The Islamophobia Thread

There's a major difference between Christian practices being mocked (which frankly, they should) and Christian practices being banned for not being conformant to Islam.

Edit: Or a practice of either/any religion being banned for not being conformant to basic human rights.

Edited by Medinoc on Oct 27th 2020 at 6:37:42 PM

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

This requires one to completely ignore any kind of collective power dynamic. Just because people can kill you does not mean that they are powerful.

Medieval peasants were capable of rebelling and did so, does that capacity for violence make them anything other than an underprivileged group?

Of course, it doesn't.

I don't agree, mocking Christian practices in Pakistan means shitting on an already underprivileged community. How is that beneficial?

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 27th 2020 at 10:38:03 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

That depends on what you're mocking. If you're mocking Christian homophobia, for instance, that's obviously a good thing in my opinion. The Christians who feel hurt by it can just stop being homophobic.

Privileged or unprivileged, it's still a practice followed because some human wrote in a book that an invisible, intangible higher power said so.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

And? Religion being wrong does not make harm justified.

Hurting real humans because of their fake beliefs is hardly benevolent.

Come on, we're talking about mocking Muhammad. Bringing up mocking bigotry has no connection to what's actually being discussed.

Nothing Charlie Hebo did helped any marginalized groups, it had the literal opposite effect.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 27th 2020 at 10:47:43 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Problem is, in the West criticizing Islam is punching down. In the Middle-East, it's a death sentence.

So in what context are you allowed to do it then?

Edited by Forenperser on Oct 27th 2020 at 6:50:05 PM

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

It does have some connection. As far as I know, Mohammed taught that if you don't believe in God, you go to Hell. That's a pretty horrible rule, if you ask me. In practice, it's anti-freedom of religion.

Mocking him for that is fine, IMO. If he teaches that freedom of religion is wrong, he'll get mocked for it.

I think that sums up my thoughts on this pretty well, really. Anybody who supports something morally bad, like sending people to Hell for their religious choices, is a bad person and deserves to get criticized for it. Being an oppressed minority is bad, but it doesn't give you a free pass to support inhuman policies like the above just because you have no power to put it into practice.

Edited by JamesJames on Oct 27th 2020 at 10:53:29 AM

"Criticizing Islam" in the West does nothing to make the Middle East better, it's just punching down and in practice far more Islamophobic than legitimate criticism.

No one is saying there should be a ban on "criticizing Islam" but valorizing mockery as criticism is just helping bigots.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 27th 2020 at 10:53:45 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Alright, I'll try to keep this as simple as I can.

Back when our plague year got into gear, around late January to February, we started to hear phrases like "the China Virus" being thrown around. Not just by people you'd think as right-wing or nativist - a lot of them were apolitical or even left-wing people trying to be cool and edgy. And it's not "punching down" to mock China, right? Biggest country in the world, second biggest economy, vast police state infrastructure and a laundry list of human rights violations. Still struggled to bring a disease under control.

Except calling it that did precisely zilch to address (or even get people to care about) what's wrong with China, the country. It didn't make people eager to learn more about its oppression of minorities and dissidents, or its ruling class' ties with international corruption circles.

You know what happened instead? People looked at Asians around them and saw disease carriers. They saw their local Chinese restaurant workers wearing masks and thought it made them "dirty", somehow. They harassed and assaulted Asian people, thinking it gave them power over the situation somehow. It's been close to a year and we still see people in certain political spheres obsessing over its origins rather than how to combat it, here and now. And we're all paying the price for that.

When you're drawing someone that you know represents a minority group where you live, and you paint their likeness as a ticking time bomb, an explosive breeder or something along those lines (I'm talking about the cartoon movement in general, not just CH), you're not punching up.

You're not doing a thing to touch the Saudi monarchy, or the Iranian clergy, or the Taliban, or Al-Shabaab. They get to point at your work and tell the people they're oppressing: "You see that? That's what they think of you."

And your readers, meanwhile, look at those images and see the diaspora Muslims around them. People whom grifters like Le Pen said are hiding time bombs under their clothes, or corrupting your values with their headscarves, or having too many children.

What do you think is going to happen?

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

You're right, I guess I've let my own prejudices take over on this one.

Edited by Medinoc on Oct 27th 2020 at 6:55:57 PM

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I really respect the courage to acknowledge when one is wrong, I know exactly how hard that can be

(I hope this doesn't sound condescending, that's in no way my intent)

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 27th 2020 at 11:01:34 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

@ Forenperser

Critizing Islam in the Christian influenced West requires a lot of care and patience to avoid falling into Islamophobia.

This is not a straight-forward deal and we cannot rush a solution to this, this requires to walk the maze that is inter-class and inter-faith dialogue to clear up some misunderstandings and to reach an agreement on both parts.

Hell, maybe Pope Francis can help with this given that he also worked with the Muslim community in Argentina before he was elected.

Edit:

Edited by raziel365 on Oct 27th 2020 at 11:06:06 AM

Instead of focusing on relatives that divide us, we should find the absolutes that tie us.

You'll remark though, that the ones demanding blasphemy laws were not the Muslims of France, but those in power in places where Islam is privileged.

French Muslims acknowledge that the murderer was just that.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Edited by Heatth on Oct 27th 2020 at 3:25:19 PM

Now I kind of wish we had French Muslim posters who could weigh in on this.

Disgusted, but not surprised

You know what? Making insulting depictions of Muhammad fucking well isn't criticizing Islam. Not in the West and not in the Middle East either.

Muslims don't want to depict Muhammad because Muhammad, before his death, explicitly asked not to be depicted, because he didn't want to be transformed into an icon and worshiped like Jesus was.

So what message exactly are you sending by depicting Muhammad? "Hey Muslims, you should be worshiping Muhammad directly."?

The Muslim prohibition against depicting Muhammad harms no one. Saying that the prohibition is dumb because you don't consider the reason behind it logical is not the equivalent of calling out, say, Christians or Muslims justifying homophobia on the fact that their book says so...

It's the equivalent of going up to a Scotsman wearing a kilt and saying "You're wearing a skirt! Wearing a skirt when you're a guy is stupid!"

Are you technically free to do so? Yeah. I guess.

Does doing so achieve anything other than show the world you're an asshole? Nope.

Will I laugh when doing so gets you punched in the mouth? Definitely.

Edited by Robrecht on Oct 27th 2020 at 7:35:00 PM

Angry gets shit done.

Very well said.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

People have been murdered for disobeying that prohibition.

Again, you can get murdered for doing it. You're not free to do something if your life is dependent on not doing it.

Edited by JamesJames on Oct 27th 2020 at 11:43:34 AM

That last sentence doesn't really do the arguments any favor either.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian

What. How do you jump to this conclusion? To me it sounds way more like "If this irks you, it means you are worshiping Muhammad directly."

Edit: I think most people have no idea why depictions of Muhammad are banned in the first place, and simply assume Muslims already are worshiping him. In a way, they mock people for doing something they're not doing in the first place... Only for those people to promptly "prove them right" by killing someone for "insulting Muhammad".

Edit2: In fact, *I* didn't know until I saw your post.

Edited by Medinoc on Oct 27th 2020 at 7:56:58 PM

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I feel like the problem with the taboo of making images of their prophet is non followers often end up as the victims when the taboo should only really be applied to those within the religion itself and not those outside it

That's the issue as I see it

New theme music also a box

One has to admit, banning mockery of a religious figure sounds a lot like a sign of worship of that figure.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Murder is bad.

As is punching down.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

No.

People have been murdered for intentionally making hurtful and insulting depictions of Muhammad for no other reason than to insult and anger Muslims, in a country where Muslims have long been an exploited and ostracized underclass.

That doesn't make it right, but it fucking well matters.

No one has ever been murdered for just simply drawing a picture of what they imagine Muhammad might've looked like.

Angry gets shit done.

I don't think anyone here protests that punching down is bad. However, not everyone here agrees that it's punching down.

It's hard to be the underdog when you have a pope-like figure publicly ordering hits.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."