RE: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not "freedom of thepress"

["Ayhan Aytes" <aaytes@weber.ucsd.edu>]

No I mean the violence in its literal sense, in this case through cultural means
of political oppression of minorities. We should remember that Muslims in Denmark
are minorities. The Atheist response to Christian majority culture can be
supported when they use the Jesus cartoons to stand against this oppression. But
when the majority uses the same method against Muslim minority it becomes a
totalitarian tool to oppress Muslim minority. You may support the Nazi era
propaganda cartoons but I hope not in the mainstream media for the purpose of
oppressing Jewish people in Europe and creating the propaganda platform to
exterminate them. If this is the case then I hope Muslims are not the new Jews of
old Europe. 

Yes. Denmark has a law providing for fines and up to four months in jail for
anyone who "publicly offends or insults a religion that is recognized in the
country." If this newspaper had earlier rejected publishing Jesus cartoons based
on the same law they should have acted consistently in this case too. Their double
standard is the sign of their insincerity in their excuse on behalf of freedom of
speech. 

"To believe that a drawing oppresses the freedom of people means to leave the
grounds of rational discourse." To believe otherwise with no discrete sense of the
political use of representations is welcoming Nazi era propaganda as freedom of
speech.

I still want to believe that this is the clash of barbarians and I would be
particularly concerned about the utilization of the terms of the civilization as
an excuse for this barbarism, such as freedom of speech. The freedom of speech can
only be protected when its meaning is preserved against this erosion through
Orwellian totalitarian rhetoric.  Slavery is Freedom? Or Your Slavery is My
Freedom?  If you want to capture the true meanings of things always mind the
subject. 

Ayhan Aytes
 

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