2016, when Islamic terrorism was still the big bad and western media was praising France for their anti-terror re-education program. this shit sounds a lot creepier than vocational training, too. nothing from Adrian Zenz about France though, curious!
What kind of molly coddling nonsense is this. YES there is a reason to insult their traditions, of course there is. And it is precisely BECAUSE it offends. It is important in a free society to be able to challenge ideas about what is held as unchallangeable. And the deification and idolatry of Muhammad by Muslims is one of those ideas that are open to challenge, and the individual hurt feelings of Muslims surrounding that fact is of no more importance than the screeches of Christians when Piss Christ is exhibited or when Life Of Brian was released. Especially because the importance of challenging the sacrosanct nature of Muhammad is highlighted whenever it is done. Kurt Westergaard may be a dick, but he's a dick whose family lives in fear and whose grandchildren are hunted in their own homes by literal axe wielding psychopaths.
And I don't know whether it is appropriate to teach kids in middle school about transgressive art and the nature of blasphemy, but I sure as shit know that the punishment for badly planning a curriculum shouldn't be fucking murder.
Edit:
None of the muslim kids in attendance were in danger because their teacher showed them a work of blasphemy. The only one sticking their neck out is the one exhibiting the work, and it is very disingenous to imply that the teacher is endangering his students. Further, the idea of offensive material is best expressed with something that is actually offensive.
Perhaps I've expressed myself unclearly, because you're mostly talking past me.
I've stated outright that blasphemy and offensive art are a fundamental right. Of course murder is wrong, including in this case. I'm juxtaposing Islamic fundamentalism with free speech fundamentalism because I see that as the ideological source of the conflict here, but obviously a violent fundamentalism is worse than a non-violent one.
That's not what I was saying. The cartoons had gotten violent reactions before - and he went ahead and showed them to school kids. Parents are protective of their kids more so than they are of themselves. He was the one in the most danger, obviously.
Good, you don't know, because that's precisely the question I'm raising. How would you feel if your kid's teacher brought in racist New York Post cartoons, while you yourself feel oppressed by the same racism every day? The parent in the French case called for the teacher to be fired - an overreaction, but the animus behind it I think is understandable. You're an oppressed minority, and your school decides to insult your identity to your kids on top of it.
But that's all the parent did - get angry. Then a fundamentalist shit-for-brains youth heard about the story and snapped. If such fundamentalists didn't exist, then you could insult people's identities to their children all day long. But they do - they're part of the same world system, where France helped screw up the Middle East, armed militias in Libya, Syria, and Mali in recent years, and then benefited from the cheap labor of resulting migrants/refugees.
This sentence in particular sounds like free speech fundamentalism to me - insulting people for the sake of insulting people. When you do so against people who're already downtrodden, you're preparing grounds either for increased violence against them or for them to lash out with violence at you.
When it comes to dismantling oppressive, backward traditions - insults can be a healthy part of that. But I see zero utility in attacking an image or idea that someone considers holy. Again, you should have the right to do so. But if you bring your insults to someone's home, to someone's child - then you're just an asshole backing someone into a corner because you believe in insults with the same fervor that they believe in their religion.