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| Politics, PR and hack philosophy from A Guy Called Donald. But definitely no blogging. Probably. | |
6.2.06Racism and cartoons (again)Thought I'd make a post out of this rather than bury it in the comments below. The story so far: the blogger known as Lenin accused me of being a racist. The money quote; well, the edit:But what is really disgusting is the fact that you take these racist representations and instead of sympathising with their victims... you obsess over the reaction of a handful of zealots in order to contemptuously dismiss the entire reaction as an effort to create a religious hierarchy. Read it all: first comment to this post. It's rather good, actually, though it would have been even better if he'd stuck to eviscerating what I wrote (here, too) and not what he wished I wrote or I failed to write or I might write about something different altogether. He might be a clever fellow but his pop-psychology sucks. Anyway... Square peg: Muslims quite reasonably taking religious offense and a few quite unreasonably expressing that in an unacceptable way. He saw what he wanted to see in the cartoons: in fact, only one pictures Mohammed with a sword (with, I'd argue, a vaguely feminist message), only one (that I would certainly have spiked) has "glowering" eyes, etc. etc. Read the placards and listen to the chants: he wants to make this all about race. The majority of the protesters don't see it that way: "insults on the Prophet of Islam", "We have a right to defend our prophet", and so on. (Though, of course, Lenin's correct that it's always partly about race, even though I stand by my initial impression that ten of these images are rather tame examples of racism.) Round hole: his neo-imperialist discourse that doesn't work without a victim, and for whom the faces of right-wing cartoonists receiving death threats and embassy staff having their workplace burned down don't fit. The actual victim, the butt, is long dead and fair game. He probably had a beard and a sword or two — he was a philospher-warrior-king, after all. So, how would one suggest we draw him? With a laptop? Lenin chooses to see caricatures of a long-dead desert Arab as a cipher for how the West sees Muslims. I don't know where he lives, but it's not how we see Muslims round here. We tend to see them as "mate" or "neighbour". And all quite different, of course, from saying I sympathise with the actual pictures or their, largely crude and unpleasant, message or context. Or that I personally condone offending the devout gratuitously. I agree with Jamie: offense ought not to be for its own sake. But Lenin gives the enemies of his enemy carte blanche to behave as they wish. Why? Because we can't expect Them to hold to the same standards we expect of others? Not good enough, as someone worthy of respect would agree. That way we hand ammo to the "kill all towelheads" nutcases who think Guantanamo is a Good Idea We Need To See More Of. It's morally vacuous. Freedom of expression unfortunately means the freedom to be a shit, too, and even more unfortunately means defending shits. I realise it isn't popular – it wasn't when I defended Saad al-Fagih and Dilpazier Aslam in the zoo at Harry's Place either. As for the rest... Meh. Playground stuff, littered with fallacies (bonus points for spotting Lenin poisoning the well) and misrepresentations that I can't muster the energy to bother with. Make your own mind up. And on that note, I'm off. For a while, at least. Maybe I just need to inhabit a world that doesn't house wankers like Guido for a bit. Maybe I'm just bored with provoking people into abusing me. Heh, it's not like there's anyone left to fall out with, and I have a stack of books to catch up on: Hayek, Arendt, and Patrick Leigh Fermor are up next. So, 'til whenever and thanks for reading.
posted by Jarndyce @ 08:29
Comments:
Well, if you were attempting to find common ground with Lenin, mentioning Hayek at the end probably finished it...
I don't get the whole hang-up about Mohammed being depicted with the sword - he was, as you say, a warrior- as well as a philosopher-king. In terms of pop psychology reduction, you may question the Eurocentric tendency of some to see all major religious figures as different versions of Jesus. But that would be churlish. While you're away, I do hope you'll be going on some racial diversity training. Sounds like you need it, you crypto-fascist. (Ah, the old joke: how do you know you're winning an argument with a Leftist? When he calls you a racist.) # posted by  Blimpish @ 10:22
I didn't say I agreed with Hayek. Bridges, meh, just one more Jansenist sect I've been excommunicated from.
# posted by  @ 12:02
Oh, and: "How do you know you're winning an argument with a reactionary?" "When he calls you a self-hating white liberal."
J. # posted by @ 13:11
Huh. This is just an excuse to brag about your elitist reading habits. You'll be back posting again by Wednesday, secure in the knowledge you've made a bunch of us feel inferior. Again.
Come back soon. # posted by Justin @ 19:56
You're quite right - the protestors claimed Mohammed had been insulted, not them directly.
Post a Comment
The problem is that historically the left has had little time for the idea that people's religious sensibilities should be respected and that this is still the case can be seen in the reaction to the protests. Those taking the Hitchens/Toynbee/Dawkins view of religion have tended to advocate the publication of the cartoons on the grounds that the outrage, based as it is on a sense of the sacred, is irrational. Lenin and co. as you point out attempt to collapse the concept of blasphemy into an idea about racist stereotypes because they too fundamentally retain the traditional leftist attitude towards the sacred, a fact attested to by their complete indifference towards blasphemy when directed at Christians. The situation isn't helped by the fact that the cartoons did indulge in stereotypes and falsely identified a thirteen hundred year old tradition with modern terrorism. But as you (sort of) say, freedom of expression is absolute and has the consequence, as you put it, that you end up "defending shits". Except you're not really; you're defending a principle. The only people who have been consistent are those who have defended publication of the cartoons, as well as opposing all this repressive nonsense about 'glorification' etc. and those, like Roger Scruton, who admits quite cheerfully that he doesn't believe in free speech. Everyone else is full of shit as far as I'm concerned so I hope you pay these accusations no mind, my man, and continue to say what you think is true. If people want to ignore the mounting evidence that these protests have been whipped up by authoritarian regimes to distract from their own internal problems - the very same reason they churn out vile anti-semitic propaganda - you just have to leave them to it. # posted by Shuggy @ 17:46 Links to this post: << Home |
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