hmm....sounds like another country we are all familiar with. heres a clue..... who is so stooopid he cant even eat a pretzel and watch tv at the same time without almost killing himself? USA! USA!!! USA!!!
You think freedom of the press to print a cartoon of mohammed is wrong? YOu are willing to give up your own personal freedoms as not to offend the muslims? I'm not , they know how Australia and the west operates and if they don't like it get the fuck out. I wouldn't want to live by their rules so I wouldn't move to their countries, and if they don't like our rules then move somewhere else- why is that so difficult for them and you to understand?
As far as I am aware, no official action of any sort whatsoever has been taken against any media organization in any western country for publishing these rather tasteless and low grade cartoons. In that respect freedom of the press is under no threat. In my definition freedom of the press means freedom from state censorship. So exactly what freedom has been given up as a consequence of some mob behavior ? On the other hand I see lots of freedoms being systematically eroded by the current governments in Australia, Britain and the United States. A fine and ultimately bizarre example is the recent introduction of a 'Glorifying Terrorism' offence in the UK. What the hell does that mean ? Does it mean that somebody can, for example, be thrown in the slammer for saying that they can understand the desperation of some Palestinians turning to suicide bombings in their struggle for national self determination ? There are certainly threats to our freedom afoot, but the main danger is not from a handfull of radical Islamists. And how about the United States with it's systematic abduction, torture and indefinate incarceration of 'terrorism suspects' in what are little more than concentration camps with utter disregard for any due process, international law and natural justice. It makes a mockery of all this talk of freedom. In a book review published in the Asian Times the point is made that in WW II, the United States took the Geneva Convention seriously in it's treatment of Japanese POWs. One result of humane treatment was that a surprising degree of cooperation was gained from some of the POWs. " ... his book indicates that the US treatment of Japanese prisoners once they were officially processed was immeasurably more moral, civilized and effective than the behavior now condoned and encouraged by the White House. Japanese prisoners were fed, clothed and, if wounded, hospitalized alongside wounded GIs. They were not shackled, hooded, sense-deprived or locked in open cages, let alone subject to the varying degrees of torture such as that admitted at Abu Ghraib and redefined in the Guantanamo facility in Cuba. "Since the expectations of capture fostered by the Imperial Japanese command were pretty dire, prisoners' main worry seems to have been how to look one another in the face with the shame of not fighting to the death. However, it seems that many, impressed by the humane conduct of their captors, ended up cooperating to an amazing degree, even in some cases to the point of helping target artillery or providing much-sought details on the capabilities of the Japanese navy's super-dreadnoughts. "The fact that humane treatment came as a total surprise only added to its effectiveness," Straus writes. That it is still a total shock to the US administration six decades later is a testament to how vindictiveness can induce amnesia about historical lessons. " http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/HB25Dh03.html
dcraig, i think you will find state sponsored censorship is alive and well, in all the mentioned countries. Your referring specifically to anti terror legislations, i guess, the key is the extent to which identical measures have been used in the past, and on an ongoing basis , to manipulate the public via the media. The curiosity of this, is hardly anyone is aware of the full extent of it, and are now arguing about press freedoms regarding both subjectivity of what is published, the inflammatory nature of what is published, and the nature of anti terror laws as it may regard what the public supposedly knows, visa vie the holy grail of government, the option to curtail any information release on the basis of "security concerns". They were already doing it, nothing has actually changed, and people are still debating whether all this stuff has made a difference.
FINALLY-Ultimatum to Muslims What do you say to someone who comes into your home and yells at you shouting out loud that your kids are dumb and your spouse is a monster of ugliness? The most polite one would be : Go away. When bullyed, I am not certain that I will be a polite dude.
There is no battle? Really? Tell that to Denmark... or more specifically, tell that to the Danish companies that have lost billions of dollars to a politically orchestrated boycott campaign that has leveraged Islam against them in multiple countries across the globe. Tell that to countries facing subtle intimidation as they decide how to cast their UN votes in regard to Iran. Tell that to nationally supported political parties who view the elimination of Israel as a reasonable goal. Tell that to the mullahs who see the implementation of sharia law in western countries as a strategic objective, and who have a step by step plan for doing so. Step 1: build up a mass of Islamic communities within the population. Step 2: cultivate a hardcore center within these communities through propaganda, politicking, power sharing etc. Step 3: Move towards Sharia in subtle steps, of the type which sensitive lefties view as 'harmless.' Step 4: When the tipping point has been reached, negotiate with your boot on their neck, i.e. give us what we want or it's blood in the streets. This ain't paranoia. These guys are political operators, plain and simple, and they have war rooms and strategic operatives as real as anything Tom Clancy could dream up. Witness recent Al Qaeda strike on Saudi Facility. No battle? And why do you 'expect' things to remain the same if no one ever stands up? By the time there is enough evidence to satisfy everyone, it is by definition too late in the game. That is what these guys are counting on. Osama Bin Laden and his crew are more Stalin than Mohammed. Islam itself is just a vehicle.
p.s. Tell this woman there is no battle, and consider that her country is right next door to Oz: Daughter of Islam An eloquent (and elegant) foe of Muslim fundamentalists. BY NANCY DE WOLF SMITH Saturday, February 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST WASHINGTON--Yenny Wahid has a smile that could melt a Hershey bar at 100 yards. Her sunny disposition is all the more remarkable because Ms. Wahid is on what may be the world's most difficult mission right now: She's a prominent Muslim (and a woman at that) who speaks out against terror and the hijacking of her religion by ideologues who twist it to their own political ends. After 9/11, many Americans assume that the radical Islamic agenda is to destroy the U.S. The reality is that attacks on Western targets are designed to function as brutal propaganda coups that will attract recruits to the cause of violent revolution. The main goal of ideologues like Osama bin Laden is to topple the governments of Muslim countries, including, most famously, the Wahabi royal regime of Saudi Arabia. But the real strategic plum, Ms. Wahid says, would be her native Indonesia and its 220 million citizens--with the largest Muslim population on earth. "We are the ultimate target," she told me in Washington during a trip to the U.S. earlier this month. "The real battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims is happening in Indonesia, not anywhere else. And that's why the world should focus on Indonesia and help." Think of it as a potential domino whose fall would be felt far beyond Asia. "It's big enough to destabilize the region," Ms. Wahid notes. But "imagine if Indonesia became a hotbed for terrorism, or a source for people to get martyrs from. We've got enough people to provide an army of terrorists if we're not careful." At present, Ms. Wahid calls that a "worst-case, doomsday scenario," and she is probably correct, given Indonesia's history of moderate, syncretic Islam, with elements from the region's Hindu and Buddhist past. While there have been demonstrations there over the Danish cartoons that lampooned the prophet Muhammad, they have generally involved only few hundred people. By contrast, Ms. Wahid points out, a December rally she helped organize under the banner of "Islam for Peace" attracted some 12,000 marchers. At the head of that crowd, riding in a wheelchair alongside Ms. Wahid, was her father, Abdurrahman Wahid, the respected and beloved Islamic scholar who headed Indonesia's largest Muslim cultural organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), before becoming the first president of newly democratic Indonesia from 1999 to 2001. In a seminal article for this newspaper--"Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam"--Mr. Wahid wrote on Dec. 30 that "a terrible danger threatens humanity" in the form of "an extreme and perverse ideology" that grossly distorts the true meaning of the religion. He called on fellow Muslims to end the "complicity of silence" about terrorism and other acts of intolerance which characterize the radicals' behavior. At 31, Yenny Wahid--her real name is Zannuba--is trying to follow her father's example and defend the values their faith teaches. Educated in Indonesia, she got a Master's degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2002. Her ease in Western surroundings is apparent not merely from the snappy cream-colored pantsuit she was wearing when we met but also from her elegantly accented English. She is active in the NU's political wing, the National Awakening Party, and an adviser to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The job most dear to her heart, however, is running the Wahid Foundation--named after her father--which works to promote, in the words of its Web site, "democratic reform, religious pluralism, multiculturalism and tolerance amongst Muslims" and reflects "a universal Islam [that] desires justice and prosperity for all." The key word may be prosperity. Indonesia, which was on its way to Asian Tigerhood until the currency crisis of 1997-98, has not recovered from the economic meltdown that coincided with the fall of the Suharto dictatorship. The country is a democracy now, but a struggling one to which few investors have returned. It also has a free press, among the friskiest in Asia. Yet the new openness has also paved the way for vocal opponents of Indonesia's traditional secular approach to government--voices previously suppressed--and they are gaining ground. It is still politically incorrect to call for an Islamic state; and the mainstream press, along with the vast majority of Indonesians, vigorously supports efforts to fight and arrest terrorists such as the ones who perpetrated the Bali and Marriott hotel bombings of 2002 and 2003. Even so, Ms. Wahid says, the fear of being labeled un-Islamic has become intimidating to many moderate political candidates. Radicals who want to install an Islamic regime--those who dream of violence while many ordinary religious conservatives still do not--also are operating in an economic milieu not unlike the one communists exploited in poor countries a generation ago. Poverty and a lack of education make millions of Indonesians desperate, and easy, targets, Ms. Wahid says. "After the fall of Suharto, people expected democracy would solve all their problems. But of course it takes a long time for things to fall into their right places, and people are not patient. They want a quick answer. So there is this sense of democracy-fatigue in Indonesia. And my fear is if people are willing to entertain the idea of Islam, and an Islamic state, as an alternative solution to governing, because they are so frustrated by the level of corruption . . . we'd be in big trouble."
article continues: Ms. Wahid is not imagining things. She points to other examples: "This is exactly the issue that just happened in Palestine. Because Hamas managed to portray themselves as the clean party. We do have parties like that as well [in Indonesia], like Hamas." Well-financed radicals have already infiltrated at least some of Indonesia's traditional religious boarding schools, or pesantren. For poor rural families especially, these schools--called madrassas in other Muslim countries--are the only way to see that their sons get decent food and clothing. Yet even the majority of pesantren that teach a moderate form of Islam turn out young clerics who find it difficult to make a living in the outside world. This is one reason, Ms. Wahid believes, that Indonesia's mosques have become a potent trouble zone. "The market for these preachers is quite limited, and you get to be the top preacher by being the preacher with a sexy message. A sexy message can be very inflammatory: 'Christians are the ones that created all these problems for you guys--kill them!' Friday prayer is an obligation for men, so it has become a very effective medium to propagandize with preachings that are just very, very hateful toward non-Muslims." Like her famous father and other influential clerics in Indonesia, Ms. Wahid is trying to hold the line against this trend. Their task, as she sees it, is to remind Indonesians of the true teachings of Islam and its sacred texts. "One thing for sure is that [radicals] have a very distorted view of what religion should be," she says. "Killing people meaning glory? It's lunacy. We do discuss these things, we hold conferences, for instance on the word 'jihad' and how it's been used and abused throughout history. The prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against yourself, how to make yourself a better person. It's not . . . running to kill people." For a true definition of martyrdom, she points to the sacrifice of Riyanto, a young man dispatched with other members of the Nahdlatul Ulama youth militia during Christmas several years ago to guard churches threatened with attacks. When he discovered a bomb outside a church, he tried to throw it out of the way of the crowds and was killed when it blew up. Ms. Wahid and others mark the anniversary of his death every year. "We always tell this message: This is the real case of martyrdom. That's the way to defend religion, not by killing others but by defending others' rights to practice their religion." As uplifting as her story is, Ms. Wahid cannot speak to Indonesians with the same authority as her father, whose power to influence public opinion derives in part from his credentials as an Islamic scholar. However, Abdurrahman Wahid is 65, blind and frail. The NU organization where he remains a towering figure may have 40 million members, but there are power struggles under way inside the group, and no guarantee that its future leaders will be as wise and outspoken as he has been. Ms. Wahid is doing what she can to help a new generation follow in her father's footsteps, through the Wahid Foundation. It involves "trying to . . . identify these young leaders, young clerics with same-minded beliefs, and connect them with one another and provide them with something, a house, so that they can come out and speak. An army of able, dedicated young men who can talk in a unified message of tolerant and peaceful Islam." That's an ambitious project, and Ms. Wahid says Indonesia cannot prepare for the future without help. It needs foreign investors "willing to take the risk," and more contact with the West on every level--including contact as rudimentary as instruction in English that will enable people to pull themselves out of poverty. The Wahid Foundation, for instance, has a program that tries to arrange micro-loans in rural communities. She's not surprised when I point out that calling for foreign investment in a country with Indonesia's financial reputation is a tall order. "This is a difficult period for us," she admits, "but this is a win-win situation for all. We have all these resources, we have a population of 220 million, a big market. As for rule of law . . . we're trying to simplify the bureaucracy, the red tape and there have been many corruption cases brought to court. The wheels of justice are starting." Given the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, ignoring Indonesia could quickly become a lose-lose situation. If for no other reason, she says, "the world has an interest in making Indonesia a stable country politically and economically so that people do not entertain this idea that an Islamic state is a solution to their problems. When people are hungry, when people are poor, they can do drastic things." One could argue that by openly resisting the ideology of Islamic extremists, Ms. Wahid herself is taking a drastic step, albeit one born of courage, not desperation. When I asked her where she got the strength to speak the truth at a time when many prefer to remain silent, she beamed and said: "This is the real thing that defines people of faith. I have faith in God. That's enough for my father, and enough for myself."