Myrtus

"Everybody Draw Geert Wilders Day" contest kicks off in Holland

The contest was launched today by Dutch satirical website "Stemhok", which translates to "voting booth" in English and as you probably guessed, is all about politics and of course the upcoming parliamentary elections in The Netherlands.

Inspired by the success of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Dutch satirical website Stemhok.nl launches a new initiative: Everybod Draw Geert Wilders day. Whether you are a fan and want to honour your crusading hero with a portrait, or whether you just want to vent your irritations about Blonde Dolly from Venlo, from today you can place your artwork on our special facebook page. 

You could use oils or water colours, pencil or charcoal, create a collage of newspaper clippings or experiment with goat dung and other animal excrement: anything goes, providing you can digitally upload it to our facebook page. 

Let your imagination run riot! Wilders has lost weight, so why not consider a nude? It could be abstract: think Guernica, but with Geert Wilders. Geert is a big fan of the ‘right to insult’, so feel free to stretch the limits of propriety. However, we do not tolerate threats of any kind, so we will not publish any still lifes.

We offer a fantastic prize for the winner: a one year free subscription to Stemhok! Send your pictures to redactiestemhok@gmail.com or upload them here.

The designated Facebook page is here if you wish to participate.

Need ideas?

Well, you might find some inspiration in Geert Wilders' hilarious proposal for the Netherlands to start implementing a "headscarf tax" or, as Mr Wilders himself calls it, "raghead tax"...with the intent to eliminate the "pollution" of the Dutch street caused specifically by the "Muslim headscarf". (teeeheehee.....I'm telling you, the dude is funny as hell!)

"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" page is back online with a big fat lie

Yes, the hate page is back on Facebook after being banished for a while, but it's funny how they'd rather lie about what really happened than admit the simple truth.

 

Here is the big fat lie:

 

Well, I just tried to recover a one of my Facebook pages, which I had deleted recently and found that there is no way you can recover a page on Facebook after deletion.  So unless there is some super secret way to do so or these people have some mad skills nobody else has, they are just a bunch of liars and everybody who takes them serious and joins their petulant games, are a bunch of fools themselves, besides being utterly indecent.

 

I'm glad the page is back though, because it serves as a true testament on how it really doesn't take much to intentionally malign and marginalize certain segments of the population and how ridiculously easy it is to fool the ignorant masses with a horde mentality.

To The Hatemongers & Their "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" Campaign

Dear hatemongers,

If your "right to freedom of speech" means the "right to offend/insult/anger", then you may keep it.  No,thanks, I don't want it.

 

Clearly your hatemongering campaign is meant to do nothing but offend and instigate anger, so please don't go around lying about it and acting all innocent.

L'Express banned over Mohamed image

Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco banned French news magazine L'Express this week for insulting Islam by failing to cover prophet Mohamed's face properly.

The Associated Press: French magazine banned; Some say it offends Islam

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco have banned this week's issue of L'Express International, a French newsmagazine, saying its cover story titled "The Jesus-Muhammad Shock" offended Islam.

The title is the same as a book by one of the magazine's chief editors.

The newsweekly L'Express said on its Web site that the series of articles comparing Christianity and Islam was inspired by a meeting this week in Rome between Christian and Muslim scholars, which aims to "help the dialogue between Islam and Christianity."

L'Express said it did not understand the ban on its international edition in North African countries, particularly because of the pains it took to adhere to Islamic norms. The magazine covered the face of Islam's prophet, Muhammad, with a white veil in side-by-side cover portraits of Jesus and Muhammad, in line with Islamic law.

The French edition of the magazine leaves the face uncovered.

This is not funny! Morocco suffers from MOHAMED CARTOON CONTROVERSY side effects!

Eatbees calls it A Black Eye for Moroccan Freedom, I call it bloody murder-suicide.....of the one Arab nation that once stood out like a beacon amongst its Arab peers in terms of freedom and democracy.

The case against the Moroccan magazine Nichane was brought before a judge yesterday, and the situation looks grim for Nichane and its two journalists, editor Driss Ksikes and Sanaa Elaji, who wrote the offending article.

What it all comes down to is, Islamist political party PJD somehow succeeded in producing Moroccan style Wahhabism (read: Arab Nationalism) and managed to spread it like wildfire, leaving Moroccans once again wide open for the kind of abuse which was only recently deemed outdated and unacceptable by the Moroccan king himself. 

“rhou” writes:

I don’t have any sympathy for the PJD, knowing how this empty shell was created for purposes of control, and I don’t have any sympathy for the other political parties…. Whether PJD or another, no party will change the way the State is run. The pluralistic field of Moroccan politics is an illusion. It is…a marionette show with marionettes that act, sing and dance in animated cartoons. A marionette show that goes back quite a long time in Moroccan history.

The first commenter is arguing that the hand of the Moroccan State was forced by pressure from more conservative nations in the Gulf, with their well-funded networks of ultraconservative Islamic “experts” aided by the latest communications technology. This is a fight over the use of Islam as a political lever, what reader Myrtus has called the “Arab nationalist” side of Islam. In this fight, Morocco is vulnerable both because its version of Islam is more tolerant than the others, by its location at the extreme western edge of the Arab world. Salafist thinking from the Gulf has destabilized Morocco in the past, and the danger cannot be ignored. (In fairness, others would call this a “Makhzenist” argument and say the threat is exaggerated.)

If you missed how the story unfolded eatbees priviously wrote» Jokes in Defense of Freedom!

Moroccan journalists Driss Ksikes, editor of the magazine Nichane, and Sanaa Elaji, author of the controversial article “Jokes: How Moroccans Laugh about Sex, Religion and Politics,” go on trial January 8 for “injuring Islam, the respect due His Majesty the King, and common decency.” I have already written about this here, and the offending jokes are here in English translation. In solidarity with Nichane’s original intent, and in homage to the unique art form that is the Moroccan joke, allow me to post a few jokes of my own below.

These are authentic jokes told to me by real Moroccans, in uncontrived circumstances. No one forced them or paid them to tell these jokes. They were unaware that their jokes would one day be the subject of a legal case. There are hundreds, if not thousands more jokes like these, in the same place these came from, namely the Moroccan popular imagination. I encourage my readers to join me in collecting their jokes here in the comments, in e-mails to me, or on their own blogs (send me the links!) before the combined force of religious extremism and the Moroccan State send them the way of the passenger pigeon. (...read more)

If you agree that putting journalists on trial for telling jokes is outrageous, please consider signing the online petition if you haven’t already.

Martijn has a little roundup from the Moroccan blogosphere here.

How Moroccans laugh at religion, sex and politics”

Listen up Morocco!  You need to stop your two-faced politics right this instance! You can't keep on accepting handouts from east and west and side up with whatever politics du jour serves you instead of serving your own people and what's best for all parties involved.  No, you can't have it both ways!  You need to stand up on your own two feet and have the courage to face the winds of change and adversity in the name of freedom and democracy, so we can all be proud of you!

Moroccan Perspective

The Arab world struggles to make it in time for its appointment at the beauty salon, while the nasty mullahs try to hold it back.

Giggles

Who says Arabs don't have a sense of humor?

The door sign says: "Arab World"

Click on the link to see entire picture.

Gevoelig = Sensitive

Waboo sends this priceless piece of truth. (don't click if you don't like cartoons)

enz. = etc.

The rest speaks for itself.......LONG LIVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

Syria Boycotts US Dollar

Syria switches foreign currency use from dollar to euro

Syria has switched all of its state foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars amid a political challenge with the United States, head of state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria said on Monday.

Update 2.15.06

I was trying to nail Syria thinking hey, they'd be pumping Denmark's economy with this cartoonish boycott after all, but I just discovered that Denmark was one of the three EU countries that chose not to replace their national currency with the euro.  The other two are Sweden and Great Britain.

Now I wonder how these new "technique abilities" will fit into all of this.  Is Aljazeera going to have a twin?  Do we get to see it?

Algerians Jailed over Muhammad Cartoons!

Two Algerian editors have been arrested for publishing the cartoons of Muhammad that have caused irritation to so many across the Muslim world. The editors of Er-Rissala and Es-Safir were jailed last week. The two papers, which have slight Islamist biases, published the cartoons to inform the Algerian people of what was being protested and to explain what was so controversial about them. But, in typical fashion, the regime is locking them up for doing their job! Both of them can perhaps get three-four years behind bars for this! The crime: "insulting the prophet"!

According to the daily El Watan, citing the Algerian penal code, "any person who offends the prophet and the emissaries of god or denigrates the dogma or precepts of Islam" faces three to five years in prison.

Read the El Watan article here (French). It shows just how idiotic this whole situation is, because in the editorial page of one of the papers, in the very same issue that the cartoons were reproduced, the newspaper called on its readers « barrer la route aux bandes qui complotent contre l’Islam ». So basically they're being locked up for simply printing the cartoons. For a visual aid. The papers have also been suspended from publishing.

Again, why is the government throwing away the path towards a secular society? This reminds me of the case in which two men were jailed for eating during Ramadan. The Islamists have been defeated my right foot. I am almost tempted to create a petiton to have these men released (which would likely be ineffectual anyway).

More thoughts on this later.