misa wrote:so the newspaper has a freedom of speech to insult whoever they want but the muslims cant have a freedom of speech to express thier angriness towards such thing both r freedom of speech , the one who went far is the news paper not the protesters they have every right to be angry n express thier disapproval and burning as many flags as they want , they already linked us as terrorists , viloence ppl , iam not sayin that i agree with { u will payt back lts just go blow thier country} but i can pretty much understand y they would say that they r angry n they should be
n not all r golin down the streets sayin u will pay back or whatever some r askin for just not dealing with the country n stop buyin its products
okay since I'm actually from the country where this whole situation originated (Denmark) I've gotta comment on this.
In our country there's freedom of speech - it's not so in many other countries around the world, but it is so in our country, and therefore a newspaper can, in principle, publish what they want. The Danish government cannot prevent a Danish newspaper from publishing articles or charicatures unless the newspaper breaks the law, which it hasn't in this case. Therefore the Danish government cannot apologise or jail the publishers or anything - the Danish government had nothing to do with these drawings, and neither had any manufacturers of Danish Dairy products or all other products or the majority of the Danish public for that matter, the decision to publish these cartoons is solely the responsibility of the editors on the newspaper. So if u wanna be angry with anyone for publishing these charicatures fine, be angry with the editors, but don't blame the rest of the Danish population cause we had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Personally I think it was a huge mistake and very disrespectful to publish these pictures, especially the one showing Muhammed with a bomb in his turban - with freedom of speech also comes responsibility, and there was absolutely no reason why such cartoons should be published. Respect goes both ways n we cannot expect other ppl to respect our opinions unless we respect theirs.
BUT burning down another nation's embassies n threatening the lives of its citizens has nothing to do with freedom of speech and cannot be justified as mere anger, just as it would have been completely insane of me to boycot my local muslim pizza maker or grocery store after 9/11 - these ppl had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden's terrorist attacks, just as I or my government have nothing to do with the drawings in the Danish newspaper n I think things have gotten completely out of hand when ppl start threatening an entire nation because of a newspaper article.
i understand why many muslims are angry n it's okay to protest n demonstrate, but direct ur anger at the right ppl if u want to earn respect n understanding - most Danish citizens were actually against the publishing of these drawings, but with the burning down of embassies n corporeal attacks on Danish employees n aid workers understanding is turning into disbelief n outright anger - the muslims have blown things out of proportion in this case.
n i also gotta say that although i don't think the newspaper should've published the cartoons, i also think that they've raised an important topic of discussion, namely censorship vs freedom of speech as a basic value in society n that's an important issue to raise in our country where we're trying hard to integrate a growing muslim community that does need to adapt to living life in a western country with different norms n values than they're used to
the core here is that the newspaper didn't publish the drawings to insult the entire muslim community, they published them to raise an issue in Danish society n they're allowed to do that - personally i just think they should've done it in another way