked, then there was an unwritten law which made it necessary to respect the feelings and beliefs of others, among many other things which may not be covered by the legal system, but should be understood under the moral system". The writer added that "you may have the right to deny the existence of God, but you do not have the right, under any circumstances, to ridicule those who believe in Him".

I don't? Is that sounding as PC to you as it is to me? Yet right-wing advocates are identical in sentiment on religious matters, while deriding the same PC attitude when liberals apply it to race, gender or sexual identity.

The Mohammed Cartoons give us a perfect mirror from which to view our own partisan cultural war yet we seem to be missing the opportunity for the discussion, we are so bent on rushing to defend one or another of what I think are the fallacious poles of the argument embodied in the current framing: freedom of expression versus restrictions on hate speech.

What "hate speech"? The Dane clearly explains how those cartoons were viewed at least by one Dane--her him--and I have no reason to believe that her his sentiment is not unlike let's say half of her his countrymen and women...so what "hate speech"?

Has our culture been driven so far right and secularists so marginalized by the successful right-wing application of the "Principle of Asymmetry" to all things labeled left (including critical thinking and the completely acceptable practice of atheism) that no-one is willing to say (hell, shout) that the hate vs. free speech argument has no legs?!

The cartoons are an opportunity for dialogue about sacred cows vs. sacred symbols and free thought about both. It is also an opportunity to examine the use of that false dilemma (hate speech vs. free speech) as an attack on science through secularism in our own country.

Can we have that dialog soon please?

Hat tip to RezDog for the Juan Cole link.