Skip to main content

The Muhammad Cartoons: An Ethnocentric Double Standard

We all thought, didn't we, that the Muslims were somehow crazy to be so incensed that a Dutch newspaper would publish cartoons in 2005 that portrayed the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in a negative light? Well, we were wrong. Let's look at what the same newspaper didn't publish because of its offensiveness to readers.

In 2005, the Dutch newspaper, Jyllands-Posten published a series of 12 editorial cartoons that depicted Muslim prophet Muhammad in a negative light.  The paper's intent was to show that it would not be cowed by demands for self-censorship.  Muslims the world over were dismayed by the disrespect shown their prophet by Jyllands-Posten. A few were positively apoplectic about the rudeness shown by the paper, and an even smaller percentage called for death to the perpetrators.

Crazy, huh?  Not so fast...

Interestingly, the Jyllands-Posten already has a regime of self-censorship. It refuses, out of good taste, to print pornography, pictures of dead bodies, or any but them tamest of curse words--and that only rarely.  Why? Because it respects (ahem, most) of its readership and doesn't want to offend them.

More to the point, Jyllands-Posten had the opportunity, just two years before the Muhammad cartoon series was published, to print cartoons that were mildly unflattering as regards Christ and his resurrection--yet they chose not to. Jens Kaiser, the paper's Sunday editor, said of the decision: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think they will provoke an outcry. Therefore I will not use them."

If I were I Muslim, I would be angry at Jyllands-Posten too.  Wouldn't you?  Come to think of it, I'm not a Muslim, and I'm still angry at JP's ethnocentric double standard.

Comments

  1. Six8/14/2012 10:38:00 PM

    It's not a double standard, it's a choice. One you might disagree with but not one that should get people killed. I'll go so far as to say that if they had published those unflattering pictures of Jesus the worst that would have happened would have been outcry, calls for someone's job and perhaps a boycott. All quite tame in comparison to what the muslims, across the world, did. What price free speech and personal choice eh?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for commenting. If you have a Google/Blogger account, to be apprised of ongoing comment activity on this article, please click the "Subscribe" link below.

Popular posts from this blog

School Vouchers: "The Bramble Memo"

$429 million? What? Where? The legislative fiscal analyst for the State of Utah calculated the costs to the public schools over the next 13 years if school vouchers are implemented. It said the costs would be $5.5M in the first year, and $71M in the 13th year. Suddenly, the number I have started seeing thrown around was $429 million, the total costs for vouchers over 13 years. Where did that number come from? Enter the mysterious "Bramble Memo". In the past few days several of us (Jeremy, Utah Taxpayer, Craig, Sara, Urban Koda, Jesse, and me) have (sometimes?) enjoyed a lively discussion about school vouchers in Utah . Jeremy clarified to me the costs of the venture by linking to a copy of the Utah Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Impartial Analysis (LFA) of the costs of Vouchers , found on "The Senate Site". In my previous voucher article, I quoted some of Lavar Webb's article from last Sunday's Deseret News, wherein he stated that those total costs ...
66 comments
Read more

The Inhumanity of Bob Lonsberry: Waterboarding, Concentration Camps, and the the Bataan Death March

KNRS 570 radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry advocated waterboarding and other forms of torture during his show on April 21, 2009. More grotesquely, he was beaming with pride about his advocacy campaign. It's difficult to imagine then, that, by the same rationale, had Lonsberry been a German at the time of Hitler, or a Japanese during the Bataan Death March, that he would not have advocated torture of Jews in the concentration camps or the bayoneting and shooting of American soldiers on the Bataan trail. Torture, Torture, Everywhere! Nearly 80,000 American soldiers were captured by the Japanese in the To contemplate a discussion about whether or not torture is legal or whether it even works, it is first required to come to the conclusion that 'I am a child of God, but my adversary is a monkey'. Phillipines in 1942 and forced to march with no food and very little water for six days. If a man stumbled, if he didn't respond quickly to a command, or if he tried to get wat...
50 comments
Read more

Amazing Grace: Why Do So Many Mormons Not Get It?

Note on Comments for This Post: Somehow, blogger is displaying about 3 fewer comments than have actually been entered. I have added 3 comments, so that the last relevant ones will be shown. In addition, I have closed comments on this article. Please click on this link to continue commenting on the original article . Sorry for the inconvenience. In large part because of the many childish and tyrannical things we do to each other (and to ourselves), life sometimes seems to suck. God, however, did not intend it to be that way. Unfortunately, our worst tormentor is often ourselves. We Mormons mentally flagellate ourselves on a regular basis. God especially did not intend it to be this way. Instead, he hopes that we will look upward and see the Amazing Grace that he gives to us. We're so busy with the seeming enjoyment of miring ourselves in guilt, however, that we seldom even notice that his grace is at our fingertips. Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch l...
44 comments
Read more