Iran to publish Holocaust cartoons

[dlinkwit27]

IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
"It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper - which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality.

He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.

"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.

Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.

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Mr Mortazavi said tomorrow's edition of the paper will invite cartoonists to enter the competition, with "private individuals" offering gold coins to the best 12 artists - the same number of cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry also invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Teheran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust, even though the idea has been branded by Mr Blair as "shocking, ridiculous, stupid".

Mr Blair also said Mr Ahmadinejad "should come and see the evidence of the Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe", to which Iran responded by saying it was willing to send a team of "independent investigators".

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117....html?from=rss

[Mr Jones]

Good, maybe we can start burning down their building in return......

/oh, wait.....

[ElChevelle]

A cartoon cold war.
/begins plans to produce civil defense movies educating the public on what to do when faced with paper armaggedon.

[Mr Jones]

Gold coins eh, I wonder if they accept freelance work ?

[Jay]

Hmm I am not sure what type of response they are expecting from the west? I certainly don't think it will be nearly as harsh as their response.

[MegaRock]

Iran - circa March 2006:


No better way to deal with terrorists and extremists than to do onto them as they want to (and do) onto others. We can call it American Jihad and just call for the elimination of the Iranian state and much like Iran thinks the Holocaust didn't happen we can think the prophet Mohammed and the Quran don't exist either.

[zootm]

Someone committed a murder in the US the other day.

No better way to deal with murderers.

Someone committed a rape in the UK fairly recently.

No better way to deal with rapists.

Someone in France voted for a far-right party in the last election.

No better way to deal with political extremists.

We can call it American Jihad and just call for the elimination of the Iranian state and much like Iran thinks the Holocaust didn't happen we can think the prophet Mohammed and the Quran don't exist either.

"Hey, some of them are being silly! That means we can too!"

GROW THE FUCK UP.

Edit (calmer clarification):
You're supposed to be a civilised society - act like one. The argument here is that your society is more mature than that of Iran, which is something I'd say I agreed with. If you're more mature, use your more mature ways of dealing with things. Suggestions like yours infuriate me because they imply a childhood playground squabble level of maturity.

[LuigiHann]

If we blew up their country, it would justify their desire to blow up ours. That's why we don't assassinate foreign leaders, or torture prisoners.
. . .

[YtseJam]

I must say that the recent news regarding Iran this past month really amuse me.
It seems that they go over the top to make the world "angry" at them.

Oh well. *shrugs hopelessly*

[rockouthippie]

Originally posted by LuigiHann
If we blew up their country, it would justify their desire to blow up ours. That's why we don't assassinate foreign leaders, or torture prisoners.
. . .

I thought that "not kill foreign leaders" thing was because Kennedy screwed up when he tried to get Castro.

I think it might be getting to be time for a nuke or two. Tell these assholes to shut up ... period.

It's been said that not all muslims are terrorists. I'd say... not directly. But there are a lot of people that hide them and give them quarter.

I think our foreign policy needs to be more demanding. I think we should tell Iran NO! to their nuke program. I think if we don't yell loud enough to convince them, that we should turn the volume up with a few hundred megatons.

Holocaust pictures are fine with me. My kin, while german and dutch americans, were on the other side in WWII.

I think the US has shown a great deal of restraint.

Trust me. You never want to let me get control of a nuke sub.

Kudafi learned to "shut the fuck up" after Reagan bombed the piss out of Libya. You'll notice when the UN said "nuclear program" to him. He said "Here it is, it was a bad idea, please don't kill me"

"Have a coke and a smile" or "Die an unburied radioactive death". This american doesn't care much.

I'd much rather invite Iranians over for chicken and potato salad on Sunday. But they want Jihad. And "The customer is always right".

[zootm]

Originally posted by rockouthippie
I think it might be getting to be time for a nuke or two. Tell these assholes to shut up ... period.

Obviously that's not justified.

Originally posted by rockouthippie
It's been said that not all muslims are terrorists. I'd say... not directly. But there are a lot of people that hide them and give them quarter.

And still it's not all.

Originally posted by rockouthippie
I think our foreign policy needs to be more demanding. I think we should tell Iran NO! to their nuke program. I think if we don't yell loud enough to convince them, that we should turn the volume up with a few hundred megatons.

Fortunately for you, your country has so far been attempting Sensible Diplomacy. I realise it looks less cool on Fox News, but it'll probably have better effects.

Originally posted by rockouthippie
Holocaust pictures are fine with me. My kin, while german and dutch americans, were on the other side in WWII.

Of course they are. But if a publication in Denmark had organised a competition for them just to rile up Jews, the situation would likely have unfolded differently.

Originally posted by rockouthippie
I think the US has shown a great deal of restraint.

Trust me. You never want to let me get control of a nuke sub.

You have made your complete lack of rationality or value in human life abundantly clear, yes.

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by zootm
Of course they are. But if a publication in Denmark had organised a competition for them just to rile up Jews, the situation would likely have unfolded differently.

... I don't understand what you're saying here. Do you think the Danish newspaper's article was meant to rile up muslims?

[Mattress]

yeah it kind of was.
The purpose was to test freedom of speech when it came into conflict with multiculturalism.

[zootm]

Originally posted by xzxzzx
... I don't understand what you're saying here. Do you think the Danish newspaper's article was meant to rile up muslims?

They printed a series of comics of the prophet to protest the fact that artists wouldn't draw the prophet because it would rile up Muslims. Although I realise it wasn't their (stated - and there is interesting debate about their honesty at present, although I'm personally inclined to believe them) primary goal, it was certainly a known effect.

I think they misjudged it, at least.

[Mattress]

I think the funniest thing about this little response is that the newspapers in Iran don't have a freedom of the press/speech/expression.

Another thing is, no one is going to give a shit about their dumb holocaust cartoons. I only hope it makes them wonder why we didn't go apeshit like they did.

[dlichterman]

Hey if they publish those cartoons, can us jews go over there and kill some turbanheads and bomb some buildings

[mikm]

Knock yourself out.

[dlinkwit27]

Originally posted by KXRM
Hmm I am not sure what type of response they are expecting from the west? I certainly don't think it will be nearly as harsh as their response.

The Aryan brotherhoods might submit some pieces.

[taylormemer]

This is just rediculous.

What is there left in this world that is good.

[Jay]

Originally posted by taylormemer
This is just rediculous.

What is there left in this world that is good.

plenty you just have to choose to not ignore the good things. Often time media portrays an image of the world that is negative because that is what gives them ratings. However, despite this I believe that the world has not changed for the worst or the better since the inception of mass media it is mass media that has changed our perspective of the world and there will alway be bad things happening in the world.

[LuigiHann]

We didn't start the fire. If you look at a lot of history and literature, every generation has the same problems, just in different forms.

[xzxzzx]

Originally posted by zootm
They printed a series of comics of the prophet to protest the fact that artists wouldn't draw the prophet because it would rile up Muslims. Although I realise it wasn't their (stated - and there is interesting debate about their honesty at present, although I'm personally inclined to believe them) primary goal, it was certainly a known effect.

I think they misjudged it, at least.

It seems to be like the paper was trying to show that the fear of muslim reaction was unfounded, and how therefore self-censorship was a bad thing. In that sense, yes, they severely misjudged (the fear of the artists seems fairly founded given this reaction), but stop trying to blame the paper.

The Danish culture values these kind of parody cartoons (in fact, there is something uniquely Danish to Danish parody cartoons). This is a [i]Danish[i] paper, written in Danish, for Danish people to read. Look for very long in Danmark, and you'll find these kind of parody cartoons about most things on the people's minds.

Even if the paper were trying to piss off muslims, boycotting Danish products, burning down their embassies, calling for apologies from the Danish government... are all completely rediculous, and stupid. As if Arla foods cares what the Jyllands-Post prints. What about all the countries which have reprinted the cartoons? Gonna start boycotting them, too?



(attached for posterity)

[xzxzzx]

Fuck.

I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments. I will remember to attach things in order to make them attachments.

[ElChevelle]

Screw that, I'd rather see it in your post.
EXCELLENT point made.

[zootm]

Originally posted by xzxzzx
It seems to be like the paper was trying to show that the fear of muslim reaction was unfounded, and how therefore self-censorship was a bad thing. In that sense, yes, they severely misjudged (the fear of the artists seems fairly founded given this reaction), but stop trying to blame the paper.

I'm not trying to blame the paper (and I'm pretty clumsy at explaining things, so it's probably understandable that you'd think that) for anything specific. I'm just trying to make it clear that there is a more complex system at work here than "free speech or not", in ways that are very difficult to understand for us in the western world.

Originally posted by xzxzzx
Even if the paper were trying to piss off muslims, boycotting Danish products, burning down their embassies, calling for apologies from the Danish government... are all completely ridiculous, and stupid. As if Arla foods cares what the Jyllands-Post prints. What about all the countries which have reprinted the cartoons? Gonna start boycotting them, too?

Well, obviously, you're right. It is a ridiculous reaction. But a lot of us don't understand why a strong reaction at all came of this. It's just not something we comprehend.

I posted a longer, possibly-clearer post about this in the GD thread (it was copied from my post at Pabook). I'm not trying to defend the actions of the extreme reactionists (they're not really defensible), and I'm not trying to attack free speech, or whatever. And yes, I understand that this is essentially a Danish matter.

I just feel that their lack of judgement isn't really proving anything to us that we didn't already know (fundamentalists value religion over free speech appears to be the lesson here), and there's been a lot of repercussions, predictable or not, from this.

I'm not being very clear here, I guess. Suffice to say that I don't disagree with anything in your post except for the cartoon at the bottom, and even then only because it's trying to simplify the argument to a level that might encourage some people to not think about the implications of all of this.

I don't think we're arguing about a hell of a lot in any case.