Mohammed cartoons and Flag of Israel: Design Wars
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that published cartoons picturing prophet Mohammad as terrorist apologized to the Islamic world yesterday.
All controversial cartoons can be seen here (I afraid that you need to be patient, server is overloaded)
Yesterday Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar demanded Israel to change State’s Flag:
“Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag”, said Zahar. “The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel’s borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile.”
From Arutz Sheva, online Israeli newspaper:
“Israel’s national flag, a blue Star of David set between two blue stripes, was designed to resemble a Jewish prayer shawl which traditionally has stripes.”
So, now the war between the East and West coming into the brand new phase: “Design Wars”… Should European designers demand to remove green color from the flags of islamic countries?
you have attack us, now i inform to you that u’re not safe, you will go to hell, and please contact me for beginning war with me don’t be happy, i swear tomorrow or after tomorrow you will die and sent to hell.
Comment by i'm a moslem — February 7, 2006 @ 8:47 am
zionism sucks, as does violence. to the person above, may peace and love be with you and all people. i’m so sorry you’ve been hurt. i wish everyone would stop fighting and live in peace. i am a u.s. american (ethnic european and native american), and i hate that the u.s. is doing what it is, it’s not fair. violence is violence, though, and it sucks because it doesn’t make the pain go away. anyways, peace be with all–may we all unite in compassion.
for voices of muslims opposed to violence over the cartoons:
muslim & arabic youths: http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/
the palestinian organization of norway: http://www.safsaf.org/akh06hh/bayanfalg_dpf06.htm
~peace~
Comment by peace — February 8, 2006 @ 10:50 pm
@peace: what are your information sources about zionism, and how deep is your knowledge about this movement to judge it? How far you associating zionism with Jewish nation? And finally, what are ways to get united in compassion?
Comment by Igor Polyakov — February 8, 2006 @ 11:19 pm
hi there, igor. you’re right… i probably shouldn’t have used the term “zionism,” because it can have multiple meanings.
anti-semitism is horrible and wrong, i believe; i am not in any way, shape, or form opposed to jewish national identity (via zionism or whatever term), i just find the creation of the state of israel to be problematic as hundreds of thousands of people have been hurt in the process–ultimately it doesn’t seem the fairest possible solution. a jewish homeland is needed, but the creation of a specifically jewish nation-state in palestine doesn’t seem fair to the muslim-palestinian people. occupation is a bitch, as it were, you could hear that from my mother’s people, who walked the u.s. trail of tears. i think the best thing is a common goal of peace and co-existence, as Said asserted.
that said, i’m clearly not an expert on the issue and i don’t mean to unfairly judge anyone–it just hurts terribly to see people displaced and in pain –whoever they are. the foundation of my information concerning all of this comes from friends, young scholars who are both jewish, muslim, and otherwise; as well as scholars such as Edward Said and Noam Chomskey, amongst others: the voices of young israeli intellectual punk-rockers; and various texts and medias. in addition, i’ve also found the websites of jews opposed to zionism to be of interest… there’s a list of them on wikipedia, accompanied by a list of criticism of that stance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism#Anti-Zionist_links
don’t “get me wrong”–i intellectually condemn the violence over the cartoons; it seems there are very few times when violence is the best answer…
as for “getting united in compassion,” i obviously don’t have all the answers, but i’m very inspired by:
*”Oasis of Peace: (ne-vé shal-om / waah-at i-sal-aam: Hebrew and Arabic for Oasis of Peace [Isaiah 32:18]): A village in Israel established jointly by Jews and Palestinian Arabs of Israeli citizenship and engaged in educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples.” –http://www.nswas.org/
*Not in My Name: Seeking a Just Peace Between Israeli’s and Palestinians (by Israelis and Palestinians) — http://www.nimn.org/About/index.php
–
There’s also a women (I wish I could remember her name) who does peace-work therapy between people, teaching them how to open up and listen and share. She’s been doing the work with Jews, Muslims, Germans, etc. with great success for the individuals. I think this kind of education is probably the most important
Finally, sorry– I probably termed my original statement incorrectly. Also, I don’t intend to be ingratiating with the peace stuff, or pollyana-istic, but the situation is so thrown out of balance, compassion seems sorely needed to salve the suffering. While we must be witness to the destruction of life that is happening, it often seems that we don’t see the work for peace that united individuals are laboring for. i’m sorry that person on post 1 left that awful comment… i’ve been seeing this sort of thing through many blogs, and the only thing that it seems i can do as anonymous “westerner” is to lend an ear to another’s suffering, try to understand it, because obviously they are acting out. i don’t want to inflame anyone towards violence, but try to cool that angry fire… or make that anger work towards peace.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.” –Jalludin Rumi
Comment by peace — February 9, 2006 @ 3:17 am
“you have write silly comment, now i inform to you that u’re not very good at spelling, you should go to school, and please contact someone to get an anger management course, i don’t swear as its not nice, one day all of us will eventually die, the hell part is up to your religion, if any…”
Yeah, what can you say, at least it would be a whole lot nicer to talk about flag colours for a change. Still, do you think that those previous comments were simply trolls or a joke of some kind, or did someone actually threaten you because of that post? That second one doesn’t look much better either. Is it just me, or are we humans getting dumber by the minute?
Comment by Joonas — February 9, 2006 @ 8:54 am
Dear folks,
Prophet Mohammad said:
“A strong person is not the person who throws his adversaries to the ground. A strong person is the one who contains himself when he is angry”.
Allah also says in the Holy Qur’an:
“Man was created weak.”
When a lion or a wolf is angry, he does not think. When a man becomes angry as a result of provocation, he has a choice to control his anger or to respond to it as he has learned from the Qur’an and from Prophet Mohammad’s teachings, or forget all that and become a wild animal.
Thus anger takes place when we are not in control of ourselves, but the devil is controlling us. Anger in itself is a natural feeling, Allah has put such feeling inside us to react against what’s harming us, for instance to protect our lives, our properties, and our families. Yet we shouldn’t over do that. Meaning it is ok to feel angry, but it is dangerous and forbidden by Allah to surrender to your anger and follow it to as far as it takes you (for it might drive you to killing somebody).
Anger is a de stabilizing thought. It is the most dividing emotion between friends; it takes away judgment, leads to depression, madness and wrong actions that we would repent later on when we are not angry. But why do we get angry to begin with? It is either an unexpected provocation or unexpected situation which leads to frustration and an angry response.
During anger, one can physically or verbally abuse a person that he or she loves, hurt another living being like an animal, or during the dejection phase of anger, one can even hurt him- or herself and even commit suicide. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) gave us the medicine for that saying:
“Shake hands and rancor will disappear. Give gifts to each other and love each other and enmity will disappear”.
And War must only be fought to protect the lives, property, and freedoms of people. It must not be fight to protect the freedom of people to worship God when that freedom is forcibly attacked. We are never allowed to attack innocent people, even when they are ourselves attacked. Any people that go against this established principle of Islamic Law are fighting against Islam and everything that it stands for.
It’s never too late to forgive as Allah says (Qu’ran 42:40)
“The reward of the evil is the evil thereof, but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon Allah.�
Comment by In Finland — February 9, 2006 @ 9:58 am
In Finland,
Thank you for sharing those enlightening ideas. They are something I will remember and think about.
Peace.
Comment by peace — February 9, 2006 @ 10:17 am
[…] Okay, I understand that not everybody loving design, some of visitors coming to write threatening comments like this one, the first on this article: http://www.nordicdesignblog.com/wordpress/archives/434 […]
Pingback by Nordic Design Blog » Russia is out here — March 3, 2006 @ 4:05 pm
perhaps all this talk should be submitted as a poster design, however abstract in form. my understanding is this is a design blog, not a venting blog
Comment by california — March 6, 2006 @ 10:44 pm
Thank you friends for sharing your thoughts about this matter.
Comment by Igor Polyakov — March 8, 2006 @ 6:50 pm