(Some of) Europe hands a Iran a point.

[vakkotaur]

One of the responses to the publication and dissemination of the Danish newspaper's cartoons (and a few fakes, one of a modified photograph of a French Pig-Squealing Championship contestant) the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri is holding a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust. You can probably imagine the results already. The idea to claim that the free speech argument for publication of the Danish cartoons is a double standard.

The sad thing is that at several European countries have laws on the books that ban holocaust denial or revisionism. Thus Iran actually has a point. One would think that after WWII there would be an embracing of free speech in its entirety. Alas, that is not the case. The cause of the problem was misidentified and the wrong treatment applied. It's not just Nazi or fascist speech, bad as it may be, that is a problem, but censorship itself that is a problem. "Bad speech" cannot really be eliminated, but only driven underground, by such means. To really knock it out and more importantly, the bad ideas behind it, it needs to be dragged out into the open and exposed for what it is rather than hidden.

Denying the holocaust is distasteful, but should not be illegal. Let a fool look like a fool and point out his foolishness. That's better than making him the holder of a "secret the government doesn't want you to know" or some such nonsense. Some will still never be convinced or will continue to spout nonsense as trolls, but they will look silly when they have to explain away the newsreel footage, amongst other evidence. Maybe they ought to be called newsreel deniers. After all, how many "they faked the moon landing" folks does anyone take seriously?

The best response to Hamshahri's contest is to publish the results, as distasteful and distorted as they will likely be. The Jyllands-Posten editor who published the original twelve cartoons understands this and thus his reply: "My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them."

Comments

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

OK, I am failing the logic here. Negative Islamic cartoons are published in a Danish newspaper....they want revenge by publishing something inflamitory....I get that part. But where does Danish paper=Holocaust?

o.O

I am thinking they are, as usual, way to focused on Israel.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

The holocaust was likely picked as it is 1) most likely to be inflammatory (especially after seeing the reactions to the Iranian President's comments about it) 2) related to Israel and 3) has legal prohibitions against some speech about it in Europe. Iran picked the one stone likely to hit the most birds.

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see those three reasons, but it still is not hitting the "offender". It's like hanging the lawyer's wife in place of the prisoner.

I still don't see how it punishes the Danish paper.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not about the Danish paper and never really was. It's about making a fuss. The bigger the fuss, the greater the distraction. More column-inches for this means less column-inches covering things like Hamas and Iran's nuclear ambitions. This also gives Iran the ability to claim (claim, but not occupy) the moral high ground as they effectively sanction themselves with a boycott of western products - rather than be seen as having trade sanctions imposed on them due to their nuclear ambitions. The cut off was probably going to happen anyway, this way they claim they did it to punish the west rather than other way around.

[rillaspins.livejournal.com]

Well, that's kinda my point all along. It hasn't been about the cartoons. The cartoons are an excuse to misbehave. If the Cartoons were REALLY the point, it would be logical to punish the people that drew/published them. The more press this gets the more people with destroy things. Not because they are truly offended, but because it is an excuse for "them" to be violent and get into the papers.

I am sure there are people who were "offended" but it seems to me the majority of the people I have seen rioting are doing it for the fun of it/danger of it.

As for "moral high ground" heh, yeah, whatever. Burning buildings and flags has never impressed me.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

Iran has a point? Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I'd buy it much more readily if it weren't for the fact that Iranian papers (like those of other countries in the Middle Eastern/Islamic Kulturkreis) already constantly churn out Anti-Semitic cartoons at a ridiculous rate.

This is a little like me saying that I'm going to protest something-or-another by speaking Latin. (Except that that only irritates people.)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

The point Iran has is not will that their newspapers will publish the results of their contest, but that (some) western newspapers will not which does not make the free speech argument look good. It's childish, and I expect the results to be as unfunny and cruel as those you speak of, but it does give them something to yammer on about. I think they should be denied the opportunity to whine and claim a double standard exists. I expect the results of the publication would not be people laughing at the cartoons, but at those who made them for being so classless.

Instapunk has an article about real humor (http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=719) as a safety valve, one he claims is lacking in much of the middle east. I'm not sure I like agree with the treatment he suggests, but perhaps it's a just a poor example.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm all for their Anti-Semitic cartoons being circulated for the reasons you cite (though I fear in this case people will buy their point)... just as long as I don't have to see them: I already know what's going on there, and I don't need the raise in blood-pressure from looking at it.