Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day – 1st Anniversary

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What with all the noise about the US President selling Israel down the river due to a combination of naiveté, wrong-headedness, and a soupçon of anti-Israel sentiment, but apparently still not doing enough to please Hamas and Kim Ghattas, I missed out remembering that May 20 is the 1st anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Yes, I realize it’s officially over in the UK as I write this, but when I started there was still five minutes to go US EST. So there. The BBC is going to censor all of it because they bow to unjust demands of Islam on these things. Mark Thompson himself said that Islam gets special treatment.

I’m recognizing the day not out of any malice towards Islam itself, as I personally bear none (I’m aware that I’m in the minority here, but this blog is actually a pretty big tent). I do this in defense of individual religious freedom, something that is as relevant in the US as it is in Britain, even though my country doesn’t have an official state religion (If anyone tells me that Christianity is the official religion of the US, they’ll need to tell me which version before I start laughing).

The reason I say this is about individual religious freedom and not malice towards Islam is because I take the position that non-Muslims are not required to obey the rules of Mohammed. Why do I bother? Because of the continued pressure to avoid saying anything that offends Muslims. Except the real concern isn’t as obvious as having the freedom to burn a Koran (which is an act of malice towards the religion), but rather the freedom to do things that Muslims wouldn’t do without being told to stop because it’s offensive to their sensibilities. The vast majority of media outlets in the UK and US censored even the most innocent cartoons out of appeasement and fear. Freedom of speech was thus taken away from non-Muslims, who instead were forced to obey the law of a religion not their own.

I’m talking about things like preventing non-Muslims from having a plastic pig included with their childrens’ farm toy set, because pork is verboten in Islam. More food companies are shifting their products into halal compliance, in the US and in the UK, in spite of many non-Muslims’ objections to that particular method of butchering. It’s being forced on non-Muslim children by the school system as well. No option for both choices: only the Mohammedan option on offer, period. Then there’s telling non-Muslims they can’t eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan. Nobody’s going to ban eating a sandwich in any public sector workplace during Passover in order to avoid offending Jews who don’t eat leavened bread during that time, so there is a clear unjust double standard which cannot withstand the scrutiny of the laws of freemen. Nobody should be forced to obey the rules of a religion not their own, or even their own if they don’t want to.

Yes, the above examples are mostly a couple years old or more, but where’s the evidence that this no longer happens anywhere, all cases are solved and will never happen again?

I fully support offering halal or kosher or Klingon dietary options in an area where that’s what the majority wants, if it’s a commercial decision. If KFC or Domino’s want to have halal-only food in Mohammedan neighborhoods because that’s where the money is, it’s perfectly fine by me. But nobody should be forced by the government to obey the rules of another religion.

It’s in the spirit of continued religious freedom that I mark this first anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Muslims are forbidden from making graven images of people, most especially Mohammed, but non-Muslims can do whatever the hell they like in a free country. That is not an attack on Islam, but a defense of freedom against any form of fascism or oppression.

My contribution is below. Everyone is encouraged to add their own contribution or links to others. It’s not an attack on Islam, but rather a statement of individual freedom. Mohammedans are as free to make fun of me as celebrated artists are for such brave acts as dipping a crucifix in urine or producing a play featuring Jesus as a homosexual. I don’t care. Freedom, baby. Censorship is against the best interests of a free society.

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Sue or Bite

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Inayat Bunglawala, the Mr. Bean-alike chair of Muslims4UK has instigated a police investigation of Melanie Phillips because she said “The moral depravity of the Arabs is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and American ‘liberal’ media.”
If the police really do waste their time on this, while they’re at it they should look at Bungle’s own racist remarks.
Anyone else noticed the culture of blaming the victim that has sprung up this spring?
Jews living in Muslim lands, i.e. Israel, have only themselves to blame. By being there they’re putting themselves in harm’s way. Women, not covered from head to toe, are asking to be molested. Provoking a Muslim by not being a Muslim amounts to bringing it on yourself. Peacefully counter-demonstrating near a pro Palestinian hatefest is putting oneself in harm’s way. Jews cause offence by existing, and it’s their own fault if they’re bitten on the cheek.

Seen this, BBC? I’m blaming you and if I see you I can’t decide whether to report you to the police, or just bite.

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Intolerance

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Back in May the BBC reported the following:

A cartoonist whose work inspired an internet campaign inviting people to draw images of the Prophet Muhammad has apologised for her role in the row.

Writing on her blog, Molly Norris said her satirical cartoon was “hijacked” and that the campaign was “offensive to Muslims”…

Molly Norris drew a cartoon in April to protest against the decision by a US television channel to cancel an episode of the popular show South Park because of a contentious depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

Sadly, apologising doesn’t appear to have done her much good.

(“Read More…”)

The Seattle Weekly reports:

You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon.

It will be interesting to see if the BBC follows up its earlier story and, if it does so, how it will frame this latest horrible news in the context of “increasing Islamophobia”.

(And will the luvvies write a letter of protest about it to The Guardian, or will they be as silent as they were when South Park was censored? James Lileks has some thoughts on how the “smart set” will probably react.)

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To Beeb or not to Beeb

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Iain Dale, Oliver Kamm and Nick Ferrari all belatedly decided to stop appearing on the Iranian-backed Press T.V.
They no longer wish to lend whatever credibility their participation bestows upon this alleged propaganda machine.

What prompted these ‘principled’ resignations? For Iain Dale it was because “I have been appalled at the way their website has portrayed what’s happened in the Iranian elections” and for Nick Ferrari it was “in protest at the regime crushing dissent after the Iranian elections,” Oliver Kamm said his was because of “the station’s promotion of the work of a Holocaust denier”

But surely the clamp-down on protesters and Press T.V.s support for the Ahmadinejad regime – not to mention Holocaust denial – were not the first or the only signs that Press T.V. was something one wouldn’t want to be associated with?

This particular dilemma must have pre-dated the Iranian election fiasco. Why did the moral objections come to a head only after these terrible events?
The publicity engendered by these resignations wouldn’t have been quite the same if they had simply declined invitations to appear in the first place as I understand others have done.
There are calls for Press T.V. to be banned altogether, but where does that leave freedom of speech?
A station that features George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley and Lauren Booth, and has the ridiculous Matthew Richardson for an MD can’t have much credibility going for it, and too many bans make Jack a very dull boy..

Anyway, the dilemma applies to BBC as well, and the argument goes like this:
Does one participate in a set-up with which one profoundly disagrees in order to put the case for the other side? Or, does one have nothing to do with it in the first place?

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Geert

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Despite the fact that it dominated the airwaves all day yesterday, the subject of freedom of speech vis-à-vis Geert Wilders is by no means exhausted. Of all the coverage in the mainstream media, the BBC didn’t come out too badly. The best of a bad lot. Sky made a great fuss about airports, planes landing and Wilders on an escalator, but it amounted to little. What I saw of Channel 4 was pathetic. The BBC had the most memorable moment. It had to be Miliband, after condemning this vile hateful deliberately provocative film, with exquisite Comedy Timing, admitting that he hadn’t seen it.

Several things struck me about the whole media coverage fiasco.

1. Hardly anyone brought up Lord Ahmed’s disgraceful threat to mobilise ten thousand Muslims if Wilders was allowed in, and no-one at all alluded to him crowing about this ‘victory for Muslims’ to the Pakistani press.

2. All the people who were speaking in support of Wilders, Baroness Cox, Lord Pearson, and co., did so in the name of free speech; they were all
oh-so-careful to insist that they ‘did not agree with him’, giving the impression that they disagreed entirely with his views on Islam, rather than the more nuanced disagreement I assume they meant. (that the Koran should be banned altogether)

3. All this potential violence that is waiting to be unleashed. – Who by?” Is it to be “Islamophobic” violence against Muslims stirred up by the film, perpetrated by those violent Jews and gays? Or is it violence by members of the religion of peace, enraged at criticism of the very Jihadi extremists they are supposed to disapprove of?

The content of Fitna was repeatedly described as ‘shots of horrific acts of violence juxtaposed with selected Koranic verses’. “Revolting!” “Repulsive!”


In the light of the loudly proclaimed assurance by Lord Ahmed that every single word of the Koran has equal importance and is of vital significance, I can’t see many grounds for the oft heard claims that that the majority of Muslims are moderate, and that Islam is the religion of peace. Furthermore, footage of ranting mullahs and suicide bombers which furnished the most undeniable examples of incitement to hatred and violence in the film were largely overlooked.

4. As for Salma Yaqoob, the only member of last night’s QT panel who actually spoke up for Geert’s visit, (in the name of free speech, naturally,) and the member of the Quilliam Foundation, I think it was Maajid Nawaz, who spoke in a similar vein in another programme, I can’t help feeling that they were not being entirely honest. I suspect that if they hadn’t known that Geert Wilders had already been safely and securely sent packing, they would have been singing a different tune. But taking advantage of the moral high ground from a position of safety by pretending to be magnanimous wasn’t very convincing.

5. Have they banned Hizb-ut Tahrir yet?

Thank you

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