I think you entirely missed my point.
Everyone is quick to defend rioting, pillaging and killing on account of cultural sensitivity, but drawing a cartoon to defend your values....that's going too far.
1st, I haven't even begun to defend them, and just because I don't defend this retarded cartoon fiasco and defend your side of the argument doesn't make me defending their actions either.
2ndly, I am not telling you in excuse that they have every right to act the way they might to whatever someone might say or do.... I am telling you the reality of human reaction and hate. You dish hate out, you're gonna get hate back. You insult their religion and way of life, wtf do you think they will or might do, based on common sense and past history? You and I both know how they feel about their religion, and you and I both know what happens when you insult them.
3rdly, Drawing a cartoon to defend your "values" is just plain stupid, and I should know... I'm a cartoonist.
What's going on right here at home with the HRC in BC and MacLeans is the perfect example of what the cartoonist were speaking out against with their cartoon. Turns out they were right.
I think you're completely ignorant on the background of the Danish's hate towards Muslims. It's got nothing to do with freedom of speech, and if it was a cartoon done by someone in, let's say Sweeden, it probably wouldn't have been as big of a deal.
Here's a little snippet of the common (Or what it seems like) mentality in Denmark:
DANISH HATE SPEECH AND XENOPHOBIA
http://www.panhumanism.com/xenophobia/index.php
"These quotes are but a few examples of hate speech and xenophobia in the political debate in Denmark, where it has been a widespread and increasing phenomenon since the mid-nineties. Fortunately, in the recent years there has been a growing international awareness of the fact, that this type of propaganda - which in most Western countries is limited to racist extremists without political influence - constitutes an alarming tendency in mainstream Danish politics.
To prevent further mainstream acceptance of outspoken propaganda labelled as mere »criticism of Islam« or as innocent »concern about integration«, it is imperative to document the actual contents of Danish xenophobic rhetorics - and speak out against it.
As mentioned this is only a translation of a few examples - houndreds of xenophobic and islamophobic quotes in Danish can be found [URL="http://www.humanisme.dk/hate-speech"]here[/URL]
- (more will eventually be translated to English)."
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"All western countries are infiltrated by Muslims. Some of them talk to us nicely while they are waiting to grow in numbers and remove us."
"Islam threatens our future, and we shall prevent Islam from setting any agenda in Europe. This faith belongs to a dark past and its political goal is as destructive as that of Nazism. Islam should not have the possibility to take Europe away from us."
"All Muslims should leave Denmark. This is harshly put because there are human beings among them. But how can we differentiate?"
"Islam has been a terrorist organisation from its very beginning."
"Where Christianity rules, matters are related to the love of the tings that one holds dear. On the other hand, where Islam rules, matters are related to a higher selfrightousness which logically culminates in an all consuming hatred and a scary urge to exterminate other people."
"Judaism, because of its Jesus-negating teachings, is an apostasy and blasphemy."
"Islam is not a religion in any traditional sense. It is a terrorist organisation which tries to gain world domination through violence."
^ And most of those quotes could be easily related to how Christianity was and actually still is in some degree or another. One could also relate much of this hate speech to the common things being spread around about the Jewish people during WWII..... the only difference is that Muslims won't just lay down and take their beatings by those who ridicule them continually due to their own ignorance of their ways. They generalize the entire muslim population as extremists.
And speaking about extremists views, I imagine the other side of the argument tends to focus on all the evil things and extremist ways some Christians live, such as cross burnings, beating up homosexuals, the crusades, racist and ignorant of those who are different from them...... sure it's not the majority of the Christian population, but neither is it the majority of the Muslim population that's extreme in the same sense. It's when you start to generalize against an entire culture and make them out to be more evil then yourselves, when in fact our cultures are not that much better off, if so, by only a few decades of going through the same things.
The problem is that most tend to view the Danish cartoons as a joke and for the Muslims to lighten up, but this has been yet another expression of propaganda that has been through Denmark's political and social environments for a long time against Muslims and those different from them that many of us don't hear about or see too often. The Danish have been quoted as claiming Islam isn't any better then Nazism, and yet, they're acting on their own accord in the same manner in which the Nazis villianized the Jews.
But nobody ever bothers to look that far back in history to learn anything, so I wouldn't expect any of you to put two and two together on this.
Like I said, I'm not excusing some extremist's actions, but when you do something that you know fully well what the outcome will be, don't come crying to me about it when you could have easily prevented it from happening in the first place by using some common sense about the situation.