(APE) Al Jazeera struck back today on the heels of worldwide rioting which resulted from the publication of 12 drawings in the Danish press. The drawings, various depictions of Allah and Mohammed, were subsequently reprinted throughout the European press, resulting in widespread rioting by Muslims who found them offensive. Today, in answer, Al Jazeera published its own rendition of Christ from a contest conducted throughout the Middle East this last week. The winning drawing depicted George Bush as Christ gently coddling a nuclear weapon with a mushroom cloud in the background.
The contest itself was controversial as fundamental Islamists prohibit the depiction of any religious figure be it Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or any other faith.
A spokesman for Al Jazeera denied that this was a direct attempt to incite rioting and violence in America as had been experienced earlier this week in the Middle East. He stated that the news agency was frankly surprised at what was instead an overwhelming number of requests for reprints, sales, and marketing deals.
“Our polls are showing an almost 60% positive response to the artwork overall, and when the responses are broken down over the various denominations of Christianity, there is almost a 98% positive response from fundamental and evangelical Christians,” he stated. “In fact, the only hate mail, if you will, came from a Reverend Phelps, a pastor of a small church in Idaho.”
“Allah does indeed work in mysterious ways,” the spokesperson stated with a smile. “If our revenue projections are accurate, we will be able to outfit over a dozen new state-of-the-art camera crews, and upgrade the armor on all personnel and vehicles that we currently have in Iraq to a level equal or better than that of the average American occupation force.”
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan stated that the Bush administration was also puzzled over the absence of a backlash in America. He wrote it off as a cultural difference between the average American, and the average citizen in the middle east. “Here in America we are much more comfortable with icons and idolatry and that the fine gray line that separates the two.”
too funny.
Thats when I laughed out loud. Bood thats your best since bush and nagin were recovering expensive stereo equipment after Katrina. HAHA!
That is one disturbing picture, Bood. It cries out for a caption of “Who would Jesus bomb?”
Personally I bet there are some wingnuts who would go gaga over it. It would be right at home on Jesus’ General.
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I must claim true innocence, the quotes in France Soir are not sourced to my nickname @BooMan. Perhaps the blame is befitting a distant ancestor, who failed to cross the Atlantic when the tide was suitable.
When BooMan receives harassment from Karzai in Afghanistan, I’ll think of changing my nickname to Non?
The 1.3bn Muslims were waiting for another flurry of demonstrations as a sign Bush’s democracy is indeed showing a foothold in Muslim countries from Marocco, Tunesia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan to Indonesia.
I’m glad Rumsfeld had foreseen the increase in hatred from Muslim countries across the globe, caused by European Liberals, increased DoD spending and added $120bn for the WOT from the SS funding of the baby boomers.
Protests in London - those Liberal heretics!● European Focus on ‘Stone Age’ Afghanistan
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
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There is a subtle difference between the photoshop image and the worst of the cartoons, the bomb/turban one. While the cartoon of Mohmanned distorted the teachings of Mohmammed, the Al-jazeera one is more of a commentary on Bush’s use of religion. The one purports to show and image of the Prophet and the latter shows Bush pretending to be a prophet.
One observation, the strength of reaction against the protests in different western countries seems to relate to the intensity and nearness of their internal debates on the separation of church and state. These counter-reactions seems strongest for example from the USA and France where such discussions are current and intense rahter than for example the UK where there is an established religion but very few are either particularly bothered and church attendance is considerably lower.
that I made this all up, right?… ; )
I knew it was made up when I came to the line about Scotty admitting that there was such a thing as a ‘grey line.’
I did have strong doubts as Muslims would also not depict any of the earlier Prophets. My comments are not dependent on the veracity of the initial piece anyway.
Mirza A. Beg, a free-lance writer, contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from Alabama, USA.
An extremely long Muslim response, concludes:
A prayer for peace with a hint of burying Western civilization. hmmmmm… Mr. Khodr compares these cartoons with the German cartoon of “The Eternal Jew” 1937 and asks if the Danish paper would be willing to publish it. It is a weak analogy to compare a cartoon demonizing of millions of people who were subject to mass murder to 12 cartoons mocking Islam. However, it shows how strongly he feels about the Danish cartoons.
The sad thing is, the Danish newspaper is a tabloid not, I think, a well-respected paper. I am sorry there wasn’t some way to put out these cinders before the flames erupted.
you just love stirrin’ the pot. So do I.
You’re basically killing each other to see who’s got the better imaginary friend.
(Yasir Arafat, on going to war over religion)
War is where you and I sit down to a table and agree to kill one another’s children…. (source unknown)
For myself, I would not serve pork if I had invited a Jew to dinner, I would not wear boots into a Japanese house, I would not desecrate the Qu’ran, nor publish any of the cartoons as did M. Malkin. I try not to say “Jesus!” in front of Catholics, and I never say, “God damn it.” There are a lot of basic civil things I do, and a lot of respectful manners I practice, just because it’s a matter of course.
For all of the above reasons I most admire Buddhism. And I am drawn to the poems of Rumi, the Sufi mystic.
In Ireland Paddy Powers bookmakers was forced to remove from circulation an amusing advertisement that depicted Leonardo’s Last Supper and JC and the boys were playing poker.
Which is not so off the mark as one might think. All the Greek Orthodox friends I knew used to say, “Christ rolled the dice.” They said that every evening the boys would gamble with the day’s takings and that Judas was in charge of the collection box.
Your piece is brilliant, bood abides.
I am in accord with your personal guide lines. But how do you answer those who cry “Freedom of the press?”
I remember writing to a columnist who did “News of the Weird” because I noticed many of his stories were about child abuse. I told him he was further abusing those tragic children by his derision. I got a remorseful letter back and never saw another story about child abuse in his column.
“Freedom of the press” has limits but I do not know how to articulate them. Your guide lines would be a good starting point.
But this was an exception. Anyone with any cultural sensitivity could have predicted the result.
So, was it a calculated result?
See Oui’s link above where an editor of The French newspaper Presse was fired. And well he should have been. The result of this “freedom of the press” is to incite violence with a backlash of LESS freedom of the press.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
are banned too. For Muslims he is a prophet.
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Some of the Protestant reformers encouraged their followers to destroy Catholic art works by insisting that they were idols. Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin promoted this approach to the adaptation of earlier buildings for Protestant worship. In 1562, some Calvinists destroyed the tomb of St. Irenaeus and the relics inside, which are said to have been under the altar of a church since his martyrdom in 202, though iconoclastic riots took place in Zürich (in 1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537) and Scotland (1559).
Prinsenhof - Delft :: Revolution!Where William of Orange was assassinated.
≈ Cross-posted from News Bucket —
Danish Mohammed cartoons circulate ≈
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
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