Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jonathan Turley: The "Free World" bars free speech
For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.
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"Even countries that the United States has helped liberate have joined the assault on free speech..." hhmmm... (Afghanistan)
ReplyDeleteSee article about "Pirates," no doubt "free speech," or "freedom of the press."
ReplyDeleteHERE IS THE FUTURE
ReplyDeleteThis article is lame, pathetic really. I wonder, isn't there anything smarter and more balanced than this crap to post?
ReplyDeleteIts interesting that this is an article of free speech in the Arab world, but the writer did not notice that for the first time now the U.S.A. is allowing photographs to be taken of the dead American soldiers coffins arriving in the U.S.A. maybe the U.S.A. is using some type of "emergency" law which they used that excuse not to allow those pictures to be published before... not sure what the justification is. But the author is saying that the West is "forced" to censor because they dont want the Muslims to be upset about the paintings and cartoons that depict Mohammad as a terrorist. Well did they censor pictures of the dead soldiers in the U.S.A because they were afraid that Muslims would riot?
ReplyDeleteYa Molly, please know that I am not attacking you for posting this. I am just attacking the hypocricies of the person that wrote this...
Let me say however, no matter what I think of this article, I do appreciate Turley's defense of Sami Al-Arian.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, lets equate not allowing photographs of dead soldiers with the executions of poor guys who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of Islam. Is this the best you can come up with? The policy HAS been challenged all along and guess what? Nobody who wrote about it or criticized it ended up in prison or executed. Such silliness. Btw, Professor Turley has also criticized the policy. And the policy has changed and it is now up to the family of the dead soldier whether or not the press can be present.
ReplyDeleteInstead of being defensive, one would think you would be worrying about the ordinary Muslims who have to fear for their lives or risk imprisonment just for expressing or publishing an unorthodox opinion.
Unbelievable.
Anonymous, what exactly do you disagree with in the article?
ReplyDeletevza:
ReplyDeleteActually, one may find it quite obvious why Saif would find censorship about a war conducted in his region a higher priority than the right of people to insult to the dominant religion in his region. Once the killing and occupation stops, then other items on the agenda will be more important.
On the other hand, one may wonder why a dedicated feminist like yourself would be so concerned about the attire of women half a world away while you have nothing to say about sexism in your own country.
Joe:
ReplyDeleteOne may wonder why you have not figured out it is not that I have nothing to say on the topic, I just have nothing to say to you on the topic.
As I said yesterday, you are not interested in discussing a topic in good faith.
vza:
ReplyDeleteJust because you don't know how to respond to me does not mean I am discussing the topic in bad faith. I actually provided you with an opportunity to show that your interest in women's issues was not limited to regions thousands of miles from where you live about people who are less interested in your fashion sense and more interested in having your government stop killing people, supporting dictators, and flooding their region with weapons.
...but getting back to your criticism of Saif not mentioning cartoons that insult Islam, which came completely out of left field: If the United States was occupied by a foreign army, that would be main concern and other issues, such as the right of dissidents to burn the American flag or the right of nudists to bare their bodies in public, would take a back seat. But I know what your main concern would be: the fact that Muslim women wear the hijab.
ReplyDelete"Even countries that the United States has helped liberate have joined the assault on free speech, rejecting the core values of our First Amendment."
ReplyDeletedo i need to comment further? if this isn't arrogant and mendacious crap, then what?
Molly
ReplyDeleteVAA, I like your picture, what is it?
-----------
I didn't take that picture.It's from spaceimage.com Stellar Ripple-Cartwheel Galaxy
http://www.spaceimages.com/stricagaph.html
Joe,
ReplyDeleteDon't anger the wingnuts.
:)
This episode nonetheless remains important, and transcends Jordan.
ReplyDeleteBut a Hussein experiment of 20 years ago is jostling its way back onto the political agendas of the Arab world and wider Middle East: the attempt to marry Islam and democracy. This is the single biggest challenge facing a region mired in despotism and failure, where US and western collusion with local strongmen has created an Arab Exception – leaving the Arabs marooned in tyranny as waves of democracy broke over eastern Europe and Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and south-east Asia. There is no other part of the world – not even China – where the west operates with such little regard for the human and political rights of local citizens. The west’s morbid fear of political Islam has served to deny Arabs democracy in case they support Islamists, just as during the cold war many Latin Americans, Asians and Africans had to endure western-endorsed dictators lest they supported communists. Unless the Arab countries and the broader Middle East can find a way out of this pit of autocracy, their people – more than half of them under 25 – will be condemned to bleak lives of despair, humiliation and rage. Western support for autocracy and indulgence of corruption in this region, far from securing stability, breeds extremism and, in extremis, failed states. It will, of course, be primarily up to the citizens of these countries to claw their way out of that pit. But the least they can expect from the west is not to keep stamping on their fingers.
So what was it King Hussein did? In 1989, the king risked an experiment in “guided democracy”. The main beneficiaries were Islamists, grouped mostly in the Jordanian chapter of the pan-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen). With 34 out of 80 assembly seats, the Islamists were the largest, and the only ideologically cohesive, bloc. In 1990-91, the king brought four Muslim Brothers into the cabinet. In private conversation four years later, he even foresaw the day when Jordan would have an Islamist prime minister, “and they and the people will see what government is about and who can do it”. But, first, he bound their leadership into a constitutional consensus. This set out the rules of managed democracy. Crucially, it also established Islam as but one fount of political legitimacy, alongside the parallel claims of Jordanian patriotism, Arab nationalism, and universal values. This Jordanian National Charter (al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Urduni) remains one of the most suggestive political documents to have emerged in the modern Arab world. It bucked the trend in the region.
The minute the Brothers began to develop an agenda independently from the Palace, however, King Hussein changed the rules, enacting new electoral laws to guarantee majorities in parliament of Bedouin loyalists and tribal grandees. As the peace Jordan signed with Israel in 1994 grew ever more unpopular, moreover, so the king rolled back his democratic reforms, limiting change to largely meaningless changes of government (he ran through 56 prime ministers in 46 years).
I think that women who are worried about other wearing a hijab should wear one themselves in the States fora a few weeks. Than they will find out why what they are worrying about is not as significant as the ignorance they experience.
ReplyDelete"Oh yes, lets equate not allowing photographs of dead soldiers with the executions of poor guys who dare to challenge the orthodoxy of Islam."
ReplyDeleteI'm not defending executing people who challenge what the conservatives in our region think Islam should be.
I am pointing out some thing that was omitted in this article. So the basic person reading this assumes that there was never any reason why the U.S. chose to censor the news.
Your government hid all those bodies of dead American soldiers for more malicious reasons in the U.S.A. so that citizens in this country will not begin to question the war or why there children were being killed in Iraq.
I think its pretty outrageous that during a war based on big lies that no photographers got any pictures of those coffins of American soldiers that got killed because of Big Lies.
Nobody got a picture and nobody went to jail trying.
And are you calling me defensive? I guess I am not supposed to read what is printed in your newspapers and think to hard, I guess thats how someone is supposed to read the news in the U.S. to just read and accept and not think about it and point out flaws in judgement or analysis. And you are a teacher?
"Is this the best you can come up with? The policy HAS been challenged all along and guess what? Nobody who wrote about it or criticized it ended up in prison or executed."
And how many people got a picture? I dont remember reading much in the mainstream media about that issue. Maybe the newspapers I read at the time of the Iraq war didnt care because they certainly did not write about it.
Why in the world are you so defensive any time someone criticises your country but you are the first to accuse every other person of being defensive?
I am very defensive when Americans like you for example tell me how sad and alarmed they are to see a Muslimah wearing prayer clothing or hijab. I wonder if people like you can even understand that there are people different than you around the world.... and can you imagine, women different than you who are Happy. So yes, I am defensive about alot of the stupidity that I see you write here and for most of the time I attempt to ignore you Because I actually have manners and dont want to insult women in the same way I talk to the garbage men that leave there ignorant comments here.
You are also defensive, very defensive about the U.S. you make small allowances for me and others to sometimes complain about the U.S. because you know I have alot to complain about since your country is funding the destruction of my culture and my people. But god forbids that Joe write something critical of the country that he lives in to, you have to challenge every thing that he says. That means you are defensive too.
Hypocrite.
"I think that women who are worried about other wearing a hijab should wear one themselves in the States fora a few weeks. Than they will find out why what they are worrying about is not as significant as the ignorance they experience."
ReplyDeleteOr maybe if they are white people they can just paint there faces white and see what it is like to be black and try to get a job in this economy compared to a white person. I forgot Obama solved racism.
Yeah Saif, Obama is supposed to be "race neutral." Quite frankly Obama does not give a shit about his own people, he just happens to be black - sort of. He even surrounded himself with people who did not give a shit about black people, who think that all they experience is "their own fault" (to summarize).
ReplyDeleteI mean, Obama never said a thing about the black people who haunt the prison system in his own region (Ill.), to the tune of ten to one. Everyone is just supposed to adore him (Obama), and try to be like him - a servant of white power, this must be what they mean.
If you want an example of what Obama portrayed in his campaign, for black people, you just have to listen to one of his top campaigners -
THEY NEED TO PULL UP THEIR PANTS
Go about 3:30 into the interview, that is Obama's plan for black people - ZERO
Obama cares about black people, like Mubarak cares about Egyptians, etc.
"Obama cares about black people, like Mubarak cares about Egyptians, etc."
ReplyDeleteLOL! Great comment V!
Yes, we are all defensive.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are little things called facts. So to keep to the narrow context of the ARTICLE ( Not your real or imagined problems with me).... Who claimed there has never been censorship in the United States, Saif? Please show me WHERE Professor Turley made THAT claim! He DID NOT. But it is a fact that in the West, there IS greater freedom of speech than in the Middle East. Can you dispute that with FACTS? You cannot.
So what should Professor Turley have written about? His article was a warning about the erosion of free speech.
As far as Joe is concerned, he challenges everything I write , too. So what? Evidently, because you like what HE writes, that's okay with you. But because you do not like what I write, there is a problem with me challenging Joe. I ask you, is that logical?
I'm sorry, I do not deal with people and their arguments in that way. I may disagree with you today but I am not going to disagree with you out of retaliation for something you said yesterday or last month.
Both you and Joe have made it personal. In that case, discussion is impossible.
Joe said:
ReplyDelete"...but getting back to your criticism of Saif not mentioning cartoons that insult Islam, which came completely out of left field:"
Ah, Just WHERE did I write that?
Let's argue about what I actually wrote not what you like to think I wrote.
Well vza, I hate to break the news to you, there is not only censorship, but bold faced lies and half-truths. Like, the "liberation" of Afghanistan. Here is the problem you have in a nutshell vza -
ReplyDeleteTHE TRUTH
LOL
Well, I am sure you are right, v but that was not Professor Turley's point.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think when he wrote this:
"Even countries that the United States has helped liberate have joined the assault on free speech, rejecting the core values of our First Amendment."
Don't you think there was just a teeny, tiny tinge of sarcasm in that statement..knowing the positions Turley has taken?
It is subject to interpretation vza. However, the fact of the matter is, that you just have another set of rules in the US where censorship is exercised (and other countries rather than the subject of the articles "reflection"). You have systemic censorship in the US, rather than overt censorship - a code of self-censorship in employed in the areas of national exposure.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the sensitivity in most of this part of the world is produced by vulnerability - that is, they are questionable regimes/kingdoms, etc. They fear the slightest infraction. That is what happens when you have puppet dictatorships, and it is not helped by the support of the West. Or, they are threatened by hostile forces, fabricated insurgencies by the enemy (wonder who that is?). The pressure alone causes this great fear - when if they were left alone, the people would be able to naturally arise to change the course.
So you see vza, granted there is internal reasons apart from any external influence that causes these actions - but it is inflamed by the above. Pointing it out by the countries that cause the problems, just looks like further propaganda to unseat whatever rulers, and is used as an excuse to crack down. Time to rethink your views.
vza:
ReplyDeleteI make it personal? Now that is funny after you constantly take little digs at me(i.e.: Joe just likes to needle people)when I make a point you don't want to address. I would be interested in knowing where I insulted you as a person. I admit I challenge things you say here, such as your only comment about a picture of young Palestinian women finding a moment of tranquility during a brutal occupation is that you don't care for their attire.
When you make judgmental comments about Mideast culture, I ask you if you have such strong opinions about our cultural norms here in the United States and you say I am not arguing in good faith. That was a serious question because there are all sorts of restrictions about our expression, attire, lifestyle, etc. that are enforced by social pressure and the force of law.
I also found it incredibly insensitive that when Saif said that the people of the United States aren't getting the full story about our involvement in his region-an involvement that has caused him great personal hardship-you make an irrelevant judgmental comment that he didn't say anything about religious discourse where he comes from. Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions of people live under dictatorships and occupation because of United States meddling in the Mideast, and to me that is a much more urgent issue than how Moslems are dealing with the same issues we are dealing with here...and in case you haven't noticed, we haven't learned how to deal with them yet.
And by the way, since you are concerned about religious orthodoxy in the Mideast, the most religiously repressive government in the region is Saudi Arabia, a regime whose very existence is made possible by the presence of the United States military. What does that tell you about our government's "good faith" in spreading religious freedom?
Well you two men have outstanding patience to describe things to her in such a polite fashion. I dont have so much patience.
ReplyDeleteSaif said...
ReplyDeleteWell you two men have outstanding patience to describe things to her in such a polite fashion. I dont have so much patience.
April 12, 2009 10:33 PM
I guess it is because I have had a lot of practice with these discussions in real life. The only difference is that in real life, even if people disagree with me they recognize that I am speaking from my heart when I talk about death, oppression and injustice. I'm not used to being told that I enjoy needling people or that I am not "arguing in good faith".
You are right Joe, and you can never have "antiseptic" arguments in the face of such tragedy. Suffice it to say, that these "excuses" for not addressing the subject at hand are just common ploys for not wanting to face reality, and for having no valid answers.
ReplyDeleteV:
ReplyDeleteWhat really gets me is when people think they are knowledgeable on a subject, and they know less than nothing because all they know are lies. About a week ago I had a little debate with a neighbor of mine about Israel. He said he studied the situation, and among the tidbits of information he shared was that the Arabs started every war with Israel and that Palestinians are constantly provoking Israel with no cause. When I refuted all of his claims and he could tell I knew more than him, he fell back on the idea that no matter what happened in the past, Gaza could be a successful resort if the Palestinians would just surrender...as if the Palestinians would be content to be busboys and cocktail waitresses serving the very people who have been killing them. After that, I could not take it anymore and said I didn't feel like debating. I don't know, maybe I should have but it seemed hopeless.
Yeah Joe, you know in America everyone is an expert.
ReplyDeleteDidn't see that part, anon. You're right, that is retarded, didn't think Turley would write something like that.
ReplyDeleteI'll be the first one to admit I am no even close to being an expert. However, as Joe correctly points out, you just need to look at the US support for dictatorships in the region (add Mubarak to that list, among others), and at the very bare minimum you must call into question US stated intentions in the region and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteWHAT IS THE MATRIX?
ReplyDelete