Westergaard to speak at Yale
Perhaps the widespread criticism of Yale’s decision to publish The Cartoons that Shook the World has stung the university and the Press into face-saving action. News is filtering through that Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist responsible for the iconic Turbomb cartoon of Mohammed, has been invited to speak at on the campus on October 1st (next week).
Which is nice. But what happened to Yale’s self-declared fear of stoking Muslim violence?
Why are we so afraid to challenge Islam? No religions should be above criticism. The primary “beliefs” of all religions are “facts” based on sand. It’s now the 21st century. For some reason though it’s perfectly acceptable to point out that thunder and lightning are not the result of Zeus or Thor throwing down shafts of lightning, but not to criticise openly an vociferously the fact that some Middle Eastern guy was once a warlord, married extremely young girls by western standards and created a mythical religion based on “the one true god” who created the world approximately 8000 years ago with whole man created from Adam and Eve. All religion have ridiculous, illogical rules, rituals and rites and we should point this out as being the farce that it is. Bowing to Mecca so many times a day, relying on the moon to dictate what goes on your life and all the other anachronistic mumbo-jumbo of Islam should be left where it belongs in the dark ages and treated fully with the scorn it deserves. That this religion (and other religions) obviously spawns violence is seemingly overlooked in the west’s political correctness of acceptance no matter what. It’s seriously time to consign all religions to history. The world will be a better place if it realises we only have one life and we should be doing our best to make it a life worth living for all, no matter what creed, society, or dare I say it, religion?
I couldn’t have put it better Aphanes. I am now outraged at all this stupid furore over the fact that a senile, homophobic, misogynistic, manipulative charlatan, who represents one of the most backward and repressive of these belief systems is to be accorded the privilege of a STATE VISIT to Britain next year. Has the world gone mad?
“Why are we so afraid to challenge Islam?”
I keep hearing this phrase, yet I hear Islam challenged all the time! What we could do with more of is informed criticism. All too often criticism of Islamic extremism shifts into anti-immigrant sentiment. This was notable in the case of Geert Wilders whose criticism of Islam was criticised by the Council of Ex-Muslims because it did not distinguish between those who endorsed political Islam and those who had fled to the west to escape it.
Westergard seems to have a much better sentiment. It’s sad that his cartoon is now the most infamous precisely because it was the most striking and powerful. It’s also sad that it has now become a rallying point for both extremists and racists. There’s a rather cool interview with him here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dW-W6UkLhA