Round 2. Zenlover28 vs. ConfederacyOfUnity: Cartoon Prophets

The topic for this debate is "Someone or Something other than the Jyllens-Posten is behind the Mohammed Cartoon affair".

Zenlover28 will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
ConfederacyOfUnity will argue the con position.

Each debater will have one opening statement each. This will be followed by 3 alternating replies each. There will then be one closing statement each and no rebuttal.

No post will be longer than 800 words and in the case of the closing statement no longer than 500 words.

Credits or references at the bottom do not count towards the word total.

Editing is Strictly forbidden. This means any editing, for any reason. Any edited posts will be completely deleted.

Opening and closing statements must not contain any images, and must have no more than 3 references. Excluding both the opening and closing statements, only one image and no more than 5 references can be included for each post.

Responses should be made within 24 hours, if people are late with their replies, they run the risk of forfeiting their reply and possibly the debate.

Judging will be done by a panel of anonymous judges. After each debate is completed it will be locked and the judges will begin making their decision. One of the debate forum moderators will then make a final post announcing the winner.

This debate is now open, good luck to both of you.

It is a pleasure to be here once again. My appreciation goes out to Nygdan and staff for their hard work on these debates. Confed, best of luck to you, I look forward to a very passionate debate on this one!! Anyhow, as I stated earlier...Let's get it on!

Opening Argument:

In my opening argument I want to give an overview of precisely what the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy is about and give a precise timeline of the events that led up to the affair. On September 17, 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken ran an article under the headline “Dyb angst for kritik of islam” (“Profound fear of criticism of Islam”. (External Source, 1). This article discussed the difficulty that writer Kare Bluitgen had encountered while attempting to find an illustrator for his children’s book “Koranen og profeten Muhammeds liv” (“The Qur’an and the prophet Muhammad’s life”). Three artists denied Bluitgen’s offer before an artist agreed to assist anonymously. (External Source, 1). This refusal by the first three artists was seen as self-censorship and led to much debate in Denmark and it also led Flemming Rose, arts editor of Jyllands-Posten, to test the waters by trying to incite a debate on the issue.

Jyllands-Posten is a conservative Danish daily newspaper with a circulation of approximately 150,000. On September 30, 2005 the newspaper published an article titled “Muhammeds ansigt” (“The face of Muhammad”) which consisted of 12 satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad on page 3 of the second section of the paper. Mr. Flemming Rose thought that publishing the cartoons would incite a deeper debate on multiculturalism and self-censorship. It would take nearly six (6) months, but the actions taken on that day would inevitably cause this small Danish newspaper to receive the blame for provoking a dispute that has since led to death, embassies burning and numerous riots across the globe. And as you will see through my argument, few people outside of the Scandinavian nation actually took notice of the cartoons until a group of Danish Muslim organizations turned to an Islamic leader in the Middle East after their attempts to bring the issue to the attention of Danish authorities had failed. (External Source, 2).

I will argue how Jyllands-Posten, while they certainly printed the article and the 12 cartoons, was not necessarily to blame for the drama to follow as I will present the events that led up to the beginning of the affair. I will also argue why the true agenda of the publication of the cartoons was not about the attempt to blaspheme the religion of Islam, but to show precisely why so many in fact choose self-censorship when it comes to the Islamic religion.

External Source 1: en.wikipedia.org...
External Source 2: www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2006/02/11/MNGRCH6UQO1.DTL

Welcome to round 2 everyone...its great to be here....my challenger is a very worthy....this will be tuff, cause im unsure as to what i am conning..but i will interpet it as i see it...mods feel free to correct me if im not understanding it straight.

Opening statement: I would like to address the issues that it was JUST a cartoon, but they shouldnt have posted that comic out of respect for the muslims. Muslims are 1/3 of the worlds population. Why would we purposly want to anger them? Its a matter of respect. I belive the danish company was wrong to post that, a knew to some extent to what the reaction would be. In the muslim religion(correct me if im wrong) its wrong and disrespectful to make fun of Mohammad.

Notes: this is gonna be hard, im not sure im understanding what im conning in this topic GL!

The simple truth of the matter is that the radical Muslims are not protesting the cartoons themselves as it may appear. The majority of them have probably never saw the cartoons. They are protesting because the cartoons have questioned their ideology in a way that those in power perceive as a threat. Most of the Middle East was oblivious to this issue for months until a group of Danish Muslim organizations turned to Islamic leaders in the Middle East. They distributed a 43 page dossier that included three cartoons that Jyllands-Posten never even published. One of the cartoons depicted Muhammad as a pig and the other as a dog. Muslims do consider both of these animals to be unclean. Where did these cartoons come from? Were they included in this dossier to purposely provoke Muslims? I think so. These three (3) cartoons had nothing to do with the satire that the Jyllands-Posten cartoons were attempting to portray and that's exactly why they were included in the Dossier. They thought if they included those cartoons it would incite anger in the less extreme Muslims because the Jyllands-Posten cartoon were poking fun at the radical Muslims.

While I have the utmost respect for the Muslim religion, I don’t agree that people should feel the need to withhold their freedom of speech because the radical Muslims choose intimidation as their means of control and manipulation. This was the motivation behind Jyllands-Posten publishing the cartoons in the first place. The radical Muslims have stood in the streets protesting about how wrong it is that their religion has been threatened because they are saying that the newspaper is hiding behind freedom of speech. However, are these protests the radical Muslims are organizing not a form of freedom of speech? Is it ok for Muslims to publish cartoons that are disrespectful to oh let’s say Jews for an example? Why can they do that, but no one else can express how they feel over the Muslim extremists? It’s very hypocritical to say the least.

Let’s go back to what I mentioned in my opening argument regarding the Danish newspaper article about the author that was trying to find an illustrator for his book. The reason that the previous three (3) illustrators denied to illustrate the book is because they were scared of being blown to bits. This is what led Jyllands-Posten to invite many different artists to give their interpretation of Muhammad and twelve caricaturists chose to respond with one drawing each. The cartoons if you look at it from a normal balanced point of view were actually depicting Muslim extremists holding the religion of Islam hostage because they choose to commit terrorists acts and use intimidation techniques in the prophets name. By using this satire the newspaper was treating the Islamic religion just like they treat every other religion. Is it disrespectful? Sure. But, it's also disrespectful of me to tell you that I don't like your hair color or whatever the case may be. Would you call up the Jihad and start planning to bomb my house? I doubt it. It's life. They have to learn that if they are going to integrate into Western society that they are going to be treated as if they are a part of that society and it is beginning to look as if they cannot intimidate their way out of it any longer. Thumbs up to Jyllands-Posten. This was a brave move on their part and the Muslims should take a stand against the extremists that are causing their religion to be portrayed in this light instead of taking a stand against freedom of speech.

External Source: en.wikipedia.org...

The mainstream media coverage of the anti‑Islamic cartoons ignores the fact that the publication of the images was a "offensive attack" commissioned by a Danish colleague of the neo‑con Daniel Pipes and was meant to incite violence and promote the "clash of civilizations."

After Danish embassies in three Muslim nations were attacked and set alight by angry mobs protesting the anti‑Islamic cartoons published in a Danish newspaper the mainstream media turned its attention to the controversial images and the violent reactions they provoked. Yet the controlled press overlooked the important fact that the offensive images were commissioned and published by a Danish colleague of the neo‑conservative Daniel Pipes.

You may feel that the muslism need a freedom of speech, yet you forget that it is THEIR religion. It teaches them that they(correct me if im wrong) shouldnt have free speech. It teaches that everyone should obey the leader. It teaches that women's faces should not be seen. It is a religion and a vast religion at that. We should respect their wishes.

Actually, the anti‑Muslim cartoon scandal has turned out to be a major step forward for the Zionist neo‑cons and their longplanned "clash of civilizations," the planned and constructed conflict designed to put the so‑called Christian West against the Islamic world.

Source: www.cnn.com
www.wikipedia.org

First and foremost I will address the issue of Daniel Pipes. This is a conspiracy theory and perhaps it is the stance that Nygdan wanted me to take in this debate; however he did not state that and left it open to interpretation, so I interpreted it another way because he did not name Mr. Pipes.

Daniel Pipes has met with Flemming Rose, arts editor for Jyllands-Posten on one occasion. Mr. Rose sent him an email on September 29, 2004 asking for an in person interview. Mr. Pipes granted the request and he went to his office I Philadelphia on October 25th where he spent a half hour asking him questions for a journalistic piece in which Mr. Rose did and published on Mr. Pipes and his views on radical Islam. After that there was no further contact between the two of them. This is a conspiracy theory created by Christopher Bollyn , a fringe anti-Semitic writer who published his theory on February 3rd stating that “Rose traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes….Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes.” You get the idea. Daniel Pipes has been deemed a neo-con because of his stance on radical Islam and well you put two and two together and conspiracy theorists run wild. And that’s all I have to say about that, unless you would like to further address the issue with some valid sources that state the two have actually conspired to do this together.

Anyhow, back to your argument. The Danish embassies were attacked in three (3) Muslim nations because the Danish Muslim organizations made the whole ordeal into more than what it was and when the media got a hold of it they began reprinting the cartoons. Well needless to say, word spread throughout the Middle East and embassies begin burning and lives are being threatened and taken. The radical Muslims used and manipulated this issue to incite anger in all Muslims and to provoke the riots, not the other way around. It has probably since become quite a recruiting tool for the radicals as well.

You stated that I may feel that the Muslims need a freedom of speech. Well, apparently they are exercising this freedom of speech all over the globe by rioting and standing in the streets picketing with signs that are giving death threats. I’d call that freedom of speech wouldn’t you? All religions are subjected to satire and the Danish media is protected by freedom of speech. If the Muslim religion teaches that they should not have freedom of speech then they are certainly living in sin. As I pointed out earlier, if they are going to be integrated into Western society then they will not be left out of the satire. They get the good, the bad, and the ugly and they can’t pick and choose what suits them. I get offended all of the time by some of the idiotic cartoons printed, but what am I going to do about it? They are expressing themselves and their feelings towards that particular issue through art and they have the freedom to do that.

As far as the “clash of civilizations” being a planned and constructed conflict organized to put the Christian West against the Islamic World, which I suppose leads back to Mr. Pipes. I’ve addressed that issue. It is a conspiracy theory that these two gentlemen are in cahoots in order to further this supposed “clash of civilizations”. The “Clash of Civilizations” is only a theory in international relations in which the dominating source of conflict in this day and time will be cultural anyhow. The rest of it is only conjecture put together by conspiracy theorists that disagree with the author’s views. It is a controversial theory made popular by Samuel P. Huntington and it does relate to this issue because the Danish Muslim community has integrated into another culture and they expect that culture to bend for them. But, should they have to? If they choose to integrate they are going to have to get a thicker skin and put up with what the rest of us have to put up with because being Muslim isn’t going to exclude them from that.

Again, the motivation behind Jyllands-Posten publishing the cartoons was to get a debate going on self-censorship and why people feel intimidated by the more extreme Muslims. What led to this motivation was the three illustrators denying to illustrate a book out of fear of retalliation from Muslims.


en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.danielpipes.org/article/3405

ConfederacyOfUnity has missed the deadline and forfeits his response. Zenlover28, please proceed.

Nygdan, I feel comfortable enough in my argument to forfeit my next response until I have something to argue.

ConfederacyOfUnity has served notice that they are withdrawing from the tournament. Zenlover28 advances to Round 3.