Kindly remove the exhibition
It’s not forbidden to think…except of course when it is.
The exhibition Det er ikke forbudt å tenke (“It’s not forbidden to think”) is a series of 12 graphic images the artist, Ahmed Mashhouri, picked out the most controversial quotes from the Quran…”These laws perhaps fit better in the old days, but today they just seem inhuman. I hope that my works will be a wake-up for my dear coreligionists,” he says. Mashhouri and his wife worked for human rights in Iran. They sought asylum in Norway and now live in Skien…”In discussions people love to hear that such thing aren’t found in the Quran. We want to show that they actually do,” says Mashhouri. On December 9th, the exhibit was assembled at the Telemark library in Ulefoss, but not many hours had passed before there was a racket and two or three Muslim women attacked his images. Afterward he was contacted by the library and asked to remove the exhibition. “I was disappointed, because I thought I was came to a country with freedom,” says Mashhouri.
Think again. Some things are halal and other things are haram and that’s all there is to it. The mature thing is to accept this and get on with your life.
I followed the link and hit another one reminding me of how important it is never to let one’s status as a victim lapse.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25208451-5013404,00.html
In any case, let us not forget that before the Muslim women attacked Mashhouri’s images, the images had attacked them.
Perhaps, but I am immaturely giggling at images of three burka-clad women attacking an exhibit of selections from their holy book. I thank the gods for my warped humour-sense.
Heh, yes, I had already put that article in News, Stewart. Officer, officer, they vandalized my door!
Whoops, you’re right, of course. The problem is that news items demonstrating the corruption etc. of religious leaders come too thick and fast to keep track of them properly. What’s most important, though, is our commitment not to let any amount of these stories sway our certainty in religion as a guarantor of moral values.
I know, I know – that site where I got both pieces has great piles of them, all good. I had to ration myself.
Having been over there last week, I might be able to add a little background: there’s currently a big debate going on about ‘radical Islam’ in Norway, ranging from whether it exists to “kick out the immigrants” (the delightful “Progress Party”, who are the sort of folk who wouldn’t exactly have been “Heroes of Telemark”, if you get my drift…?).
They’re currently having their very own version of the “hijab argument” – hijab-wearing police?
Then there was a really stupid new blasphemy law proposed that got dropped through massive unpopularity, thankfully..
In truth, this ‘art attack’ is a very rare sort of thing in the country (which has troops in Afghanistan), but there do seem to be votes to be had – Norway Post.
And it doesn’t help when folk like Shoaib Sultan, General Secretary of the Islamic Council of Norway, answer the following question thusly:
– Is there any reason to believe that the Muslim minority wants to limit the freedom of expression of the majority?
“of course not.”
(shoeless) foot heading mouthwards…?
Ooh, thanks, Andy; I’d forgotten that you were an information source on Norway. A Norwegian reader told me about the blasphemy law and then its demise; excellent having two sources.
This made me think of the discussion about Baggini, actually: one way in which appeals to the atheist identity (whether harsh or mild or respectful) shortchange the arguments for secularism is that they don’t show how secularism is crucial to protecting the rights of religious dissidents, like Mashhouri.
Because why should his feelings as a Muslim be given any less weight than his more conservative or more ostrich-like brethren?
Protecting the feelings of the religious always amounts to protecting the feelings of the most powerful and most narrow-minded and hateful amongst them at the expense of everyone else.