PATRONISING FOKKERS
Over at Butterflies and Wheels, Ophelia Benson takes this nonsense apart:Answers on a postcard...It is now exactly a year since a Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which Muslims found so insulting that 140 people died in the ensuing violence.No. That's wrong, and it's a misleading way of putting it. Some Muslims found the cartoons 'so insulting', and a much much smaller number found them 'so insulting that 140 people died in the ensuing violence' - that is, to interpret that foolishly meaningless phrase, either found them so insulting that they caused lethal violence or found them so insulting that they thought the deaths of 140 people made an appropriate response. Not all Muslims found the cartoons insulting at all; not all Muslims who did find them insulting found them also worthy of protest or criticism of the act of publication; not all Muslims who found them worthy of protest also found them deserving of outright censorship or government action; and so on.
Why do so many people - especially, of all things, well-meaning liberal people who (clearly) see themselves as being kind to and trying to help 'Muslims' - equate some Muslims with all Muslims that way?
Why do they chronically and repeatedly assume that if some Muslims feel insulted or offended then all do?
Why do they not pause to remember that as a matter of fact there are some Muslims who are insulted or offended not by cartoons or papal speeches or operas but by their insultable co-religionists and by liberal columnists who assume that all Muslims are offended by what some Muslims are offended by?
Why do they not also pause to remember that there is, in fact, something quite searchingly insulting about assuming that all people in a particular group think exactly the same thing, particularly on a controversial and contested issue?
Why are they so fokking patronizing?
And why are they so fokking patronizing while thinking they are being kind and empathetic and helpful?
Why don't they think a little harder and look a little farther?
Meanwhile, this could cause a bit of bother:
Move over, Jesus. Make room on the dashboard for Mohammad ... Bobblehead Mohammad.At $22.99 a bobber, I'm guessing the man is going to be drinking quite a lot of beer over the next few weeks...
A former Marine is hawking the nodding Mohammad doll at his Web site, www.dashboardmohammed.com at $22.99 a pop . . . expect two to four weeks’ delay in shipping due to high demand, 10 percent of all sales to go to Tim Ames’ beer fund.
posted by Dan @ 4:07 pm
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