Dear all, I’m Nada, one of the organizing committee in Egypt, and I'd like to give some comments on the issue brought up here, as I can see some points are misunderstood from some parties.
Firstly, I’d like to clarify why there was that ‘strong’ reaction towards the pictures being published on Wikipedia’s article, it’s just because Prophet Mohamed is considered the most complete human being ever created and that belief exists at the heart of all Muslims. Pictures of him mainly when not even close to reality being drawn by painters ages after he died, is widely rejected among Muslims (Sunni specifically), for example, I have never seen those drawings but on the pages of Wikipedia! And I think that major part of the Egyptian people and Islamic countries will think of the issue in a much different way than you do see, I hope you got what I mean.
Here in Egypt, We shall not be expecting any demonstrations before or even during Wikimania, and we can just assure you that those circumstances won't harm the event activities or personals. What have made me say so is our experiences in previous conferences that may have had much stronger contradictions with Egyptian attitude.
Finally, I would appreciate that we won’t make a big deal of this issue if we’re all looking forward for the success of this conference, I hope this would be resolved in a civilized way on this mailing list that reflects good knowledge about Islamic beliefs and freedom of speech in the same time, which don’t contradict at all with each other if both are understood well.Best Regards,Nada Rady _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan On Feb 20, 2008, at 6:26 PM, Nada RADY wrote:
Dear all, I’m Nada, one of the organizing committee in Egypt, and I'd like to give some comments on the issue brought up here, as I can see some points are misunderstood from some parties.
Firstly, I’d like to clarify why there was that ‘strong’ reaction towards the pictures being published on Wikipedia’s article, it’s just because Prophet Mohamed is considered the most complete human being ever created and that belief exists at the heart of all Muslims. Pictures of him mainly when not even close to reality being drawn by painters ages after he died, is widely rejected among Muslims (Sunni specifically), for example, I have never seen those drawings but on the pages of Wikipedia! And I think that major part of the Egyptian people and Islamic countries will think of the issue in a much different way than you do see, I hope you got what I mean.
Here in Egypt, We shall not be expecting any demonstrations before or even during Wikimania, and we can just assure you that those circumstances won't harm the event activities or personals. What have made me say so is our experiences in previous conferences that may have had much stronger contradictions with Egyptian attitude.
Finally, I would appreciate that we won’t make a big deal of this issue if we’re all looking forward for the success of this conference, I hope this would be resolved in a civilized way on this mailing list that reflects good knowledge about Islamic beliefs and freedom of speech in the same time, which don’t contradict at all with each other if both are understood well.Best Regards,Nada Rady _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers,
We are *definitely* not dismissing it, we have discussed it a few times already and it's still on our minds and in our mailing list posts/IRC chats.
-Dan
On Feb 20, 2008, at 6:26 PM, Nada RADY wrote:
Dear all, I'm Nada, one of the organizing committee in Egypt, and I'd like to give some comments on the issue brought up here, as I can see some points are misunderstood from some parties.
Firstly, I'd like to clarify why there was that 'strong' reaction towards the pictures being published on Wikipedia's article, it's just because Prophet Mohamed is considered the most complete human being ever created and that belief exists at the heart of all Muslims. Pictures of him mainly when not even close to reality being drawn by painters ages after he died, is widely rejected among Muslims (Sunni specifically), for example, I have never seen those drawings but on the pages of Wikipedia! And I think that major part of the Egyptian people and Islamic countries will think of the issue in a much different way than you do see, I hope you got what I mean.
Here in Egypt, We shall not be expecting any demonstrations before or even during Wikimania, and we can just assure you that those circumstances won't harm the event activities or personals. What have made me say so is our experiences in previous conferences that may have had much stronger contradictions with Egyptian attitude.
Finally, I would appreciate that we won't make a big deal of this issue if we're all looking forward for the success of this conference, I hope this would be resolved in a civilized way on this mailing list that reflects good knowledge about Islamic beliefs and freedom of speech in the same time, which don't contradict at all with each other if both are understood well.Best Regards,Nada Rady _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I'm no expert, but wouldn't it be somewhat accurate to predict that any organized activity/demonstrations planned against Wikimania would require some political support? Perhaps someone with a depth of knowledge of the political background in Egypt can describe the likelihood that such demonstrations would enjoy the support of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus come under heavy scrutiny by the (far more secular) Egyptian government?
From what I remember reading over the last few years as tensions in that
area have risen, demonstrations of a fundamentalist Islamic nature have been dealt with fairly harshly by the Egyptian military.
At any rate, I think it would be rational for those planning on attending to contact the embassy of their nation in Egypt, particularly if there is one in Alexandria, to request information on steps to take in case of a difficult or emergent situation. I don't think that the Wikimania organizers can reasonably be expected to ensure the complete safety of attendees, given restrictions on resources etc, so its incumbent upon those folks to take appropriate precautions. Of note is the fact that while there has been Islamic terrorist activity in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, none of it seems to have occurred in Alexandria. * For Americans: *
http://cairo.usembassy.gov/ *(Main site of the US Embassy in Cairo)* http://cairo.usembassy.gov/consular/acs.htm *(Citizen services (including registration) Cairo embassy)* http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/registration/registration_1186.html *(General tips on registering with embassies)* http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1108.html http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/emergencies_1212.html http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/emergencies_1206.html http://cairo.usembassy.gov/acalex%5Cindex.htm *(American Center in Alexandria (consular services))
Citizens of the UK:
* http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate... *(UK Embassy, travel advice for Egypt)
*Nathan* *
To supplement what Nathan included for UK citizens, http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&a... I'd recommend that even non UK citizens take a look.
-Dan
On Feb 20, 2008, at 10:13 PM, Nathan wrote:
I'm no expert, but wouldn't it be somewhat accurate to predict that any organized activity/demonstrations planned against Wikimania would require some political support? Perhaps someone with a depth of knowledge of the political background in Egypt can describe the likelihood that such demonstrations would enjoy the support of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus come under heavy scrutiny by the (far more secular) Egyptian government? From what I remember reading over the last few years as tensions in that area have risen, demonstrations of a fundamentalist Islamic nature have been dealt with fairly harshly by the Egyptian military.
At any rate, I think it would be rational for those planning on attending to contact the embassy of their nation in Egypt, particularly if there is one in Alexandria, to request information on steps to take in case of a difficult or emergent situation. I don't think that the Wikimania organizers can reasonably be expected to ensure the complete safety of attendees, given restrictions on resources etc, so its incumbent upon those folks to take appropriate precautions. Of note is the fact that while there has been Islamic terrorist activity in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, none of it seems to have occurred in Alexandria.
For Americans: *
http://cairo.usembassy.gov/ *(Main site of the US Embassy in Cairo)* http://cairo.usembassy.gov/consular/acs.htm *(Citizen services (including registration) Cairo embassy)* http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/registration/ registration_1186.html *(General tips on registering with embassies)* http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1108.html http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/emergencies_1212.html http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/emergencies/emergencies_1206.html http://cairo.usembassy.gov/acalex%5Cindex.htm *(American Center in Alexandria (consular services))
Citizens of the UK:
http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate... *(UK Embassy, travel advice for Egypt)
*Nathan*
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Nathan wrote:
At any rate, I think it would be rational for those planning on attending to contact the embassy of their nation in Egypt, particularly if there is one in Alexandria, to request information on steps to take in case of a difficult or emergent situation. I don't think that the Wikimania organizers can reasonably be expected to ensure the complete safety of attendees, given restrictions on resources etc, so its incumbent upon those folks to take appropriate precautions. Of note is the fact that while there has been Islamic terrorist activity in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, none of it seems to have occurred in Alexandria.
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
Torino doesn't look so bad anymore, huh?
- -- Ben "Cyde Weys" McIlwain ( http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/ )
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
That's all right - Jewish Wikipedians will be welcome so long as they don't look too Jewish or act too Jewish in public. Oh, sorry, that was the *gay* Wikipedians, wasn't it, that the Foundation decided to jettison.
- d.
God forbid any gay jews want to attend.
-Dan On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:12 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
That's all right - Jewish Wikipedians will be welcome so long as they don't look too Jewish or act too Jewish in public. Oh, sorry, that was the *gay* Wikipedians, wasn't it, that the Foundation decided to jettison.
- d.
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On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
The Egyptian government is not going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone. Have you any idea what it would do to their economy?
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
In Egypt? Peaceful protests maybe. Wahhabism hasn't really caught on in the Egyptian population and the government doesn't exactly support it's growth.
Torino doesn't look so bad anymore, huh?
Because of course wikipedia has never done anything to upset the mafia or the red brigade.
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geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
The Egyptian government is not going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone. Have you any idea what it would do to their economy?
Your statement presupposes that governments are omnipotent, omniscient, and competent. The very thought is laughable.
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
- -- Ben "Cyde Weys" McIlwain ( http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/ )
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
The Egyptian government is not going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone. Have you any idea what it would do to their economy?
Your statement presupposes that governments are omnipotent, omniscient, and competent. The very thought is laughable.
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
And incidentally, we held a Wikimania in the United States nevertheless. Even with elevated risk of terror attacks...
Michael
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Michael Bimmler wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Your statement presupposes that governments are omnipotent, omniscient, and competent. The very thought is laughable.
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
And incidentally, we held a Wikimania in the United States nevertheless. Even with elevated risk of terror attacks...
Yeah, because the United States is as dangerous as Egypt. To quote someone else from this thread: "Fail".
- -- Ben "Cyde Weys" McIlwain ( http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/ )
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, because the United States is as dangerous as Egypt. To quote someone else from this thread: "Fail".
Might be wanting to compare their homicide rates. Everywhere has it's dangers.
Ben McIlwain wrote:
geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
The Egyptian government is not going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone. Have you any idea what it would do to their economy?
Your statement presupposes that governments are omnipotent, omniscient, and competent. The very thought is laughable.
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Ec
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
- d.
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
Which brings us to the only option left: Iceland.
Mathias
Mathias Schindler wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
Which brings us to the only option left: Iceland.
Have you read the Icelandic sagas? Doesn't sound like a very safe place to me.
--Michael Snow
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:48 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@att.net wrote:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
Which brings us to the only option left: Iceland.
Have you read the Icelandic sagas? Doesn't sound like a very safe place to me.
I'm coming up with my old Antarctica idea again...I suppose crime and terrorism rates are rather low there.
Michael
On 23/02/2008, Michael Snow wikipedia@att.net wrote:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
Which brings us to the only option left: Iceland.
Have you read the Icelandic sagas? Doesn't sound like a very safe place to me.
--Michael Snow
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That's old stories, forget them !
Nowdays it's really safe well if you're not affraid of volcanos and brennivin.
Mathias Schindler wrote:
On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:14 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
Which brings us to the only option left: Iceland.
Perhaps in 2011 when it's time for the seventh continent, we should be able to find a safe place.
Ec
David Gerard wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Incidentally, September 11 sure as hell wasn't good for our economy either, yet it happened anyway.
You've just made a good argument for never having Wikimania in New York.
Or in the US at all:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080213/NEWS01...
IOW: Deaths in the interests of terrorism = bad Deaths in the interests of security = good
Or, when you ask a security wonk to call 911 he'll treat it as though you were joking about 9/11. ;-)
Ec
The egyptian government isn't going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone? I assume then, you're ignoring the several terrorist incidents involving murders of tourists, in recent years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sharm_el-Sheikh_attacks 88 killed, 200 wounded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Dahab_bombings 23 killed 80 wounded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Sinai_bombings 34 killed, 171 wounded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1997_Luxor_massacre 63 killed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2005_terrorist_attacks_in_Cairo (actually 3 seperate incidents.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_bus_crash was an intentional ramming of an Israeli bus.
We have an entire page on terrorism in Egypt and a category. You really think the Egyptian government controls what terrorists do? That's why they're criminals: they don't care about the law.
-Dan
On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:46 PM, geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
The Egyptian government is not going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone. Have you any idea what it would do to their economy?
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
In Egypt? Peaceful protests maybe. Wahhabism hasn't really caught on in the Egyptian population and the government doesn't exactly support it's growth.
Torino doesn't look so bad anymore, huh?
Because of course wikipedia has never done anything to upset the mafia or the red brigade. -- geni
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On 23/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The egyptian government isn't going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone? I assume then, you're ignoring the several terrorist incidents involving murders of tourists, in recent years.
The difference being there was no reason to think those places might be a target more than any other tourist point. If there really is a special threat to wikimania the Egyptian government will take special steps to protect it (ie even more men with guns).
That's not correct.
In several of those incidents the target was specifically picked for having Israelis. The Ras Burqa massacre specifically targeted israeli tourists. By the way, the killer in that case was an Egyptian policeman who machinegunned the Israelis, while other nearby policemen refused to give aid to the wounded, and stopped an israeli doctor from giving aid to the wounded at gunpoint, leaving the wounded to bleed to death. Egyptian politicians labeled the murderer a hero of the Sinai, and there were numerous demonstrations in support of the killer, and in opposition to his trial.
The Sharm el Sheikh attacks were conducted in a location that is widely considered to be an Israeli tourist destination.
The 2004 attacks against hotels were also conducted by palestinian organizations specifically targeting Israelis. The Israeli government knew of plans to conduct such an attack, and issued warnings, which went unheeded.
On Feb 23, 2008, at 1:29 PM, geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The egyptian government isn't going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone? I assume then, you're ignoring the several terrorist incidents involving murders of tourists, in recent years.
The difference being there was no reason to think those places might be a target more than any other tourist point. If there really is a special threat to wikimania the Egyptian government will take special steps to protect it (ie even more men with guns).
-- geni
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On 23/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
That's not correct.
In several of those incidents the target was specifically picked for having Israelis. The Ras Burqa massacre specifically targeted israeli tourists. By the way, the killer in that case was an Egyptian policeman who machinegunned the Israelis, while other nearby policemen refused to give aid to the wounded, and stopped an israeli doctor from giving aid to the wounded at gunpoint, leaving the wounded to bleed to death. Egyptian politicians labeled the murderer a hero of the Sinai, and there were numerous demonstrations in support of the killer, and in opposition to his trial.
The Sharm el Sheikh attacks were conducted in a location that is widely considered to be an Israeli tourist destination.
The 2004 attacks against hotels were also conducted by palestinian organizations specifically targeting Israelis. The Israeli government knew of plans to conduct such an attack, and issued warnings, which went unheeded.
And how many places in Egypt are frequented by isrealis? Doesn't narrow the target list very much does it?
Don't move the goalposts. You said the Egyptian government protects tourists, and I showed you that they don't (and in some cases do the killing.) You said they weren't targeted attacks and I showed you that they were. How far do you want to move the goalposts here? The fact is, if someone wants to attack Wikimania, the Egyptian government not only cannot stop it, but may even be complicit in it, especially given the current political leanings on Muhammad images by the Egyptian government.
-Dan On Feb 23, 2008, at 1:46 PM, geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
That's not correct.
In several of those incidents the target was specifically picked for having Israelis. The Ras Burqa massacre specifically targeted israeli tourists. By the way, the killer in that case was an Egyptian policeman who machinegunned the Israelis, while other nearby policemen refused to give aid to the wounded, and stopped an israeli doctor from giving aid to the wounded at gunpoint, leaving the wounded to bleed to death. Egyptian politicians labeled the murderer a hero of the Sinai, and there were numerous demonstrations in support of the killer, and in opposition to his trial.
The Sharm el Sheikh attacks were conducted in a location that is widely considered to be an Israeli tourist destination.
The 2004 attacks against hotels were also conducted by palestinian organizations specifically targeting Israelis. The Israeli government knew of plans to conduct such an attack, and issued warnings, which went unheeded.
And how many places in Egypt are frequented by isrealis? Doesn't narrow the target list very much does it?
-- geni
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geni wrote:
On 23/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The egyptian government isn't going to allow tourists to get killed by anyone? I assume then, you're ignoring the several terrorist incidents involving murders of tourists, in recent years.
The difference being there was no reason to think those places might be a target more than any other tourist point. If there really is a special threat to wikimania the Egyptian government will take special steps to protect it (ie even more men with guns).
Wow! We must really be important if we have men with guns to protect us. 8-)
Ec
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Nathan wrote:
At any rate, I think it would be rational for those planning on attending to contact the embassy of their nation in Egypt, particularly if there is one in Alexandria, to request information on steps to take in case of a difficult or emergent situation. I don't think that the Wikimania organizers can reasonably be expected to ensure the complete safety of attendees, given restrictions on resources etc, so its incumbent upon those folks to take appropriate precautions. Of note is the fact that while there has been Islamic terrorist activity in Egypt between 2004 and 2006, none of it seems to have occurred in Alexandria.
Sweet Christ, can anyone remind me how in the hell we ever decided on Egypt in the first place? Was that when the probability of being killed by terrorists was equally rated with the desire to not host Wikimania on the same continent two years in a row?
Face it, Egypt shares very little of the same values that we do (especially the whole "not censored" part). There is a significant chance of violent protests breaking out, potentially bringing harm to our conference and our participants.
It was and continues to be an excellent choice. We want greater participation in the Arabic speaking nations since they are such an important part of world culture. The committee had the good sense not to be swayed by paranoid scare-mongering about being klilled by terrorists.
I'm sure that a lot of countries fail to share in your personal values. That being said, one does not reconcile values by sticking one's head in the sand, and refusing to participate in dialogues with the apparent adversaries. If you're so goddamned frightened nobody's forcing you to go; there's just as much or greater risk of being killed in a plane crash on the way to a "peaceful" place, and even more from being killed in an automobile accident without leaving your home continent.
I am not so gutless as to be frightened away by remote speculations about violent protests. Look at it this way too: If it does happen the publicity will be great.
Ec
On 21/02/2008, Casey Brown cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers,
We are *definitely* not dismissing it, we have discussed it a few times already and it's still on our minds and in our mailing list posts/IRC chats.
I'm glad to hear it. What kind of security will there be? Will the local police be notified in advance of the potential (if unlikely) issues?
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
I appreciate your comparison you're drawing Robert, but the instant case has significant differences.
First of all, not all muslims are in third world countries, by far. Second, muslims speak dozens of different languages from arabic, to farsi, to (british) english, to (american) english, french, various indian and pakistani languages, various indonesian and malaysian languages, etc. Each of these muslims regions have their own literature, dress, movies, schools, and culture. They're all interconnected by the broader Muslim Ummah, but individually they are all different. Even within their own religion there are Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Wahabi, etc. It's very difficult to say that third-world countries are stirring up this controversy. When I was in Iraq, I met many muslims who were so far from devout they could care less whether Muhammed was in a cartoon, they were drinking and eating during ramadan, etc. I've also met the exact opposite, muslims who are extremely devout, and would be horribly offended by any breach of their religion, however slight.
And therein lies the problem: people trying to speak for a fractious, heterogenous group of peoples with widely divergent customs and beliefs. It is, in my opinion, not possible for people to say "Muslims believe X". Which muslims? Which sect? In which country? The clerics? What about the population at large? Is there opposition? No, it's impossible to speak for all Muslims on this issue, and to do so is frankly absurd. It's one of the reasons that the petition to remove the images is receiving so much opposition.
-Dan
On Feb 21, 2008, at 9:13 AM, Robert Stojnic wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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Yes, this is all true. What I tried to stress is that: it doesn't matter what muslim sect you're in, what language you speak, or whether you live in indonesia or in syria .. if your perception of the world is that muslims are ill-treated and that the west is bulling the rest of the world, you don't need to have strong feelings about the depiction taboo, nor be a religious fanatic in order to fell that the cartoons are a final insult to the general group of people ("civilization") you feel you belong to, and another instance of "western arrogance". Yes, some will feel this less, some more, but everybody will feel it to some extent (given they view the world in this way).
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I appreciate your comparison you're drawing Robert, but the instant case has significant differences.
First of all, not all muslims are in third world countries, by far. Second, muslims speak dozens of different languages from arabic, to farsi, to (british) english, to (american) english, french, various indian and pakistani languages, various indonesian and malaysian languages, etc. Each of these muslims regions have their own literature, dress, movies, schools, and culture. They're all interconnected by the broader Muslim Ummah, but individually they are all different. Even within their own religion there are Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Wahabi, etc. It's very difficult to say that third-world countries are stirring up this controversy. When I was in Iraq, I met many muslims who were so far from devout they could care less whether Muhammed was in a cartoon, they were drinking and eating during ramadan, etc. I've also met the exact opposite, muslims who are extremely devout, and would be horribly offended by any breach of their religion, however slight.
And therein lies the problem: people trying to speak for a fractious, heterogenous group of peoples with widely divergent customs and beliefs. It is, in my opinion, not possible for people to say "Muslims believe X". Which muslims? Which sect? In which country? The clerics? What about the population at large? Is there opposition? No, it's impossible to speak for all Muslims on this issue, and to do so is frankly absurd. It's one of the reasons that the petition to remove the images is receiving so much opposition.
-Dan
On Feb 21, 2008, at 9:13 AM, Robert Stojnic wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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On 21/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
beliefs. It is, in my opinion, not possible for people to say "Muslims believe X". Which muslims? Which sect? In which country? The clerics? What about the population at large? Is there opposition? No, it's impossible to speak for all Muslims on this issue, and to do so is frankly absurd.
Be careful about taking this too far, seductive though the logic is.
The existence of exceptions does not make it unreasonable to conclude that there is a widespread and significant level of support for the position, even if its speakers generally overdo it by saying "all Muslims" - it is quite possible for it to be not *all* Muslims and still a staggeringly large number of people!
I have talked with several muslims and either they are Sunnis or Shiias, they share the same opinion: "depicting the Prophet" is an absolute no-no.
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
In other words ... how about thinking that those images are okay as long as they are not taken as "depicting / illustrating / portraits" of Muhammad? And if it isn't taken so (and I understand that is the case of enwiki), it would be a serious offence (and perhaps it would be historically errors too, if it is true these artists didn't aim to portrait him)
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Robert Stojnic rainmansr@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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The fact that fawiki is not receiving any significant complaints on the topic is quite telling that there is little unanimity within the Ummah about whether the images should stay up, or indeed whether they even are depicting Muhammed (as opposed to depicting an interpretation of him). -dan On Feb 21, 2008, at 10:32 AM, Aphaia wrote:
I have talked with several muslims and either they are Sunnis or Shiias, they share the same opinion: "depicting the Prophet" is an absolute no-no.
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
In other words ... how about thinking that those images are okay as long as they are not taken as "depicting / illustrating / portraits" of Muhammad? And if it isn't taken so (and I understand that is the case of enwiki), it would be a serious offence (and perhaps it would be historically errors too, if it is true these artists didn't aim to portrait him)
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Robert Stojnic rainmansr@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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Also could be attributed to the fact that fawiki is less known than the primary few languages.
-Chad
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The fact that fawiki is not receiving any significant complaints on the topic is quite telling that there is little unanimity within the Ummah about whether the images should stay up, or indeed whether they even are depicting Muhammed (as opposed to depicting an interpretation of him). -dan
On Feb 21, 2008, at 10:32 AM, Aphaia wrote:
I have talked with several muslims and either they are Sunnis or Shiias, they share the same opinion: "depicting the Prophet" is an absolute no-no.
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
In other words ... how about thinking that those images are okay as long as they are not taken as "depicting / illustrating / portraits" of Muhammad? And if it isn't taken so (and I understand that is the case of enwiki), it would be a serious offence (and perhaps it would be historically errors too, if it is true these artists didn't aim to portrait him)
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Robert Stojnic rainmansr@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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Simple question: is Wikipedia/Media "confessional"? (Any confession) Or is it not linked to any religion?
That's important, 'cause I've not understood something: even if Muslim Religion consider ANY image of Muhammad offensive, should we care? With all the respect dued to a religion, of course.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
So, what is the exact caption on fawiki? "This is an imaginary portrait of Muhammad", or something like that? Is this concept of an "imaginary portrait" a common one in the Islamic world? Is there a relevant article we can link to on the English Wikipedia describing such a concept?
Pharos
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
What other kinds of images of Muhammad are there? There are no contemporary portraits, so they're all products of imaginations of artists...
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 1:30 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
What other kinds of images of Muhammad are there? There are no contemporary portraits, so they're all products of imaginations of artists...
There are almost same images on English Wikipedia. I am not qualified to speak on the behalf of my friend, but I assume the matter is rather how it is taken. For muslims it would be trivial, but perhaps for the other audience, it may be not. So while I don't support for removal, I can understand (or can reconstruct their logic) it should/would be preferable to be removed since it is in a danger to mistaken as "portraits".
I think it is a similar case of icons (Christian icons I mean). Some Westerners prefer to duplicate Eastern Orthodox Icons and sell it as sacred images. As long as they sell it their sacred images, I haven't seen any orthodox faithful oppose strongly but when they claim they are making "icons", since it can never be icons according to orthodox teachings, I have seen many orthodox claiming those icon-duplicating images are not icons. etc. In general, religious notions are very complicated and not fully perceived without knowledge about doctrine and cultural background to some extent.
On 21/02/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Recently I had a conversation with a fawiki friend and asked if fawiki have any problem about hosting those images on their article. First he seemed to be very surprised to know fawiki hosted "Muhammad's images". After giving a glance, he got his calmness again and said they were not "depicting Muhammad" and Muslims know that. There are rather products of imagination by each artists. So they are okay. And interestingly I haven't heard anyone complaints about fawiki hostings.
What other kinds of images of Muhammad are there? There are no contemporary portraits, so they're all products of imaginations of artists...
Well, there is a spectrum. I can take the attested descripictions of him and make a drawing which tries to faithfully represent the appearance of the person, knowing what we know about the general dress and so forth of the period... or I can sketch a generic swarthy guy with a beard and write "Muhammad" under it.
If you're *wanting* to distinguish between types of picture, between things which are just tacky and things which fall foul of the law, I can see how you could pretty easily decide it was acceptable to draw the line somewhere between those. And it seems pretty apparent that some people do choose to distinguish, to a greater or a lesser degree.
(The distinction here reminds me of the old definition of pornography - "I can't tell you exactly what it needs to be to count, but I know it when I see it"...)
It seems to me that the images in question are considered/claimed to be important *only because* there are protests against them. This is a circular logic ... the more people protest, the more the "keeper"s of the image insist they must be retained in the article.
I think we need to disregard both the "protesters" and "keepers" and rather look at the scholarly importance/notability of the images. That should be the only criterion for inclusion or exclusion, rather than what any Muslim or Westerner thinks about the pictures. Retaining the images just because "Muslims want to censor it, so let's keep them" is wrong, and equally wrong would be removing them because "(some) Muslims don't like the images". If the images have been considered important/relevant in academic circles, only then they should be included. In other words, let's apply something similar to [[WP:N]] in this issue, rather than [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]] or [[WP:ILIKEIT]].
--
Ragib
Considering they are some of the few non-modern graphic representations of Muhammad, representative of how he was viewed by 13th-16th century artists, I find it hard to doubt the academic/ scholarly importance. We would have no problem including any image an author made of jesus, or the apostles. Ragib, you highlight an excellent point: Absent the protests of muslims claiming that this image offends them, there is no legitimate reason to delete the images. As far as the article is concerned they belong there because, well, Muhammad died hundreds of years before the invention of the camera, so the only method of illustrating him is pictures. I think it is highly academically useful to show how prominent muslim scholars viewed him, or how depictions of him have changed over the years. And ANY depiction of him by a muslim painter/artist is inherently notable because such a depiction runs afoul of the sunni muslim rule against depicting him. Pictures doing so have great scholarly value in illustrating HOW the rule and the controversy surrounding it exist, and what kinds of representations of him have been considered unacceptable over the years.
-Dan On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:18 PM, Ragib Hasan wrote:
It seems to me that the images in question are considered/claimed to be important *only because* there are protests against them. This is a circular logic ... the more people protest, the more the "keeper"s of the image insist they must be retained in the article.
I think we need to disregard both the "protesters" and "keepers" and rather look at the scholarly importance/notability of the images. That should be the only criterion for inclusion or exclusion, rather than what any Muslim or Westerner thinks about the pictures. Retaining the images just because "Muslims want to censor it, so let's keep them" is wrong, and equally wrong would be removing them because "(some) Muslims don't like the images". If the images have been considered important/relevant in academic circles, only then they should be included. In other words, let's apply something similar to [[WP:N]] in this issue, rather than [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]] or [[WP:ILIKEIT]].
--
Ragib
-- Ragib Hasan Admin, En-wiki Bureaucrat, Bn-wiki
PhD Candidate Dept of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 201 N Goodwin Avenue Urbana IL 61801
Website: http://www.ragibhasan.com http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rhasan/www
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On 22/02/2008, Ragib Hasan ragibhasan@gmail.com wrote:
It seems to me that the images in question are considered/claimed to be important *only because* there are protests against them. This is a circular logic ... the more people protest, the more the "keeper"s of the image insist they must be retained in the article.
I don't think many people are claiming that these images should be included because they are important. It is not our job to decide which media and articles are more important than any other and to treat them differently. The objection is to compromising our policy for any article or item of media.
Equally, to compromise our policy because there is a protest (and to assume that issues which people are protesting for have legitimacy, by default) is nonsensical and circular. If we readily did that, more and more would try to exert influence on Wikipedia content through protest.
On 22/02/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
By the way:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9105853/Muhammad
So where's their petition?
It's a sign of our popularity. Nobody complains about encyclopaedias nobody reads.
On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Ragib Hasan ragibhasan@gmail.com wrote:
It seems to me that the images in question are considered/claimed to be important *only because* there are protests against them. This is a circular logic ... the more people protest, the more the "keeper"s of the image insist they must be retained in the article.
I think we need to disregard both the "protesters" and "keepers" and rather look at the scholarly importance/notability of the images. That should be the only criterion for inclusion or exclusion, rather than what any Muslim or Westerner thinks about the pictures. Retaining the images just because "Muslims want to censor it, so let's keep them" is wrong, and equally wrong would be removing them because "(some) Muslims don't like the images". If the images have been considered important/relevant in academic circles, only then they should be included. In other words, let's apply something similar to [[WP:N]] in this issue, rather than [[WP:IDONTLIKEIT]] or [[WP:ILIKEIT]].
--
Ragib
-- Ragib Hasan Admin, En-wiki Bureaucrat, Bn-wiki
PhD Candidate Dept of Computer Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 201 N Goodwin Avenue Urbana IL 61801
Website: http://www.ragibhasan.com http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rhasan/www
Err, that opening is certainly true - in any article where nobody's offended by topical relevant images, nobody objects and there's rarely a need to justify them. Nobody bothers justifying the the photo of Mexico City's skyline in [[Mexico City]], so there's no need to defend it.
There is a ... probably small minority ... of editors who're interested in whether the images are the most appropriate selection, layout and so forth ... they're probably not, but the current atmosphere makes it essentially impossible to hold any type of intelligent, honest discussion on the issue. It had been hoped the brew-ha-ha would blow over quickly and we'd be able to get to work - *sigh*.
Although those previously unfamiliar with the issue may not realise this, all these discussions and arguments have been replayed and replayed and replayed over the last .. couple years? I suppose - the eleventy-billion page mediation archive from ~1 year ago probably gives some flavour, and when the dust settled it was roughly in its current configuration which was tolerated because it wasn't terrible for quite a while - now media attention has stirred up a new flurry of interest, but the debate's the same - identical arguments are being rehashed again and again, and leading to the same places. It simply isn't correct to claim that images are being retained because they're offensive and we need to defend free speech - if no Muslims were offended by them, they'd be there and nobody would say word one about removing them.
If we take the image that'd been in the lead, although it seems to be bouncing around right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Siyer-i_Nebi_151b.jpg is an Ottoman miniature illustration that was added to the epic of the life of Muhammad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siyer-i_Nebi, written in 1388, and in the late 1500s by order of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murad_III illustrations were added. This particular illustration was added by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakka%C5%9F_Osman (Osman the miniaturist), the chief miniaturist for the Ottoman Empire who set down a style school that persisted well after him. Today the image is housed in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkapi_Palace_Museum in Istanbul. It is not some "random image". Of course, this is probably of better pedigree than most - the page must be semi-protected, since the images are bouncing around pretty fast, but I think only http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mohammed_kaaba_1315.jpg mght have a better claim to more historical noteworthiness, being the oldest surviving depiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Siyer-i_Nebi_298a.jpg is also from the Siyer-i Nebi, but is new and I'd guess unlikely to stick.
Cheers WilyD
WilyD
Hello,
If the images have been considered important/relevant in academic circles, only then they should be included.
Since when Wikipedia is (or should be) so elitist and completely aligned with goals and works of academia... This is quite big controversy and phenomena of modern world. How many academic papers and relevancy is for Pokemons?
Everyone is quite happy about controversies of the past resolved and described ("haha, earth is flat! no, it is of tabernacle shape! is it carried by whales or turtles?").
If neutrality would not be 'offending' or 'liberal bias!', there would be no need for Conservapedia. Oh wait, maybe there still is no need for Conservapedia.
On the other hand, this isn't discussing "is the information biased" or not. We do know, that information itself is neutral. We do know it is imagination, though goes back centuries. We do know, some may take it as targeted against them, or to offend them. It is not, though. The information itself is not biased (as in, not true, according to someone), the perception is (immoral, prejudice, etc).
Even if those pictures are removed from one article, they may certainly always end up in another - the one explaining the controversy.
The topic though is more difficult - how do our goals of freedom, independence and neutrality, align with our goal to distribute and disseminate the content. Which goals should we chose? How do we go into compromises?
We will always have individuals, groups, communities, countries and civilizations, not wishing to see some or other information in our projects - and there will always be range of actions against us - banning, badmouthing, not donating, not supporting. Are we going to stand for free information, or for information available to everyone?
The idea I had in my little head, what our teacher, Ms. Shbeer, taught us in our Arabic class that I took for 4 semesters, was that it is OK to draw and show Mohammed, as long as you leave the face blank. This is the same teacher who made sure we only learnt Classical Arabic, as anything that didn't mark cases with the appropriate vowels was not just colloquial, it was WRONG.
Mark
On 21/02/2008, Robert Stojnic rainmansr@gmail.com wrote:
Not long ago when I was randomly browsing through a mosque's library in middle east, I found a children's book about Islam, and I remember seeing people in it.. E.g. when Muhammad was leaving Mecca there was a picture of *some guy* on a donkey followed by people.. There wasn't exactly an arrow point to him saying Muhammad, but it was pretty clear from context.. So, my impression is that the pictures are not huge taboo unless they are misused. Now, how can a single pictures stir some much controversy? Well, for that to understand you need to try to put yourself in a third-world position. So, imagine, that western culture is not dominant in the world, imagine it's chinese. And, all your kids read chinese literature, dress chinese way, write in chinese script (since roman is no longer cool), watch chinese movies, learn chinese in school, look at chinese websites, etc... And imagine that only thing that keeps you as community is your religion considered by china as barbaric, and you as possible terrorist and second-class citizen... and that somewhere in well-off china, someone posts cartoons of baby jesus being pissed on by buddha and confucius... Would you be offended? Would it be by the picture itself, or by it representing a symbol of humiliation and power of the first-world to desecrate even the things you find most sacred and all in the name of free-speech? I'm not trying to advocate anything, just to draw a picture of how I've seen people feel - which not might be fully representative, but might give some insight ..
r.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Nada,
I'm not sure you're representing the position accurately of Shiite muslims. Far from all muslims take offense. Many, but not all Sunnis do, and some, but not nearly as many Shiite's do. Furthermore, I'm not sure I believe you are in a position to state that there will be no demonstrations. There have already been demonstrations, as reported in the news. You cannot predict the future, and is both folly and dangerous to give assurances that you have no ability to uphold.
Finally, I would appreciate that the conference organizers not dismiss something that potentially could affect the safety of conference goers, and not assume that skepticism and criticism equates to poor knowledge of Islamic belief, or uncivilized behavior. That was dangerously prevelant within the Alexandria bid team during the Wikimania bids, it's dangerously prevalent in Egypt's demonstrations (and official state action, no less) today, and it seems borderline prevalent in the tone of your post.
When the government of the country that we are hosting a major conference in, completely bans the sale of foreign newspapers for displaying pictures of Muhammed, and chastises the ambassadors from other countries for doing so, we have every right to be concerned about the status and safety of Wikimania. And we have every right to express our dismay in the heavy-handed censorship displayed by the Egyptian government, censorship which is fundamentally opposed to Wikimedia principles.
-Dan
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Nada -- if you're still reading this thread, there are a couple of questions I'd like to ask:
1.
I don't have a strong opinion either way about the pictures themselves, and I really understand why they shock muslims. But more to the point, I think everyone sees that this story has "legs", both in the middle east and in the west.
In the middle east, a lot of people would be interested (if that's the right word) to know that wikipedia has published not only these pictures of muhammad but also the danish cartoons. The story's obviously more sensational if it's given the false spin that wikipedia is deliberately *trying* to anger muslims, but it's a compelling story to middle easterners even if that spin isn't there (I think).
In the west, the story of the *reaction* to the pictures is compelling. Incredibly compelling -- seriously. The alexandria angle occurred to me as soon as I heard about the petition against the pictures -- I could have written a "wikimania in egypt, free speech vs. religion" blog post and it would have gotten a gazillion page views.
This is the type of story that goes right to the top of digg and reddit, and then hits the new york times and CNN -- and that's without any protests in egypt. Hell, it's already gone to the top of reddit (the guardian article) without anyone even realizing that wikimania's in egypt at all. The only reason I didn't write it was that I wasn't sure it would be a good thing for ... well, for anyone, really (except me) if the story actually took off. (Because if the story takes off in the west, it'll probably take off in the middle east, and vice versa.)
At this point I'm not sure the story is containable, though -- you can't count on everyone to keep quiet about it. If you do that, then all the reasonable people will keep their mouths shut and the people who eventually break the story -- the people who set the initial tone and are responsible for framing the issue -- are the unreasonable or excitable ones, or the ones who understand the situation less well.
Seriously -- I won't blog about this if people ask me not to, but in my professional opinion (or whatever), there is basically no chance that this won't be a big news story, one way or another, even if I never mention it.
Case in point: when Fox News covered the "Muslims Protest Wikipedia Images of Muhammad" story -- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,328966,00.html -- guess which image they led with. Yes: the picture of muhammad. That's not responsible journalism; unlike wikipedia, they really *were* trying to inflame muslims, or at least taking glee in not caring whether they inflamed them.
The *only* reason the fox reporter didn't mention the alexandria/wikimania issue -- which opens a whole huge can of worms from a journalistic perspective -- is because he didn't know about it. Fox trims its news staff to the bone; they do very little original research and mostly just duplicate pre-existing reports with their own spin. If he had read the lists, like a couple other reporters do, then fox news would have been the outlet to break this story. (Needless to say, that would have been terrible.)
I know basically nothing about egypt, but I really think you ought to plan for this story getting big instead of counting on it not getting big, and maybe taking some steps to make sure that the story is framed the right way -- i.e. *not* as a "free speech vs. religion" story in the west, and not as a "the arrogant west disrespects us one more time" story in egypt; both of those framings are totally false and misleading. But you're the one who lives in egypt, and you're the one who knows what the best steps to take might be. (Someone suggested that we start an information resource, which seems like a great idea. It's the one thing wikipedians are better at than anyone else.)
In a nutshell: there's a very easy and convienient framework of religion vs. free speech and islam vs. the west that not only masks the actual complexities inside the west and inside islam but also serves the interests of extremists on both sides. This way of looking at the world is very common pretty much everywhere and it's very important that this story *not* be seen this way. Indeed, I thought that part of the point of holding wikimania in egypt was to spread knowledge and undercut this way of thinking.
2.
Okay. So I came across this article -- "Egypt Bans Four Foreign Newspapers Over Republication of Anti-Prophet Cartoon" -- http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content...
The quote that struck me was this one:
* * * The re-emergence of the cartoon issue also prompted thousands of students to demonstrate in the southern conservative university of Assiut against the insults to Islam's most revered figure.
"Anything but our prophet," students led by their dean and professors chanted while marching around campus. "Jews, Jews, watch out, the army of Muhammed will return," they also said. * * *
It's a little difficult for me to express my emotions reading that. First: although the newspaper doesn't provide much context, it seems to indicate that these students think the printings of the cartoons are somehow organized by, or connected with, a group of jews. As a westerner, I can recognize this attitude as astonishing and baffling.
For example, because there are very few jews remaining in western europe. And because none of the influential politicians or entertainers in denmark are jewish. And because none of the cartoonists are jewish, and none of the newspaper editors. Jews, in fact, seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with this.
Because the cartoons are not connected with judaism in any conventional way, the fact that the students are bringing up jews seems to indicate one of several things:
1. The students think jews control the european media.
2. The students think that any perceived insults to their religion must originate with jews.
3. The students identify anything negative with jews, or are using the word "jews" as a general purpose pejorative (in the same way that some french youth use the the word feuj, an inverted form of the french word for jew, to mean "broken" or "bad" and some american youth use "gay" to mean "weak" or "corny".)
I'm not religious, but I'm jewish by ethnicity, so reading that made me feel (apart from wanting to cry, or scream in frustration, or crawl into a hole somewhere) deeply disillusioned with any egyption wikimania.
As I said, the newspaper didn't provide much context, so I'm hoping you can clarify what that protest means in terms of the more general social climate in egypt. How different are attitudes in Alexandria from attitudes in Assiut? This wikimania was presented as a cross-cultural sharing of ideas, but if the gulf is this vast, will wikimania just be held in a foreigner-friendly government-supported bubble? It's all very well to have a conference at the library of alexandria, but I was under the impression that the venue had some purpose other than symbolism and enjoying the beach.
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