How to teach Muslims about dealing with offense

[El Pibe]

Second life is a dreadful game.

Hmm, also wrong thread.

[StraferJack]

Maxxis post is exactly the sort I expect from someone who has to drink in the Denmark Arms every so often. Marvellous stuff

[uncleglen]

KK is correct but since 'god' exists only in the mind then it is up to your mind to sort it out. But if you are never exposed to alternatives then the mythology and everything that goes with it persists. George Orwell said 'Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'. But if you are prevented from hearing alternatives, which is what seems to be the aim of fundamentalists, then there is no 'progress'.

[jj2]

People have the right to offend. And to be offended.

By the way Charlie Hebdo cover of today is a great exapmle of courage and resiliance, without being blatantly provocative in my opinion.

[Loz]

An interesting aside to the Charlie Hebdo cover annoying ISIS is the Aussie PM suggestion that ISIS be called 'Daesh' or 'Da'ish' in the media. Apparently this is an Arabic acronym that means roughly the same as ISIS, but drops (English-speaking) references to Islam and has the bonus effect that apparently ISIS hate being referred by it.

According to the Gruin,

In Arabic, the word lends itself to being snarled with aggression. As Simon Collis, the British ambassador to Iraq told the Guardian?s Ian Black: ?Arabic speakers spit out the name Da?ish with different mixtures of contempt, ridicule and hostility. Da?ish is always negative.?

And if that wasn?t infuriating enough for the militants, Black reports that the acronym has already become an Arabic word in its own right, with a plural ? daw?aish ? meaning ?bigots who impose their views on others?.

[Otta]

Sounds fair.

[JohnL]

Is it me or does France appear like a country that's about to go to war

Much more emotional than I remember the aftermath to 7/7 - which was stiff upper lip and resilience.

[El Pibe]

you have a point.

PM announces France's war on terror!!

My jaw dropped a bit when the parliament sang the Marseillaise, apparently for the first time since, erm liberation.

You know, when the country was occupied by evil forces and 350,000 civilians were killed.

I hoped I was being a bit hyperbolic about turning a police matter into a counter insurgency, given France's woeful human rights records in these matters....

[Jeremy]

I think the Americans would be most amused if the French started taking some sort of military action.

Otta, I understand what you mean by "it is not for you to decide what is or is not offensive to people".. but at the same time, somebody finding something offensive is not necessarily enough of a reason not to do something. Some people find women wearing trousers, or with uncovered heads offensive. Some people found Life of Brian offensive. The theory of evolution was once considered offensive (probably still is)... provision of free contraception... we could go on and on. At some point common sense has to take priority.

[miga]

c.

[david_carnell]

And the French are very much more an integrationist society compared to the UK.

Immigrants in France are expected to adopt French attitudes towards things like church and state, freedom of speech etc. libertie fraternitie, eglaitie

Meanwhile on this side of the channel we've adopted a more multi-cultural apporach that allows immigrants to retain characteristics and attitudes commonplace within their home country.

Neither is wholly successful and both have significant problems but I think Miga is right in suggesting the strength of French reaction to this, as opposed to the UK reaction to 7/7, is much more defiant and assertive of French identity.

[Otta]

jj2 Wrote:

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> People have the right to offend. And to be

> offended.

> By the way Charlie Hebdo cover of today is a great

> exapmle of courage and resiliance, without being

> blatantly provocative in my opinion.

It's not at all "blatantly provocative", to most of us it's just a silly cartoon of a Muslim man. If IS find it offensive I couldn?t care less, they need to be offended.

My worry about the whole thing is that there are lots of young men both in France, here and other countries, who feel pretty disaffected already. This, at a volatile time, could be just enough to tip them over the edge and make them do something silly like going off to join IS, or doing something silly themselves.

That is why I don't think it should be published, not because I find it offensive, but because the timing sucks.

There are a million other covers they could have used this week which could have shown defiance without using that image.

[StraferJack]

Re French reaction v British after 7/7

Isn?t the difference that the London bombings were arbitrary attacks on the public and the response sort of had to be ?stuff upper lip? ? the demands are unknown so to speak

Attacking a magazine that has already been attacked , for a specific reason elicits a more defined response . The demands of the terrorists in this case are more easily quantified and easier to articulate a defense

[david_carnell]

Well the reasoning of the French attackers was French/Western involvement in the middle east and their muslim brothers being tortured.

Were the 7/7 bombings not for the same reasons?

The cartoons are both central and a red herring.

[StraferJack]

as for the timing being bad - of the top of my head I can't think when the timing would be any better

If a young man is going to be provoked into terrorism by this then realy you have to say there is something wrong that could blow anyway.

It's all a bit Tipper Gore in the 90s and advisory stickers on albums - because youth are so sensitive, Guns n Roses could tip them over the edge

[El Pibe]

I dunno otta.

Sometimes it's cathartic to just go 'feck you'

[Jeremy]

miga Wrote:

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> Common sense is a culturally relative concept

Perhaps so, but I meant there comes a point where your own common sense (or judgement) has to take priority over what others may find offensive. I'm not necessarily saying that Charlie Hebdo is a good example of this, but as a general principle, whether you're talking about art, journalism, science, philosophy, education, or whatever... sometimes views and beliefs need to be challenged, even if it's going to cause offence. We can't go through life never doing anything which might offend someone.

[El Pibe]

yeah, cultural relativism is a pretty slippery slope, the (absurd) logical conclusion of which involves total inability to make any value judgement at all ;)

[Jeremy]

We'd still be saying that the sun, moon, stars and planets all revolved around the earth, for fear of offending the Catholic church!

[Otta]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> as for the timing being bad - of the top of my

> head I can't think when the timing would be any

> better

>

> If a young man is going to be provoked into

> terrorism by this then realy you have to say there

> is something wrong that could blow anyway.

Well yeah, obviously. I'm not suggesting a well balanced member of society will see a cartoon and suddenly decide he needs to martyr himself. But tension is particularly high right now, and the people in those suburbs of Paris are probably not feeling particularly popular at the moment.

[miga]

.

[ernesto]

lots of intellectual superiority vibe going on here

this is how it all started....

[StraferJack]

how all "what" started exactly?

[El Pibe]

I dunno, I don't think enlightenment ideals are anathema to islam by any stretch. There have certainly been places and periods which have valued them and indeed pipped the west to them.

In the golden age of al-andalus, for example, by several hundred years, not to mention science, learning, rediscovery of philosophy from antiquity (we can thanks the arabs for us even talking about the socratic method for instance).

I think alot of this has less to do with Islam per se being medieval, but a 2 pronged crisis of confidence in the muslim, but predominantely arab, world.

Firstly difficulty in coming to terms with the rise and dominance of the west when comapred to past glories (the british can surely symapthise with this sort of soul searching).

And secondly the failure of the, largely secular, experiments at modernism. Even here failure is also often, and for good reasons, blamed on the west with its cynical propping up of brutal regimes, such that you can't blame them for feeling the choice is:

"modern = dissent crushed & stagnant economies"

"islamic = at least we might be happy and hopefully it'll have light at the end of the tunnel" as people often look back when the now seems rubbsih by comparison (yoo hoo UKIP)

The western propensity to shake our heads like the roman soldiers in Pontius Pilate's cellars (life of brian version of biblical tale), and i hate to agree with ernesto, does rather smack of intellectual/cultural superiority, when alot of it *is* rather our fault in keeping the oil flowing. Who put the saudis there? Who sells them all their weapons?

[maxxi]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> Re French reaction v British after 7/7

>

> Isn?t the difference that the London bombings were

> arbitrary attacks on the public and the response

> sort of had to be ?stuff upper lip?

"After the Salmon of Doubt comes the Trout (Pout) of Defiance"*

*not a red herring