Sound Off: Those 'Cartoons'
Until now I have refrained from comment on the infamous Muhammad cartoons published in a certain Danish newspaper. However this story has propelled me to speak out.
Once more the ultra-conservative's of Iran are using the images as a chance to attack Israel. I apologise if I am incorrect, but Israel isn't part of Denmark? The authors of these pictures are not Jewish are they? No. Once again this is tit for tat, spreading of anti-semitism that is becoming alarmingly frequent from Tehran.
Let me be clear. It was wrong to publish the cartoons in European newspapers. It stirred up trouble during a period where relations between faiths are incredibly strained. However, the newspapers did have a right to publish the images. That's free speech.
In response to 'Graphics editor Farid Mortazavi', who announced the contest, challenge to Western newspapers to publish the Iranian cartoons as they did the European ones, I say this. Has your publication shown readers the original items? No. You'd be executed if you did. Hypocricy of the highest kind.
The truest words I have perhaps heard so far have come from a man who works for one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. The Sudanese Foreign Minister raised the interesting point on the BBC website, that the reason why we see such outrage and calls for a Danish governmental apology over the cartoons, is simple:
"In the Third World they hardly separate between what is a journalist and what is the Danish government's point of view.
Once a Danish paper has published something then it is concluded that this is the opinion of everybody in Denmark. So that is the kind of feeling that should have been understood from the beginning."
It's time everyone calmed down and reflected. Wrong to publish cartoons - wrong to burn down embassies. Now back to the Democracy.
Once more the ultra-conservative's of Iran are using the images as a chance to attack Israel. I apologise if I am incorrect, but Israel isn't part of Denmark? The authors of these pictures are not Jewish are they? No. Once again this is tit for tat, spreading of anti-semitism that is becoming alarmingly frequent from Tehran.
Let me be clear. It was wrong to publish the cartoons in European newspapers. It stirred up trouble during a period where relations between faiths are incredibly strained. However, the newspapers did have a right to publish the images. That's free speech.
In response to 'Graphics editor Farid Mortazavi', who announced the contest, challenge to Western newspapers to publish the Iranian cartoons as they did the European ones, I say this. Has your publication shown readers the original items? No. You'd be executed if you did. Hypocricy of the highest kind.
The truest words I have perhaps heard so far have come from a man who works for one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. The Sudanese Foreign Minister raised the interesting point on the BBC website, that the reason why we see such outrage and calls for a Danish governmental apology over the cartoons, is simple:
"In the Third World they hardly separate between what is a journalist and what is the Danish government's point of view.
Once a Danish paper has published something then it is concluded that this is the opinion of everybody in Denmark. So that is the kind of feeling that should have been understood from the beginning."
It's time everyone calmed down and reflected. Wrong to publish cartoons - wrong to burn down embassies. Now back to the Democracy.
posted by MattyJ @ 3:17 pm
2 Comments:
At 2:33 pm,
Anonymous said…
"Wrong to publish cartoons"??? Begging your pardon sir, but without freedom of speech and the press there is and can be no democracy. As for the "holocaust", a definitive and scholarly investigation is long overdue. Examine all the available evidence and let the chips fall where they may. Jewish cultural, media and political hegemony in the western world is axiomatic; one egregious example is the fact that Stalin's Gulag was engineered by Soviet Jews ["Gulag Archipelago" Solzhenitsyn volume 2 pg 99], which begs the question: Why is the death of 3 to 6 million Hebrews more noteworthy than the murder of 30 to 40 million Russians, most of whom were Christian? In the opinion of the western media we must never be allowed respite from the memory of the "6 million", while the 30 to 40 million have been pushed down the Orwellian "memory hole". The worldwide Jewish community have a tremendous amount of political equity invested in the "holocaust". I have no allegiance to anything but the truth. Again, I call for an impartial and exhaustive investigation.
At 3:29 pm,
MattyJ said…
Yes, Wrong. I did not say they lacked the right to publish the cartoons. That is part of a Liberal Democracy. Whether or not it offends is a case of moral judgement. Morally they were wrong - for reasons outlined.
As for your comment about Jewish people. Yes, they have done many bad things and many good too. This doesn't take away from the disgusting crimes committed by the Nazi regime during the war. Those crimes are equal to the atrocities carried out by the Soviets, the Rwandan government. As for why the holocaust has greater significance than the Gulags? Hitler is a famous, well known dictator, that the western world defeated. The west saw the images of Jewish people leaving the concentration camps as skeletons. Such images never came from Uncle Joe's Russia. The holocaust was a poignant summary event of what the Nazi's were all about.
As for your other point...im not sure what your 'investigation' would discover? 6 million Jewish people died at the hands of a despicable regime. There is no need for any further investigation in my eyes, unless the relatives of the victims seek one.
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