Air Arabia rips off South Park
Air Arabia, a discount carrier based in the United Arab Emirates, is promoting itself with characters ripped off from South Park. This is a pretty weird combo when you consider how the Muslim world feels about cartoons that satirize religion.
Incidentally, it looks like this airline can really get you around for cheap. I just checked Yahoo's currency converter, and you can get 1 UAE dirham for 0.27 US dollars. So that flight from Sharjah to Aqaba will only set you back $21.60.
posted by Adam Villani @ 4/20/2006 01:50:00 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I suspect that the Muslim World regards South Park much in the same way the Christian World does.
Or the Scientology World.
Actually, my point there is that obviously you have people like the Catholic League raising a fuss any time they do anything with Jesus or priests or Mary, but they don't have to worry about them blowing places up or threatening to behead them.
Ah, so you're not talking about the "Muslim World" any more than you're talking about the "Christian World." You're talking about Muslim Extremists, who seem to relish blowing people up with roughly the same glee that "Christian Extremists" like Randall Terry greets reports of abortion clinic bombings.
Mike, I see where you're going with this line of reasoning. I know there are plenty of Muslims who aren't terrorists or sympathizers. But the fact of the matter is that the support for violent means to further religious ends is much stronger amongst Muslims worldwide than amongst Christians. Just back to the matter of cartoons, did you miss the reports of deadly riots to protest the Danish cartoons a few months ago? Did you miss the photos of protestors in Britain holding signs saying "Behead those who insult Islam?"
These are not isolated cases. In Afghanistan, conversion away from Islam is a capital crime. In Iran, homosexuals are executed, and the president has said in no uncertain terms that Israel should be wiped off the map. In Indonesia, Christian schoolgirls were beheaded.
Theo Van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands by a Muslim fanatic. Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who criticized Muslims' treatment of women, must live in secrecy because of legitimate threats to her life.
Christians have embarrassments like Fred Phelps. But in the U.S., Fred Phelps is a fringe whacko with few followers beyond his extended family. In many parts of the Middle East, his virulent views would be smack-dab in the middle of the mainstream.
All religions have moderates and extremists. And all have adherents willing to kill for what they think is a higher purpose. To pretend that the proportion of Muslims who feel this way is "much the same" as the Christians willing to use violence over religious offenses is not a matter of tolerance, but of blindness.
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