Six months after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed twelve cartoons of Muhammad in 2005, orchestrated Islamic outrage led to over a hundred people being killed and Danish embassies attacked in Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
The proposed Irish blasphemy law uses religious outrage as one of the triggers for determining whether material is blasphemous. This incentivizes religious outrage, and makes it more likely to happen.
Bloody Cartoons is a BBC documentary in which Danish director Karsten Kjaer examines the controversy and its impact on free speech in a democracy. It is filmed in Europe and the Middle east. Watch this important documentary, and campaign against the Irish blasphemy law.
Continue for parts 2 to 5 of the documentary…
I wouldn’t have called the outrage orchestrated.
Seemed to be more of a knee jerk reaction to a
2 fronted attack.
Attack their lands with bombs and missiles, and
attack their faith with films and other media.
Comment by ohms — May 11, 2009 @ 8:29 am
The outrage most certainly WAS orchestrated. In the proceeding weeks to their publishing in Jyllands-Posten, Danish Imams travelled to the middle east and brought with them booklets showing the “offending” artwork.
The thing was, these booklets contained more than just the original 12 pictures: 3 extra to be precise… one of which supposedly showed “Mohammad” wearing a pigsnout and singing into a microphone: this turned out to be a poor-quality photocopy of a shot of some French comedian during a pig-squealing contest – nothing WHATSOEVER to do with the cartoons, just planted to incite mania and outrage!
Comment by Adam Dinan — May 11, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
Ohms, the riots were certainly orchestrated, unless ordinary middle-eastern people routinely carry Danish flags in case they ever need to publicly burn them.
However, for the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that the rest of the facts you convey are correct.
Why do you imply that the people who make films about Islam are the same people who are attacking Muslims with bombs?
Why do you describe riots about cartoons as a “knee-jerk reaction” while describing cartoons about Islam as “part of a two fronted attack” that also includes bombs and missiles?
Comment by Michael Nugent — May 11, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Europe and the USA are walking into the hands of the nutters by not confronting the mad muslims and neglecting to be strident about the simple fact that – we [THE WEST] are big on free speech and we will not indulge or entertain anyone who has a problem with that.
Sadly we have and continue to indulge the whackos and PC Brigades
Comment by Jasus Christy — January 3, 2010 @ 5:32 pm
I’m very ammused that during that piece it is revealed that it is considered rude to ask direct questions? I wonder why. Is it because you think you are all that holy and perfect that you shouldn’t have to answer to anyone even when your behavior towards other cultures is simply disgusting.
We show great tolorance and acceptance of them when they come to visit or even live here but when we go there, they show us no respect at all and continue to expect us to respect them. Phychologists have a name for that lads, it’s called narcisism… where you fly into a rage cause you can’t stand when people say “NO” to you. Grow up, show a bit of self control and learn to respect the rest of us for a change.
Comment by Alex — January 23, 2010 @ 1:43 pm