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Sunday, February 5, 2006
Hans van den Broek on 'Buitenhof' |
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'Buitenhof', a Dutch news show, just showed Hans van den Broek, a former secretary of foreign affairs. Mr. Van den Broek likes to cave in to violence. To paraphrase what he just said: 'If cartoons create all this mayhem, then you should wonder if publishing them is worth all that.' In other words, the limits of freedom of speech are determined by those who are quickest in being willing to use violence.
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12:13 |
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Hitchens on Islam |
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Read the whole thing:
Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.
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11:50 |
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The Germans wake up |
How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist and to be despised? Why should they, in the words of the African-American writer James Baldwin, want to integrate into a sinking ship? Why do they all want to immigrate to the west and not Saudi Arabia? They should be taught about the centuries of struggle that resulted in the freedoms that they and everyone else for that matter, cherish, enjoy, and avail themselves of; of the individuals and groups who fought for these freedoms and who are despised and forgotten today; the freedoms that the much of the rest of world envies, admires and tries to emulate." When the Chinese students cried and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square (in 1989) , they brought with them not representations of Confucius or Buddha but a model of the Statue of Liberty." Freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it or it will die from totalitarian attacks.
An article by Ibn Warraq in Der Spiegel? Wow.
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe seems to have lost it in an article which doesn't even manage to accurately recall the history of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. For them, and for anyone else who mistakenly thinks the cartoons were a brazen attempt at creating a riot (an argument which would be called 'blaming the victim' in any other situation), look towards The Guardian.
Wow, again. The Guardian, Der Spiegel, de Volkskrant - some lefties do get it.
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10:51 |
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