Muhammad Cartoons @ Your Library

Kelly says:

What Would it Take to be “Hateful”?
The library director at this place seems to be ethically challenged or some kind of fool if he said that, as the article states, “The Library Director said the cartoons contained were not hateful or demeaning.” I know some pretty stupid people, and even they would see plainly that such cartoons are indeed hateful and demeaning. If Zenon Zuzak does not think the images of Muhammed are not hateful, I wonder what Zuzak would deem as hateful?

Kelly says:

Re:What Would it Take to be “Hateful”?
I’m ok about exhibiting them so long as derogatory cartoons about highly revered religious figures from other religions are shown. If you wish to abuse a religion, you can’t focus on only one – all must be fair game and immune from being, as you say, “protected.” This will, of course, never happen, as the library director, in this instance, who did this is not stupid, which means he could only be doing this on behalf of a conscious personal agenda based on religious prejudice. Or another way to put it: had he admitted that the cartoons were offensive but he was obliged to exhibit them on free speech grounds and was willing to show equally offensive images against other religions on simlar grounds, and did so – such would be the only other motive. Since he did not do that, it’s obvious he has a prejudiced agenda. But of course, I’m sort of joking with my solution, as allowing equal opportunity for expression of religious prejudice is all absurd. Not all information is “unprotected,” e.g., yelling fire in a crowded theater when ther isn’t one is a typical example. Religious and other forms of intolerance seem to have significantly, even radically ramped up in the last few years, and librarians should not be so stupid as to stimulate and fuel hatred and fanaticism and rage that has emerged from that ramping up, thereby heaping more scorn on an institution – libraries – that is suffering more than enough trouble trying to survive due to other reasons than covertly religiously bigoted directors who hide under the banner of “free speech.” That a library director chose to join his colleagues in the newspaper industry to help fuel religious hatred bodes ill to the future of various institutions in this world, and not only libraries. BTW, I am pleased you brought this article to our attention, and please continue to post such articles at LISnews.

Kelly says:

Re:What Would it Take to be “Hateful”?
Your response seems to demote or glom everybody to the same level: Jesus, Demi, Charles Manson, Ghandi – they’re all on the same level to you. Demi Moore in the nude or Mad magazine are not going to provoke riots and murder. Messing with revered religious figures and symbols is risky and potential fatal business for victims and perpetrators. Not that I like it, but that’s reality. Any librarian with a smidgeon of common sense is going to stay away from screwing with religious figures based on what in the end amounts to phony abstract principles, because they’re applied in an inconsistent manner, especially when the revered religious figures are, as in this case, revered by a billion people. One wonders how tranquil and non-overreacting you and others would be if some dumb librarian posted exhibits of hateful images of Martin Luther King or Jesus or Moses.

Kelly says:

Re:What Would it Take to be “Hateful”?
See my resposne to fang-fang after this, as I think replies also to your post. One thing I’d add to that post: this reaction to the cartoons should be seen, I think, as a “last straw” symbolic response to abuses happening to Muslims in various parts of the globe, e.g., the recent French riots, the abuses against apartheidized Palestinian, the Iraqi and Afghani wars, and so on. They are not just reacting against mere cartoons, but against western-originated oppression occurring to their populations in many places. The anger this provoked and some of the violence at least, was not all from jihadi and fundy wackos but also from ordinary Muslims who have suffered and had enough of western abuses and humiliation. The really bad news is not that the riots occurred, but rather they signal a willingness of the non-extreme elements of the Muslim population to increasingly sign up and sympathize with the radical fundamentalist factions of the religion. Cynical observers of this phenomenon will say that of course, that’s what the western political elites want. Why they’d want it is a whole other story.