It’s pretty clear that what goes up politically must eventually come down. Some groups, which have recently surged in popularity like the Perussuomalaiset (PS), could see their bubble burst quickly. While I wouldn’t count on anything like that happening anytime soon, it could be a totally different story for the hardline Counterjihadists of the party.
The question that should concern us all is what will these radical members of the PS do if they see their popularity wean.
Do they have a plan B? Will they take to the streets and incite more people to parrot their message of hate?
One of the most naive ideas that Counterjihadists hold is that they can keep their hate rhetoric on a short leash. Anders Breivik’s murderous rampage in Norway proved once again that racism and Islamophobia can bite back at its ideological master.
While we are already seeing greater violence to visible minorities and immigrants after last year’s PS election victory, the question is how do we challenge such a threat effectively?
Everyone knows that the hardcore Counterjihadist MPs of the PS are Jussi Halla-aho, James Hirvisaari and Olli Immonen.
If PS chairman Timo Soini wished, he could land a fatal political blow to the Counterjihadists by banishing them from the party. As a so-called taxi party (all of its members could fit in a taxi), they would no longer be a political force like they are today in the PS.
In many respects, Soini’s relationship with these extremists could be described as that of a junkie hooked on heroin. One hates being a junkie but it sure feels good to inject oneself with such a drug.
If Soini ever kicked out the Counterjihadists from the party, would these politicians go down without a fight?
It would be naive to think so.
Their message of hate would certainly get louder and their rhetoric more violent.
if Soini ever kicked out the Counterjihadists from the party, would these politicians go down without a fight?
Mr chairman Soini will never kick racist out of his party becus he is one of them. People must realise that, Soini is undercover racist, when all politician signed the contract against racism in 2011, why did Soini refuse to sign it? unless he accepts discrimination and racism in Finland.
Because that contract was discriminating and it didn’t condemn all discrimination.
Perussuomalaiset created a REAL contract against all racism and ALL DISCRIMINATION but other parties refused to sign it. That only proves that Perussuomalaiset is the only party which condemns ALL discrimination and other parties still want to keep the door open for discrimination by ethnic background as they wish.
–Perussuomalaiset created a REAL contract against all racism and ALL DISCRIMINATION but other parties refused to sign it.
This is an example of colorblind racism. You think that ethnicity does not count but actually it does play a role.
We wrote: “In May 2011, the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) party renounced all forms of racism, even positive discrimination, or affirmative action.
It is surprising that when the PS made their preposterous statement, few if any media in this country understood how racist and grotesque it was and how it revealed a serious case of colorblind racism (let’s pretend we’re equal because ethnic background does not matter, when in fact it does).”
http://www.migranttales.net/the-absurdity-of-the-reverse-racism-argument-in-finland/
tp1
And yet refuse to kick out of the party convicted racists. Doesn’t add up does it? Until you realise, as Enrique pointed out, that the PS statement was specifically an attack on all efforts towards positive action (loosely referred to as positive discrimination), which would do nothing for the glass ceiling, nothing to encourage employers to break down their own racist practices and nothing to tackle homophobia.
Basically, he was washing his hands of all minority related issues and ignoring any kind of public mandate, past or present, to work to protect those minorities from discrimination that WE ALL KNOW has taken place in society, against, women, against ethnic minorities, and against gay people. And that was why nobody in any other political party would sign it.
But you, you muppet, think he’s the ONLY ONE who isn’t being a racist. Why? Because he can argue that black is white, and that racism is not racism, and that makes you sleep more comfortably at night in your bed of prejudice!
That is where you are very wrong Enrique. Ethnicity NEVER plays a role, unless person is a racist.
No matter how you try to disguise that racism under the absurd term of “positive discrimination”, it is still racism to treat people differently based on their ethnic background.
I remember the earlier discussion about this. Even then nobody was eble to provide a single example of a situation, where positive discrimination would be non-racist act.
–No matter how you try to disguise that racism under the absurd term of “positive discrimination”, it is still racism to treat people differently based on their ethnic background.
Ethnicity plays a role. That’s why we have positive discrimination. We still don’t live in a society that is perfectly equal. Some groups have more rights than others.
Mark
Please give me even one example of a racist. Court orders don’t count, since they are corrupted and biased.
tp1
You have zero credibility, and zero respect from me!
Get lost you idiot!
Once again you make that claim. Please explain. Tell me one example of a group that has more rights than some other group. And then explain how that problem could be solved by positive discrimination.
How can anyone see anything positive in action, where someone is discriminated based on his ethnic background?
tp1
No-one is talking about rights when it comes to the employment sector. It is not your right to be given a job by an employer, regardless of the circumstances. You are quite confused about this.
The question is one of equal opportunity. You would give a visual test to two candidates, one of whom was blind, and not provide the means for the blind person to hear the test and so respond. They are treated differently and this has the effect of equalising the outcome.
The same is true of positive action in the labour market. The idea is not to give the job to unqualified people, but to reduce the effects of employers subliminally discriminating it and rationalising that choice on the basis of ‘better qualifications’. This rationalisation is SO WELL documented now that only a fool would question that it happens.
The nutters who say positive action is anti-white are talking out of their arses. If it was such a destructive policy to whites, then whites would have a higher unemployment rate and they clearly don’t.
And yet you failed to answer the actual question. It’s so much easier to just say “get lost” than try to provide an answer.
We are talking about discrimination here. Could you please tell us an example how Halla-aho or Hirvisaari have discriminated someone?
tp1
You asked me who in PS were racists and then, ridiculously, tied my hands behind my back by saying that any convicted racists don’t count because the courts in Finland are corrupt.
You are a moron, tp1, and i’m sick of your peddling your stupidity here. You don’t deserve any more detailed answer than that.
And here you are doing exactly the same thing that in other circumstances you condemn, that is double stardards, you know.
You put people in categories, instead of treating people as individuals. Let’s take one white person and one black person. Both of them are individuals, but you fail to treat them that way. You see white people only as a member of a big group, whites. (That is racist by the way). And then you continue to assume that it is OK to discriminate this person, because he belongs to the bigger group and collectively that big group has better employment rate than the smaller group.
But you don’t understand the situation from this person’s point of view. It doesn’t help that person anyway, even if other members of his group have a job. His group, whites, have absolutely nothing to do with that individual person. So when you discriminate him, you are not doing anything that even remotely could be interpreted as positive action.
tp1
NO, let’s be clear, I would very much prefer that society treats people as individuals. However, the reality is something else. The reality is that blacks are discriminated persistently in many ways that not only lead to fewer job opportunities, but poorer education, poorer health care, poorer living conditions and just plain old poorer. Study after study has shown that this discrimination is continuously rationalised under the idea that somehow the whites are just smarter, with the educational outcomes provided not as a description of blacks having to live in poorer communities with much less resources for education, but rather as justification for thinking that whites are more capable and smarter. Talk about a double whammy!
This situation cannot be left to continue endlessly. As much as anything, it costs society too much in the long run to maintain this discrimination while segregation is not an answer. The answer is to recognise the disadvantage at all levels and to provide equality of outcome. This does mean applying sometimes different rules for different groups. Shame that it comes to this, but it’s not so unusual or unfair.
Technology allows blind people to perform tasks equivalent to a sighted person, but they need the technology to be provided by the employer so as to make for an equal playing field. If you deny that appropriate working environment, and then blame the blind person because they don’t fit to a working environment geared specifically and exclusively to sighted people, then you are guilty of gross discrimination. The playing field must be level.
If blacks are forced to go to schools where teachers do not perform as well, where the schools struggle for resources, then that is not a level playing field. If you only accept the ‘best qualified’, with no quotas that reflect the actual demographics of a local community, then you perpetuate this inequality and disadvantage.
It’s so easy to criticise positive action by saying ‘the best candidate didn’t get the job’, but look at it like this: ‘the most privileged candidate didn’t get the job’, then that gives a whole new slant on it.
And that brings realism to this debate, because it is the reality. And the only way around it and all the rationalisations for that privilege (including fake notions of being smarter or just plain old subliminal racism) is to demand very simply that a workforce properly reflects the local demographic. By making this a key criteria, you enforce quality of outcome.
Of course, you are still free to take the best of what’s available and margins in the job market between candidates can be extremely small. This is not about asking cleaners to be brain surgeons. This is about bringing real opportunity and reward to those that have made the effort to become appropriately qualified.
And so by this reasoning, the 50-50 voluntary gender quotas practiced by the Swedish political parties is something that you think has not helped women, even though it has led to a 47% representation of women in the Swedish parliament, compared e.g. to the UK’s 22%?
Your moronic ideas about ‘equality’ are that everyone is treated the same regardless of their circumstances or the ingrained prejudices within a society. Well, newsflash for you, it isn’t going to change unless you step in and give it a push.
Mark
We can take Halla-aho’s conviction as an example. We all know that he was convicted by court, but also we can clearly see that there was nothing racist in what he did and was convicted for.
Therefore you just can’t use that conviction as a proof that he is racist.
Or do you really argue that what Halla-aho wrote was racist?
tp1
You don’t see anything because you close your God damn eyes. Finland’s highest court convicted him of racism in regard to what he wrote about Somalis. If you are too lazy to understand the basis of the judgement, that doesn’t mean you can go around claiming still ‘there was no racism’.
I think it’s pretty strong evidence that he is a racist. The key issue here though is that Soini said that anyone who had a conviction would be thrown out. Hirvisaari and Allah-oho continue to enjoy party membership despite both being convicted of racism.
Head in the sand, as usual. Here is a test for you – imagine for one second that you are trying to understand why he was convicted of racism for what he wrote about Somalis, can you actually tell me what the reasoning was for that conviction? I mean, I understand that you perhaps don’t agree with it, but demonstrate to me that you actually understand the case that was being made against him?
Over to you.
He was convicted, because Illman wanted him to be convicted. The conviction had nothing to do with what he actually wrote. What he wrote about Somali’s was just an analogy to Kaleva’s writing about Finns and it’s purpose was just to prove that there are double standards in Finland. Halla-aho even pointed out that the sentence he used as an example was not a fact, but only an example of a sentence that is not allowed to be said out loud.
tp1
He was convicted by Finland’s most senior judges.
The conviction related specifically to what he wrote.
A direct analogy would have talked about getting drunk and murdering people. So how did he get from that to robbing people and living on welfare, I wonder?
I think he effectively proved to himself and the rest of us that there is a standard in Finland. Not a double standard, but a standard that upholds the dignity of ethnic groups.
He was free to pursue a prosecution of Kaleva and chose not to. Let’s face it, is Allah-aho famous for writing about free speech or famous for bashing Somalians? Maybe you are not the best person to answer that question.
He said it was ‘supposition’ not fact. In other words a belief that is not totally certain. Even if he rejected the genetic link, he didn’t reject the cultural or social links.
So come on, use your brain cells and tell me what the argument is AGAINST Allah-aho, even if you don’t agree with it. You see, if you cannot demonstrate that you even understand the charge against him, how on earth can you possibly argue he is innocent of it?
tp1
You mean following on from his previous argument that you cannot state factual things about certain groups of people? I love the implicit contradiction of your argument – that he’s not stating facts, but then its about ‘what cannot be said out loud’, i.e. believed facts.
He was factually wrong in assigning a specific policy or set of values to the Islamic religion in regard to paedophelia. For that, he was convicted of defaming a religion. Not anything to do with referring to the historical fact of Aisha and Mohammed’s marriage, as far as I can see. It was specifically the extrapolation of historical fact to stating untrue ‘facts’ about modern day Islam that crossed the line. At least, that is my understanding of it.
A bit like saying that Christians have a policy of murdering New Age hippies because, well, they once burnt witches, didn’t they. Clearly such a statement about a modern-day policy of murdering hippies is untrue and the idea that it’s based on so-called ‘historical fact’ would be irrelevant and spurious; it constitutes both defamation of religion and a threat to social cohesion and religious tolerance.
He was factually wrong in suggesting that statistics would support what he wrote about Somalis and crime. By making this not an individual issue, or even an issue of a gang of 20 Somali youths in Helsinki managing to skew a very very low rate of personal robbery in Helsinki, but rather an issue of an ethnic group and its innate relationship to crime (and welfare dependency), he crossed the line and was convicted of inciting hatred.
You say he was drawing an analogy. Perhaps he didn’t bother to analyse his own argument about this. Do you think that what Kaleva published about Finns getting drunk and the high murder rate and genetic links [to aggression and problem drinking, one assumes] would lead to ethnic hatred against Finns or, I presume, somehow, among Finns? If so, how?
On the contrary, do you think that (sarcastically or not) linking Somalis to crime and welfare dependency could lead to increased hatred towards Somalis? Clearly it has and does!
It is quite some stretch to imagine that these two arguments are analogous. However, your ham-fisted understanding of equality and race issues will probably come up with a ‘never this…’, and a ‘always that…’ and eventually lead to ‘proof’ that in fact, a statement that is racist is only telling the truth.
“What he wrote about Somali’s was just an analogy to Kaleva’s writing about Finns and it’s purpose was just to prove that there are double standards in Finland. ”
Nobody thought before Breivik that anyone could be deluded enough to think that the Finns are in some way threatened ethnic group in need of protection in Finland, but apparently Halla-aho was. Insane asylum would’ve been a better place for him, though.
Mark
Well, I think most of us considers sexual relationship between adult man and 9 year old girl to be paedophilia. Don’t you?
And is it true that in islam Mohammed is considered a holy person, whose example should be followed by all muslims?
Please answer.
tp1
There is no absolute truth here. From a biological perspective, some ‘children’ are biologically able to procreate at the age of nine, and in other species, we would not see it as even remotely strange that they would procreate when physically able to. This is not a justification, by the way, but an important observation. There is far too much moral hysteria around this topic, amply illustrated by the way you formed the question.
Humans follow cultural norms. In modern times, childhood has been extended, as lifespan has been extended, and the notion of the rights of the individual has also been developed such that people have more individual rights, and likewise, weaker members of society are protected from the abuses of stronger members, including in this framework, protecting children from the abuses of adults. Ironically, this is something that you, tp1, manifestly fail to appreciate when it comes to the treatment of ‘foreigners’, especially poor foreigners fleeing conflict zones.
It is true, but it would be incredibly naive to imagine that Muslims are not capable of seeing Mohammed as an historical figure. All the major Muslim countries have legal age limits for marriage, the youngest being 15. Yes, it can be difficult to enforce in remote areas, but this is not specifically a Muslim problem. For example, UNICEF give figures of 47% of child marriages taking place in secular India. The practice of child marriage is tied typically to local customs, while peadophelia is a phenomenon found in all societies.
Also, when it comes to the personal morality of religious figures, I could easily point the finger at Jesus: on the question of respecting God’s laws, he speaks about the Mosaic Law on respecting parents (Mark 7:10): ‘For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother and anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’
Clearly we do not sweat and fret about Christian immigrants murdering their kids for being cheeky, do we?! Making this a religious issue is disingenuous. Suggesting it is a tenet of Islam is plain false and defamation. Conviction upheld!
I don’t have to use my brain cells, because those are mentioned in the conviction from court. That still doesn’t mean that Halla-aho is guilty. He is considered guilty only by those few individuals who made the conviction. I don’t respect the highest court. I’m above that.
You mean you are above supporting your opinions with actual arguments, or demonstrating that you understand what you are disagreeing with. Come on, if they are in the court papers, then you can paraphrase easily enough. What were the grounds for the conviction?
Wrongly convicted. Of course. And yet you don’t know why he was convicted, do you, you plonker!
Yes I know. They twisted the sentence and based the conviction to the point that Halla-aho could have presented his point without naming any certain ethnicity. That doesn’t make justice.
You are making two points here. How did they twist the sentence? If you know, then this will be easy for you to explain.
Why do you object to their point about not naming an ethnicity while making the same point? You do realise that by choosing Somalis and saying the things he did, he was merely feeding the stigmatization of this group. He didn’t counter this. He said it was a belief and not a fact, and he said that he could support it with police statistics, correct me if I’m wrong.
But you have still not touched on the core of this. Why would what he said be interpreted (or twisted) to be understand as inciting ethnic hatred?
It’s clear by now that, tp doesn’t see anything wrong with Halla’s racism, becus he shares the same ideology. It’s natural for a person to be blind of a fault made by a person they share same ideology, in this case it’s clear that, tp is one of Homma people.
D4R
Yep, I think that is pretty much beyond doubt now. Whether he’s a regular at Homma, I’m not sure. I really cannot see why he chooses to pass so much comment on Migrant Tales as he’s not interested in actual debate, so it must be simply a propaganda move. As we near the election, I guess we can expect him to try to get more and more electioneering in, though I doubt that kind of stuff will get past the moderators.
Mark: I really cannot see why he chooses to pass so much comment on Migrant Tales as he’s not interested in actual debate, so it must be simply a propaganda move.
Mark, they all follow this site and some them even try to have a debate without being interested to have reasonable debate. The rerason homma people come to this blog with their ubsurdity is, becus they feel sort of threatened by us, we’re trying to expose their lies and racist propaganda that they’re trying to spread to the general public. No matter how you correct their illogical way of thinking they will not listen, they will just continue throwing their mantra at us.
Funny that you bring Christians here. I assume you already know Jesus means as much to me as Mohammed.
Still, let me ask you:
When was the last time you heard that Christians went and killed someone because Christianity was insulted?
And while you try to think of an answer, I can tell you last time when muslims went and killed someone because Islam was insulted: yesterday
tp1
You assume correct, but I guess you still couldn’t get your brain cells to figure out why I mentioned it, huh? The point was already made, that there are many parallels in the religions of the descendants of Abraham, and yet all this talk is about Islam.
You do realise that the film at the heart of this protest was marketed by the American right wing extremist Steve Klein. The film is also now being linked with the anti-Islamic National American Coptic Assembly, a Christian group with Egyptian links. It has also been promoted by the American Christian pastor Terry Jones, that same pastor that called for a Koran burning day, which led to predictable protests in the world’s fragile war-torn zones, resulting in 12 deaths in Afghanistan.
I think there are Christians and fascists trying to exploit the tensions between Islam and the West and in those countries that have experienced war.
Oh, and on the matter of Christian riots: October 2011 – 24 dead. Violent Coptic Christian protest against a church demolition. Clashed with security forces resulting in 24 deaths in Egypt.
Over the centuries, many 100s of thousands of people died or were brutally persecuted as a result of Christian blasphemy laws. Thank God Christians on the whole are no longer militant. It is a challenge within Islam to curb militancy, but inflaming the situation with deliberate attempts to goad Muslims is frankly criminal. It is becoming more and more the tactic of the Far Right and by Christians involved in the Far Right.
Demanding that all peoples all over the world would be ‘just like us’ is naive and colonial.
tp1
Here is an update for you about the background to this film that has been trying to incite Muslims. One of the promoters, Steve Klein, is mixed up with this mob:
Makes for interesting reading, but I doubt you will read it.
I hope I am wrong, but I am very worried that you even try to find understanding to violence initiated because of religion. People should have every right to insult anything they want, but still it should give no one rights to harm anyone.
Religion is one of the things in the world that has caused deaths os millions and millions of people. In my books every person who does something because religion tolds him to, is very dangerous person. From that kind of person you can’t expect any rational behaviour.
tp1
Yes, that would be totally stupid wouldn’t it, trying to understand the causes of the violence. Better to get your Kalashnikov out and start a war!
Sorry to disappoint you, but this is not an either/or scenario, either you try to understand and appreciate the feelings of Muslims on this matter or you throw out all semblance of free speech. But there are quite a few people in this debate who really don’t understand ‘free speech’ in the first place. It is not ‘total freedom to say whatever you want’. There are restrictions, some of which take account of the feelings and reputation of others.
Personally, I would have no objection to legislation that banned representations of Mohammed. Why? Because he is their prophet, and it is just not necessary for us non-Muslims to have to represent him. If for some reason we wish to make points about Islam, then we can do so in many other ways that are not so directly, obviously insulting to Muslims. This is not about curtailing debate or even walking away from political or social dialogue in regard to Islam. It’s about showing basic respect and dignity that is enshrined already in our constitutions.
Clearly you ARE one of these idiots that really doesn’t understand free speech. We DO NOT have that right to insult anybody in any way we want, not even now in Finland. There are clear limits to free speech and maliciously insulting people publicly is not a freedom that you enjoy.
And harm is measured in many ways. Producing a film like this with the express intention of insulting Muslims is harming Muslims. It is an affront and attack on their dignity, and that is legally speaking, also a perfectly legitimate form of harm that citizens are protected from. That one kind of harm often leads to another is no surprise, while no violence is justifiable. But let’s be absolutely clear here that people are deliberately trying to provoke Muslims by attacking the sanctity and sacredness of their religion. And these people in this case are Far Right activists who are all too eager to drag society into the culture wars.
I think that in the big scheme of things, on a global scale, a few deaths is not hugely significant. In fact, if by pointing at those few deaths you are ignoring the millions of Muslims that are perfectly capable of protesting peacefully, and using those deaths to characterise all Muslims as violent and rabid, then the greater evil is obviously the misrepresentation of so many people. It is a greater evil because it has the potential to lead to a great many more deaths, measured in the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands were the West to get dragged into a war with Islam.
Again, this is not an either/or, that we either we acknowledge the peaceful character of the absolute vast vast majority of Muslims and ignore deaths, or we laud the deaths and ignore the peaceful nature of most Muslims. We can acknowledge and condemn the violence of what is often a small group, some of whom may even be involved in terrorist activities and wish to inflame the situation, and we can accept that this does not reflect the true character (i.e. the great majority) of Muslims. Your either/or scenarios are divisive and unnecessary, though for a Far Right Wing agenda, they are clearly useful.
Tell that to Soini. Such obvious anti-religious views show you to be an extremist, tp1. Of course people do things because their religion tells them to do it. Religion tells people to do a lot of good things too. Islam and Christianity often strives towards wisdom, compassion, morality, integrity and love. It’s not a ‘good or evil’ question about religion. That’s just lazy and extremely immature. You are a child pretending to be a grown up, tp1. You are the dangerous one.
But your view is extreme and you are an extremist, especially by today’s standards, as very few people would agree with you that someone that does something because of their religion is a ‘very dangerous person’.
And just for the record, it’s perfectly possible for someone to be irrational on some matters and perfectly rational on others. That probably sums up most of us on this planet.
My comment was too general so I’ll clarify it a bit.
I don’t approve insulting people in public, when we are talking about persons or ethnic groups etc. Meaning insulting person X or Somalis or similar.
But we should have right to insult groups etc. in which people can join voluntarily. Every person can choose to join Islam, Perussuomalaiset or any other group. And those groups we should have the right to insult as much as we want. There is no difference between groups like PS or Muslims. Both are groups where you can include yourself or not.
tp1
What absolute intellectual drivel! No other word for it.
The fact you are saying we should have the right means, I assume, that you are aware that of course you do not have that right at present. And it’s obvious why. You want a cultural war.
Mark:
I would. Not because I’d have ever had an urge to draw Mohammed, but because laws forbidding something need better justification than someone not liking that something. Such a law would be a limitation to a basic right, freedom of speech, so the justification would need to be solid. Even more seriously, it would enforce a religious rule to everybody, interfering with the freedom of religion of non-muslims. (Arguably also that of some muslims too – the interpretation has not always been as strict as it is commonly now. Just google for “buraq” to see islamic depictions of prophet Mohammed).
khr
You make some good points. Let me address them.
This is not a case merely of ‘someone not liking something’. For a religious person, the sense of sacredness and the duty to preserve that sacredness can be central to their faith. It would be nice if this was understood more ‘spiritually’, but it is often understood quite literally.
Clearly, someone messing up a graveyard is committing a similar offence, and most people, religious or not, would find that to some extent offensive. And indeed, it WOULD be a criminal offence. We need to understand this in a similar context, I think.
Agreed. Two things here. Freedom of speech is only one kind of freedom and it has to be weighed also against the freedom to live a life without being discriminated against or abused because of one’s religious beliefs. This is not easy to legislate for, even if we accept the basic principle. After all, religion and religious figures should be subject to the same level of social criticism as other member’s of society. The question then is whether restricting this ‘freedom of speech’ is seriously restricting people’s ability to comment on religious affairs. I would argue that it does not, though I can see too that for those who only want to focus on the sensitivity of Muslims or even their militancy, will see this as something worth utilising in order to ‘reveal’ something. But really, Islamic militancy is not news. There is no ‘reveal’ here, just ongoing deterioration in relations between Islamic peoples and non-Islamic peoples.
I think this is actually the less serious issue. For example, in this situation now, non-religion is put up as the ‘norm’ or ‘natural’ position, and the rights of religious freedom are being put up as a deviance from this that has to be justified. In other words, in a secular world, it is a secular norm that is imposed, just as in a religious world, it is a religious norm that is imposed. They are not more or less ‘tyrannical’ or less subject to becoming a hegemonic power. A secular norm is something that discriminates against people who oppose that way of life. In today’s world, and increasingly in America and other strongly religious countries, a compromise between the two appears more and more necessary.
As for enforcing a rule, well, as you say, it’s not likely to be a rule that affects more than a few people in society. Most people are not interested, and those who are tend to have very questionable motives.
This is a good point. Blasphemy is not mentioned in the Koran, but hadiths have grown around the subject through cultural developments. Clearly a dialogue on this matter within Muslim communities would be useful.
Admittedly “not liking” was an overly mild expression. Treatment of the deceased is a good example of an area that has several rules codified to the law that can not be derived from not harming, but come traditional values. But even triggering strong emotional response should not be sufficient reason for prohibition. Otherwise homosexuals would never get the right to live in a way that’s in accordance with their sexuality, for example.
Specifically making Mohammed depictions to muslims, would be rude, because intent would be clearly to insult. But what about depictions that are aimed at others, such as when simply describing historical events? The difference is somewhat like between eating pork and offering a meal of pork to a muslim or a jew. Society always has some rules that are never made into laws.
Not really. Most people are religious in a way or another. This particular issue would be muslims vs. everyone else, not religious vs. non-religious. If similar protection is extended to all religions and religious figures, it leaves atheists and agnostics as unprotected as their world views would still be free game. Likely the fairest is to leave the issue to the unwritten rules of the society.
Not being a common issue is not a valid reason to limit human rights, but yeah, questionable motives are very common in this particular issue.
I have no problem with the various religions having their rules and taboos. I only have a problem with imposing them to others. That seems to be at the heart of the fight in America too. Either side sees the other trying to make everyone follow their set of rules.
khr
And yet it is in other instances. Defamation is an unjust attack on a person’s reputation. Compensation for defamation is specifically about measuring the degree of emotional harm to the individual. A ‘reputation’ is put up as something of value, so that when someone tarnishes that with slander, the value has been diminished. I would argue that deliberately presenting Mohammed as a molester amounts to the same thing for Muslims. This is not a historical argument, this is clearly an attempt to besmirch. While the attack is against ‘the religion’, it’s effects are at the individual level.
A ban on homosexuality clearly inflicts great misery on a very large portion of humanity. There is no equivalent misery imposed on humanity by society collectively deciding to respect a key aspect of Muslim faith and dignity. I just cannot see it as a necessity to want to depict Mohammed graphically. Your argument about some Muslims NOT following a prohibition is a good one, and I think that this is an issue that should be discussed within the Islamic world and probably is.
I think the issue here is also one of discrimination. It is already part of the human rights framework to seek to ensure equal treatment regardless of religious affiliation. Attempts to dishonour Muslims and the Muslim faith through attacks on their founder are likely to have the affect of inciting hatred against Muslims, which is already prohibited in law.
The free speech issue as far as I’m concerned centres on the need to protect the right to criticise religion, but not specifically to insult it. I think this is the judicial fine line that dileanates current legislation on slander, liber and harrassment. Public insult is a subject to a degree of controls.
Maybe there is a compromise here that would satisfy Muslims in the West and in Muslim countries. For all that the Far Right talk about the sensitivities of Muslims on this issue, it has only been the more brazen attacks on Islam that have generated huge protest in the Islamic world – using distorted depictions of Mohammed as a vehicle for criticisms of Islam, or specifically of radical Islam. I don’t remember riots over drawings of Mohammed in history books. So perhaps a prohibition would focus on the misuse of imagery to incite hatred of Muslims. I don’t see that as departing too far from existing legislation.
I’m not going to get too sidetracked by this, but I think you’ll find Europe and particularly Scandanavia have very high levels of aetheism and agnosticism these days.
One could say that about ethnic discrimination legislation – foreigners vs. everyone else, or Muslims vs. everyone else. Or even of disability as ‘people with disability vs. everyone else’. I don’t see that as being a problem as such, provided that the rights of the protected are not maintained at the expense of misery on the part of the others. Misery does come when ‘innocent’ people fall foul of poorly worded or implemented legislation, and that really is the key area. Also, I recognise that a stick man on a serviette can have ‘Mohammed’ written on it and criminalising that does seem rather ridiculous. But I think the crucial issue here is one of publication. I’m pretty sure there would be people to flout a prohibition, just in protest. And it’s all too easy to sell this as a ‘our rights have been curtailed’. But really, there is a pretense involved in this that depicting Mohammed is a past-time or activity that is important and enjoyed by everyone. Focusing on ‘insulting depictions’ might suffice.
Another analogy comes to mind. If governments impose a carbon limit on exhaust emissions, then the complaint could well be that the government is opposing drivers and car manufacturers, even while it’s clear that the limit benefits the environment and all of us. The answer is not to moan about the limit, but to innovate around it so as to meet the target and minimise the harm. If people wish to comment on Islam and one method is to use a visual depiction, then clearly there are other ways to achieve the same thing.
This is not an easy area. I know that discussion of prohibiting depictions of Mohammed are easily followed by calls not to insult the Koran and so-called blasphemy laws, which have caused enormous misery in some areas, like Pakistan. I see these as different discussions though, about depicting Mohammed and about blasphemy laws. With blasphemy laws, the potential suffering and abuse of such laws is all too obvious. In that sense, I would not go all out in satisfying some Muslims calls for blasphemy laws in the West, regardless of historical remnants on blasphemy laws pertaining to Christianity existing still in many European countries.
The watchword, to steal from the alcohol and drug field, is therefore to maximise the ‘harm reduction’.
Good that you found even one example, but it’s not quite same when we look closer on the perspective.
In that church case, the violent actions were directly involved with the church.
But in this muslim case, muslims all around the world are causing riots and attackin people how have absolutely nothing to do with the insulting film. That is a clear difference. Muslims act as a collective and causes damage and kills people who are totally outsiders to the actual “initial reason”.
So I ask you: Do you see/understand the difference?
tp1
And what does this mean? The point is that violent demonstration is not restricted or especially something unique to Muslims. There are several conditions that can make for violent demonstration, including levels of security, extremist groups fomenting for political reasons, and the general level of grievance felt within the populace over an issue.
This is plain old incitement to religious hatred tp1.
Not only is it illegal to say this in Finland, it is clearly false. Muslims do not act as a ‘collective’. They are not the Borg, tp1. There are hundreds of thousands of protesters protesting in the the Islamic world at the moment over this film and the absolute vast majority of people are protesting peacefully.
To take the actions of the few in order to denigrate the many is a very grave offence. Such lack of perspective obviously fueled by hatred of Muslims only threatens the security of all of us.
But imagine this: Imagine if a group of foreigners came to Finland and desecrated the grave of General Mannerheim. Not merely desecrated, but wrote vile accusations on it and then published photographs or a video of this desecration on the Internet for the world to see this humiliation of Finland. I think that people would be rightly outraged and angry and protesting.
It’s about time that the West made the effort to understand just what an offence to their dignity this kind of action in relation to Mohammed really is. Do you understand? I doubt it. You are a moral fraud, tp1, without a shred of good intention towards Muslims because your heart is black and full of hate.
Did you study geography at school? Were you not taught that the world is made up of many different countries, some of which do not have long-established democratic institutions or internal security. Some places have been ravaged by war and civil unrest for decades, or have lived under dicatorship or ideological tyranny. When you start to incite people within those countries, then violence can and does erupt. This violence can relate to all sorts of issues, not merely religious, and not solely BECAUSE of the religion.
This is the world we live in. Crying about it and saying how evil these people are is really pointless. Deliberately looking for reasons to exploit that in order to further denigrate vast amounts of peaceful ordinary people is frankly criminal, and for good reason. It’s not fair, it’s not truthful, and it’s not safe for the rest of us. The more you bang on about Muslims like this, the less safe our world becomes.
You and equivalent idiots like you in the Islamic countries drag us all into an unsafe world. You are the extremists, either ideological or militant, itching for a fight. The irony is that you are an ideological extremist in spite of all the education and comforts of the modern Western world, while many in the Islamic world have grown up in a world torn apart by war, poverty and dictatorship. What’s your excuse?
You deliberately avoid the point here. There is a difference if violent demostration is taken DIRECTLY TOWARDS the ones that they oppose. In muslim case they do violent demonstration towards ANYONE. Don’t you honestly understand the difference here?
I’ll give you another example, which hopefully makes you understand. Let imagine a situation where 3 men comes and kills Person X’s family. Now person X go vigilante and wants revenge. Can you see the difference between these two outcomes:
a) Person X goes and shoots these 3 men who committed the crime
b) Person X goes and shoots random people
I know you understand the difference, but you just don’t want to admit it because it looks bad considering your agenda.
tp1
An explanation of the conditions surrounding demonstration is not ‘avoiding the point’, but bringing some kind of critical judgement. Not like your ‘they are they Borg!’ nonsense. And for the record, violent riots in England were initially about the shooting dead of an unarmed police suspect and yet the effect was criminality that had little to do with protesting about police heavy handedness. As usual, you put the world into neat little boxes and ascribe simplified causality to it. In this case, the violence was not directed towards ‘ANYONE’, it was directed specifically towards the American Embassy and its staff. I do agree that the violence of a mob can become indiscriminate, but in this case, actually, it wasn’t.
You seem to start from the premise of how you expect human beings to behave, and then you decide for whatever reasons of that cesspit of a conscience of yours that somehow Muslims are ‘worse’ than the rest of us, when in fact, they behave in relatively predictable ways. It was less than a hundred years ago that Finns were murdering and executing other Finns in vast numbers for ideological reasons. Surely that fact would make you a little humble before you start dismantling the humanity of 2 billion people in the world who are Muslim. That’s what you would think, but you tp1 are brainwashed by your own rhetoric.
I don’t have an agenda tp1 except to stand up for fairness and human rights, and to stand up against the rhetoric of hate.
Just as I thought, you didn’t have the guts to answer to my example.
And what has riots in England got to do with religion?
tp1
You don’t think, tp1, you open your mouth and spew out bile and crap! What do you know about me? What do you know about what guts I have and what I’ve done in my life or what challenges I have overcome? You know nothing. Tosser!
Well, now let’s see. Riots in Egypt, Yemen and Libya because people are fed up with the West disrespecting their religion. Riots in England because people are fed up with heavy handed police and inequality. What do they have in common? Unhappy people on the rampage, becoming criminal.
And I already answered this.
First of all, I wouldn’t be outraged and angry.
Secondly, you fail to understand that in this imaginary scene of yours there is vandalism included and also destruction of someones property. Those are something that should be punishable.
But if they would just create a scene on their own which would for example be a replica of Mannerheims grave and then they make the film, then there would be nothing wrong in it. And that case would be equally comparable to this film that muslims are now outraged about.
And what do you imagine other Finns would think and feel?
And you plainly fail to understand that such a film in Finland would also be illegal for inciting hatred against Muslims. Or are you going to start this nonsense that hurting people’s feelings doesn’t count as an offence in the eyes of the law, which is total tosh.
The point of the analogy is not to recreate an exact replica of the anti-Islam film, but to somehow give you an avenue to understanding and validating the sense of outrage within the Islamic world that comes from a film like this. It IS a different sensitivity, but like with so much of this cultural war discourse, it is not without an obvious parallel in our own country and culture. You can argue about the practicalities of what is physically real and what isn’t, but the key here is to understand that there are taboos around sanctity in our own culture that if transgressed would lead to massive outrage. It’s interesting that you feel the need to talk about a ‘fake’ Mannerheim grave, as if you need to somehow remove the sense of what is ‘real’, and therefore what is also a legitimate response.
This extended stubborness to understand the emotional harm felt by another is generally considered a feature of someone with emotional dysfunction, by the way. You don’t have to agree, but you can validate.
Well what about the death threats that’s been made against the director of mannerheim movie? he was threatened his life, and also some Finns posted wastes to his email, all becus the actor is black and to some Finns it was hard to digest. They got offended and enraged so they made threats to the director of the movie, im asking you tp, what’s the difference of these moslims being outraged and the finns who got offended by mannerheim movie and threatened the life of the mannerheim movie director? i smell hypocracy coming from you tp1.
D4R. Those threats are just words, they don’t physically harm anyone.
And Mark, please! Try to get rid of history. You can’t justify muslims actions TODAY by comparing it to something Finns did century ago.
–D4R. Those threats are just words, they don’t physically harm anyone.
Interesting that you think that words are only words. Words express values, which in turn can fuel and encourage violence.
And here it comes again, the way you discuss with people by insulting the person you are discussing with instead of argumenting against my comment.
tp1
You have no idea how angry I felt towards you when you wrote what you did about Muslims as a collective killing people. It’s really shocking, and what is even more shocking, you have no idea why someone else would be offended by what you wrote. It really is a dead end, and yet I know that you are only one of many and that this rhetoric of hate is all too easily left to stand. It has to be challenged, but make no mistake, I am utterly disgusted by your views, as they challenge absolutely fundamental values that give moral value to the world we live in. The way you treat Muslims and talk about them is disgusting. And I imagine it’s purely ideological. It’s something you have cultivated in yourself. I doubt you’ve lost someone to a terrorist attack or some such. It’s just ideological ignorance.
If I met you and had a beer with you, I know that I would try very hard to get to the bottom of this attitude that you have, and also to validate your concerns. I’m sure that you have good intentions, but that those intentions are directed only towards your perceived ‘national interest’ and your good intentions towards just ‘people in general’ and especially towards ‘people who are quite different’ are so far buried nowadays underneath the prejudice and rhetoric that you have developed that it would be quite an effort to get back to that good intention. This is the danger of developing such a fixed nationalist-centred identity – it can lead to a failure in basic humanity.
I know too that there will never be a bridge of humanity between people who fear each other or are antagonistic towards each other without some good intention. It has to be there, there has to be some identification with the HUMANITY of the people on the ‘other side’. Without that, there is only truce and a waiting game for the next transgression that proves the ‘other’ truly are evil and not to be trusted.
But I am not having a beer with you and I’ve read enough of your drivel on this site to know that your good intention is buried way way down and that this kind of forum only hardens your views. And yet you still feel total impunity in spreading hate, by describing Muslims as a collective and associating that with murder and evil. Someone has to challenge you tp1. And if calling you an idiot gets you to stop for just a second and ask yourself whether you are coming across as an idiot, and whether you should work harder to construct a more positive picture and morality for yourself, then perhaps it’s useful.
For me, I am really fed up discussing with you. It’s my choice to face you down over this and I can and should walk away sometimes. But people need to take a stand. Otherwise, ideas like you are presenting all too easily become the norm, and before long, the rhetoric and conditions of war have already been laid and there is no undoing the damage.
This says NOTHING about the ‘opposition’, those equivalent extremists in other countries that foment hatred against the West and exploit poverty and naivety to create soldiers for an ideological war. Perhaps you don’t realise that many of these people have little to lose, as they have been in a war zone all their lives, and extremists often bring a modicum of ‘stability’ to that chaos. There is humanity in all these situations. They are pawns in a political game and you are a pawn in a political game. When do you wake up?
You don’t understand and you are not trying to understand. And yet you pretend like you know, that you understand, and yet your vision never goes past your own nose and media reporting.
I see you didn’t respond to this that I wrote:
So what is your excuse?
That’s funny. And in your opinion we should understand that kind of sick people. Normal person in not getting outraged by anything someone says or does (non-physical). Person can be offended but normal person will not start to act violently. Those people who start to destroy things and attacking people are mentally sick and we should not approve that kind of behaviour.
Even if that Mannerheim episode would happen as you described it, Finns would not start to riot violently. Some would be angry, but defininely they would not start killing people.
tp1
Why, because Finns have never been violent? Are you joking? So why did 14,000 people get executed in Finland in 1918 during the Civil War? Not ‘killed in action’, but summarily executed. Are you telling me it all happened and no-one was angry about anything?
What you fail to see and understand is that this ‘character’ that you condemn is there in all of us, and the right conditions, the right amount of ignorance and hate can bring it out.
So bring it on tp1. Keep telling us why we should hate these murdering Muslims and when our world falls apart into war, when it’s your child you are burying, then maybe you might start to question the ideology that got us into that mess.
Yes. Exactly. And again, you imagine they are so different to us, and they are not. Finland has experienced very little unrest in recent decades, but that’s perhaps because the last time Finns did go on a rampage against each other, 30,000 people died.
One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. If you make no effort to understand, then you become part of the problem. Especially when you go on the internet and start passing off your ignorance as the basis for deciding immigration and other legislation in Finland, which is what you do.
My excuse for what? I have not done anything that I need an excuse for.
Your views about religion and religious people being ‘very dangerous’ are extremist. Your views about Muslims are extremist.
Sorry about my English skills, but now it seems that I have misunderstood the word collective. I didn’t mean it as it would mean ALL muslims in the world. I only meant that they (some of them)act violently as a group even when nobody has been personally insulted. And they just keep rioting even while the persons responsible in insulting islam are in totally different country.
Why don’t we never see Christians all around the world rioting “collectively” that way?
tp1
A death threat is illegal tp1. Why is that, I wonder?
Get rid of history? More poor English? Or do you really want to rewrite or blank out the history books?
I agree, you cannot justify this kind of murder that happened in Libya.
To seek understanding is not to justify an act of madness or hatred. It is the means with which to prevent further acts. It’s that simple.
As it is, you seem terrified of Muslims. Your fears are unfounded. A great deal many more people are killed in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq because of sectarian hatred rather than hatred of the West. Hatred of the West is perhaps one of the rare things that unites many of the tribes and factions.
There are some crazy places on the planet. The truth is, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia are among the most insecure places on the planet. But you also know that a great many people in those countries are tired of war, tired of sectarianism, tired of extremists and tired of the violence. And these people are Muslim too. It is their misfortune to live in these, the earth’s most unstable countries.
But this is only a part of the Islamic world. These countries are not like this because of Islam, by the way. In fact, Islamism at times has been part of the backlash to dictatorship and decades of war and fighting. But it’s hard to take the gun or the brutality out of the politics in these countries.
Yet these are only some of the countries of the world that are Islamic. Indonesia, Pakistan (to a large extent), Bangladesh, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and so on, (up to some 50 countries) have large Muslim populations and yet also have democracies, kingdoms or other peaceful systems.
So when you start to paint Muslims all with the same brush, you are showing grave ignorance. I feel sorry for you, because most people will think you are just incredibly naive. You come across as hysterical and bigoted.
Maybe you are trying to be a hero, a real man, defending Finland from extremism. And yet the simple irony is that in so doing, you are becoming the extremist, because your views are built on a very distorted view of the world, people and religion. You feed only on media stories that support your sense of paranoia and fear. And you don’t listen to voices of reason or moderation.
But who knows. Maybe you will grow out of this. When you have children and you start to know real responsibility. Maybe.
Words encourage violence only for mentally sick people.
I very much doubt that. Words can hurt, and when people experience enough abuse, it’s not unusual to lash out.
Yes, words can hurt.
Yes, words can make people angry.
Those are normal feelings of normal human being.
But if person answers to that with violence, that is not normal and in no way acceptable. That is SICK!
And I am very disappointed to see that Mark desperately tries to find justification to that kind of violence.
tp1
Well, that has to be progress, doesn’t it.
Now you start to get confused. This is not unusual, it is exactly this issue of ‘norms’ that you nationalists seriously mess up.
Suggesting it is not ‘normal’ suggests that it stands outside the typical behaviour of human beings. Unfortunately, violence is very much part of the typical behaviour, so describing it as either ‘abnormal’ or ‘mental illness’ would be simply false. Violence in itself is not classed as a mental illness unless accompanied by other symptoms such as psychopathy. In other words, though morally frowned upon, aggression is part of being human and therefore, quite normal. Indeed, it is found throughout nature is fundamental to to the whole dynamic of evolution, like it or not.
Sorry if this upsets your very strict notions of what people can and cannot be.
Indeed, there are situations where one would actually expect abuse to be met by violence. If we take your ridiculous generalisation at face value, we would say that the Allies going to war with Hitler was ‘mental illness’. Clearly, physical and sometimes violent intervention is considered the lesser of two evils when considering how to deal with another agent who already utilizes violence.
Well, there are situations in which it is justified, and at the very least, understandable. How constructive it is would be another question. Bows and arrows against guns doesn’t work so well. But still, the concept of ‘armed resistance’ has a noble history.
I love the way you use these absolutes. You sound like a four-year-old! No wonder the world just doesn’t add up for you and you end up terrified of Muslims. You have little skills in putting things in perspective. You fall back on absolutes and rules that just fall down again and again and again.
Counterjihadists are violent, look at the English defence league.
Patriootti say openly that we need a revolution. Seize power at the proper moment