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| 5/17 |
| 2006/2/9-11 [Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:41781 Activity:high |
2/9 "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of
the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/wl_nm/religion_cartoons_eu_dc
\_ The guy in the photo looks like Inspector Closeau pondering the
crime.
\_ Man, that's really disappointing and frustrating. -mice
\_ This sounds a lot like the Comics Code of the 50s. Sigh.
\_ What can I say, I'm disgusted. -John
\_ Well, it's looking like that whole Iraq War has spread stability
and democracy throughout the Muslim World! Yes, it sure is going
well, yessiree Bob!
\_ Yes, it's all because of this. Give me a fucking break. The
Iraq war was wrong, and it hasn't helped, but what you're seeing
is as much of a symptom of a generally pathetically broken
"culture" as a reaction to just one factor. -John
\_ The Arab press published the cartoons Oct 17:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48746
\_ "Arab press"... For a better researched examination of press
accounts, see the juancole link from yesterday. worldnetdaily
is shit. Wow. They quote the astute observations from "an
anonymous poster on FFE's blog". There's a news source to
trust.
\_ juancole's url is weak. all he shows is that egypt used
the issue, when one could also show that iran and syria
used the issue also. he also shows that people got pissed off
when they first heard about the cartoons, which has been an
obvious fact and not in dispute. the two unanswered questions
are, did saudi arabia use it too, and which entity(ies)'s
using this caused this to become as serious as it did?
\_ How come the major western media or the Danish govt didn't pick
up on this?
\_ Because major western media is not concerned with such petty
issues as demagoguery, mudflinging and..uh..nevermind. -John
\_ This is just being realistic. Demographically, the number of
people who believe that images of the prophet should result in
being stoned, or punished, or whatever, is going to overwhelm
the number of people in Europe who believe the right of free
speech trumps any religious concerns. In the coming decades
Europe is going to become a lot more like the Middle East
than he Middle East is going to become like Europe (freedom
wise that is). The massively exploding populations of the Middle
East and shrinking populations of native Europeans pretty much
seal that. And plenty of them, coming to Europe, think Sharia
law is a good idea. This is not to say Sharia law will become the
law of the land anytime soon, but eventually the concerns of the
Muslims are going to filter into European governments, especially
since it's unlikely they would go for any kind of Apartheid system
that doesn't give Muslims an equal say in government. Actual
discrimination is another issue (see France).
\_ Not if European countries start shutting their borders to
immigrants. Then the massively exploding populations will
discover the downside to massively exploding populations.
\_ As long as economies are based on fractional banking and
require endless growth, they will need an influx of labor.
For example, in Spain the fertility rate is like 1 baby
per woman, which means every generation the new population
is cut in half ... Witness what happens in America. It's
the huge desire for cheap labor that draws in the
immigrants.
\_ What's "fractional banking"? --ignorant
\_ It allows banks to create money out of thin air
and lend it out. These loans have to be paid back
with interest. This requires more economic
activity, hence growth. See wikipedia.
\_ The ones already in Europe are exploding quite well on their
own, immigrants or no immigrants they will be a large
political force.
\_ Interestingly, in the countries that have historically
been very open to immigration (UK, France), there seem to
be far more second/third generation "foreigners" that
acclimatize poorly than in traditionally more homogenous
countries (Germany, Scandinavia)--but then again that
could be because there are just more immigrants. -John
\_ Cf. ghettoization of immigrants vs. bringing them into
the economy. In the US, depsite the existence of
extensive "foreign" cultural centers (e.g., Chinatown),
immigrants have become a part of mainstream economy
and thus have less to lose by acclimating or
assimilating.
\_ I wouldn't credit this too much as a reason; any
large German or Austrian city, for example, is
very likely to have a big Turkish "ghetto". -John
\_ I wonder why European countries (specially Spain and
Portugal) don't import more workers from Latin American
countries instead. The cultural 'incompatibility' wouldn't
be as much of an issue in that case. Most Latin American
countries have terrible unemployment and underemployment
rates even among their college graduates. This would be a
win-win situation for Europe and Latin American countries.
\_ Guessing: price. Employers don't care who they hire as
long as they're cheap. Transport from LA is too pricey
for cheap labor when you can hire the people who are
already right there in country. |
| 5/17 |
|
| news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/wl_nm/religion_cartoons_eu_dc European Union may try to draw up a media code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the furor caused by the publication across Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an EU commissioner said on Thursday. In an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter would encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion. "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," he told the newspaper. The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September before being reprinted across Europe, sparked a wave of protests around the world. Newspapers which have published them say they are exercising their right to freedom of speech, while critics say the cartoons are deliberately offensive. Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, said millions of Muslims in Europe felt "humiliated" by the cartoons. His proposed voluntary code would urge the media to respect all religious sensibilities but would not offer privileged status to any one faith. European Commission , the EU executive body, and European media outlets, he said. The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana is to travel to Arab and Muslim countries in an attempt to calm the anger caused by the cartoons. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. |
| www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48746 Muhammad cartoon on Egypt's al-Fagr newspaper cover in October 2005 (courtesy: Freedom for Egyptians) While Muslims across the world have rioted in the past week against countries whose newspapers have published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, there was no uproar when the same caricatures were prominently displayed in an Arab newspaper four months ago. The images originating in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September were reportedly featured on the cover and inside pages of Egypt's al-Fagr (the Dawn) in October, during the holy month of Ramadan. Freedom for Egyptians blog, al-Fagr included the cartoons on the front cover and page 17 of its edition dated Oct. The headline, when translated, is said to read: "Continued Boldness. Muhammad cartoons on page 17 of Egypt's al-Fagr newspaper in October 2005 (courtesy: Egyptian Sandmonkey blog) "The Egyptian paper criticized the bad taste of the cartoons but it did not incite hatred protests," notes the blog. holy war against Denmark be launched during the holy month of Ramadan as many Muslims believe that Jihad during Ramadan would have been more worthy. This irrelevant outrage timing is but a sign that this violent response to the cartoons is politically motivated by Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of the Middle East. I want also to mention that despite the fact that all editors who tried to reprint the cartoons in the Middle East nowadays were arrested, the Egyptian editors went unharmed." To date, at least 10 people have been killed in Afghanistan alone from Muslim riots in connection with the cartoons, though protests have been taking place in many countries throughout Europe and the Mideast. Some 4,000 angry Muslims took to the streets of the Egyptian capital of Cairo this week, though there were no protests when al-Fagr published the images during Ramadan in October. Khaleej Times of the United Arab Emirates reports al-Fagr reprinted copies of the cartoons this week, but published only "the upper half of some of the controversial cartoons, omitting any facial representations. It's not clear if the paper even mentioned it previously published the entire images on its cover and interior in October. "This tells me one thing, at least, and that is the Egyptians who get this newspaper and who took to the streets are either incredibly stupid, hypocritical, or both," said an anonymous poster on FFE's blog. "They are stupid because they believe what they're told by the Arab press in the previous week without checking for the facts. They are hypocritical if they protested the second time they saw the cartoons and not protested when it was first printed. wire service's refusal to distribute the cartoons of Muhammad. "But what is incredible is that the Associated Press, which distributes news stories and photos from across the globe, has decided that you shouldn't see it," writes editor Don Holland of the Daily Press in Victorville, Calif. "What is offensive is that AP fancies itself to be the guardian of good taste for thousands of American newspapers rather than letting individual newspapers make that decision." |