The alternative press has the cartoons and excellent articles on the ruthless extremism of Islam and the hypocrisy of the main stream media and liberals such as Bill Clinton and his ilk. Go to the stranger website out of Seattle Washington state a sort of US Georgia Strait paper.

Posted by: Gerry at February 12, 2006 12:22 PM

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Freedom of speech is just fine--until you damage the interests of the state.

"ALY HINDY `Freedom of expression is not free'", Toronto Star, Feb. 12.

'Aly Hindy is the imam of the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, of which he is a co-founder. He is also a civil engineer with a PhD from the University of Western Ontario...

If you could speak with the Danish publisher, what would you say?

Sorry, this is a very stupid thing you've done. If you don't know and you're ignorant about what you're doing, then learn.

I don't think he knows anything about Muhammad.

The enemy, when he is educated, is much better than a friend. So, knowledgeable people in the West are also fair to him.

But this person should be tried, because he hurt the interests of Denmark.

What if he'd published military secrets? He would be tried, right [not in the US]?

He should be tried from the Danish point of view because he hurt the national interest of Denmark...

Muslim leaders in Montreal have called on the government to pass a law recognizing racism against Muslims as a hate crime. They've said if the government agrees to meet with them, they'll discourage the demonstrators. What do you think?.."

Not much. Was "The Life of Brian" racism against Christians? Category confusion again. Aly Hindy's views seem more at home in Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Iran than in Canada.

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at February 12, 2006 01:04 PM

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And this is interesting:

"Selling Out Moderate Islam: Washington's misbegotten campaign to be loved in the Middle East", by Reuel Marc Gerecht, Weekly Standard, Feb. 20:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6700&R=EB3336275

'...Far more than most Middle Eastern Muslims and politically correct Western scholars of the region and Islam would like to admit, Western standards for individual liberty, curiosity, personal integrity, scholarship, and the political relations among men have become the defining benchmarks for Muslims everywhere, however resented or admired. If our standards collapse and give way to fear, theirs in the long-term have no chance whatsoever. The psychology of victimization--surely one of the worst gifts the Western anti-imperialist left has given the Muslim world--can only be made worse by Westerners who treat Muslims like children unable to compete and to defend their religion.

In the Middle Ages, Christian theologians said vastly worse things about the Prophet Muhammad than the Danish cartoons implied. Back then, Muslims cognizant of what the Christians were writing usually took it in stride, not too perturbed by the ruminations and calumnies of a superseded faith. Non-Muslims living beyond the writ of Islamic law were not expected to respect a prophet not their own. That is, after all, what it means to be benighted infidels.

To be healthy, Muslim pride and political systems need to be based on real accomplishments, where the average believer can feel that he is participating in a larger, productive enterprise. (In the classical and medieval Islamic eras, when Muslim armies usually defeated their non-Muslim enemies, manifestly fulfilling the divine promise that Muslims were God's chosen people, maintaining both collective and individual pride was much easier.) Western indulgence of supposed Muslim outrage over these cartoon insults to the prophet is pretty demeaning. It can only fortify the destructive, self-pitying impulses that all too often paralyze Muslim conversations and thought. (One of the more bizarre facts of the modern Middle East is to see the ruling Muslim elites of these countries--men and women of considerable influence and privilege--bemoan their powerlessness owing to the hidden, omnipresent, all-powerful machinations of the West, in particular, the United States.)..

What we have seen happen in the Islamic Republic of Iran under clerical dictatorship--the conversion of the most anti-American holy-warrior society into the least anti-American, probably most pro-democratic culture in the region--will likely happen elsewhere but even more rapidly if Sunni fundamentalists are given a chance to gain power democratically and demonstrate to their fellow Muslims how their interpretation of the Holy Law and Islamic history will improve their lives.

Correctly understood, anti-Americanism when it accompanies the loosening of political controls in the Middle East is a sign that the status quo that gave us bin Ladenism and 9/11--the perverse marriage of autocracy and Islamic extremism--is coming apart. Under dictatorship, Muslims cannot evolve politically. They will not be able to confront the "baggage" that all Middle Eastern Muslims have with the West, especially the United States, and come to a livable consensus on how they are going to absorb Western ideas, influence, and money...

Like Christendom before it, the Muslim Middle East will have to work out its relation to modernity. The faster democracy arrives, the sooner the debates about God and man can begin in earnest. It will probably be for both Muslims and Westerners a nerve-racking experience...'

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at February 12, 2006 01:06 PM

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Here's a funny:
http://torontosun.canoe. ca/Comment/Donato/2005/11/11/1301948.html

Posted by: tomax at February 12, 2006 01:16 PM

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what a nut.

Posted by: george at February 12, 2006 01:18 PM

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...to be honest, I think we're playing into the hands of these extreemists with all this frenzy of "print the cartoon's". Licia Corebella in the Calgary Sun gave a good reason why not to publish the pictures - respect for a religion.

As for the rioters, let them I think we've come to the conclusion they'd riot over anything.

Wait till images of Momo start showing up in pizza's and wall shadows...

Posted by: tomax at February 12, 2006 01:25 PM

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Actually the more I look at this posting the more I think we got a nut case extremist right here in our very midst with Steve and Ezra's postings...

Statements like:
"If you care about freedom, you will go tomorrow to your favourite magazine vendor and pick up a copy of the Western Standard"

Right, this is not conducive to rational thought. Nothing more than a blatant misuse of trying to make money in a crazed situation, but hey that's capitalism for you.

Posted by: tomax at February 12, 2006 01:33 PM

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And then there is this:

"British imam praises London Tube bombers", Sunday Times (London), Feb. 12.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2036538,00.html

Excerpt:

'A LEADING imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a “good� act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter.

Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact.

He also praised the bombers as the “children� of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003.

Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal’s teachings were still circulating within his mosque.

Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches� ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.

Evidence of continuing extremism and terrorist sympathisers in the bombers’ community has been exposed by a six-week investigation by The Sunday Times. It contrasts with the public statements of condemnation by community leaders — including Ali — in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks...'

I wonder if the Canadian media have any undercover reporters?

Mark
Ottawa

Posted by: Mark Collins at February 12, 2006 01:36 PM

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Sure sounds like a peaceful religion to me! Blow up the Infidels, bomb their Embassies, behead the cartoonists, blow up innocent people--all peaceful activities--by whose account? About as peaceful as Bush having God tell him to invade Iraq. Poor God and Mohammed--they both have idiots for their spokesmen on earth!

Posted by: George at February 12, 2006 01:50 PM

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What exactly do radical Muslims want? Nothing less than full compliance with Sharia (Islamic Law) worldwide, the same law that stones adulterers and makes it okay to blow yourself up in a crowd of Infidels (non-Muslims).

In this particular case, depicting Mohammed contravenes their Islamic Law, and they will not stop embassy-burning until every publication in the world is too scared to run these cartoons.

So it's absolutely imperative that we take a stand on this. Otherwise we have only three appeasement options that will make extremist Muslims happy and give us world peace: #1. convert to Islam, #2. submit to Sharia or #3. die.

I think I'll choose #4. fight back.

Posted by: Joel K. at February 12, 2006 02:12 PM

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I am a subscriber of the Western Standard and a conservative but I don't think publishing the cartoons is a good idea. Why insult people needlessly? I know Islam is not a peaceful religion and that its followers can be a menace to society and freedom, but let's concentrate on how to deal with the problems we face rather than add fuel to the fire. I question the motivation of the WS publisher and editor on this decision.

Posted by: Herman at February 12, 2006 02:44 PM

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Perhaps someone reading this can explain the contrast between the courage of the Calgary Jewish Free Press (emphasis mine) with Ed Morgan's craven, dhimmified, equivocal statement from the CJC? The CJC just embarrassed itself beyond belief. Whereas this Calgary community publication conformed with Western, post-Enlightenment democratic ideals.

Feh on the CJC. Just pathetic.

Posted by: Reg at February 12, 2006 07:01 PM

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I recognize and support the importance of freedom of speech, but I don't see the need to go out of one's way to offend any group. I know I wouldn't be impressed if some media outlet decided the fun thing to do was to keep reprinting cartoons I found offensive, even having the right to do so.

Posted by: Paul O at February 12, 2006 08:35 PM

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Paul O

While you begin auspiciously, your comment indicates that you just don't "get it".

Go back, and re-visit Rousseau, Locke, Bentham, Austin, Voltaire. Read Hobbes and the Federal Papers. Think!

And then, one trusts, you will understand why your post is unintelligible, illogical gibberish. Because, in answer to: "but I don't see the need to go out of one's way to offend any group", the answer is, because you can and, as a citizen of the post-Enlightenment, democratic West, you are obliged to do so.

Posted by: Reg at February 12, 2006 09:04 PM

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Nobody is obliged to insult other people and civilized people don't, intentionally. Unfortunately, some people seem to get a kick out of it. They need psychiatric care.

Posted by: Herman at February 12, 2006 10:58 PM

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John Sopinka went on to say that "society should not seek to censor the speech of someone because it appears to be wrong or absurd in light of the conventional wisdom of today. It may become the conventional wisdom of tomorrow."

"Unquestionably, the threat of criminal prosecution is an attack on freedom of speech. As a result of decisions like Keegstra, in particular, members of society are restricted to some extent in what they can and cannot say." - John Sopinka Supreme Court of Canada Justice, to the Empire Club of Toronto, 1992. Sopinka voted a minority position in the Keegstra case which would have struck down Canada's controversial hate laws.

In other words, the Charter of Trudeau's Collective Rights is a pathetically contrived document meant to please only clever and well-connected collectives in Canadian society. And the irony is that the individuals who write or say things have less rights than the collectives or groups. I always thought that REAL Charters of Rights were meant to protect the individuals from the mob collectives and governments. And I certainly thought the judges on a Supreme Court of any country would have been smart enough to figure out that the only real rights are individual rights. Unless you are a commie.
Can you say ass-backwards Canada?

And Nelson Mandela is a perfect example of the changing conventional wisdom of yesterday and today. A conspirator yesterday and a world acclaimed hero today.

Posted by: rockyt at February 13, 2006 12:21 AM

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The above forgot to mention those like the Western Standard which have MORE rights than individuals OR commies-corporations. Ezra Lavant seems to have plenty of rights to print what HE thinks is important to thousands of readers, funny how nobody else seems to be entitled to that right.

If it's important to 'freedom' that we see cartoons about Mohammed as a terrorist, when do we see the pictures of Jesus as the same? Perhaps stripping Mohammed and raping him. Oh, but I forgot, individual or random acts of violence by adherents of a religion do not invalidate the entire religion. And some things 'just aren't funny'.

One poster up above forgot to mention one thing:thousands of christians protested "The Life of Brian", which had NO deragotary portrayal of Jesus, and "The Last Temptation of Christ", which most certainly did. In BOTH cases violence erupted and three cinemas were set on fire. Now what was that I heard about a double standard again?

Or perhaps next month we'll see cartoons of Jesus with his own personal child slavery sex ring such as was discovered in Thailand which was used by westerners (yes, some were christian).

Or perhaps we'll just see some good old fashioned gross out gags such as we see in teenage graphic novels, after all, it is all about 'freedom'. Or is it?

Posted by: Andrew at February 13, 2006 06:52 AM

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Does anybody know a place where I can get a copy in downtown Toronto??? Please email me and let me know.

Posted by: Ian Clary at February 13, 2006 09:58 AM

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If you care about freedom, you will go tomorrow to your favourite magazine vendor and pick up a copy of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler or Club:

Pornography news:

"We're publishing them [the naked photos of XXXX] in our next issue, which rolls off the press on Monday. Looks like a small Calgary newspaper beat us to it."

This is important. It matters. Don't be shy. And for goodness sake, don't be intimidated.
___________________

Ooops. Sorry. That should have been about MUSLIMS and freedoms and our right to insult them, nay, our obligation to insult them.

Needless to say, as conservatives, we support banning pornography, and will advocate censorship of movies and magazines and will advocate for boycotting of TV stations and Hollywood studios that put up that smut.

Posted by: Ted at February 13, 2006 01:11 PM

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If you care about freedom, you will go tomorrow to your favourite magazine vendor and pick up a copy of Canadian Atheist or American Rationalist or any of these magazines:

Christian images news:

"We're publishing them [the naked photos of XXXX] in our next issue, which rolls off the press on Monday. Looks like a small Calgary newspaper beat us to it."

This is important. It matters. Don't be shy. And for goodness sake, don't be intimidated. Publications of images of Christ in pisswater, or of a lustful Jesus (Last Temptation of Christ), etc. etc..
___________________

Ooops. Sorry. That should have been about MUSLIMS and freedoms and our right to insult them, nay, our obligation to insult them.

Needless to say, as conservatives, we support banning distateful images of Jesus Christ, and will advocate censorship of movies and magazines and will advocate for boycotting of TV stations and Hollywood studios that put up that blasphemy.

Posted by: Ted at February 13, 2006 01:14 PM

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If you care about freedom, you will go tomorrow to your favourite magazine vendor and pick up a copy of Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, ABC's Nightline:

War dead images news:

"We're publishing them [photos of coffins drapped with the flag/names of dead soldiers/information about no weapons of mass destruction/Bush White House cover-up/Abu Ghraib] in our next issue, which rolls off the press on Monday. Looks like a small Calgary newspaper beat us to it."

This is important. It matters. Don't be shy. And for goodness sake, don't be intimidated.
___________________

Ooops. Sorry. That should have been about MUSLIMS and freedoms and our right to insult them, nay, our obligation to insult them.

Needless to say, as conservatives, we support banning any image or newstory that criticizes the war effort, and will advocate censorship of movies and magazines and will advocate for boycotting of TV stations and Hollywood studios that put up that traitor-like behaviour.

Posted by: Ted at February 13, 2006 01:17 PM

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And in case anyone doesn't get the very obvious point of the above: the freedom to print and say what you want is a critical and fundamental right. But it's not surprising that, when it comes to Muslims, so many on a certain side of the fence, think it is now OK to not just defend the cartoonist who drew the cartoons or the publisher who originally published it, but an obligation to go out and re-print and re-print and re-print.

The equivocating is disgusting and very revealing.

No one should go to jail for publishing those cartoons. Free speech is fundamental. But, while there is no "right" to be respected by others, a decent and civil society - and decent and civil people - do not go out of their way to publish content that they know is taken as an insult by others.

I would defend anyone's right to publish pornography, anti-Christian art and photos of war dead, but I would not make a campaign out of sticking up pornographic photos, mutated images of Christ or photos of blown-up bodies just to make my point. When no one is going to jail over the cartoons, such a campaign does not defend free speech, it makes a mockery of free speech.

Ted
Cerberus

Posted by: Ted at February 13, 2006 01:25 PM

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If you care about freedom, you will go tomorrow to your favourite magazine vendor and pick up a copy of Xtra or Gay Times:

Advertising news:

"We're publishing them [Ford ads specifically targeting gays] in our next issue, which rolls off the press on Monday. Looks like a small Calgary newspaper beat us to it."

This is important. It matters. Don't be shy. And for goodness sake, don't be intimidated.
___________________

Ooops. Sorry. That should have been about MUSLIMS and freedoms and our right to insult them, nay, our obligation to insult them.

Needless to say, as conservatives, we support banning ads targetting the gay market, and will advocate censorship of movies and magazines and will advocate for boycotting of Ford Motor Company and any other product that attempts to sell and market itself to sinners.

Posted by: Ted at February 13, 2006 01:30 PM

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Ted...relax on the "POST" button eh...

Posted by: tomax at February 13, 2006 06:59 PM

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Ted: Yes, we get your point, there's no need to belabour it. You can't seriously consider a call for a boycott the moral equivalent of a violent mob rampage, can you? One has the right to boycott. One doesn't have the right to kill, injure, and burn embassies. I also think you overstate conservatives' proclivity to demand censorship. There are always a few people in favour of censoring just about anything, but I don't think that censorship has widespread support among conservatives.

My thoughts on this whole mess: I think the Danish newspaper which initially commissioned the cartoons deliberately provoked the sort of outrage that ensued. But, that it did so in order to show the west what radical Islam really looks like. And that radical Islam is incompatible with secular western societies. And that radical Islam cannot be bargained or reasoned with, that the only way to deal with it is to destroy it. And, I think this has been amply demonstrated by this affair.

As for press decisions on whether to reprint the cartoons: The fallout from the cartoons has been a major news story. So to me, it seems totally logical for media to show the cartoons, so that people can see for themselves what the natives are worked up into such a frenzy over. I think media are actually, once it has come this far, shirking their duty if they do not reprint the cartoons. I suspect that many of these media are claiming their decisions are out of respect for Islam, when in fact they're really out of fear of angering radical Islam.

Finally, once radical Muslims began demanding all sorts of clampdowns and punishments for those involved - clearly demonstrating a lack of any concept of a free press in the process, by the way - then it became truly a duty of those who value freedom of the press to not kowtow to those demands. It must be shown that mob violence will not cow a free society.

We all have to put up with stuff we find offensive on a fairly regular basis. That's the price we pay for living in freedom. It's well worth it, I think. Nowhere in the Muslim world accords any such freedom. And radical Islam wants those standards to dominate worldwide. Don't give in.

Posted by: idd at February 13, 2006 11:56 PM

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I'm not going to make any bold statements about my love of freedom by buying an execrable rag of a publication and harrassing Muslim store owners (who've never hurt me) with time-wasting inanity. I'll do that by coming here and calling you fat and ugly, Janke.

Freedom of expression...ain't it grand?

Angry in the Great White North...just more road-kill cluttering up the information superhighway.

Posted by: Ti-Guy at February 14, 2006 10:39 AM

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