Friday, November 30, 2007

Unbearable rudeness

A mighty insult to Islam has been delivered in Sudan this week. The slur is, in effect, that Islam is the kind of religion whose adherents cannot bear to see a ‘kaffir’ woman allow children to vote to name a cuddly toy after one of their classmates (who in turn was named after the prophet Mohammed) without locking her in jail and then throwing her out of the country.

This is certainly an overgeneralisation, but for too many adherents, it’s sadly true.

There’s a moral here about how different worldviews interact. If you allow one group to set the terms of debate, then there’s nothing to stop them from using cries of ‘offence’ to constrain what can be said ever more tightly, as ‘respect’ blends into deference, appeasement and obedience.

Giving someone the power to decide when they’ve been unacceptably ‘offended’ creates the moral equivalent of the Salem witch trials.

4 comments:

Matt M said...

According to Yahoo news, thousands of people are marching in the capital calling for her to be executed.

It's a fucking teddy bear!

Tom Freeman said...

Strewth.

BTW, not that I’d ever stoop to such puerile nonsense, but there’s an insult religion competition at MediaWatchWatch…

Andre said...

I'm actually dying to dig up an old teddy bear and call him Mohammed.

Matt M: Hear hear!

anticant said...

Islam means 'submission', and that's what they are after. We only give them the power to dictate the terms of debate if we allow them to take it - which is precisely what PC 'anti-hate' laws and multiculturalist babble that "all cultures/religions are equal, but some are more equal than others" do.