The StuSie: The Fury of Democracy

Freitag, Februar 17, 2006

The Fury of Democracy

Yes…well…there is a point to the picture above, trust me…its about freedom of opinion you see. I am simply exercising my right to publish whatever the fuck I like and tough shit if any of you out there have a problem with it. Not my problem. Well, apparently, the image above is not as outrageous as the images created by some ‘zany’ Danish cartoonists, pictures which I will discuss presently.

If you want to see the offending images, check out wikipedia. In my opinion the images are crass insults masquerading as 'satire' - the one with Mohammed carrying a bomb in his turban beggars belief. Yeh, why not insult all muslims for the sins of a handful of ‘freedom fighters’. (I am sick and tired of the word terrorist being directed at people who are fighting – rightly or wrongly – for what they believe in and the loaded connotations behind that word suggest these people are evil incarnate thus preventing us seeing the motives for their crimes as anything more than the promotion of ‘terror’ itself. Lest we forget, the infidels – the Americans – are still occupying (and collaborating with) the most fundamental of all Muslim nation states: Saudi Arabia. This is a country where there is no hint of a democratic process and women are not allowed to drive (ok…well…maybe not such a bad idea after all) and moreover, a country which funds many of the medhersas (Koranic schools) in other more moderate Islamic countries which promote their extreme brand of Islam known as wahhabism. Imagine that, the USA allied to the most extremist muslim country in the world, while at the same time seeking through its administration and media to create a paradigm which has the West at war with this religion? Yet there has never been any talk of why these terrorists do what they do – such as in order to drive the infidels out of the holy land once and for all. Thus throughout this blog I will use the contentious term ‘freedom fighter’ interchangeably with the equally contentious term ‘terrorist’ as it is not the author’s intention to display bias on such a controversial topic.)

One commentator described these caricatures as the ‘Life of Brian’ for Islam. That may be so, with one fundamental (loaded word) difference: Life of Brian was funny. And this isn’t about Meinungsfreiheit either as you don’t get people publishing pictures of tubgirl in their newspapers and then afterwards stating ‘we’re only expressing our freedom of opinion.’ There are some standards of decency which are unspoken but adhered to nevertheless. I wouldn’t portray Jesus in the way Mohammed was portrayed even though in Christianity we are allowed to depict our prophet – a fundamental (that word again) difference between our two religions.

Governments, furthermore, have a responsibility to their citizens to maintain the peace and I don’t see this being done when a Danish newspaper is allowed to republish their caricatures in a country of 200,000 muslims. This smacks of racism in a country which until recently had a radio station, supported by government subsidies, that declared itself as ‘national socialist’. Well, the Jews are gone from Europe so no-one can say Hitler wasn’t successful in this respect, the problem now though, is that they’ve been replaced with muslims.

The right-wing government in Denmark clearly should shoulder some of the blame for the present outrage in Islamic countries although we should also bear in mind, that the countries where the most outrage has been ‘reported’ (how many people did you count taking part in these riots? One thousand?) have a vested interest in turning the rage of its populace outwards towards the West (much as the US is doing in reverse with its own population). Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten therefore – as well as other newspapers around Europe including a few here in Austria – are helping to create this polarisation between East and West, all in the name of ‘freedom of opinion.’ Authoritarian regimes all need to give their populace a way to vent their anger: I vent mine by publishing a picture of tubgirl. Enjoy.