Tuesday, February 07, 2006
A publication of Martin Khor's take on global trends appeared today in the newspaper. No doubt given the freedom of speech in major western papers, it'll have appeared westside too....perhaps.
I would seriously recommend a read, he focuses on the latest sensational news of muslim protests against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and link them to the issues of double standards set by western governments and tender race relations. Articles like this are an inspiration.
Really eventhough I've never studied Islam and even remotely remember anything from religious studies- forced religious studies by the way, I'd still be the the first to not be very happy with Islamic teachings. Contrary to how many say Muslims say Islam is about peace and gender equality, the practice itself it not very. I know, that practice of a religion comes from man, and thus derived from their own sense of racism/sexism/prejudices rather than what the religion actually teaches, still it is the practice which most affects others. Cause and effect relationship.
From the allowance of men to marry four times, and really the 'allowance' of the first wife is often bypassed, to the law's favoritism of men, and even when they realised this inequality and tried to fix it, the law is still unfair to first wives...did I just say first wives....in terms of protection. Now then, religious leaders are allowed to issue a Fatwah- death sentence?, and there are many muslim communities which practices female genitalia mutilation, altho really that is also attributed to Christianity and Judaism too......well way to go male oriented religion.
Doesn't help that the current Al Qaeda terrorist group is preaching muslim direction for their activities, atleast we have to applaud religious leaders stepping in and cutting off all ties.
But really, it is hypocritical to say freedom of speech when there are censoring in western newspapers. Not as much as there are in asian countries certainly, but there are decisions about which news gets in or not. As Khor mentioned, topics of prisoners at Guantanamo and abuse at Iraqi prisoner bases has been covered up and pulled out. This is apparently to calm down public perception and international relations with America and Britain.
However, now they publish very derogatory caricatures of the spiritual leader of Muslims the world over. They did it not once, but twice and three times even after major protests. It is apparently explicit immoral to publish any form of 'pictures' of the prophet, and perhaps it could be forgiven on basis of ignorance. But the caricatures also show the Prophet with a turban and encouraging terrorism and relations with women. *Ahem* *cough*
What will they say if cartoons of the Jewish god Yahweh is published encouraging Nazism? If Jesus was portrayed as a forefront for terrorists?
Not so funny anymore I would think. It bypasses ignorance to direct provokation to even allow the publication of a religion's spriritual leader chucking bombs at people. Unless they were somehow condemning the cartoons, I really don't see what could have motivated them to show those caricatures to the world.
Seriously.....
Mused by Sukunami Taka around 12:32 AM
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