• usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Islam is an incredibly broad religion with numerous internal disagreements with it if this was a debate taking place in an Islamic country I wouldn't have such a strong position. But in the west I feel the western cultural context demands consideration and the western cultural context for depiction of Mohammed is hateful

    And Muslims object to themselves eating pork not pork being eaten whereas they object to Mohammed being depicted rather than them being shown the depictions. so it's an entirely different kettle of fish

    • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      western cultural context for depiction of Mohammed is hateful

      I don't think general trends in a cultural context are absolute, or that one should never even try to go against that trend respectfully. Just because this is often the case in the West and the course is in the West, it shouldn't be impossible to handle this subject respectfully. It seems anti-intellectual and counterproductive to say education should not depict controversial imagery just because their context is generally offensive. Should a course about race and racism not show severely racist imagery, because their cultural context is otherwise extremely offensive? There are legitimate reasons to use offensive things respectfully as part of education. Why should cultural context (or literal geographical location) restrict that?

      And Muslims object to themselves eating pork not pork being eaten whereas they object to Mohammed being depicted rather than them being shown the depictions. so it’s an entirely different kettle of fish

      Fair enough, but you did make the comparison to begin with. I just followed through on it because it did not make sense to me.

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        severely racist imagry being shown to discuss it's meaning is essential to dissection of racist beliefs. The concept of iconography can be adequately explained using non Islamic iconography

        also while looking up this article I found extensive coverage of the story from explicitly and extremely islamophobic sources which I feel vindicates my position that the cultural context this took place in is hateful

        • Shoegazer [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Hamline’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email that said respect for the Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.” At a town hall, an invited Muslim speaker compared showing the images to teaching that Hitler was good.

          “When you say ‘trust Muslims on Islamophobia,’” Dr. Berkson asked, “what does one do when the Islamic community itself is divided on an issue? Because there are many Muslim scholars and experts and art historians who do not believe that this was Islamophobic.”

          Mr. Hussein responded that there were marginal and extremist voices on any issue. “You can teach a whole class about why Hitler was good,” Mr. Hussein said.

          When you say Muslims who think art of Muhammad isn't an issue are equivalent to the man who committed genocide, you lose all credibility

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            I don't think taking a ridiculous statement from on person making an argument that is ridiculous because it is hyperbolic is a good counter argument to the point being made

            • Shoegazer [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              But he was invited to represent the students, and he seems to think he represents most Muslims as well. The "cultural context" is that a person showed a painting during history class and another person believes it's no different than being a Nazi.

        • HauntedBySpectacle [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I found extensive coverage of the story from explicitly and extremely islamophobic sources which I feel vindicates my position that the cultural context this took place in is hateful

          That's unfortunate and unsurprising that they would report on this like that. But that doesn't logically follow that the event is Islamophobic from that. The context of a bigoted media publication is different from a classroom.