Prophet Muhammad cartoon sparks Batley Grammar School protest

[Siorac]

That's offensive to a lot of people. And people of any religion would find certain statements offensive. The question is why people like you think it's okay to openly antagonize people of specific religions and offend them.

My problem with blanket statements such as "we should not openly antagonise people with deeply held religious beliefs" is that where do we draw the line? There has been plenty of philosophical discussion about whether God exists or not, about the role of religion - much of it openly critical about them. Marx's famous passage about it being the opium of the people is arguably quite offensive - should a teacher refrain from teaching Marx for fear of antagonising religious students?

I have more sympathy for the argument that showing these particular cartoons themselves achieve little but surely it's not useful to suggest that we should avoid antagonising religious people altogether, no matter what.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

There are certain boundaries yes but I don’t think painting a picture of someone should be one of those boundaries.

It is for the followers of this religion. If you can assimilate that, then you wouldn't openly offend them just because you decide that it should be okay.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Back to the big fancy words class you go.

Acting like folk here have to provide coherent, structured and referenced thoughts and opinions. It's a football forum.

Why thank you. I'd love a coherent, well-structured post like those from the rest of the posters in this thread. You're sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

[altodevil]

Why thank you. I'd love a coherent, well-structured post like those from the rest of the posters in this thread. You're sticking out like a sore thumb.

Great

 

[calodo2003]

And that's a problem when you are talking about an audience that doesn't have all the tools necessary. Emotions are not a good thing in that context, knowledge is, emotions can't be the foundation of your reflection because your reflection is then highly biased from the start. So again start with knowledge, start with facts and clear understanding of the topic then you can add things like cartoons which is why I said that they are not appropriate for all audiences, some steps needs to be reached first otherwise we end up with the current mess that is our society. In fact I know that you know it, you have been vocal about the stupidty of some americans when it comes gun control, I'm sure that you realize that these people's mind where built through emotional lobbying by feeding them with incomplete informations that tickled their emotions more than feed them with true knowledge.

Yes, I do understand the susceptibility of impressionable minds, but the fact is that these impressionable minds are subjected to multiple media sources of similar or worse criticisms against Islam, but the outrage caused by a cartoon is simply misplaced. Such outrage doesn’t exist against similar or worse criticisms on social media, but gets focused on one, somewhat fringe media type. Maybe it does, but it is far more diffuse. This particular brand of outrage would have more credibility in my mind if more attention was focused on the drek on social media. The cartoon debate allows for a feel good focus point of outrage (some manufactured, no doubt), not getting at the major problem, wanting to stifle thought & debate. Kind of like getting down in the mud over a particular piece of gun control legislation, finding a focal point of outrage on that topic (some manufactured, no doubt), stunting any meaningful progress in tackling the problem. Each has some positives, but it’s negatives are more pronounced.

 

[bosnian_red]

You just used the rationalization of a large number of people shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable, yet you won’t use the same logic when discussing an even larger group of people. Why the different prisms?

Of course there’s benefit to the wider world than Islam to showing the cartoons. It creates debate, debate that potentially illuminates for those not of the islamic fairy to reassess how they view that faith. Is there not validity in this?

The zero sum argument of ‘never showing or creating the cartoons because a minority is uncomfortable’ is just mad, no matter what the subject is. Why shield people from reality, especially when they are forming their opinions of the world?

What benefit is there to show the cartoons? Who is getting offended at not showing or not making them in the first place? What possible "positive" debate is had in showing insulting and disrespectful images (to those people)? It's not a reality, that's being shown, it's some guy making a cartoon that depicts a certain faiths messiah out to be a terrorist or getting fecked in the ass or whatever else. If you replace Muhammed with Jesus, would that still be fine to show for you? Wouldn't that still lead to protests but from a different group of people? It's not like the picture is just a picture of a neutral face or a normal non-offensive picture. It's literally an insulting cartoon that someone did to provoke a reaction and label it as "freedom of speech". Essentially as if "I can say whatever the feck I want and you can't say or do anything about it". There's nothing educational about it.

What are people going to reasses when viewing these images? We're talking about kids in school here. If these kids already get picked on for being different (happens 95% of the time in early school anyway), how does it help saying "someone once tried to piss a bunch of them off and it got a really bad reaction to it". To me that seems like teaching don't be afraid to be disrespectful to anyone's beliefs or cultures, which leads to racism, xenophobia, oppression etc. I genuinely don't see what debate arises from a teacher showing those pictures to kids. They originated from a comedian or satirical piece of work that did it to piss off a lot of people. It is nothing resembling any sort of reality, but just someone who picked out the stereotypes of what will piss off this religion (insulting their prophet, showing him getting fecked in the ass, making him a terrorist, etc) and turned it into a comic and waited to see the reaction.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

My problem with blanket statements such as "we should not openly antagonise people with deeply held religious beliefs" is that where do we draw the line? There has been plenty of philosophical discussion about whether God exists or not, about the role of religion - much of it openly critical about them. Marx's famous passage about it being the opium of the people is arguably quite offensive - should a teacher refrain from teaching Marx for fear of antagonising religious students?

I have more sympathy for the argument that showing these particular cartoons themselves achieve little but surely it's not useful to suggest that we should avoid antagonising religious people altogether, no matter what.

I'd agree (and I might still do) but what you're talking about are deep ontological debates. There's a big difference between the intent behind discussions like the ones to be had in those circumstances, and drawing cartoons that you know will provoke followers of a religion and do nothing else, as you've pointed out.

The Marx argument is fair. Perhaps religious people would find it offensive, but that's done with conspicuous impudence as the cartoon issue is.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Great

That wasn't one. But keep trying. You'll get there one day.

 

[altodevil]

That wasn't one. But keep trying. You'll get there one day.

Stop antagonizing me

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

What benefit is there to show the cartoons? Who is getting offended at not showing or not making them in the first place? What possible "positive" debate is had in showing insulting and disrespectful images (to those people)? It's not a reality, that's being shown, it's some guy making a cartoon that depicts a certain faiths messiah out to be a terrorist or getting fecked in the ass or whatever else. If you replace Muhammed with Jesus, would that still be fine to show for you? Wouldn't that still lead to protests but from a different group of people? It's not like the picture is just a picture of a neutral face or a normal non-offensive picture. It's literally an insulting cartoon that someone did to provoke a reaction and label it as "freedom of speech". Essentially as if "I can say whatever the feck I want and you can't say or do anything about it". There's nothing educational about it.

What are people going to reasses when viewing these images? We're talking about kids in school here. If these kids already get picked on for being different (happens 95% of the time in early school anyway), how does it help saying "someone once tried to piss a bunch of them off and it got a really bad reaction to it". To me that seems like teaching don't be afraid to be disrespectful to anyone's beliefs or cultures, which leads to racism, xenophobia, oppression etc.

Exactly what I was trying to say in my last post, and worded better than I could have. I think there's a difference between actual discussions regarding the nature and role of religion, and situations like this.

 

[calodo2003]

You're comparing Islam with Trumpism? And decided to call both nonesense?

And you feel as though this isn't a stupid post?

They’re both artificial, manmade constructs. They’re fiction.

Why can’t one have this belief?

edit - Trumpism unfortunately isn’t fiction. Both are artificial, manmade constructs. Religion is fiction.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Stop antagonizing me

Au contraire. I'm trying to help you out.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

You're free to list the overwhelming parallels because a lot of people find the comparison insulting.

You are free to criticize religions and nobody is stopping you from doing so. It still isn't sensible to openly antagonize and offend people.

Trumpism stems partly from Christianity which isn’t too dissimilar to the Islam.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

T

They’re both artificial, manmade constructs. They’re fiction.

Why can’t one have this belief?

What part of Donald Trump is fiction?

 

[Siorac]

T

They’re both artificial, manmade constructs. They’re fiction.

Why can’t one have this belief?

I wish Trumpism was fiction. It'd be great for an antagonist in a slightly darker young adult novel.

 

[Eugenius]

Trumpism stems partly from Christianity which isn’t too dissimilar to the Islam.

Well known devout Christian Donald Trump?

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Trumpism stems partly from Christianity which isn’t too dissimilar to the Islam.

Trumpism is hardly Christianity though, is it? Stems in the sense that there's an overlap when it comes to conservative Christians leaning that way. But there's a far cry between being a devout Christian and being a staunch Trump fan, repeating offensive epithets, and talking about "BLM terrorists".

 

[Siorac]

Well known devout Christian Donald Trump?

US evangelicals embraced him like the prodigal son, to be fair.

 

[JPRouve]

It’s not purposely offending anyone. The offending isn’t the goal.

Why should a satiric cartoon of Muhammed be excluded because it’s offensive while there are a shit load of other cartoons someone somewhere may find offensive that are no problem at all. Don’t see massive protests and dead threats about them?

The conversation isn't limited to Islam, it is and has been done for a range of groups and beliefs, all religions being included. Also it's important to remember that death threats are a thing in many context, last year people were threatened for publicly supporting BLM, protests are also a thing and part of freedom of speech so I don't really see why it's a problem for you, people have the right to be offended and they have the right to express it.

 

[calodo2003]

What benefit is there to show the cartoons? Who is getting offended at not showing or not making them in the first place? What possible "positive" debate is had in showing insulting and disrespectful images (to those people)? It's not a reality, that's being shown, it's some guy making a cartoon that depicts a certain faiths messiah out to be a terrorist or getting fecked in the ass or whatever else. If you replace Muhammed with Jesus, would that still be fine to show for you? Wouldn't that still lead to protests but from a different group of people? It's not like the picture is just a picture of a neutral face or a normal non-offensive picture. It's literally an insulting cartoon that someone did to provoke a reaction and label it as "freedom of speech". Essentially as if "I can say whatever the feck I want and you can't say or do anything about it". There's nothing educational about it.

What are people going to reasses when viewing these images? We're talking about kids in school here. If these kids already get picked on for being different (happens 95% of the time in early school anyway), how does it help saying "someone once tried to piss a bunch of them off and it got a really bad reaction to it". To me that seems like teaching don't be afraid to be disrespectful to anyone's beliefs or cultures, which leads to racism, xenophobia, oppression etc. I genuinely don't see what debate arises from a teacher showing those pictures to kids. They originated from a comedian or satirical piece of work that did it to piss off a lot of people. It is nothing resembling any sort of reality, but just someone who picked out the stereotypes of what will piss off this religion (insulting their prophet, showing him getting fecked in the ass, making him a terrorist, etc) and turned it into a comic and waited to see the reaction.

I’ll take your first point. Of course it’s not reality, what ever is in media? It’s a spin to get people emotionally invested. Why eliminate that simply because one group of people gets a negative result? The line has got to exist somewhere.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

Trumpism is hardly Christianity though, is it? Stems in the sense that there's an overlap when it comes to conservative Christians leaning that way. But there's a far cry between being a devout Christian and being a staunch Trump fan, repeating offensive epithets, and talking about "BLM terrorists".

I said in some ways they are world apart. In some way they are quite similar. You seem to agree with me.

 

[calodo2003]

I wish Trumpism was fiction. It'd be great for an antagonist in a slightly darker young adult novel.

Alright, I should remove fiction as it actually did happen. Religion is fiction. Both are manmade.

 

[bosnian_red]

Yep. We’re basically debating how one’s different flavor of belief in fiction should be more important than another’s different belief in fiction. The whole debate is ultimately about fiction, but unfortunately adherence to different flavors of fiction can cause real life harm.

It's someone's belief. Let them believe what they want to believe without shitting on them for no reason other than to put them down. Whatever anyones view on religion, why can't people just be tolerable about someone else's beliefs? I'm not religious personally. But I don't care that someone else is. Doesn't impact my life in any way if they are or aren't. I'm not going to go out of my way to piss them off just because freedom of speech dictates I can say what I want and you can't be pissed at me for saying it. It's human decency, not being a cnut, being tolerable and respectful. When we're talking about a teacher especially, there is no excuse. It's essentially using an inflammatory image to push an anti-islamic agenda that already exists even more, rather than easing tensions.

 

[Gehrman]

What benefit is there to show the cartoons? Who is getting offended at not showing or not making them in the first place? What possible "positive" debate is had in showing insulting and disrespectful images (to those people)? It's not a reality, that's being shown, it's some guy making a cartoon that depicts a certain faiths messiah out to be a terrorist or getting fecked in the ass or whatever else. If you replace Muhammed with Jesus, would that still be fine to show for you? Wouldn't that still lead to protests but from a different group of people? It's not like the picture is just a picture of a neutral face or a normal non-offensive picture. It's literally an insulting cartoon that someone did to provoke a reaction and label it as "freedom of speech". Essentially as if "I can say whatever the feck I want and you can't say or do anything about it". There's nothing educational about it.

What are people going to reasses when viewing these images? We're talking about kids in school here. If these kids already get picked on for being different (happens 95% of the time in early school anyway), how does it help saying "someone once tried to piss a bunch of them off and it got a really bad reaction to it". To me that seems like teaching don't be afraid to be disrespectful to anyone's beliefs or cultures, which leads to racism, xenophobia, oppression etc. I genuinely don't see what debate arises from a teacher showing those pictures to kids. They originated from a comedian or satirical piece of work that did it to piss off a lot of people. It is nothing resembling any sort of reality, but just someone who picked out the stereotypes of what will piss off this religion (insulting their prophet, showing him getting fecked in the ass, making him a terrorist, etc) and turned it into a comic and waited to see the reaction.

We don't even know how the lesson went. It's just guess work. I'd like to add that Charlie Hebdo have made equally offensive cartoons of Jesus, God and of Jews. The thing is there has been no violence over this. They have been attemped to been sued several times by the catholic church. Lots newspapers constantly lampoon christianity. Again it has not led to violence. The whole thing about the Muhammed cartoons is the attempt to force blasphemy laws through terror tacticts and outrage. That's why it's the most obvious example of when freedom of speech meets religous orthodoxy. However I think it's fair enough to debate whether this is appropiate at a school where I think 1/3 of the students are muslims.

 

[calodo2003]

What part of Donald Trump is fiction?

I misspoke in my post - Trumpism certainly isn’t fiction unfortunately. But religion is. Both are flavors of something artificial, manmade (but let’s not get caught up in the pedantry of debating this particular point here, better served in another thread).

 

[bosnian_red]

I’ll take your first point. Of course it’s not reality, what ever is in media? It’s a spin to get people emotionally invested. Why eliminate that simply because one group of people gets a negative result? The line has got to exist somewhere.

I'm saying there's a difference between it happening by a comic/place where their entire business is built on satirical work to antagonize people. It's a bit of a dickheads job, but they aren't meant as an educational institution. It's like arguing whether racist/sexist/gay jokes are appropriate from an R rated comedy movie. Some people will be offended, others will laugh, it is what it is when it happens there. This is a school and that stuff has absolutely no place in an educational environment for kids, and using it should absolutely result in you getting sacked.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

I said in some ways they are world apart. In some way they are quite similar. You seem to agree with me.

If I do, it's only becuase there's an overlap. Christianity itself isn't Trumpism in my opinion. There happens to be an overlap because Donald Trump appealed to a specific contingent of Christians who morphed into what you'd see as a monolithic block.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

The conversation isn't limited to Islam, it is and has been done for a range of groups and beliefs, all religions being included. Also it's important to remember that death threats are a thing in many context, last year people were threatened for publicly supporting BLM, protests are also a thing and part of freedom of speech so I don't really see why it's a problem for you, people have the right to be offended and they have the right to express it.

Of course they have the right to be offended. Being offended is part of a free society. I’m also offended from time to time. If I read the Quran I’m also offended as an atheist it’s quite offensive but I’m not going to say the Quran should be banned or people shouldn’t be able to read or press the Quran.

What I don’t do is putting pressure on teachers to not show cartoons that may offend me. It’s only a problem when the curriculum of our education is being affected by it.

You just take it and move on because in a free society you’ll come across thing that you may not like. Of course a peaceful protest isn’t a problem. Never said Muslims can’t protest against certain cartoons. I find it a strange thing to get riled up about but then again each their own. They are just as free to share their thoughts as the cartoonists of people who want to publish them.

 

[Tibs]

Unless the teacher is stupid, in which case they shouldn't really be teaching, then they will have known beforehand that this would be offensive to Muslim students in the class, and that it had the potential to cause huge upset.

Free speech is fine.

Offending people with content that has previously caused huge offence, is not acceptable.

 

[Eugenius]

US evangelicals embraced him like the prodigal son, to be fair.

It's still a ridiculous leap of logic to have trumpism two steps removed from Islam via Christianity

The irony being Biden is the guy who is actually a practising Catholic.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

If I do, it's only becuase there's an overlap. Christianity itself isn't Trumpism in my opinion. There happens to be an overlap because Donald Trump appealed to a specific contingent of Christians who morphed into what you'd see as a monolithic block.

But even then the discussion was if you could threat them the same which you can. They are both a set of values which both are problematic for other people.

 

[calodo2003]

Trumpism is hardly Christianity though, is it? Stems in the sense that there's an overlap when it comes to conservative Christians leaning that way. But there's a far cry between being a devout Christian and being a staunch Trump fan, repeating offensive epithets, and talking about "BLM terrorists".

Trumpism tapped directly into the christian nationalism as part of the grift, as they obviously saw the potential of playing to that brand of mental deficients on the right.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

I misspoke in my post - Trumpism certainly isn’t fiction unfortunately. But religion is. Both are flavors of something artificial, manmade (but let’s not get caught up in the pedantry of debating this particular point here, better served in another thread).

Yeah but the definitive statement itself is problematic because a lot of people do not share it, if they happen to believe in a deity. I understand that you see it this way from your perspective, but I'm not sure what the goal of openly telling followers of a religion that their religion (or any other) is nonsense and fiction. That in itself isn't conducive to an ontological debate. It's simply a throwaway comment that will offend someone who does have that belief.

 

[OleBoiii]

11 pages in less than a day. Is it safe to read or should I run away ASAP?

 

[bosnian_red]

We don't even know how the lesson went. It's just guess work. I'd like to add that Charlie Hebdo have made equally offensive cartoons of Jesus, God and of Jews. The thing is there has been no violence over this. They have been attemped to been sued several times by the catholic church. Lots newspapers constantly lampoon christianity. Again it has not led to violence. The whole thing about the Muhammed cartoons is the attempt to force blasphemy laws through terror tacticts and outrage. That's why it's the most obvious example of when freedom of speech meets religous orthodoxy. However I think it's fair enough to debate whether this is appropiate at a school where I think 1/3 of the students are muslims.

Yeah, like I said I don't care about a satirical group like that doing it. They're whole business is built on getting reactions and outrage. The "haters" are fuel for them. Personally think it's a bit of a dickheads job and generally we'd be better off without the provocative comics, but its still very different to using it in a school. Yes we don't know how the lesson went. The fact that one of those images was used though probably means it wasn't used very positively, as I don't think Hebdo has any positive/neutral cartoons about Muhammed or anything in general right? Even if its a small percentage of the school being Islamic. Even if there's not 1 single Muslim in the school. It still leads to more negative thought about Islamic people than there was before, which leads to more and more hate on people just because of a different belief.

 

[calodo2003]

I'm saying there's a difference between it happening by a comic/place where their entire business is built on satirical work to antagonize people. It's a bit of a dickheads job, but they aren't meant as an educational institution. It's like arguing whether racist/sexist/gay jokes are appropriate from an R rated comedy movie. Some people will be offended, others will laugh, it is what it is when it happens there. This is a school and that stuff has absolutely no place in an educational environment for kids, and using it should absolutely result in you getting sacked.

It’s simply teaching modern history of an emotional topic. Why does that not matter? It’s one quick lesson about what actually exists in real life, the good or bad. It’s something that they already know about it. Why act like it’s not there? Why not be able to discuss it? I’ll bet the majority of these islamic students could much more easily & rationally discuss this than their parents. Why stifle that?

 

[calodo2003]

11 pages in less than a day. Is it safe to read or should I run away ASAP?

It’s not too bad, actually. Measured, but firm opinions on both sides. Not much snark.

 

[JPRouve]

Of course they have the right to be offended. Being offended is part of a free society. I’m also offended from time to time. If I read the Quran I’m also offended as an atheist it’s quite offensive but I’m not going to say the Quran should be banned or people shouldn’t be able to read or press the Quran.

What I don’t do is putting pressure on teachers to not show cartoons that may offend me. It’s only a problem when the curriculum of our education is being affected by it.

You just take it and move on because in a free society you’ll come across thing that you may not like. Of course a peaceful protest isn’t a problem. Never said Muslims can’t protest against certain cartoons. I find it a strange thing to get riled up about but then again each their own. They are just as free to share their thoughts as the cartoonists of people who want to publish them.

There is actually a pressure on teachers to not show cartoons or other materials that may offend you though, those are generally in the gore and pornography category. Which incidentally are a fruit of the influence of religion on morality and our societies.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

But even then the discussion was if you could threat them the same which you can. They are both a set of values which both are problematic for other people.

If I understand you, you seem to be saying that all religions should be as open to scrutiny as any political affiliation is. I'm not sure anyone disagrees with that. (Maybe some people do, but I don't necessarily disagree with you).

The argument as I understood it was if it was alright to provoke followers of a religion knowing that the intent behind making a statement (or in this case, drawing a cartoon) is solely to provoke, rather than enagage in any meaningful debate. My stance is that it isn't.

If you agree with me there, then it seems as though you and I don't disagree with each other but were just having different discussions.

 

[reelworld]

Have we reached Schrodinger cartoon yet?
It's just a cartoon, stop being so serious, but it's also very important to be shown at school