^ I like that. Now get a gambar and listen up boy. Now Bashir's long exhortation misses a crucial point here. You would think that he would address the fact that Muslims are in a catch 22. If they do what he would like them to do which is turn the other cheek and have the right-wing hate groups have free ride and propogate their agenda then these parties will get enough political capital to win majority in their respective countries. What would happen if media drives home the image that Islam is not compatible with democracy and it is evil religion huh? I don't have enough time now but I don't see the case he is advancing here as far as the facts on the European grounds are concerned. There is real effort in some corners to villify Islam and the minoroties there don't have the platform to counter that charge. Fascism and anti-immigrant bias is in the rise in Europe and the right-wing Danes is in line with this feelings. Now Bashir narrative on how Islam is tolerant and how it thrives when reasoning is the name of the game is right on the money. He is also right on the current state of the ummah: its bacwardness and what not. He is also right that Muslims need to bring themselves at the mirror and take hard look at themselves. All these points are great. However the man misses the mark when it comes what this cartoon controversy is all about and its significance. The worst thing that can happen to Muslims is when neocons of European flavor seize power. And what does he d...he goes on and on and on about different but related issues about Muslims shortcomings. Give ne break! How come hee ignores the double standards exercised by western media when it comes to the all things Islamic. He ignores the fact that Muslims suffered so much at the hands of Western powers. The ideal reaction he would like to see from his fellow Muslims is something akin to that of enslaved Blacks and that of poor American natives. As I said the man is a talented and prolific writer but his thinking is deeply flawed = at least on this issue. Excuse the rambling...time dear time is too short.

^ Reasonoow xaal qaado. I like Bashir's other essay better. What was the title...singing into vacuum or something along these lines. Oh! my...that was one of the best article ever posted on these boards. He just nailed that one. It was about Somali language and how the youth are losing it. Bashir is talented and prolific writer. He is also a troubled man with flawed thinking. Case in point is this article. He comes across as an apologist. As apologists do, Bashir downplays the significance of the Danes’ plunder and exaggerates the negative reaction of the offended party. All I see in this essay is a man who is trying very hard in order to exonerate right-wing Danes and their European buddies from any wrong doing. Not only he excuses their blunder but he also asks the offended party to turn the other cheek for more smacking. That’s the Islamic way - he seems to be saying! They are free people, he reminds the readers, and have every right to do whatever they want in their backyard. The man is brilliant and he knows such exhortation don’t go down very well with nomads. So he flips the good Book and finds couple of verses that might support his selective perception. Largely through omission, he accomplishes that insulting the prophet is acceptable! Bravo! I loved the part where he glorifies Islam and its approach as far as appealing to the intellect of its adversaries is concerned. He is right on the money there. But look where he went from there. In no time he immediately uses the word Islam and Muslims interchangeably. He invokes repulsive and regrettable events such as beheadings, embassy burnings, senseless riots, and nine eleven among others carried out by few deviant nutcases and attributes to the Muslims (all guilty by association). The negative presentation of Muslim behavior is punctuated with exaggerated positive attributes of the West: welfare system, liberty, freedom of speech, and their generosity. The only agreeable point he made is how Muslims need a reality check. Likewise, I say, the right-wing provocateurs agenda must not be taken lightly. There is strong undercurrent to these hateful manifestations such as the one exhibited by right-wing Danes. And if left unchecked (how to prevent them from implementing their fascist agenda is open for discussion) those of us who live in the West will be exposed to their rage. Bashir misses this point. He goes miles and miles in order to downplay this potentially explosive confrontation between Muslim minorities and the Western right-wing hate groups.

BOB, Wlc back sxb. Tell us where you've been please. Bliss Qooqaani or Garisa kuleel badan, which one? You have been missed awoowe.

The case for mocking religion. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006, at 4:31 PM ET As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate. "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief." Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people. However, the illiterate McCormack is right in unintentionally comparing racist libels to religious faith. Many people have pointed out that the Arab and Muslim press is replete with anti-Jewish caricature, often of the most lurid and hateful kind. In one way the comparison is hopelessly inexact. These foul items mostly appear in countries where the state decides what is published or broadcast. However, when Muslims republish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or perpetuate the story of Jewish blood-sacrifice at Passover, they are recycling the fantasies of the Russian Orthodox Christian secret police (in the first instance) and of centuries of Roman Catholic and Lutheran propaganda (in the second). And, when an Israeli politician refers to Palestinians as snakes or pigs or monkeys, it is near to a certainty that he will be a rabbi (most usually Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the disgraceful Shas party) and will cite Talmudic authority for his racism. For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows. Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more. You can be sure that the relevant European newspapers have also printed their share of cartoons making fun of nuns and popes and messianic Israeli settlers, and taunting child-raping priests. There was a time when this would not have been possible. But those taboos have been broken. Which is what taboos are for. Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death. I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." ( By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species. As it happens, the cartoons themselves are not very brilliant, or very mordant, either. But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. … In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege. Of course there are many millions of Muslims who do worry about this, and another reason for condemning the ****** at Foggy Bottom is their assumption, dangerous in many ways, that the first lynch mob on the scene is actually the genuine voice of the people. There's an insult to Islam, if you like. The question of "offensiveness" is easy to decide. First: Suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves in order to avoid offending the believers? How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it "pixilated" the very cartoons that its viewers needed to see. And this ignoble fear in Atlanta, Ga., arose because of an illustration in a small Scandinavian newspaper of which nobody had ever heard before! Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt. Second (and important enough to be insisted upon): Can the discussion be carried on without the threat of violence, or the automatic resort to it? When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he did so in the hope of forwarding a discussion that was already opening in the Muslim world, between extreme Quranic literalists and those who hoped that the text could be interpreted. We know what his own reward was, and we sometimes forget that the fatwa was directed not just against him but against "all those involved in its publication," which led to the murder of the book's Japanese translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher. I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.) The same point holds for international relations: There can be no negotiation under duress or under the threat of blackmail and assassination. And civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight. Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War. Source

On Chris Hitchens' case for mocking Christopher Hitchens, a right wing and neocon journalist, as you may know is a wacko nutcase. I know this because I’ve watched him making rounds through cable news outlets as a pundit talking head making the case for the invasion of Iraq on “preemptive†grounds. He was very simplistic in his analysis. One can sum up Mr. Hitchens support for the Iraq war to one sentence: Islamic “fascism†must be stopped on its tracks NOW or else “we†will find it very difficult to contain it later. He is blunt and to the point. He pretty much believes that Islam is an evil and backward ideology which he says is a threat to Western values. Although his anti-Islamic bias is unmistakable, the man has a way with words. He is eloquent and even persuasive at times. Here he tries very hard to make the case for mocking religion. He found yet another opportunity to bash Islam. This time is about cartoons. Just to be credible he pretends that he has a problem with religion in general. As you will notice in his piece, however, he reserves his best punches for Muslims. There is no much substance in this write up even though some folks may find him to be right on the money. But upon close scrutiny he fails to explain why being polite, civil, courteous, and respectful of other believe systems should be threat to the freedom of expression. He got good punch lines al right but substance wise I don’t see the case for mockery. Aight let’s cut to the chase and dissect the case for mocking other belief systems. For instance, he says that it is okay with him if Muslims abstain from eating pork and what not but he has a problem when “they†try to require him to abstain from eating pork. The analogy is that he can understand that if Muslims don’t do certain things such as producing sacred figures in a human form but he feels threatened when they force their belief system onto him and expect him to do the same. On the surface this assertion looks very reasonable to any reader. Mr. Hitchens has a case there if what he is saying is true. But is it true? Is this what this controversy is all about? Are Muslims “requiring†others, forcefully, to adopt their belief system or are they merely asking the right-inclined editors to stop trashing their dearly held religious figures? No. All Muslims asked Danes is to not denigrate, degrade, and demonize the prophet of Islam. How this request or demand if you will is submitted is another case. Let’s first deal with how asking the editors to be respectful and courteous is a threat to the much hyped freedom of expression. The premise that Mr. Hitchens is advancing is that if Danes oblige to this request they will let the genie out of the bottle. Once that happens, he says, it will be hard to get it back in. In other words, be courteous to the group sensibilities for the sake of the common good and peaceful coexistence and you forsake much more important right: the right to mock, degrade, and insult group of citizens in a public way!! I don’t know about you but this doesn’t make much sense to me. It seems to me that the proponents of the right to mock and offend campaign lump the freedom of press to comment, investigate, reveal, and inform the public about what their government is doing as well as the freedom to express thought and ideas with the right to libel. What is missing in Mr. Hitchens tirade is what happens when oppressed minorities who don’t have a platform to explain and defend their values and interests are mocked and degraded in very public way. What happens when you corner a cat into little box huh? Is it not a human nature to protest against ill treatments and discrimination? How one protest is a matter of how strong one feels about the grievance. Protest is also a function of strength and matter of options one has under the circumstance. Americans dumped tea at Boston harbour in protest against British taxation. And later opted violence and went to a bloody war over the issue. Recently Chinese protested very strongly about Japanese decision to revise their History curriculum. Last I checked Japan was a sovereign state! Let’s not be naïve here. Muslims had it enough and they don’t expect things to change soon nor they feel that their governments are doing enough to assert their place in the world affairs. So they just vent their anger through protest and demonstrations and sometimes violent reactions such as embassy burning. Human nature through and through to me. Of course Mr. Hitchens has no interest in objective journalism. He has already made up his mind. Islam is an evil ideology to him. Every new event will be looked through these lenses. The right of mocking religion he is now so eager to defend is one reserved for Islam. Below (next post) is the Hitchens article which appeared on the online magazine Slate.

Good for him and Somalis. I'm so proud of him. We will have a voice and the kids will see the chance to get that far...if he can do it so can i sort of mentality. That's good.

Conspiracy To Undermine Islam, Is there One? Yes. Islam is a religion with over one billion followers around the world. Geopolitically they sit a valuable resources of energy and as the need of energy security rises so are the temptations to control these necessary resources. Ideologically, Islam presents an alternative way of life and in most cases it rejects the Occidental political, economical, and social framework. As the Muslim reawakening continues the powers that be feel threatened and will try to insure that their hegemonic hold on the rest of the world does not slip through their fingers. Now in the cold war era the two dinousors wrestled in the diplomatic circles and they undermined each other in the regional battlegrounds. Conspiracy and the war of ideas through institutional and media levels was a fair game. The same is true today. The only thing that changed is the enemy. Reds are not coming anymore. In fact they are devising ways and means to have mutual relations with their former nemesis. Terrorists are coming instead. For some strange reason media refers the terrorist as Islamic whereas the IRA, Tamils, and other violent groups are referred by name. Guess why? Not to see these factual world events that staring us in the face is a sign of confused mind. All nations have interest and they will try to fulfill their so called national security by any means necessary. Within this context, conspiracy is old and fair game. Good to see you back bro Nur. Keep them coming - the original write ups that is. You seem to recycle the old ones...Time is not your side I understand but still SOL needs that angle, prespective and what not of things ya know. Same here little time.

That's the way to go. Abraar go do your civic duty and do it in a peaceful manner. Hopefully Checkmate, Tuujiye, MMA, and the whole SOL Toronto gang will show up without ulo iyo dhagaxyo Politicians are watching how we react. Large numbers of potential voters can tip the ballance of power at the local level.

Here is a quick response. I’m not impressed nor persuaded by Matt’s rather radical view of what constitutes free speech. Yes. Matt seems to believe that “courtesy†and “respect†for other belief systems are but a meaningless buzzwords used only by those who espouse faith-based world view (thin-skinned, supersensitive groups). Very interesting! But that’s Matt’s opinion. Muslims, and I’m using the word loosely , see things very differently. Matt seems to think that mockery and offensive slurs needlessly thrown around is a healthy (and therefore effective) way to engage with those who reject his atheistic ideology. Others on the other hand think that there is a limit on how far Matt can go in his offensive barrage when it comes to religion. Matt can of course refute the validity of a particular religion (all religion beliefs) all he wants. There is a room after all for an intellectual discourse on the subject. And if he got what it takes he will get his match. However, I suspect that Matt is not interested in that and he rather counts more on his position and the tested truth about the power of media to shape public opinion than to engage any meaningful discussion, devoid of childish low blows of course, on Islam and what it stands for. This reminds me the plight of blacks in the face of determined racist whites. Deep South racist whites and their KKK gangs once fought, with all their resources, for the right to denigrate and offend blacks right after when federal government granted blacks limited freedoms. Courts looked the other way. The end result of that effort was the infamous Jim Crow policy. All this happened under purview of democratic polity. By the way Jim Crow started, in part, as a caricature that depicted blacks as subhuman, intelligently inferior, dirty, and shabbily dressed rural people. Matt knows quiet well that the offensive exchange he has in mind works in his favor. Depicting Prophet Mohamed the way Danes did is not the true picture of the Mohamed we know. They deliberately made that up the same way Jim Crow caricature was made up. It is a complete lie - the Occidental way. The old adage ‘if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough people will believe it’ always works. Now Matt and many other like-minded folks think that they have a license to libel! Muslims (again I'm using it very loosely) in Europe and elsewhere apparently don’t think they do and they are not too docile to put up with their deliberate offences. There! you have a conflict. The law moderates these types of societal differences. The law, however, doesn’t accommodate the sensibilities of all groups. New arrivals have to do some work before the laws of the land reflect their interest and values. As often is the case those who find themselves at the receiving end of these racists, fascists, and anti-immigrant put downs respond with protests. Sometimes these protests take the form of well thought and organized civil disobedience like MLK Jr. civil rights movement. Still there will be agitators and reactionaries like Malcolm X who had demanded the impossible - quick change of the status quo. The bottom line is the protests and demonstrations serve as an agent for change. What’s wrong if “we†challenge Matt’s interpretation of the intent of the freedom of expression? He will shout at the top of his lungs that we are thin-skinned sissies that don’t understand the value of free speech. He is damn right for I find little value of what Danes published. But we do understand the real value of the freedom of speech very well and we do appreciate it and testimony to that is our presence in the West in large numbers. However, we draw the line somewhere…

There is no such thing as an absolute freedom of anything. As one famous lawyer once put it, and I’m paraphrasing him, my right to swing my arm at your face stops right at your nose. He was equating physical violence to incitement to hatred implying that speech can sometimes be a form of action. And this is the heart of the issue: is speech a form of action? The problem here is not so much as to whether freedom of expression is a necessary right for a healthy debate and unfettered expression of ideas. NO this debate is not about that! At issue is whether degrading and demonizing the religion of identifiable groups adds any value to the healthy debate of ideas. Should stability and security of the polity take precedence over free press? Another issue is the standard in which the law itself should conform to in its making. Should justice be dependent on the strength of the community and its lobbying power or should the interest of all groups be taken into account in the legislative deliberations? Demanding respect and an understanding of religious issues is not tantamount to shooting our selves in the foot. The idea that if we are successful in bringing down the Danish provocateurs on their knees we will somehow have to live with diminished freedom for it will effect us in our dealings in the Masajids is misleading argument. First this type of argument assumes that violence is inherent theme in Islam. Secondly it ignores the right to worship clause in the constitution. Finally as Muslims living in alien lands we have to exploit all the laws in the books that protect our interest and values as community. If need be we oughtta be lobbying to enact more laws that protect our interest and values. The goal is to pave the way for our kids to live in harmony with the rest of society without compromising their religion. Depicting kheyru qalqiLah this way is not something we can watch and standby. We shouldn't sit back and hold our breath. We can discuss ways and means to prevent them publishing such demonizing and degrading depictions in the future but we should never defend the rights of provocateurs to do so.

-------------------------------------- Cartoons: Freedom to Abuse 2/4/2006 - Political - Article Ref: IV0602-2897 Number of comments: 64 Opinion Summary: Agree:37 Disagree:12 Neutral:13 Ignored:2 By: Haroon Siddiqui Iviews* - The protracted, still-raging controversy over a Danish newspaper's caricature of the Prophet Muhammad is a case study of the West's troubled relations with Muslims. It features the easy cliches of the age - freedom of speech vs. Islamic intolerance, and open democratic debate vs. politically correct cravenness. But what it has actually exposed is the European media's tendency to exploit anti-immigrant, particularly anti-Muslim, bigotry, as well as the Danes' readiness to bow to the gods of commerce. The story begins last fall when an author complained he could not get an artist to illustrate a children's book about Muhammad's life, given Islam's prohibition against depicting the Prophet, lest it lead to idolatry. Jyllands-Posten, the conservative mass circulation daily, asked 40 illustrators to defy the ban. On Sept. 30, it published a dozen of their drawings. One depicted the Prophet as a bearded terrorist, with bulging eyes and a bomb-shaped turban with a burning fuse. Another had him wielding a sword. Another showed him as a crazed, knife-wielding Bedouin. Another placed him at the gates of Heaven telling suicide bombers: "Stop. Stop. We have run out of virgins!'' The first to complain were Danish Muslims. They were ignored. Muslim ambassadors to Denmark asked to meet the prime minister. Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused. Flemming Rose, the paper's cultural editor, said he had commissioned the cartoons to break the self-censorship he felt had descended on Europe since the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim (since convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment). Editor Carsten Juste said he saw no reason to apologize. Prime Minister Rasmussen walked a fine line, denouncing "any expression that attempts to demonize groups on the basis of religion or ethnic background," but adding that "freedom of speech is not negotiable.'' As protests spread worldwide, Editor Juste struck a disingenuous note. "We are sorry if Muslims have been offended." On Jan. 10, the cartoons were reprinted in Norway in an evangelical Christian newspaper. Protests continued. The Arab League and the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference issued formal condemnations. Last week, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark. Libya closed its embassy. A grassroots consumer boycott of Danish and Norwegian products spread from Saudi Arabia across the Arabian Gulf. Arla Foods - the Danish dairy, which sells about $421 million (U.S.) a year in that region - said sales had come to a "standstill." Other Danish firms also reported lost sales and cancelled business meetings. In Copenhagen, the Confederation of Danish Industries accused Jyllands-Posten of jeopardizing $1 billion of annual sales to the Middle East. Editor Juste went back to being defiant. The paper "cannot and will not" apologize. "If we were to, we'd be letting down generations who have fought for freedom of speech. Do we have to give up this right to protect Danish export interests?" Meanwhile, in Iraq (where Denmark has 530 troops), thousands protested. In the West Bank, Danish flags were burnt. A militant Fatah group demanded that all Danes and Swedes leave the region, apparently confusing Sweden for Norway. Sweden, Norway and Denmark urged their citizens to avoid travel to the Middle East. By Monday evening, Jyllands-Posten had caved. "The drawings are not against the Danish law but have indisputably offended many Muslims, for which we shall apologize." Yesterday, a newspaper in France and another in Germany published the cartoons, citing freedom of the press. But the issue goes well beyond the old debate over whether freedom of expression has limits. It does in countries like Canada, which have anti-hate laws. But regardless of the presence or absence of legislated limits, every society has its own notions of what is acceptable and what is not. We can be certain that the editors publishing the Muhammad caricatures would not smear their pages with anti-Semitic graffiti. Or commission drawings maligning the Pope, by depicting him, say, in compromising sexual positions. And had the editors opted to be that offensive, we can be equally certain that not too many people would have been rushing to their defense. It is this double standard that's at the heart of the repeated conflicts between the West and the world of Islam over how far anti-Islamic provocateurs can go in baiting Muslims, repeatedly, knowing full well the depth of Muslim feelings about their most cherished beliefs. Invoking freedom of speech or the need to puncture political correctness are no more than smokescreens to hide that larger, and uglier, truth. The Danes have neither defended freedom of speech well nor upheld another sacred secular principle, mutual respect between peoples of all faiths. In balancing these two competing rights in this troubled world at this time, thinking people and responsible public institutions should err on the side of advancing mutual understanding, not fanning more conflicts. Haroon Siddiqui is the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus. hsiddiq@thestar.ca ------------------------ Source

Been guurka xaa waaye. Haddii uu gabay idin haayo bal car dood-wadaag inta tagtaan afaray tuur tuura. Hadde waxan iri car!!

Why such hand-wringing over a few cartoons? The key is in the images themselves: Muhammad with turbaned bomb, Muhammad declaring that paradise had run out of virgins for suicide bombers, Muhammad with sword and veiled women. Muhammad in every Orientalist caricature. Muhammad as a symbol for Islam and Muslims. These are the stereotypes that, as Muslims, we face daily. The looks on the tube, the suspicion, the eyes on the bags we carry. There is no denying the feeling of being pushed against a wall, of drowning in the stereotypes that abound. This is no way to live, and it is certainly no springboard for making a major contribution to the society you live in. The messages to my inbox of resignation, of fear, come with good reason. Some countries that have reprinted the images - Spain, France, Italy and Germany - have a nasty history of fascism. Just last week we had Holocaust memorial day. The Holocaust did not occur overnight. It took time to establish a people as subhuman, and cartoons played their part. Does Europe not remember its past and the Nazi propaganda of Der Stürmer? Now the great shape-shifter of fascism seems to have taken on the clothes of "freedom of speech". If these cartoons were designed to provoke Muslim fundamentalists, maybe they have done more to reveal the prejudices of Europe. Europe has a history of turning on its minorities. Will that be its future too? There it is. Sarah is right on the money.

Awoowe Xiin issagaa culimo innagala jooga kolka Nur maqan yahay. See wax u jiraan xabad-sowdada miyaad dhib kula kulantay? Awoowe sow taan ku iri igu akhri. Maad igu akhrisid war iyo wacaal waxaad haysa

^Very well put Castro. My understanding is that deliberate use of hate speech is a criminal offence. There is an understanding, in the US system, that the force of speech can be a form of action that effects and can harm people. In this view government is justified to sanction the harmful effects of speech through courts. That doesn’t mean that authorities can restrict speech or regulate the content of speech. What it means is that they can employ the laws that are already in the books to protect identifiable groups from discrimination which is the end result of hate speeches. The use of laws through libel and slander can and do sanction the harmful effects of speech. Defamation, degradation, and incitement to hatred against minority groups through free speech do more than express ideas, rather this offence often results murder and promotes intolerance. Government has compelling interest in sanctioning words/cartoons and other expressions of speech deemed to express hatred or contempt toward identifiable groups such as Muslims. In Islamic view speech is regulated by the divine Qurán and the teachings of the prophet. The understanding is that macruuf is the desirable speech whereas all other forms of speech that don’t fall under macruuf is simply munkar. This should be the standard in the Muslim countries. Now west and Islamic polities are different in many ways. They have different world outlook. A Westerner in Islamic country is expected to abide the rules of that country and vice versa. Muslims who are under the domain of secular authority where freedom of expression is absolute should understand that odds are stacked against them and only contest the provocation of others when the laws warrant such action. Muslims who are under the domain of secular authority where freedom of speech is sanctioned such as US should use UCLA and Anti-Defamation league as well to safeguard their interests and values and get protection from criminal offences such as hate speeches. Ciao

Ngonge and akhyaarta what you make of the existence of anti-defamation league in the US and their role vs. free speech. How about legal checks as far as libel, slander, and other offences are concerned. I don't have time but someone plz weigh this discussion from that angle, if you would. Ciao

^Qoraneey hadaad haysaa. Abraar, you see every time I wanna address some SOL character with A initials your name comes out and before I know it I'm penning cyber posts addressing you . Don't know why?...what was the song...words come out wrong...ever heard that song sis? Well Abaadir became Abraar. Bal tab dheh baayo My boy JB right on awoowe. I'm counting on you if and when I made it to your crib. I get an aunt and bunch of cousins (born and raised in Sweden) and I want to visit them. I also want to go to London and Oslo and here is the catcher I only got two weeks...will see how it goes. Alla ya cizak awoowe. Laakiin awoowe I'm not interested in down town Reyjkavik and what hotties it offers all I'm interested in is hal qudbo-sira ah oo aan winterka uga baxo. Remember Xiin's dangerous xabd-sowda...that get me spinning buddy Take care awoowe. MMA my widaay waan ku slaamay. Sxb I wanna see my old buddy inna Sheekh Muqtaar in person. Don't tip him off. Just get me the contact info. Domani...and ciao

Marwo Aamina sadiiqa wlc back abaayo. Under dog i see this differently. Your wife should know how big your wallet is. In fact she should be in charge of the budget (my opinion). Take it from me as I'm an expert on this. Here is the trick. 1)Get a joint account with her. 2)Hand her the checkbook. Share your ambitions, plans, etc. 3)Have her keep her paycheck. 4)Have her handle the monthly bills. 5)Make sure you monitor the expenses on your own cuz you don't wanna your credit worthiness to take a nose dive. And 6)If she blows it make sure you blame her on the fact that you have to abandon your plan A because of lack of money. Trust me most of the them want their family to get ahead and become very successful. Do that and you will see her become, slowly but surely, stingy. I don't have time now but one other important thing is not to control Directly what she can and cannot spend on your money. Inaad wax ka qarsanaysid markay tuhmaan ama ay kugu tuhmaan bilcaan kale waa marka ay ugu daran thay. Focus on the plans and ambitions you have and make sure she damn knows it. Gotta run now. Again money = power use it wisely. If your current asset is in red ink...you get a problem...big problem.

^^Warkaa ma la hubaa qorraneey Ma laga. I meant ma laga (it not you) dhergaa. Blame af-Somaliga! mee MMA...awoowe bal na bar sida loo kala sooco labadan eray ee qallanjadu isku qalladay. I'm at work right now and in few minutes will head to my residence. I'm busy when I'm at work. When I get to my room is when the boredom hits hard. TV sucks here. Keyboardkii baa shido iga heysataa...they kinda rearrenged some of the keys to make room for the native characters. Will come back same time domani (at the end of the work day). Ciao Kooleey, I have yet to eat the lamb testicales. war baanse ka keeni doonaa. Macaan iyo qaraar Icelandic are the most friendly people I have ever met...baarisanaa Waan sii caraabayaa ee waa idin kaa qallanjooyin.

Money = power. With it comes with independence, influence, and power. Awoowe ninkii helaa maarma. Maansha ninkii ku hees lacageey. Lacageey, Raga kala labeeysaay, Haween lahashadeedaay, Liitaha gadhgaadhaay, Lurkeedii habeenadan, Hurda ladiba waayee. Qofku waa inuu maarmaa oo uu deen iyo berya ka koraa qofkii soo mutana uu hagaajin karaa. Financial freedom is the way to go buddy.

^ Easy now camaleey. Horta ma laga dhergaa is the question?

Abraar FYI Hakarl is a fermented shark. Now imagine that! It’s very weird food I can tell ya that! Johnny the SOL stud do you know any Somalis in Iceland? If you do, pm me please. I’m looking for bilcaan aan qudbo siraysto in my short stay here in Iceland. The cold is unbearable and qandac is in order . Nah! It is 4 to 6 Celsius. On a serious note, I’m heading to your neck of the wood in a few months time (probably mid May). If you live in Stockholm and have spare time we can sip earl grey together ala maryooleey style…what say you my boy JB? Akhyaarta time is not my side and I don’t have the luxury of chit chatting with you anymore. And when I do have time to spare I have hard time getting reliable wi-fi signal (we do have one in our residence but it hardly works…signal is excellent yet it doesn’t work as it should). With no reliable internet access the place is so boring…not to mention the fact that I forgot to bring books to read with me. Legend, we have several Aussies colleagues transferred from Brisbane working on this project. What an accent!! Athena, kujecli, I love you too . Xiin faniin awoowe it is all good. Castro, how have you been? Shax shax I hope. Bishaaro haaheeyo…yac rabshada baayo. Stoic bro, are you done with schooling yet or you are about to? Checkmate sxb igu akhri. Ducaysane iyo Farax cagaar awoowayaal khayr iyo khayraad oo dee belo ma jidho haday jidhana ma buudhna . Keyboard layout is different!!!!

Hakarl which is basically kaluun la qurmiyay is what the locals serve to their guests (new arrivals). It's the local delicacy and you gotta fake it. Ah this is the acquired taste. The other thing I noticed is that folks take their shoes off before they enter in the buildings *shoppings, banks, etc. Oh! pretty women too... To perform salad prayer is very difficult too...7 hours of day time...and you would never see the face of the sun only its rays (winter). I gotta run. Sida kale shax shax

^That's very kind of you young stud I will be the first one to attend your tutoring sessions awoowe. Let me know when CTS start offering Programming 101 class.

Originally posted by Castro: ^ Indeed you ramble old man. First paragraph: all the ills and solutions you offered, though legitimate, are family based. No community involvement necessary or waranted. I didn't offer any solutions. But if you insist... Young stud the comunnity has its role to play. Community is the collective whole of the individual families. When community plays its role wonderful things do happen. Community agents organize sporting events, tutor centers, after school programs, and what not. You should consider to get involved Castro. I know (actually guessing ) you are a responsible father who takes care of his young guns but you should consider helping other kids who are not lucky enough to have father figures in their homes. One day of couching or acting as a referee is one day away from gansgta swamp. Awoowe, whatever happen your socialist's idealogy yaa Fidel wannabee? Second paragraph: indeed the elite, rich and the educated of Somalia made it to the west. The cross-section of which you speak is in refugee camps in countries sharing a border with Somalia. Really? I was under the impression that Somalis from all walks df life made it to the west. Of course, the fact that elites and educated made up small percentage of Somalis is not lost on anyone. That's why the preferred occupation of the majority of Somalis is menial jobs such as assemblers, budgers, janitors, cab drivers, and what not. Amigo what you got in the states (I can't speak for other localities) is a cross-section of Somali society. Third paragraph: there's absolutely no excuse to spend decades here and have no decent language skills, no matter how old the person is. To claim the kids run the household because of parents' language difficulties is wrong. The parents (no matter what they speak) could, and should, keep their flock in check. Remember Allah's advice and warning about custodianship and how each one is responsible for those in their custody, atheer? I know you'll come back with less rambling next time. Waryee waxaagu naacna ka badan . Look no one is claiming or has claimed parents speaking through their kids' tongue is right!!! I'm just pointing out the existence of such cases. As to parents however old should master English language, that would be the desirable end I agree. However, illetracy, old age, pressure from the needy (often loved ones) take their tall on the said parents. Having said all of that, your point on individual accountability and responsibility is well taken. There it is...my biggest ramble ever