I do not know where or when I defend violent anti-speech hate riots. I don’t even know what an “anti-speech riot” is, because aren’t riots a form of speech (no matter how much one disagrees with using violence?) As Sourav Guha pointed out in a Wespeak partially in response to yours, “Western political discourse does not, in and of itself, constitute a global conversation at all.” I completely agree with Guha’s statement, which points to your ethnocentric call for the supremacy of “Western political discourse.” Who gave you the authority to decide the “price of admission to the global conversation?”
Do not accuse me of lying when you have not done the research to back up your arguments. The cartoon I was referring to of Jesus is not the recent one with Jesus and Muhammad in a police line-up in the same cartoon. This cartoon was submitted by Christoffer Zieler in April of 2003 and dealt with the resurrection of Christ. He received an email back from the paper’s Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: “I don’t think Jyllands-Posten’s readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them” (MediaGuardian, Feb. 6, 2006, http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1703500,00.html).
Please do not put words in my mouth. I never said that the “violent anti-speech hate rioters have a point.” Your line, “Indeed, you consider those cartoons and defending those rioters more important than genocide and slavery in the Sudan, than honor-killings, than suicide bombings,” is completely absurd. Are you seriously accusing me of attributing more importance to those cartoons than genocide, honor-killings and suicide bombings? I recently went to Israel with Jewish students from Wesleyan in order to discuss things like suicide bombing and terrorism and gain a better understanding of the politics of the region.. Can we please act like adults and not hurl accusations at one another, especially ones as outrageous as that? As for the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, one of the conditions agreed upon was that there was to be peace between the Muslims and the Quraysh for ten years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hudaybiyah). Only when the Quraysh broke the treaty did Muhammad conquer Makkah and return home with his followers who were persecuted since the inception of Islam.
On a related note, in the previous Wespeak Mr. Elberg accused me of lying. I proved that I did not lie and that in fact he was mistaken about the cartoons I was referring to. Are there procedures from Argus editors to validate accusations, especially ones made to attack the credibility of previous writers? I think this is a serious issue, and I would like a response please. Thank you.
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