21st May 2010, 12:15 AM
This particular case seems more about directly insulting Islam and being as vulgar and disrespectful as possible than upholding any ideal of freedom of speech, which here has only been used as an excuse to justify Islamophobia. People loooove to conflate their ass-backwards idea of "freedom of speech" with hatemongering as evidenced by any racist claiming the First Ammendment when they start talking about sand niggers and the like. The "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" Facebook page no longer exists, by the way, and for good reason. You should have seen the horrible, hateful, ignorant things that people were posting on it. Why on Earth would somebody want to participate in such an event for any reason aside from deliberately antagonizing a large group of people who will, no doubt, be offended by it? Are you really that spot-on in your worldview? Do you really care about protecting your right to freedom of speech that much, or are you just looking for another way to denigrate Muslims? The Western approach to censorship and freedom of speech is by no means the standard that the rest of the world should follow. It is not appropiate to all peoples of all cultures, and represents only a relatively small proportion of how the world goes about its business in this regard anyways.
Ya know, Pakistan isn't representative of all of Islam. Actually, the totalitarian measures taken by its government may not even be representative of its people. It's a big country, sure, but there's plenty more of the Islamic world, spread out across virutally every single country in the entire world, from Indonesia to Morocco to the mosque on 71st street in my city. There's a billion Muslims out there, and they don't all share the same experiences and opinions.
A Black Falcon Wrote:I wonder if the Islamic world will ever agree that the concept of freedom of speech even exists...
Ya know, Pakistan isn't representative of all of Islam. Actually, the totalitarian measures taken by its government may not even be representative of its people. It's a big country, sure, but there's plenty more of the Islamic world, spread out across virutally every single country in the entire world, from Indonesia to Morocco to the mosque on 71st street in my city. There's a billion Muslims out there, and they don't all share the same experiences and opinions.