:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Monday, 27 February 2006 ::

CONFRONTING? G'UH.

What is not to be confronted by when a woman, usually short, wanders into your line of sight or, worse, your actual midst, wearing a veil, a hijab, a jilbab, an abya, a burka or some frickin' Ayatollah-inspired combo of the worst of the foregoing? And let us not forget the shapeless thick wool coat of virtue.

Puke.

Natch, you gonna be confronted. Who would not be, when all of a sudden you find yourself in the presence of some shortarse wog (usually) who is in essence sartorially screaming "godless sluuttt!" at you, cos you are, ya know, like normally dressed and your hair can be seen....maybe even touched.

O. Mo. Go. Burn me at the stake for a witch.

Urgh.

The politesse and learned tones of BYF are on the money but I, being a wog, lack his grace. Whatever. We are of like mind.
:: WB 3:59 am [link+] ::

OH, I SEE. NOT SO MUCH A HUNGER STRIKE AS SADDAM'S 11-DAY DETOX.

Sheesh, is there anything he does not lie about?

Despotic jackass.
:: WB 3:50 am [link+] ::

I AM NOT A MUSLIM

So, all the Mohamed - no peace wished upon him here, no war either, but - cartoons are fine with me, and I am happy to publish them.

They are fine cos they are addressing the major issues of our time. The violent habits of some Muslims to take their religion into every part of the world where they settle, as if every person who is not a Muslim somehow has to adopt some Muslim ways.

The Christian church asks only that you do not dress like a slut when you go inside the Vatican or any other church. You can actually be a slut and enter, just not dressed like one and not behaving like one while you are there.

The Christian church asks.

If you do not accede to the request, the worst that will happen is that you will be asked to leave a church.

The Christian church asks only that you try to keep the offensive "art" about Jesus and Mary and God to a minimum. But if you do use elephant shit (Chris Ofili (?) )and urine (Andres Serano (?) ) , or cast Willem Defoe as Jesus (Martin Scorsese), to produce your "art" the Christians will ask that your "art" should not be exhibited.

The Christian church asks. And most often does not get what it wants - all 3 items above went ahead into the public over the protests of offended Christians.

The Islamic faith - who knows what it asks? It has no Pope and most of its noisy imams and sheikhs think killing poofs and putting blankets over all their girlies is a good way to live.

But we sure know what its adherents - the Muslims - demand. They demand that Christians should adopt Muslim habits, like the habit of fearing idolatory so much, even the worship of their own prophet, that he cannot be represented at all. Was not always this way.

They demand that governments censor their newspapers to ensure the Muslom's demand is met.

They demand a right for their faith to be held safe from caricature by people who do not even share that faith.

And they go full-on psycho if there is a hint of non-compliance with their demands.

Gi. Fa.

Now, this is the first soopadoopa generalisation I have made about 'Muslims' cos I prefer to try not to lump folks in. But I am gettin' fed up. They are either setting shit on fire and squealing about the Jews in their boring irrelevant blah blah way. Or they are silent and letting others in the midst do exactly that.

Silence as acquiesence.

That is where I am heading. Not a nice conclusion, but I am a gnat's dick away from it.

What has got my dander up?

Well, all this cartoon rubbish, of course but pecificly two things. First, I just saw a weak as piss "interview" on the BBC with some jackass called Tamimi head of, get this "The Muslim Centre for Political Thought".

Oh ya. Imagine the meetings - "Political thought should be Muslim thought? Motion passed. Good night every body." Urgh.

Him (natch, it is a him) is going to organise a rally to complain about the provacation of the Danes publishing the cartoons, and get this, they are going to demand an apology from the Danish government.

What a bloated sense of self-importance. What an absolutely rolled-gold misunderstanding of their place in the world. They like Mohamed (no peace, amemba) well, bully for them. They do not like figurative art? Well, they really are idiots. for this cos graphics are boring if they are all the art you have got. But still, bully for them. They do not like figurative art or caricature of Mohamed? Well, bully for them again.

But I do not have to play, and thank Jesus for that. Literally.

Denamrk, Australia, Italy - we do not have to play. UK too.

Natch, the BBC did not challenge this Tamimi jackass over the publication of the cartoons in Egypt, a Muslim nation with government control of the press. Natch, no mention of the fact that Danish muslims had internationalised the matter by lying about the cartoons. And natch, absolutely no mention of the fact that Mohamed has been represented plenty in Muslim art and this whole 'no pictures' thing is a bullshit modern habit that quite frankly cannot fit in a modern world with the innernut.

BBC sux.

And the second reason for my fury today? Sweden's government has decided to ban publication of a Swedish cartoon.

This one:

This is not about Mohamed.

He is just fine.

It is about Tamimi and the horrible standover mafia like tactics he uses to get non-Muslims like me.

Roman Catholics like me.

Now, one last point - you may amamba a whie back I slammed captain ed, an American blogger who thought it appropriate to publish Canadian info that was sealed by court, legitimately confidential for a period of time. I slammed him for being the epitome of an ugly American. He thinks his laws follow him on the internet, as if there are no borders being crossed when he goes online.

Well, he was wrong then and nothing has changed. Laws about courts and confidentiality in Canada, as in Oz and the UK etc etc are legitmate laws developed over hundreds of years for the good reason of needing to ensure the judiciary can have adequate evidence presented to it in order to reach a judgement.

I am not slamming any legitimate law by publishing on this blog these cartoons. And before anyone starts bleating about - ooooh, what about the laws in, say, Iran, about sharia law, no Muslim being allowed to draw or see Mohamed, and Islam and blah blah - let us get something crystal clear.

A court that orders material published in it to be kept confidential for a period of time so as to protect the integrity of the court process is a perfecly legitimate law, whether it is a court in Canada or Oz or Afghanistan.

But a court of public opinion and religious habit is not in the same league. Nowhere near it.

Neither is some stupid a statute on the books in Saudi or Iran (orunno but I am presuming, cos they have laws for beheading poofs, ya know, that is how craazy they are) that says "No citizen may draw or publish pics of the prophet or bring them into the Kingdom//Counrty".

They are not genuine laws for a respectably good reason.

They are religious laws, set up to hold the religion immune from any critique or even caricature. And they are all about prohibition and in the case of Iran they only started in 1979 for the simple reason that Khomenei hated women, poofs and non-Muslims. the Islamic revolution, yah?

Hardly the basis for a respectable jurisprudential history, now, eh?

And given that they seem to be being applied against the Danes, by extrapolation, they are patently not about control of the citizenry within the borders of the Muslim law zones. They are extraterritorial and utterly unenforceable.

Too much prohibition.

The innernut, she is a pull publishing mechanism. You wanna live in your world without figurative art and with blankets on your women, you can. You are a disgrace if you do in my view, but you can. And the innernut need never cause you problems.

But you wanna live in Denmark and do that? And you want Danes to give a shit what a bunch of mad Muslims think who are in the Middle east or elswhere?

Gi. Fa.

And you wanna live in the UK, like Tamimi, and insist the Danes should capitulate?

Well, two times, yeah?

Urgh.

UPDATE:
Terrific exchange at the Gates of Vienna that captures my mindset pretty much perfectly right now.

UPDATE II:
Check this exchange between a cartoonist, Bok, and some folks Stateside.
:: WB 5:06 pm [link+] ::

BASTA

This is why the cartoons need to be published.

Thanks to some French paper for this beautiful vision of the heart of the argument as I see it.

And here are the cartoons themselves.

[NOTE: Yeah, yeah, marvel at my technological ineptitude at being reduced to photograph photographs on the innernut....I really gotta get me some lessons in this bloggy thing.]

Anyhoo, where was I?

Oh yeah - Why publish? Cos any discussion of this stuff without publishing them or at least some of them is, to be blunt, not a gesture that is respectful to Muslims sensibilities. It is a capitulation, in a time of real crisis, to Muslims’ overdeveloped sensitivities, unrealistic expectations and and overreactions to non-Muslim behaviours.

The Danish publication was done deliberately to show that in Denmark, the effect of Muslim mania has chilled artists to the extent that an author could not locate any artist prepared to contribute illustrations for a book about Mohammed. That is why the editors of the newspaper decided to call for cartoonists to submit some pics and go ahead and publish them.

To show that there is a problem in the attitudes of Muslims in Denmark that is running wholly counter to the more local Euro attitude that artists should be free to express views about religious figures including Mohammed without fear or favour, subject always to the constraints of the law.

And boy, were those editors ever right.

Mad muslims (note, the mad ones) have behaved as they have ever behaved about any vague references by non-Muslims to the Islamic religion that are not capitulatingly praisefilled - immediately taking offence where none is intended and engaging in violence and calls for bloody retribution as a result of something that never ever warranted such a reaction.

What's new, eh?

Urgh.

Let us forget about them, they are insane in the membrane and alls they care about is their religion.

I do not care about their religion. I care about mine. Mine has nothing to do with this whole hullabaloo, but Roman Catholic, zif you needed to wonder.

What I do care about, that absolutely does have something to do with the hullabaloo, is freedom of expression for newspapers to publish their cartoons as they see fit within the constraints of the law and not within the constraints of a bunch of mad Muslims.

So, to get to the nub of it, what are the constraints of law upon the right of freedom of expression?

Well, two really.

First, publication that vilifies a person or a recognised group of those sorts of persons with a view to inciting active prejudice against them, based upon race, religion, gender, disability and/or age.

Second, straight up old fashioned defamation - libel or slander, that is, being publication that injures somebody's reputation (or the reputation of a group if they share the reputation), whether the publication is deliberate or reckless.

And are there are defences to such publications?

Yah. In the first case, the defence that no vilification is intended, and context comes in to it. And in the second case, there is often a defence of simple straight up truth, even if the truth hurts. Plus other more esoteric defences, no need to bore youse witless about it all here.

See, seems to me the cartoons, published now all over the globe, thanks to the internet and a BBC broadacast, fit within the law.

So, next question - have the mad Muslims who have demonstrated around the globe, burned flags, fired their stupid guns, set fire to the Danish Embassy (and the Chilean and Swedish too - zif they care) in Damascus and called for jihad and violence against all folks who "disrespect" Mohammed blah blah, themselves acted within the law?

Well, to the extent their demonstrations amount to nothing more than:

"What Don't We Want
Danish Butter"

hen that is fine, but when it starts getting violent with the burning and the firing, then no, they are no longer law abiding.

They are inciting violence against a recognisable group of people - Danes, of all peoples! They are disturbing the peace.

Now, we all know the drill of the mad Muslim - complain that he is acting legitimately when he breaks the law, because he is simply responding to provocation which was itself illegitimate blah blah blah the cartoons have caused the trouble, not the troublemakers themselves who show not a jot of restraint in their behaviours.

It is shite.

It is Rushdie all over again and I reckon I have grown up since then.

Back then, 1989, I thought Rushdie deserved what he got cos he riled up the wogs. Back then I used to think - hey, they are wogs, going berserk is what they do, you cannot expect an exemption, you have made your hammock now lie in it.

What changed for me? Sicily 1992. Stay with me here, cos it makes sense and is objectively right.

Sicilians, mafia and mafia protectors, at least that was their reputation, actually did something about the "mad Muslims" ie mafiosi, in their midst. "Basta". Enough. No more.

70000 people went to the funeral of Giovanni Falcone, mafia prosecutor, assassinated by filthy scum in a vast explosion of his car. And they pledged, among other things, “not to turn a blind eye to current malpractices, lending them tacit consent simply because ‘cosi fan tutti’ ”.

To apply this to the cartoon hullabloo - I think the Danish editors essentially made a pledge not to lend tacit consent to the extra-legal suppression of free expression achieved by mad Muslims through their constant violence and threats of violence over the years wherever they perceive their religion is not being given sufficient awe by those of us who do not care about it.

Translation - just cos some mad Muslims are gonna go crazy, does not mean we should not address this whole question of freedom of speech and art and Islam in Europe, in the pages of our paper.

And I reckon that is the heart of this madness, and a pledge worth taking.

By the way - "extra-legal" - yeah, that is what I mean. There is no law says I have an obligation not to republish the cartoons because to do so may cause offence to some Muslims reader, if there are any. No law. If I cared about offense, I would not publish for the internal conscience reason, you know? But not law.

The law says I cannot vilify or defame.

I am not vilifying anyone or their religion nor am I injuring their reputation.

I am supporting Danes and folks all over the globe who think cartoons that depict Mohammed should be able to be published and Muslims should be free to peacefully and legally complain if they wish, but they really would be better expending their energy on more important things than the fact that non-Muslims do not share their attitudes towards pics of their prophet. They do not thinks pics of the prophet are okay. Fine – do not publish any. Me, I like figurative art, and this whole episode is the first time I have even realised that there have been many renderings of Mohammed in the past. So this whole ‘no pics’ thing is just another bad habit picked up by modern Muslims that is deeply flawed in a modern world where you have to be in an empty room with the lights out to be in a place without art.

For some better reading on this than mine, check out Norm and Scott from the UK.

For a perfect but awful vision of what this whole cartoon episode is wreaking, check out the threats to NZ.

And, just as a last thought, I wonder if the UK laws against religious vilification would have caught the BBC as publishers of the cartoons, or maybe the mad Muslims genuinely inciting violence in the name of their religion instead. Or maybe both?

Whatever.
:: WB 10:49 pm [link+] ::

SETTLE DOWN, YA CRAAZIES

Read all about this ridiculous Kerfuffle of the Cartoons from a bunch of Muslims around the planet - not all mind, at least I hope - who are getting all worked up, as is their habit, about drawings published in Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, Spain and Italy and shortly in the UK too.

Seems to me the only people humiliating the Islamic religion these days and showing it disrespect are Muslims themselves, by their craaziness.

you know the drill - the jumping up and down on and burning of flags, the gunmen attacking the wrong nationality of folks, the bleating about the need for respect blah blah.

And if I had a scant grey cell in my empty head to work out how to post the set of cartoons I would but I have been at this for an hour and a half and blogger ain't letting me upload the pics I want.

So, let us make this a warning for any sensitive Muslim types out there, or any or their apologists in the multiculti industry - I will be posting the full set of cartoons and some others that have arisen as a result of Muslim mania over this.

Do not be reading this site if that will offend you, cos I do not intend to offend you.

I intend to show support for freedom of publication against violent attempts of censorship by a religion that ain't mine.

Anybody wanna stick a link in the comments for a shot of the cartoons please do. Otherwise it will be hours more effort for me tonight, and I have visions of me with a digicam taking a screen shot...urgh.

Out.
:: WB 12:35 pm [link+] ::