From: Wade Allsopp (wade.allsopp@gmail.com)
Date: Wed 08 Feb 2006 - 22:08:40 GMT
On 2/8/06, Douglas Brooker wrote:
> latest story at the guardian.co.uk is that the original paper in Denmark
> is joining up with the Iranian paper that's having a holcaust cartoon
> contest - they're hoping to publish the winning entries jointly.
That's an interesting development. British TV showed an example of
one of these "holocaust" cartoons 2 days ago published by the Arab
European League. A picture of Anne Frank in bed with Adolph Hitler and
another denying the holocaust took place.
The matter seems to have metamorphasised from a test of the principle
of free speach by an obscure Danish newspaper following the viist to
the Middle East by Ahmad Abu Laban of the Islamisk Trossamfund and
Akhmad Akkari, spokesman of the Danish-based European Committee for
Prophet Honouring. along with some supporters who took along a 43 page
dossier including the cartoons and some considerably more provocative
images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy#_note-0
I presume what their underlying intention was was to help isolate the
muslim population in Denmark from the native population which of
course they have managed to do in spades.
I'd say that publishing Holocaust cartoons will just further this
isolation as I think the reaction of most Westerners will be: Hold on
a minute: publishing a cartoon that suggests that there is a link
between Islam and terrorism (especially in the context of having daily
images of islamic extremists blowing 30-50 fellow muslims up with
suicide bombs or beheading aid workers, and the historic Muhammad
himself being a pretty accomplished warrior ) isn't quite in the same
category as denying the fact that Hitler killed 6 million Jews or
advocating the Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth.
From the perspective of memetics I think one needs to look at the
whole Islam memecomplex and in particular the protective strength to
the religion given by thehypersensitivity to criticism aspects of the
ideology.
The wikipedia article referenced above has both the original 12 prints
and a link to the 43 page dossier that was put together to stir things
up - though for some reason, someone is suggesting that the latter
should be deleted from wikipedia.
In answer to Tonie Putter I'd say that actually the difficulties for
many people actually seeing the photos is perversely helpful in
spreading the meme. The cartoons are themselves pretty innocuous and
it's probably more difficult to get wound up about them without seeing
them . My guess is that its even more tricky for the average
demonstartor in the Midle East to see them and that most of the people
who have lost their lives in attacks on Embassies etc never actually
got to see the cartoons they were supposed to be offended by.
Wade
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed 08 Feb 2006 - 22:29:35 GMT