Terror attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris

[ray245]

Then maybe we can all talk about actual roots and causes and solutions like grown ups and it'll be like we're having an actual discussion. It'll be swell. I'm looking forward to those days.

Well how about addressing what Muslim elder statesman mahathir had to say then? That the west can start by being less offensive against Muslim core beliefs and perhaps maybe stop supporting Israel. He may be a autocratic old man, but he was also the elected leader of a major moderate Muslim state and obviously has some notion of how some Muslims think.

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon. Being a Muslim is more of a fixed identity that most Muslim have since birth, making it more of an ethnic identity than merely a religious identity on par with say Christianity. I would say making offensive cartoons against Christianity is different from making offensive cartoons towards Islam because people often have a choice to adopt or drop Christianity as a set of belief.

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

It is largely possible for someone to stop being a Christian or stop being a Buddhist, but how often has someone been able to stop being a Muslim?

I strongly disagree with him when he says things like "we respect their religion and they must respect ours". We (taking 'we' as my local political circle here) must do no such thing. No religion, belief or idea is inherently entitled to respect. Having said that, I am obviously utterly foreign to the circumstances Dr Mahathir has spent his political career in. And I can imagine that perhaps civil society in Malaysia exists in a balance where his words ring quite true, whereas to a Western European audience they could seem offensive at first sight. I thus wonder if what he said was intended for a local or international audience.

Holy shit it's almost like I'm trying to have some kind of civil discourse here. Like, I dunno, context matters. Shit be craaazy.

As I mentioned above, I do not think it is a good idea to treat western idea of religion in the same manner as someone who comes from the Islamic world. There are Muslims out there who clearly do not think it is merely a set of beliefs. I've known Muslims who drinks alcohol and breaks numerous rules in Islam without being able to reject their identity as a Muslim, even when they believed that they will go to hell for their actions.

I think it is actually quite hard to treat being a Muslim as being equal to someone who is a Christian in a western society. Christianity is no longer an ethnic identity for most people in the developed world, but being a Muslim can be seen as a form of ethnic identity.

[AniThyng]

I strongly disagree with him when he says things like "we respect their religion and they must respect ours". We (taking 'we' as my local political circle here) must do no such thing. No religion, belief or idea is inherently entitled to respect.

This is a fundamental cultural difference that has to be accounted for, especially when we are talking about practicing muslims, and not even just muslims in muslim states - most muslims obviously feel that Charlie Hebdo went too far, even if they feel the punishment should have been, I dunno, "please don't do that again" - I don't doubt the survey Crown provided, and we're talking British muslims here!

Having said that, I am obviously utterly foreign to the circumstances Dr Mahathir has spent his political career in. And I can imagine that perhaps civil society in Malaysia exists in a balance where his words ring quite true, whereas to a Western European audience they could seem offensive at first sight. I thus wonder if what he said was intended for a local or international audience.

He spends a lot of time basically saying the same stuff (Israel bad, Western values are not universal values, Muslims misunderstood and backed into corner, etc etc) at international forums, so I don't think he really cares to make the distinction anymore, and it's true that its overstating his influence to think a western audience cares about whatever he says. But I am saying that perhaps they should, precisely because he is/was the leader of a moderate muslim state and if we're going to be having broad discussions of what "moderate" muslims worldwide believe then why not?

But I suppose one could make the argument it's not religion as such but culture, because while there is a Islamic justification to it, Malaysian civil law likely isn't any harsher than the PRC's, or Thailand's infamous lese majeste laws, and Singapore still can't bring itself to grant equal civil rights to gays so yeah. But that being said, I do think the religion and the culture are MUCH more tightly coupled than christianity is to western culture in the current era, which accounts for why in some cases it's really much harder to get away with, to use Ralin's term, "talking smack about mohammad".

[Broomstick]

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon....[snip]...

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

The current US president has been the target of racist political cartoons and racist slurs. Oddly enough, no Americans have donned masks, picked up guns (it's not like those are rare around here), and trotted off to execute the originators of those images and words.

See, that's a major difference between our culture and certain other cultures - we don't believe offensive words and images, no matter how offensive, are a valid excuse to kill other people.

It's not that we don't kill people - recent years have shown that the US is quite able to do that - but that's not something we see as a reason for killing.

[ray245]

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon....[snip]...

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

The current US president has been the target of racist political cartoons and racist slurs. Oddly enough, no Americans have donned masks, picked up guns (it's not like those are rare around here), and trotted off to execute the originators of those images and words.

See, that's a major difference between our culture and certain other cultures - we don't believe offensive words and images, no matter how offensive, are a valid excuse to kill other people.

It's not that we don't kill people - recent years have shown that the US is quite able to do that - but that's not something we see as a reason for killing.

Oh, I agree that most societies would not want to kill people over a cartoon, even if such cartoons are racist in nature. What I am trying to say is that is is a mistake to understand why Muslim population are generally upset ( but not to the extend of killing people) over people mocking their religion by comparing it to Christianity. Christianity, even among Christians in western societies is seen as merely another religion. However, there is no reason to assume that is the attitude shared by most Muslims in the world.

[AniThyng]

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon. Being a Muslim is more of a fixed identity that most Muslim have since birth, making it more of an ethnic identity than merely a religious identity on par with say Christianity. I would say making offensive cartoons against Christianity is different from making offensive cartoons towards Islam because people often have a choice to adopt or drop Christianity as a set of belief.

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

It is largely possible for someone to stop being a Christian or stop being a Buddhist, but how often has someone been able to stop being a Muslim?

You hit the nail right on the head. It seems sometimes that liberal ex-christians genuinely have no idea how much more difficult it is for muslims to reject their religion in the same way that they have rejected theirs.

As I mentioned above, I do not think it is a good idea to treat western idea of religion in the same manner as someone who comes from the Islamic world. There are Muslims out there who clearly do not think it is merely a set of beliefs. I've known Muslims who drinks alcohol and breaks numerous rules in Islam without being able to reject their identity as a Muslim, even when they believed that they will go to hell for their actions.

I think it is actually quite hard to treat being a Muslim as being equal to someone who is a Christian in a western society. Christianity is no longer an ethnic identity for most people in the developed world, but being a Muslim can be seen as a form of ethnic identity.

This extends as well to other ideas generally considered moderate or liberal in western societies. a moderate muslim familiar with western culture is not going to outright say that women should be 'encouraged' to dress modestly and wear a hijab, but they will certainly think that it would be better if they did, to use one example.

[AniThyng]

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon....[snip]...

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

The current US president has been the target of racist political cartoons and racist slurs. Oddly enough, no Americans have donned masks, picked up guns (it's not like those are rare around here), and trotted off to execute the originators of those images and words.

See, that's a major difference between our culture and certain other cultures - we don't believe offensive words and images, no matter how offensive, are a valid excuse to kill other people.

It's not that we don't kill people - recent years have shown that the US is quite able to do that - but that's not something we see as a reason for killing.

Can you enlighten us on the reasons that the US sees as valid for state-sanctioned killing? Because this sounds like a path frought with moral danger - at least it's quite clear why the terrorists choose Charlie Hebdo, however absurd the reasoning is. But the exact motives for why the democratically elected united states government ended up destroying Iraq are a heck of a lot more...debatable.

Actually nevermind that. A more apt example might be how some people actually felt that it serves police right when some of them get shot in the line of duty because if only they hadn't built up such tremendous ill will through their conduct it would not happen. This would be analogous to expecting muslim sympathy for the US military, for example.

[cmdrjones]

Perhaps, if the title HAS to mention religion at all, the correct expression would be "Muslim extremists attack Charlie Hebdo" because that's what I think is really meant here. The problem is that people get lazy, both in speaking and in thinking. "Extremist Muslims" degrades to just "Muslims", and that's not good.

I'm fine with the current title. Perhaps those of us commenting in threads like these should take care to distinguish terrorists who happen to be Muslims from ordinary peaceful people who happen to be Muslim.

Obviously, for a terrorist whose actions are driven by an extreme/hateful variety of Islam that is a significant fact, but most Muslims aren't interested in blowing themselves up, oppressing others, or otherwise engaging in deplorable and uncivilized acts.

I would agree with this entirely if there were more Islamic demonstrations/protests etc in the west AGAINST this sort of behavior, but until then...
The Italians at least had the decency to turn on Mussolini when they saw which way the wind was blowing... any takers on how long it will take/under what conditions european muslims will do the same thing?

[cmdrjones]

A security consultant looked at the footage and said that one of the killers was wearing a combat jacket with ammo pouches, while the other wore body armour.

That doesn't mean a whole lot by itself; both are fairly easily obtainable via military-surplus or the civilian market. I get a catalogue every now and then (unsolicted) that offers both. However if the body armour was of a certain grade, that could indicate a higher-level supply, which is troubling.

question: If you lived in 1373 France, would you not want a crossbow/longbow proof jacket if it were available? would you say that such a thing should only be available to certain classes in French society? I await your reply before getting all hopped up, but you see how this can be interpreted badly, right?
If an item is defensive only, why shouldn't the 'common folk' have access to it if need be? (and it looks like the need be coming up more and more lately... and by that I mean: people under threat, like the editors of charlie hebdo...)

[Simon_Jester]

Uh... if a terrorist group possesses forms of body armor that are not normal on the civilian market, due to expense and due to the manufacturers' focus on supplying the military...

This is not a gun control question. It is a who supplied military-grade weapons to terrorists question.

In some places it's legal to own your own field artillery- that doesn't mean there wouldn't be questions asked if criminals used artillery as part of a robbery.

[Broomstick]

It is largely possible for someone to stop being a Christian or stop being a Buddhist, but how often has someone been able to stop being a Muslim?

You hit the nail right on the head. It seems sometimes that liberal ex-christians genuinely have no idea how much more difficult it is for muslims to reject their religion in the same way that they have rejected theirs.

There's also the little detail that Christians and Buddhists don't feel it's their God-given duty to kill people who convert from their religion to a different one. Oh, yeah, that would make it harder to reject Islam...

Which is not to say the average Muslim living in, say, London would actually advocate for such a thing but there are Muslim nations where death is, indeed, the penalty for converting from Islam to something else.

[Broomstick]

Can you enlighten us on the reasons that the US sees as valid for state-sanctioned killing?

If you're speaking on a domestic front I have to point out that not all US states have the death penalty. In those states there is no "state-sanctioned killing".

If you're speaking of the US as a whole - well, certainly a direct attack on the US would be seen as justification (such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11). Pretty much any nation would view that as a valid reason.

But the exact motives for why the democratically elected united states government ended up destroying Iraq are a heck of a lot more...debatable.

Not too debatable from my viewpoint - the administration in power when that started had a grudge against Saddam Hussein and were willing to falsify evidence to go in and kill him. I don't think that was in any way morally justified and it's a stain on the US.

Actually nevermind that. A more apt example might be how some people actually felt that it serves police right when some of them get shot in the line of duty because if only they hadn't built up such tremendous ill will through their conduct it would not happen. This would be analogous to expecting muslim sympathy for the US military, for example.

Ah, well, collective guilt for the sins of a few, it's not like that's anything new.

[Elfdart]

There are Christian people in the US who think homosexuals should be imprisoned and put on the sex offender list, forbidden all contact with children, engage in hate crimes, etc., too that are religiously motivated (see Westboro Baptist Church). There are a crapload of groups that want to gut the First Amendment and control everyone's else speech, reading material, movies, and so on. There are athiests who want to treat all religious belief as a mental illness. All of these people exist on the same spectrum as people who kill cartoonists for making images of religious figures, just on a different part of the spectrum.

Right now, it tends to be Muslims who occupy the killing part of that spectrum but you're deluding yourself if you think other religions or political groups don't have the capacity to slide over there.

To me the difference is that the biggest thing stopping those Christians from doing all that is other Christians. America is a democracy with a 75+ percent Christian population and probably even higher among elected officials. Clearly whatever their other failings enough American Christians support the rights of people not like them to not change the law to do all of those things. I don't like them, but I've been openly mocking Christ in the US for many years now without once being afraid of violence because of it, and I'm from Deepest South Louisiana. Don't think there are a whole lot of Muslim countries where I could say the same if I went around talking smack about Muhammad.

In most of those countries you could also be jailed, beaten or killed for talking smack about the government. Freedom of speech is a rare luxury over there.

I'm old enough to remember the violence around the release of The Last Temptation of Christ:

Protests from the religious community against Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ began while the film was still in production. To a degree, Scorsese, the film’s screenwriter Paul Schrader, and Universal had anticipated some unrest, but even they were caught out by the intensity of feeling against the film. It is, perhaps, surprising that Scorsese, who was raised a Catholic (but who had lapsed when the film was made) underestimated the level of reaction to a movie that was described by one executive as ‘It’s a Wonderful Life with Jesus as George Bailey.’

Although there was nothing frivolous about the strength of feeling aroused by the content of the film, the level of near hysterical protests and accusations at times reached almost comical proportions. For some time false rumours had circulated that there were plans to make a film which would portray Jesus as a homosexual, and it was perhaps inevitable that some Christians would confuse Scorsese’s film with that completely fabricated project. When the studio neglected to screen the film for Evangelist activists picketing was threatened; then, when the studio arranged a belated screening, the activists refused to attend. At the furthest extremes the faithful were called upon to pray for God to drop a bomb on a cinema in Manhattan where the film was being shown. Some cinemas showing the film were ransacked; one cinema suffered an arson attack, while another had its screen slashed. A third had a bus driven into its lobby. In the Southern United States most cinemas chose not to screen the film because of fears of violent reprisals.

Blasphemy was not the only accusation aimed at the film. Incredibly – given that the film was directed by a Roman Catholic, written by a Dutch Calvinist, and based on a novel by a Greek Orthodox writer – the film was accused of being Jewish anti-Christian propaganda.

The protests against the film were not only confined to the United States. In Italy, Franco Zeffirelli, director of the 1977 film Jesus of Nazareth, was particularly vitriolic about Scorsese’s film, describing it at the Venice Film Festival as ‘truly horrible and totally deranged’ without actually having seen the film. He later decried the film as a product of ‘that Jewish cultural scum of Los Angeles, which is always spoiling for an attack on the Christian world.’

On 22nd October 1988, a French Christian fundamentalist group firebombed the Saint Michel cinema in Paris severely burning four people and injuring a further nine. A similar attack was staged In Besancon, the capital of the Franche-Comté region, and tear gas was released in other French cinemas. In Greece, the homeland of the novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, on whose book the film was based, Archbishop Iakovos, the primate of the Greek Othodox Church, called for a boycott of the film (Kazantzakis was excommunicated as a heretic by the Greek Orthodox Church, and the book placed in the Catholic Church’s index of forbidden books when it was first published).

So Christian fundies can also turn violent when their sacred cows get prodded. The only difference I see is that the Muslim fundies are more skilled and daring than the Christian ones, who are luckily dumber and more craven.

[Simon_Jester]

And are the acts of said Christian fundies normative enough within their respective societies that they can expect not to be condemned or in legal danger?

[mr friendly guy]

Australian news is reporting that one of the police shot by the terrorists was himself a Muslim. Cries of Je Suis Ahmed is now appearing.

[AniThyng]

Perhaps, if the title HAS to mention religion at all, the correct expression would be "Muslim extremists attack Charlie Hebdo" because that's what I think is really meant here. The problem is that people get lazy, both in speaking and in thinking. "Extremist Muslims" degrades to just "Muslims", and that's not good.

I'm fine with the current title. Perhaps those of us commenting in threads like these should take care to distinguish terrorists who happen to be Muslims from ordinary peaceful people who happen to be Muslim.

Obviously, for a terrorist whose actions are driven by an extreme/hateful variety of Islam that is a significant fact, but most Muslims aren't interested in blowing themselves up, oppressing others, or otherwise engaging in deplorable and uncivilized acts.

I would agree with this entirely if there were more Islamic demonstrations/protests etc in the west AGAINST this sort of behavior, but until then...
The Italians at least had the decency to turn on Mussolini when they saw which way the wind was blowing... any takers on how long it will take/under what conditions european muslims will do the same thing?

You realize that if you put this to the average muslim, they'd ask you why you haven't dragged GWB to the ICC, yes?

[wautd]

While the cartoon's depiction of the prophet was not racist in the strictest sense, it could be views as being just as offensive to Muslims as a negative racist cartoon. Being a Muslim is more of a fixed identity that most Muslim have since birth, making it more of an ethnic identity than merely a religious identity on par with say Christianity. I would say making offensive cartoons against Christianity is different from making offensive cartoons towards Islam because people often have a choice to adopt or drop Christianity as a set of belief.

Thinking of how Muslim population might react towards an offensive cartoon about their prophet would upset them as much as a racist cartoon would towards minority ethnic groups. This might be useful lens in understanding why so many Muslims have always been so upset with such cartoons, as that they could be seen as an attack towards their ethnic identity as opposed to their personal beliefs.

It is largely possible for someone to stop being a Christian or stop being a Buddhist, but how often has someone been able to stop being a Muslim?

In over 20 countries it's rather a bad idea

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 found relatively widespread popular support for death penalty as a punishment for apostasy in Egypt (84% of respondents in favor of death penalty), Jordan (86% in favor), Indonesia (30%), Pakistan (76%), Nigeria (51%), and relatively minor support in Lebanon (6% in favor) and Turkey (5%).[114]

Another survey conducted by Pew Research Center in 2012 among Muslim populations in many Islamic countries found continuing support for the death penalty for those who leave Islam to become an atheist or to convert to another religion.[115] During this survey, Muslims who favored making Sharia the law of the land were asked for their views on the death penalty for apostasy from Islam.[115] Death penalty was favored by large majorities of pro-Sharia Muslims in Egypt (86%), Jordan (82%), Afghanistan (79%), Pakistan (76%), Malaysia (62%), and the Palestinian Territories (66%); and by a minority of pro-Sharia Muslims in Lebanon (46%), Bangladesh (44%), Iraq (42%), Tunisia (29%), Thailand (27%; partial survey), Tajikistan (22%), Indonesia (18%) and Turkey (17%), Bosnia-Herzegovina (15%), Russia (15%), Kyrgystan (14%), Kosovo (11%), Albania (8%), and Kazakhstan (4%).[115]

The support for a death penalty among all Muslims in those countries is unclear from 2012 Pew survey,[115] which surveyed support for death penalty only among those Muslims who favor Sharia as the official law of the land. The exact percentage is also unclear from this survey, as it does not include Muslims who may favor a death penalty for apostasy yet do not favor Sharia as law of the land. Overall, the figures in the 2012 survey suggest that a minimum of about 36% of Muslims in the countries surveyed, approve death penalty for Muslims who commit apostasy.[115] Governments of six Gulf countries - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait - did not permit Pew Research to survey nationwide public opinion on apostasy in 2010 or 2012.

[Ralin]

So Christian fundies can also turn violent when their sacred cows get prodded. The only difference I see is that the Muslim fundies are more skilled and daring than the Christian ones, who are luckily dumber and more craven.

What have I ever said that gives you the impression I disagree? I have zero love for Christianity, fundamentalist or otherwise. Doesn't change the fact that Christians seem to be doing a much better job of restraining their shittier members than Muslims are.

America, Canada and various European countries have courts who uphold my right to be an atheist and legal systems that enforce that. The world's largest Muslim country sentenced an atheist to jail time a couple years ago for saying God doesn't exist on the internet. And I'm not talking about some crazy theocracy here; Indonesia is supposed to have one of the more laid back forms of Islam. When shit likes that becomes the law it stops being 'just the extremists.' I'm pretty sure you call that 'normal'

[Col. Crackpot]

What the fuck happened to this board? Ultra conservative theocratic fascists are executing journalists en masse in France in the name of their magig sky fairy and there are people here who are making the case on how "maybe the west deserved it because Christians do it sometimes/George Bush/we need to be more understanding." And they have the tacit support of the board....

[salm]

I don´t understand why the whole Muslim vs Christian thing is relevant. It doesn´t matter if one religion is more prone to do bad stuff at the moment than a different religion. What does matter is that we live in a world in which normal people - a group that is made up of poeple of all kinds of religions - need to stick together and oppose extremists.
This can only be achieved if we don´t start lumping in specific sub groups of these normal people with said extremists. Even more so if it is the sub group that is the most powerful in fighting the extremists.
This isn´t an easy task because attacks like this are specifically designed to alienate people from each other by trying to fuel hate among normal people.

[ray245]

What the fuck happened to this board? Ultra conservative theocratic fascists are executing journalists en masse in France in the name of their magig sky fairy and there are people here who are making the case on how "maybe the west deserved it because Christians do it sometimes/George Bush/we need to be more understanding." And they have the tacit support of the board....

Who is making such a case here? Understanding why certain societies tends to be more upset by insults does not justify the actions committed by certain individuals of the society. The case I am making is we can't view people who believe in Islam in the same lens as how we view someone who is Christian.

There have already been a number of articles out there saying that such cartoons isn't merely mocking someone's religion, but mocks someone's ethnicity.

I don´t understand why the whole Muslim vs Christian thing is relevant. It doesn´t matter if one religion is more prone to do bad stuff at the moment than a different religion. What does matter is that we live in a world in which normal people - a group that is made up of poeple of all kinds of religions - need to stick together and oppose extremists.
This can only be achieved if we don´t start lumping in specific sub groups of these normal people with said extremists. Even more so if it is the sub group that is the most powerful in fighting the extremists.
This isn´t an easy task because attacks like this are specifically designed to alienate people from each other by trying to fuel hate among normal people.

It's to understand why Muslim communities tends to be more upset by such cartoons than many Christian communities. If Muslim communities views such cartoons as being racist, then it means cartoonist and western society in general cannot assume that everyone understands religion in the same manner as us. It matters because if we want to understand why there are "moderate" Muslims who approve of such actions by saying these cartoonist deserve it, even if they will never kill someone in the name of their religion.

[wautd]

The terrorists have been found (which is a relief, it would have been a shame if they managed to escape justice). Unfortunately they currently hold a person hostage at this point

[Zilkar]

Sorry for going back a page, but I just got up.

Ray 245, honest question here (not trolling) because I think that this is the heart of the "moderate Muslim" vs "extremist Muslim" problem:

As I mentioned above, I do not think it is a good idea to treat western idea of religion in the same manner as someone who comes from the Islamic world. There are Muslims out there who clearly do not think it is merely a set of beliefs. I've known Muslims who drinks alcohol and breaks numerous rules in Islam without being able to reject their identity as a Muslim, even when they believed that they will go to hell for their actions. I think it is actually quite hard to treat being a Muslim as being equal to someone who is a Christian in a western society. Christianity is no longer an ethnic identity for most people in the developed world, but being a Muslim can be seen as a form of ethnic identity.

As I see it there are essentially three sets of Muslims involved (with overlaps, and of varying size and shifting boundaries and definitions):

1. Strictly fundamentalist Muslims who obey the Quran as the Word of God;
2. "Lapsed (for want of a better term)" Muslims such as your example above; and
3. The Western world's view of Muslims as a monolithic block who are all identical.

As near as I can tell, the issue here is that "extremist Muslims" all appear to come from Group 1, the vast majority of Muslims in the world are Group 2 or Group 1 (except without the whole religion of the sword, convert or die thing), while some elements of the West (scaremongers) attempt to equate Group 3 with Group 1.

Is there any way, in your opinion, in which Group 2 could be actually popularly recognized? Is this even possible, bearing in mind that your exemplar Muslims would be punished by Group 1 up to and including death if they didn't join Group 1?

[Simon_Jester]

I don´t understand why the whole Muslim vs Christian thing is relevant. It doesn´t matter if one religion is more prone to do bad stuff at the moment than a different religion. What does matter is that we live in a world in which normal people - a group that is made up of poeple of all kinds of religions - need to stick together and oppose extremists.
This can only be achieved if we don´t start lumping in specific sub groups of these normal people with said extremists. Even more so if it is the sub group that is the most powerful in fighting the extremists.
This isn´t an easy task because attacks like this are specifically designed to alienate people from each other by trying to fuel hate among normal people.

The religious comparison is not relevant, as you say. It is thrown up because of the reflex to not 'allow' people from the developed world to criticize foreigners, without a recitation of the Litany of American Crimes or whatever.

Who is making such a case here? Understanding why certain societies tends to be more upset by insults does not justify the actions committed by certain individuals of the society. The case I am making is we can't view people who believe in Islam in the same lens as how we view someone who is Christian.

There have already been a number of articles out there saying that such cartoons isn't merely mocking someone's religion, but mocks someone's ethnicity.

...Honestly I don't think that's even the issue. I think that the "it's an ethnic thing" is actually an attempt to understand the Muslim world in terms of Western social constructs, where ethnicity and 'race' are the really important things that define a human being's sense of identity in society.

Blasphemy, the crime of misrepresenting or disrespecting sacred ideas, sacred items, or sacred historical figures, is not fundamentally a stroke against ethnic identity. It is a stroke against the identity of a community which defines itself in terms of religion, which does not consider its identity as a state separate from its identity as a church.

This is why Muslims from many different countries, who do not consider themselves part of the same 'nation,' can all take offense at the same act of blasphemy against the Prophet. It is precisely because a perceived slight against the Prophet is NOT a slight against Arabs or Persians or Berbers or Indonesians or Turks or any other one of the many distinct ethnicities that makes up the Muslim world. It is a slight against Islam itself.

I don´t understand why the whole Muslim vs Christian thing is relevant. It doesn´t matter if one religion is more prone to do bad stuff at the moment than a different religion. What does matter is that we live in a world in which normal people - a group that is made up of poeple of all kinds of religions - need to stick together and oppose extremists.
This can only be achieved if we don´t start lumping in specific sub groups of these normal people with said extremists. Even more so if it is the sub group that is the most powerful in fighting the extremists.
This isn´t an easy task because attacks like this are specifically designed to alienate people from each other by trying to fuel hate among normal people.

It's to understand why Muslim communities tends to be more upset by such cartoons than many Christian communities. If Muslim communities views such cartoons as being racist, then it means cartoonist and western society in general cannot assume that everyone understands religion in the same manner as us. It matters because if we want to understand why there are "moderate" Muslims who approve of such actions by saying these cartoonist deserve it, even if they will never kill someone in the name of their religion.

Personally, I understand the concept of blasphemy and making blasphemy punishable by death rather well... and I think it is a very negative trait for a culture.

[salm]

It's to understand why Muslim communities tends to be more upset by such cartoons than many Christian communities. If Muslim communities views such cartoons as being racist, then it means cartoonist and western society in general cannot assume that everyone understands religion in the same manner as us. It matters because if we want to understand why there are "moderate" Muslims who approve of such actions by saying these cartoonist deserve it, even if they will never kill someone in the name of their religion.

Why is this relevant for the question at hand?
Why are Christians spcifically important for the issue at hand?

I´d say it is important to find out how to counter extremists and finding ways to keep people from becoming extremists. And you surely won´t be successful with that if you start a christianity vs islam dick waving contest.

[ray245]

...Honestly I don't think that's even the issue. I think that the "it's an ethnic thing" is actually an attempt to understand the Muslim world in terms of Western social constructs, where ethnicity and 'race' are the really important things that define a human being's sense of identity in society.

Blasphemy, the crime of misrepresenting or disrespecting sacred ideas, sacred items, or sacred historical figures, is not fundamentally a stroke against ethnic identity. It is a stroke against the identity of a community which defines itself in terms of religion, which does not consider its identity as a state separate from its identity as a church.

This is why Muslims from many different countries, who do not consider themselves part of the same 'nation,' can all take offense at the same act of blasphemy against the Prophet. It is precisely because a perceived slight against the Prophet is NOT a slight against Arabs or Persians or Berbers or Indonesians or Turks or any other one of the many distinct ethnicities that makes up the Muslim world. It is a slight against Islam itself.

It is. However, we should not ignore the fact that someone who is born a Muslim would always have a harder time disassociating himself or herself from their religious identity than Christians in general. Which is why I am saying being a Muslim is something that is comparable to being a Christian.

Why is this relevant for the question at hand?
Why are Christians spcifically important for the issue at hand?

I´d say it is important to find out how to counter extremists and finding ways to keep people from becoming extremists. And you surely won´t be successful with that if you start a christianity vs islam dick waving contest.

It's not about a dick-waving contest as to which religion is better at dealing with extremist, but about questioning the idea that could we mock Islam in the same manner we mock Christianity? Sure, to atheist, we might want to see them as the same thing that can be mocked equally. However, to Muslims, they are not the case. It doesn't help when being a Muslim in Europe often meant you are improvised and were often the target of discrimination.

When their community has often been the target of discrimination, it does not help things when you have white, secular cartoonist mocking their beliefs and by extension, their community. The Cartoonist isn't merely mocking a religion, they are seen as mocking a discriminated community in large parts of the world.