Sunday, January 9, 2005

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I agree with your points, but the city was Birmingham, not London. It (this resurgence of fundementalism) behoves us to keep resisting - remain true to our hard-won right to speak our minds, through artistic creation and mundane conversation, whether as agent provocateur or as a respectful correpondent with the opposition (deemed by me as anyone who opposes the right of anyone to say anything, peacably.)

johnnydee (ip:62.254.128.6) 9 January 2005 - 17:43 uur

I know, but I'm too much a thrifty Dutchman to pay for more than a ticket to London ;-) Alas, easyJet doesn't yet have Brummie as one of its destinations ;-)

Arjan Dasselaar (ip:82.161.93.35) 9 January 2005 - 17:47 uur

As with the Van Gogh film, I'm dying to see this documentary. If someone happens to post it on Usenet (or posts it there, or elsewhere), please let us know where to find it.

Daryl @ FM (ip:65.7.232.215) 9 January 2005 - 6:19 uur

Argh, I didn't mean to call it a documentary. I meant "musical".

Daryl @ FM (ip:65.7.232.215) 9 January 2005 - 6:19 uur

Does a person or a group of people have the right to protest against the ideas, expressions and art creations of another? I think they do So long as it is peaceful. The difference between the Birmingham incident and this is that in the former, the show had to close because of the violent nature of the protests. Disgraceful. In the latter incident, there were protests but the show went on anyway. Hardly the stuff of jackboots, excommunication and fatwa. A splendid example of democracy in action, I'd say.

There is another aspect to be kept in mind. In Birmingham the show was in a theater. To my knowledge, it was privately produced for anyone who chose to buy a ticket. But the BBC is a creature of government; paid for by the tv licence fees paid, in part, by the protesters. Did they not have a right to protest how THEIR money was being spent?

Were I British instead of American I would protest, not on religious but artistic grounds. The show must surely be a parody of Jerry Springer. But it is well known that one cannot have a parody of a parody. The Jerry Springer show is obsenely bad and meant to be so. Sort of a Benny Hill on steroids with a lot of sex thrown in. It is about as genuine as professional wrestling and fortune telling. It is a monument to bad taste. How is it humanly possible to satirize it?

That's it, I'm sure. The protests were artistic protests disguised as religious.

ttonn (ip:69.168.240.231) 9 January 2005 - 7:19 uur

Mr. Green is a creep, but had a point.

It is, for whatever reason, perfectly OK to bash Christians (particularly Catholics)...but so very wrong to bash any other faith.

I just want equality on this. Either everybody's faith is fair game, or nobody's faith is.

Penta (ip:67.82.177.37) 9 January 2005 - 2:43 uur

OT but didn't know how else to get it to you.

courtesy of the Jerusalem Post:

"A Swiss friend of mine attended an international conference on terrorism a few months ago where, to the displeasure of many participants, the Dutch representative lectured on the human rights of terrorists. At another conference in December, the same person declared that he would never again deliver such a lecture.

ttonn (ip:69.168.240.231) 9 January 2005 - 6:52 uur

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