Continuing with the talk about Peter March from before,
Today, Muslim students marched against Peter March, the media whore SMU professor, who posted the cartoons on his door at St. Mary’s to “provoke discussion”.
Wanting the attention, March was in the middle of it. Of course, he said he was there to provoke a discussion of freedom of expression. The sheer ignorance here bothers me greatly.
Something is gravely wrong here. There is a time and a place for a lesson to be taught. Unfortunately for March, his desire to use shock as an educational aid might mean someone will soon teach him a lesson.
Just continuing on about the cartoons from the previous post,
I think this story works like a ring of fire. Papers are now reprinting the cartoons and calling them news. Why? Because now that it is such a hot issue, everyone wants to see what the ruckus is about. A French paper printed the cartoons and according to the BBC, copies were flying off the shelf, they had to do another printing run to feed the demand. That mere thought has newspaper managers salivating around the world and throwing ethics and morals (used only when convenient) completely out the window. Print the cartoon, sell some paper, fires of dissent flare up. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s too perfect, a media story that the media will continue to fan until something bigger comes.
The depiction of Muhammad is a long standing crux of the Islamic faith. Its original intention was to not have the face bigger then the religion. Look at how Jesus is used. He’s no longer a symbol of faith as much as he is used as a general pop culture symbol. So Islam has rules to prevent this idolatry from ever occurring. This has become one of the pillars of their faith, and they obviously defend it fiercely.
For a while, I hoped that it would remain over there, away from us. But a SMU megalomaniac professor has prevented that. If he really wanted to provoke university discussion in his students, then why did he call the Daily News, followed by the Chronicle Herald to tell them he had the cartoons on his door? I like the tagline of one of the Daily News’s editorials. It said “[The Author] believes discussing the Muhammad cartoons in class would be educational, but sticking them on a door teaches nothing”.
Honestly, did he really expect that the Muslim students would support him? He claims to be a learned man but his ignorance and want for attention is disgusting.
I’ve gleaned a lot of this post from two discussions I’ve had yesterday. In each one, I kind of took an opposite side, so I feel like I cheated both Chris and Melissa by simply playing devil’s advocate to try to get my head around the subject better. If Terri’s reading, she’d probably think that because I’m a Gemini, I see both sides of the issue and I have a hard time deciding where I stand. Luckily, I don’t believe in that sort of thing.
I kind of avoided commenting on this, mainly because I’ve been busy and so on (note to self: whenever you create new sidebar things, put in a general politics tab).
Anyway, here goes.
By now, you’ve all probably heard about the big noise created by the Muslim cartoons that depicted Muhammad (prohibited by the Muslim faith). So the whole thing has escalated by epic proportions and now Muslims around the world are burning down a couple Danish embassies and rioting.
Ok, let’s ignore the ironic part of this for a second (I hate that you stereotype all Muslims as terrorists. Stop it, or I’ll blow up your embassy.). Let’s also ignore the fact that Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt against Denmark. The real problems didn’t heat up until French, German, Italian and Spanish papers reprinted the cartoons. (The original cartoons were printed back in October). Let’s ignore the actual reason for the cartoons (to point out that the extremist section of the Muslim faith has really been the bad apple that spoils the common view of Islam.
So ignoring all that, let’s just focus on this. A return salvo from an Iranian newspaper.
Paper to run ‘Holocaust cartoons’….Good call?
Alright, so now trade agreements are falling apart. The Middle East (and the Muslim faith) have a huge hate on for the European Union.
All of it over a cartoon.
Yeap.
That sounds reasonable.
P.S. anyone want to see the cartoons?
Four jobs I’ve had:
- Gas Station Attendant
- Stand-In to the Stars
- Youth Worker
- IT Guy
Four films I can watch over and over:
- Good Will Hunting
- Office Space
- Donnie Darko
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Four places I’ve lived:
- Yarmouth
- Chester Basin
- Shelburne
- Halifax
Four TV shows I enjoy:
- The Simpsons
- CSI
- Family Guy
- The Daily Show
Four foods I like:
- Scrambled Eggs
- Hawaiian Pizza
- Spaghetti
- Lasanga
Four websites I visit daily:
- Mblog
- Slate.com
- HFBoards.com
- CBC.ca
Four things I’d like to do before I die:
- Road trip across Canada and the US
- See more of Europe longer
- Write a book
- Be a parent