Muslim leaders' response to the cartoon violence

[morsefan]

I'm keeping a list of Muslim leaders -- religious and political -- who are condemning violence or otherwise urging restraint in average citizens' response to the cartoon incident. Let's not leap to conclusions that "moderate Islam" or "Muslim leaders" do not speak in favor of curbing violence.

This post will be continually edited.

King Abdullah

Comments

[lyssiae]

Thank you for doing this. When all you see in the media is burning embassies and placards saying "Behead the enemies of Islam", it's lovely to hear that there are Muslims condemning this.

[morsefan]

There are some notables missing. Where is Saudi Arabia? Where are leaders from Iran? It would be nice to hear statements out of Indian Muslim leaders or Indonesia or Malaysia. It may just be a matter, however, of only leaders in countries where there is real violence are being reported on, so we don't know what is being said. Demonstrations, even burning flags, etc., are par for the course. Embassy burnings and street fighting as in Lebanon is something else.

They may turn up, though. And because of the nature of the project, economic retaliation that is nonviolent but often used in these kinds of situations is not included. Yet, that's a reasonable thing to do, and it is not in the least violent. All that is is about accepting the consequences of speech.

[soliano]

I was just listening to the BBC and they were running a piece on this. It seems that this has taken the Danish by surprise and in large part it is being blamed on the homogeneity of Danish Culture. So, it really did not start out as an exercise in freedom of expression, they just kind of blundered in. Now it is being used by all sorts on all sides of the equation for their own purposes.

[morsefan]

I suspect the Danes may not have understood, and I never bought the "freedom of expression" thing for an instant. It was an excuse for a mistake I'm being very hard on them for unleashing this thing, but increasingly as I look at the actually fairly long history of this cartoon issue, I'm thinking the real mistake was all these other western papers picking them up in this crazy show of solidarity that seems to have had no purpose whatsoever. The Danes might have found a way to extricate themselves, quietly, but once so many western European media outlets did their thing, there was no chance

[soliano]

What a charmer! Reminding me how old I am. :) I have all sorts of opinions on this issue and of course no solid training to back them up. I think that the exploitation of the underdeveloped world by the west certainly has bred generations of resentment which has become part of the culture so that they are overly sensitive to any slight. Of course, when there are people that use this proclivity for their own ends, well then where does that take us? Of course, the question is, why should newspapers in Europe be any more concerned about being offensive to that religious group than they are to any other. But I digress. It is a problem that there is no short term fix for except for the vast populations being exposed to each other via news media to get used to each other and figure out how to co-exist. We should live so long to see that.

[morsefan]

Sorry about the age thing! (laughs!) All I can say is that I did the same for myself. I'm just constantly surprised (but why should I be?) at the number of people who have no fundamental sense of that war. It's like it did not happen for them, but they didn't live through it

[radiantsun]

Good, I look forward to watching the list grow.

[morsefan]

I am, too. It's really the only hope.

[radiantsun]

Do you mind if I repost to my lj? I can do it with credit to you, or I can do it anonymously or not re-post at all of course.

[morsefan]

Feel free to repost. I'm not sure I want to just unlock or be linked to, but if you want to go ahead and use the information, I won't be offended. I don't know what it means, and we do need to use critical thinking when evaluating some of it (what do we really think of Hamas or the Saudi ambassador?). Yet we always say Muslims don't condemn violence. I think the answer to that is "it's more complicated." I see a widespread economic boycott (didn't they learn that one from us!), and some localized violence centered in "bad guy" nations -- Syria, and perhaps Syrian-provoked Lebanese violence. Plus Gaza but that's a yawner. It's not like every single Muslim nation blew up. A few flags burned. Shoot -- we do that in the U.S.

[warrior__poet]

I was most impressed with Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar's comments about stationing gunmen in protection of the Christians. That brings up an interesting question, though. If the need arose for the gunmen to fire, what would happen? Would they actually fire? And what effect would the gunmen have on an angry crowd of people? I wonder if they would just assume that the gunmen wouldn't fire. And what would the effects be on Hamas if the gunmen did actually fire and hit a Muslim?

I pray that it won't come to that, but it's an interesting scenario to analyze.

[morsefan]

I think you raise a couple of good points here. First, we have to use critical thinking skills to evaluate this. Second, we have to remember that what people say may not be exactly what we take it to mean (I was struck by some reading about what Americans see as Russian "lies" and what Russians think of as "culturally acceptable fibs." Which is it in any given circumstance -- hard to say.). I added a few, and I don't know if you had commented before I had the Saudi ambassador, but of course, sure, you don't have demonstrations when you are running a police state. That does not make you the good guy, though

[warrior__poet]

btw, thanks for that list. It's very interesting.

[morsefan]

You are welcome!