04पत्रकारिता

Comments (16)

Google अनुवाद द्वारा स्वचालित मशीन अनुवाद प्रदान किया जाता हैं. यह आपको बताता है की योगदानकर्ता क्या कहना चाहता हैं, लेकिन इसका एक सटीक, सूक्ष्म अनुवाद की तरह भरोसा न करें.

1. sebastianhuempfer May 29, 2013 at 1:19 pm
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   Dick,

   You claim that “it is not … permitted to criticise Muslim immigration and Islam”. You “demand that anyone who wants to say that [Islam is incompatible with Western democracy] be able to do so, and feel no compulsion to be silent”. You “think people should be entitled to say what they believe about Islam”. I don’t understand what you mean.

   Who is stopping you from speaking your mind? Your views are right here, out in the open.

   Views very much like yours are all over the mainstream media. They are also being articulated by influential and widely-read bloggers. Just look here [http://bit.ly/VthfKR], here [http://bit.ly/18ocQxU], here[http://bit.ly/18m1J8u], here[http://bit.ly/10UkffD], here[http://bit.ly/124TpZH], here[http://bit.ly/16dH6f1], or here[http://dailym.ai/132KhBn] – all circulating widely just in the last few days.

   How can you say that people are prevented from reading and writing such things when they and you are saying and writing them every day? Do you feel that what is being published does not go far enough? If that’s the case, look at the comment threads (if you can read German, you will particularly like this [http://bit.ly/NQftA5]), or Twitter, or Reddit, or Youtube. Legions of users post violently anti-Muslim statements there, which get likes and upvotes. Sometimes one or two people are arrested and later released without consequences if they are deemed to incite hatred or violence, for which they have to go much further than you do in your post; the cases your link referred to involved direct threats. Why should those be legal?

   Views similar to yours are also represented by politicians in the UK [http://bit.ly/1aizioB], the Netherlands [http://bit.ly/10HcmLs], Germany [http://bit.ly/16yAkzd], France [http://bit.ly/112jXn0], Austria [http://bit.ly/188rzwM] & Switzerland [http://bit.ly/16oRl07] & Italy [http://on.ft.com/13YvwRh] (where these parties were or are in government), Denmark [http://bit.ly/10zF4kN], the US [http://bit.ly/19lJcrS] and, I believe, your own country, Finland.

   Many political parties cater to the “I’m not racist but…” and “We can’t even say/do what we want anymore” crowds; they have plenty of politicians who warn that “sharia law” will be imposed on their countries if they do not protect western liberal democracy against ‘Islam’, including by deporting fellow citizens they disagree with. And gain, if the likes of Farage and Le Pen do not go far enough for your taste, there are even more radical parties in most of these countries, who in some cases receive state funding and in all cases enjoy the same police protection as everyone else when they want to voice their opinions.

   You seem to think your views are being censored by the police, political correctness and/or a liberal bias in the news media. I just don’t see any evidence that that’s the case. There is absolutely no shortage of anti-Muslim sentiment in our public discourse. On the contrary, people espousing such sentiments have been allowed to inject their poison into the veins of most western body politics, clouding the judgement of policy-makers and an often ill-informed public, so that bearded men and veiled women and conservative Muslims are now widely perceived as ‘Islamists’, ‘radicals’ and/or ‘oppressed women’, and many in the west have been convinced that ‘sharia law’ is the devil incarnate, and ‘jihad’ some global plot hatched in the 7th century to kill all infidels. (Evidence here [http://bit.ly/ZdZQpa] and here [http://bit.ly/ZsVNI6].)

   So why do you say that people like you are being silenced when you clearly have a platform in the media, on the internet, on the street and in politics? It must be because, beyond the crowd in your own echo-chamber, you have no audience. Despite everything, not many people agree with views as extreme as yours, even though more and more agree with a diluted version of your views because of the platform given to anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media and online. 

   What’s more, most people probably dislike you rather instinctively. Starting a post with I’m-not-racist-but doesn’t help; nor does calling 2 billion people “naive”, or 12 million fellow citizens “enemies in our midst”. Maybe a bit of civility would do the trick, Dick? You may think you are being censored, but in reality you are just being ostracised by the majority who disagree with your weak arguments and/or your vicious rhetoric.

   All your claims rest on the assumption that you can extrapolate from the ‘Islam’ of criminals like Michael Adebolajo and Anjem Choudary to the faith(s) of billions of people living all over the world and throughout history. You assume that what hate preachers say and governments do under the banner of religion is the one and only interpretation of a kaleidoscopic and fluent faith and centuries of practice, law and scripture. Yet you only apply this twisted reasoning to Islam.

   If you applied your logic to Christianity, you would have to conclude that ‘Christians’ (i.e. everyone from 21st-century Quakers to 12th-century crusaders and Jesus himself) are and always were like Anders Breivik and Terry Jones; that they are and were and will always be evil because some (democratic!) majority-Christian countries have barbarous criminal justice systems (including the death penalty, extrajudicial assassinations and torture); that Christianity is inherently racist and homophobic and misogynistic because it was and is used by many of its followers to justify slavery and resist movements for equality to this day; and that many Christians want to remove the liberal democracy that is incompatible with their faith, and replace it with Biblical law.

   Those who really care about their faith, in my personal experience, care about all of it, especially the bits that ask them to do what they don’t want to do. Those who abuse religion to justify their crimes always seem to care about nothing but “an eye for an eye” and the randomly picked and decontextualised quotes that give them an excuse for what they want to do for reasons unrelated to religion. So what’s the point of lumping them all together and condemning the many for the actions of the few? Condemning all members of an arbitrarily and loosely defined group for the actions of some of its ‘members’ is either nonsensical or bigotted. But if you are going to engage in such generalisations, you will have to at least hold everyone to the same absurd standard, or people will put labels on you that you do not seem to want to carry. You can’t insist on your right to call something you think is a spade a spade but deny others the right to do the same.
2. Dick McJohnson May 26, 2013 at 2:01 am
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   I agree with ‘we speak openly about all kinds of human difference’, but the problem comes with defining ‘with civility’, because that is the point where certain groups will want to take offence at certain inconvenient truths, for instance that Islam is not a religion of peace and brotherly love.
3. Dick McJohnson May 26, 2013 at 1:58 am
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   I am against racism, and I have nothing against any religion other than Islam. I think people should be entitled to say what they believe about Islam and the very real actions caused by Islam. Many people have had enough of the politically correct discourse that Islam is a religion of peace, etc etc, but are afraid to say so because they would immediately be labelled Islamophobes. Due to our tolerance, the non-Muslim inhabitants of Western countries are allowing ourselves to be steamrollered by Muslims and their increasingly intrusive demands – sharia law, changes in our foreign policy, etc. It seems to me that they are enemies in our midst and not loyal citizens. Islam is simply incompatible with Western democracy, and I demand that anyone who wants to say that be able to do so, and feel no compulsion to be silent about this most pressing of issues.
4. Publicspaceshult June 2, 2012 at 3:18 pm
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   Some discussions about human difference cannot be civilly discussed; for example, racism should never be allowed.
5. Boris May 29, 2012 at 10:12 am
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   My opinion is that such kind of speech and expression of thoughts, jokes, etc. connected with immutable characteristics of people, shouldn’t be limited by law and society: it should be up to every person, what should he/she say and what shouldn’t. Up to his/her mind and conscience. Until it harms person.
6. Diosa May 22, 2012 at 6:27 pm
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   Freie Meinungsäußerung ist wichtig, solange der Redner dabei nicht die Recht e anderer Menschen beschneidet oder andere Lebewesen diskriminiert.
7. annemarie_detlef May 14, 2012 at 1:37 pm
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   A very interesting and controversial article posted by Janet Haney – Kenen Malik on multiculturalism. He suggests that we can either pledge equality of cultures or equality of people, but not both. Thanks Janet 🙂 !
   http://www.kenanmalik.com/lectures/multiculturalism_if.html
   • annemarie_detlef May 14, 2012 at 1:56 pm
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     *Kenan thus represents the Enlightened universalist extreme. Maybe we can use this as an angle here for future comments.
8. Elvin Aliyev May 12, 2012 at 4:27 pm
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   I disagree with most of the statements made in this article for one reason. All of the arguments made above are valid and work only if one assumes that a human is a rational and educated creature who will inform him or herself before making a decision or forming an opinion. That however is not true, and sadly enough many of us all fall under pressure by our envirnment and propaganda. These so called insults which one directs towards others under the excuse of freedom of speech are messages of hate. They in themselves want to hurt others and limit the freedom, human rights and the freedom of expression of a particular group. Therefore limiting the “freedom” in the “freedom of speech” is ironically an important part of achieving a more tolerant and civil society.
   Moreover, I completely disagree with the comment made about the Indian Penal Code. The history of the law is completely irrelevant. True, it might have been originally written for a different purpose but it doesn’t mean that it always has to be used just for that same purpose. If freedom of expression was once used as an excuse to limit the rights of colonized citizens, it does not mean that it now should be abolished because of its dirty history. In fact, as the author has stated it himself, there is huge room for interpretation in the issue of free speech, therefore this same law can be used in more noble ways.
9. annemarie_detlef March 6, 2012 at 2:07 pm
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   As a general principle I definitely agree that free speech should be a universal right. Contentwise, however, there should be restrictions.
   Considering the fact that communication occurs between two subjects, the sender and the recipient, both subject’s values matter in the process. The tricky part in the proposed principle therefore is ‘civility’.
   Civility itself restricts free speech. I think most people agree that the publication of the Muhammad cartoons were not an act of particular civility, because it offended the religious / moral values of the recipient group.
   How can we thus find the balance between the universal right to free speech and non-universal values of sender / recipients?
   • Janet Haney April 5, 2012 at 12:21 pm
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     Hello Annemarie. I saw the Danish Cartoons for the first time this week. They were not shown in UK when the furore first broke out, and I didn’t think about them much again until recently (it was the DV8 dance event – Can We Talk About This? – that brought them back to mind, something I saw in London a few weeks ago). I would be disappointed if ‘most people’ agree that their publication was ‘not an act of particular civility’. But I would not be surprised that people had been frightened into saying such a thing after the alarming response of the murderous threats at the time. Remember – the cartoonist was threatened with a violent death: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/danish-cartoonist-axe-attack
     • annemarie_detlef May 14, 2012 at 10:44 am
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       Hi Janet, apologies for my late response. I hadn’t seen on my account that you commented on my post.
       I just had an argument with a girl studying Human Rights at LSE. In summary, she clearly argued that if she was a cartoonist, she would never (!) publish something which would so obviously assault a certain group. Would you do so? Why do you think that this case was not ‘not an act of particular civility’?
10. manishmicrobe January 18, 2012 at 4:59 am
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    Excellent piece! I agree with almost all of the points made here.

    My only worry associated with this proposed “civil” and courteous free speech is the remarkable ability of the same spoken language to be simultaneously civil and uncivil to different audiences. Accounting for a gradient of such differences in perception, I wonder if the final test of civility in tricky situations will indeed be the lack of violence/ violent overtures. And if that is the case, it may as well be codified as such in law!