[Buddha-l] Buddhism and blasphemy

[Alex Wilding]

Lara Braitstein asked:
> Does the fact that Muslims who live in Denmark and
> suffer daily (as a group) from racism and ignorance,
> and live as a barely tolerated and totally
> disenfranchised minority, not figure into how you look
> at a deliberate transgression of Sunni Islamic norms?
I can of course only speak for myself, not those whose words you have not
liked, but the answer is clear: no, not a lot. Sunni Muslims may well want
to follow Sunni Islamic norms. They have, however, nothing to do with me. I
only think that they should be treated with the same respect as me. No less,
*and no more*. I expect them to be as grown up as I am.

I confess that I have not made a study of the way Muslims are treated in
Denmark. Are you telling us that it that much worse than in the UK?

I reserve the right to be humanly weak. I might even be cross, "offended"
even, to use one of the newly promoted words, by a cartoon or other
publication that mocks the Buddha or Buddhists like me. And? Then? So? If
the joke really hurts I might want to examine whether in the depths of my
heart I know that it is hitting a real flaw. But to call for violence and
murder as a response to questionable taste (or to deliberate insult, for
that matter) is somewhere I hope none of us would go.

Addressing someone else, Lara asks:
> Who are you to say that "it's a problem" that minority
> populations react to being humiliated?
It's not *the fact that* they react that I would see as a problem. If they
reacted like I imagine most of us on this list would, it would not be a
problem. I might well even feel sympathetic, and I might want to express my
feelings to the humiliator. It's two other things:
1) the fact that anyone is so immature as to imagine that those cartoons (I
have copies, by the way, if anyone wants them, but they are not imho all
that good) humiliate Muslims or Islam
2) the *way* they react to this supposed humiliation.
And yes, I believe that it is reasonable to feel that people who threaten to
kill me because someone of "my" culture has poked fun at them are a problem.
Damn right, it's a problem!

> And who is the
> Prophet of Islam to you, that any
> Muslim should care
> what you want him to be?
Nothing at all, of course - that is exactly the point. I am free not to care
a fig about someone long since deceased who is thought important by some
other religion. I can make up my own mind. If the Muslims concerned had been
mature enough not to care what other peoples' opinions of Mohammed are, we
would all be a lot more relaxed now.

> It's amazing to me how many people are happy to look
> only at the end result - rioting Muslims - and satisfy
> themselves that their prejudices have been confirmed
> and they need not reflect further.
I look forward very much to the day when the counter-examples dominate. The
day when the message thundering out of every mosque is one of peace,
tolerance, equality, forgiveness and liberty. If that is what Islam is about
- then let it be heard!
Alex W