The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:30 am
Call the police! Begin an inquiry! A cartoon has appeared, and the BBC is rocked:
Extremists have been blamed after a cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was put up in a housing office in Oldham.
Extremists? Plural? It took more than one of these “extremists” to stick a cartoon on a noticeboard or wherever? How big was it?
The cartoon, which has sparked protests from Muslims worldwide since it was published in a Danish newspaper last year, appeared at First Choice Homes.
Managers acted quickly to remove it and have begun an inquiry.
Again with the plural. Exactly how many managers were involved? Were their actions approved by the First Choice Homes Cartoon Review Committee, and the Oldham Noticeboard Squad?
First Choice Homes – which runs the town’s council housing – said the matter had been reported to police.
Well, of course. Something like this, who knows where it could lead? Next the extremists will be subjecting offices to Andy Capp or Bristow.
Steve Yorke, its Director of Management and Operations, said many staff had been offended by the cartoon.
If only the Cartoon Review Committee had acted with greater speed. It’s awful that so many staff witnessed the cartoon before sufficient managers were rounded up to do something about it, but I guess it’s always best to proceed cautiously when dealing with … a cartoon.
Greater Manchester Police said they were treating the incident “extremely seriously” and were worried the incident could affect “community cohesion”.
It’s a wonder the streets aren’t already awash with blood. I mean, a cartoon and all.
(Via Deo)
- They need to put Gene Hunt on the case…Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 02 25 at 11:21 PM • permalink
- Please tell me this is satire.
Fercryingoutloud.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 02 25 at 11:30 PM • permalink
- Thank Amaterasu that it wasn’t a picture of The Prophet AND Porky Pig…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 25 at 11:33 PM • permalink
- I’m amazed that they didn’t call out the Army….Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 02 25 at 11:56 PM • permalink
- #3 – one would hope so but sadly it isn’t. I count 2 “race” and 2 “racial’ in the article. It’s been said many times before and I’m not a geneticist, but surely Islam isn’t a race. The race relations industry has developed and institutionalised a distinctive vernacular over a number of years and unfortunately the MSM and public officials have committed them to memory. Hence any perceived slight on anyone at all (except those in Western democracies) is routinely described as “racial vilification” etc regardless of whether an actual race is the subject.
However, I do agree with the CEO of Olham Council when he asserts we should be “..constantly aware of the need for vigilance against groups who would wish to exploit controversy for their own ends.” But he probably doesn’t view it in the same context as I do.
As PC Plod mounts his bicycle and speeds to First Choice Homes HQ waving his truncheon and shouting, “‘Ello, ‘Ello, ‘Ello, I’ll have nowt racial villification cartoons on my patch lads”, the real crims in Manchester must be chortling into their pints of bitter.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 02 26 at 12:27 AM • permalink
- “They were upset and angry but it’s our job to demonstrate to all staff that we will not tolerate offensive literature, we will not tolerate posters of this kind which are designed to divide our staff and set staff against each other in whatever way shape or form,” he said.
A group hug has been scheduled for the office staff. Followed by meditation, and a viewing of the UN short film “Kofi’s Words of Wisdom About World Peace” subtitle:Can’t we all just get along?).
- I’ve seen the future, its in Manchester and its not pretty…Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 02 26 at 01:59 AM • permalink
- And they still don’t know, apparently, that the Bomb-Turbaned Head bore a close resemblance to the aggressive Danish imam who provoked the deadly riots, in many countries many months afterwards.
It was not even th face of Mohammed, but of one of his nastiest followers.Obviously you can’t criticise either of them in England today.
- TB missed a plural. The cartoon “was put up in … Oldham’s offices”. (Caption of first photo). So much more serious than pinning it up in the office after Friday night drinks.
And of course the cartoon has “provoked protests around the world”. (Second photo).
So attacking embassies, forcing out diplomatic staff, arson, murder, illegal trade sanctions, terrorist threats and racial, religious and cultural vilification are now “protests” in BBC-Speak.
And the office kid who picked up a silly inoffensive cartoon intended to mock Islamist terrorism on the internet and thought it would be a hoot to pin it on a notice board has become “right wing extremists”.
And the local head cop is “taking this very seriously indeed”. He appears to have no doubt that this act is against the law. Nor does he or “the managers” or the BBC have any doubt about motives. Nor can there be any doubt about what will happen to the suddenly jobless, probably unemployable (who’d take the risk?) criminally charged perpetrator once he owns up.
And all of this is happening in the UK.
This is bloody scary. BLOODY scary.
- The legislation put in place by Jacko Strawman after the MacPherson “I See No Freemasons” Report put a statutory obligation on public bodies to prove their “anti-racist credentials” in annual reports to the Home Office.
If they do not pursue a complaint on issues of “homophobia”, “Race” etc the police can be charged as being “secondary accessories after the fact.”
This is how New Labour created its Thought Police by punishing insufficient zeal as being tantamount to being an accessory.
That is why the Thought Police swoop to meet the targets set by the Political Commissar in Petty France
The Police are stuck with being part of a centralised police system in a unitary state. In Germany it was one of the first acts of The Austrian in 1933 – to bring the police forces under direct control of Berlin, later they were integrated into the RHSA under Himmler and Heydrich controlling Gestapo, SD, Schupos, and Kripos.
In time MI5’s executive arm Special Branch will become the coordinating centre of all British policing and liaise directly with Europol.
Patterns of Communist Revolution by Hugh Seton-Watson – always get control of the Interior Ministry and the Police.
- Greater Manchester Police said they were treating the incident “extremely seriously’’
Derrida argues, in _The Archeology of the Frivolous : Reading Condillac_ that the serious is just one genre of the frivolous, rather than an equal alternative, or even a superior one. I think this is usually correct.
That being serious is just another way of being frivolous is seen in this case.
My suspicion is that actual seriousness is retrospective, and you never know at the time that you were being serious. Someone who claims to know is being frivolous
- Start greasing the dole cheques with pig-fat.Posted by Susan Norton on 2006 02 26 at 11:16 AM • permalink
- Does this have anything to do with the Unitary Executive? I’d be very suspicious.Posted by Peter Boston on 2006 02 26 at 11:46 AM • permalink
- All of this politically correct Muslim ass kissing will be the death of the West. The precedence has been set. It will be embassy and Christian church burnings, riots of maniacal multitudes, and threats of death for any perceived offense. And who is the judge of the offense line? The Taliban was founded with this type of ideology.
- Well if such a thing as a cartoon can lead to riots, murder, and arson the police are right to treat it as a serious matter. So are the execs of the office (an office supervising rental of welfare housing I gather). My complaint would be that the police are directing their attention at the wrong perps. Pulling down an unauthorized posting from a company bulletin board is within the powers of the company execs though.
As far as the police go they should be making plain to the Muslims in the town who might be offended by a picture satirizing the propensity of Muslims to commit terrorism that they will not be allowed to get away with any violence there. Make plain to them:
1. It’s a frikkin cartoon fer crying out loud.
2. People who riot, murder, commit arson or other crimes over trivial matters will be dealt with harshly. This means you Mohammed.
3. If it offends you to live in a country where there is free speech, if your fragile egos and self-love are so bloated that they cannot bear any small offense or satire, you can solve that problem by immigrating to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, where you will find comfort in the absence of freedom. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.
4. Ere the Queen’s crown go down there are crowns to be broke. That means your crown Mohammed. No violence over being offended.I do not find the thought of Humpty-Derridumpty impressive. Somebody whose efforts are concentrated on making words seem to be the same as their opposites by nonsensical wordplay is not worth reading or (dare I say it) taking seriously. Seriousness is not frivolity,nor is freedom slavery, a phrase which could come out of the same mindset as Derrida’s. Words have meanings, even if post-modernist thinking did not.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 02 26 at 04:33 PM • permalink
- Maybe we can put an end to violence in the middle east if we make it clear that each act could lead to the posting of a cartoon in a prominent position.
Peace through superior cartoonery!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 02 26 at 04:45 PM • permalink
- Or, failing that, just print up boxloads of the things and throw them at every Muslim you see until they get so hysterical they burst a major artery. Drop them from bombers. Paste them up in every subway station, bus station, gas station, trolley stop, taxi stand, and airport restroom. Do it until rioting Muslims are so exhausted they finally realized the rioting gets them nothing.
- #22 rhhardin: “My suspicion is that actual seriousness is retrospective, and you never know at the time that you were being serious. Someone who claims to know is being frivolous”
Sorry, I don’t follow postmystificationism.
Are you saying that we can’t know that this very frivolous action by the police is actually seriously wrong in its effects until some time ahead?And are you or Derrida saying that wise people can’t think well ahead of their time, like Churchill in warning against Hitler, at the risk of being labeled ‘stupid’ and a ‘warmonger’, just as Bush is today?
The irony of the antiwar people today is that they condemn the really successful actions intended to stop terrorist acts, while promoting idiotic, really repressive ‘anti-hate’ police
- #35 Generally the question of seriousness does not come up. You just do what you do.
“No, I was serious …’’ or “I don’t think he was serious …’’ are parts of accounts, not reports of a mental state that ever existed. It’s a picture of a mental state. A cartoon mental state.
Thus if the police say they’re taking it very seriously, they fall into the frivolity category. It’s a claim of importance that misunderstands the place of “being serious’’ in the language of accounts and reports.
The flip side is that you wind up responsible for what you do whether you mean it or not.
Derrida is actually, if anything, rescuing responsibility
- I’m sorry, I know about all the muslim stuff but I can’t get past an agency for council houses being called “First Choice Homes”. There is not enough space here to begin to tell you all that I think is wrong with that. Exercise: Write a dissertation on “1984/socialism/First Choice Homes” in no less than 25,000 words.
- This cartoon mayhem has gone far enough! What is needed is a cartoon cop. Calling Duck Twacy!
- This seems contrived to me. It took months before any serious complaints were heard about the cartoons, and that was long after they had already been published in an Egyptian newspaper without incident. And then three additional cartoons were added to the selection that had not been published—one of which was actually from a photograph of a Frenchman at some weird festival having nothing to do with Islam. The cartoons have been used as a bludgeon by Islamists to inflame tensions, and they are the ones most likely to benefit from their appearance in a mixed ethnic area.Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 02 26 at 08:16 PM • permalink
- Latino:
Mohammed with a bomb in his turban?
Yeah, and most of the protests I’ve seen in response seem to prove the relevance of the cartoon’s implications. It would be different if the offended parties were planning love-ins in response but no, bombing seems high up on the list of threatened actions by offended Muslims. “How dare you associate bombs with Islam! Now I’m gonna have to blow you up in the name of the Prophet!”
- I am shocked. Those extremist cartoon terrorists are everywhere. It is mayhem.
They are weapons belonging to the category called WMD, weapons of mass distribution.
I find them everywhere. To prove my point I have sent 12 emails each with one of the Danish cartoons to each of the following e-mails:
First Choice Homes Oldham
Housing Options
Email: fcho.housing.options@oldham.gov.ukHousing Support
Email: fcho.support@oldham.gov.ukAsylum Team
Email: fcho.asylum@oldham.gov.ukAsylum Team Webpage
Email: fcho.asb@oldham.gov.ukEqualities and Community Cohesion Webpage
Email: fcho.rents@oldham.gov.ukPosted by von Schlichtningen on 2006 02 26 at 08:41 PM • permalink
- #36 Forget your Derrida and your mumbo jumbo. Try plain police language.
The point is – if the UK police knock on your door with a ‘hate speech’ warrant for putting up a cartoon poster [for God’s sake!] do you take THEM ‘seriously’ or not?The two convicted Christian pastors who merely quoted accurately from the Koran in Victoria, have to take their High Court challenge *very seriously* because it’ll now cost them many $1000s even if they win.
Now try to deconstruct my words ‘wise’ and ‘stupid’, but don’t waste our time here..
- Paco — “Oh, no! Flat Top! 88 Keys! Neon Noodle! Eraserhead!”
What, you think you’re the only old fart ‘round here?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 02 26 at 09:47 PM • permalink
- OT
Does anyone know if “Valley of the Wolves” is coming to OZ?
Brokeback Mountain is pure Disney compared to this one.
Outcry in Germany as anti-Semitic film sells out“In the closing sequence, the hero is shown plunging a dagger into the heart of a US commander called Sam, played by Billy Zane. The audience responded by standing up and chanting “Allah is great!”
Afterwards, an 18-year-old member of the audience said: “The Americans always behave like this. They slaughtered the Red Indians and killed thousands in Vietnam.”
Hopefully the censors will give it the flick because it has too much sex in it.
- #43 The trouble that the police get in is that they’re instantly mocked, as you see. The phrase is, nobody takes them seriously.
The ridiculous gets the upper hand politically all the time. That doesn’t prove they’re not ridiculous.
They’re right to take mockery seriously, you could say. The burst of laughter is fatal to everything.
In this case, the slippage in the machinery is what is so entertaining.
- Anybody want to bet the poster was put up by someone with the name Mo******d, in order to bring a few more lickspittles into the light.
Im suprised the British Islamic council hasent released the following statement. “Squeal boy, Squeal like a piggy, you like that dont you piggy” in a suitably southern accent.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 02 27 at 05:06 AM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
