The Taliban are just a bunch Lutherans
More crap parading as art, this time in Stockholm:
Artist Rosa Liksom tries to tame the burkha. Apparently she had to go to a gallery in Sweden to try that.
Finnish Liksom doesn’t volunteer to wear a burka, because she doesn’t have to; that doesn’t prevent her from promoting the repressive garment:
Burkhas in Finnish nature are part of the Finlandia exhibition by artist Rosa Liksom, which has opened in Stockholm.
“I have used women in burkhas in my comic strips already from the 1990s”, Rosa Liksom says. From there they came to my paintings, and now into videos and photographs.
“When painted or drawn, the image of a burkha has not raised any passions at all”, Liksom says.
Of course, how much talent does it take to draw a burka? Particularly when it affords an opportunity for moral equivalence?
Women in Finnish surroundings dressed in burkhas were immediately taken as a very political artistic statement.
Rosa Liksom does not agree.
“I was born in the far north, in a small village, where most of the people were members of the Conservative Laestadian sect. There women were always dressed in black, and they wore black scarves, showing only their faces.”
Of course! The Finnish Lutheran revivalists are just the same as the Taliban. Aren’t they?
If you look at the photo in the Wikipedia entry for Conservative Laestadianism you’ll find an integrated congregation worshiping at a service where none of the women are covered. Could it be that Laestadian women aren’t forced to cover themselves, and when they do is because it’s darned cold in Northern Finland?
I’d like to know what the Laestadian men are wearing. Are they showing only their faces? Or do they choose to freeze their nuts off while walking about in Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and flip-flops as if they were waiting in line in Disneyworld instead of plodding through the tundra?
The article continues,
Then Liksom became inspired to examine landscapes, and especially the concept of a “national landscape”.
“I thought what would fit with it as an element of alienation, and I came up with the burkha. Its blue colour calls to mind the Finnish flag. It is both graphic and figurative as a material.”
“And naturally, it is something that raises powerful emotions”, Liksom adds.
“Islam is so demonised in the West that I wanted to tame the burkha.
Get a rise out of your audience, undemonize a repressive garment, and stick it to The Man.
Groovin’ to the powerful emotions, indeed.
(h/t F.Desouche, via the Baron)
The disquieting creeping-up of European censorship
Last March I posted that the French Constitutional Council had approved a law that could lead to creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet, effectively banning journalists from reporting violence. At that time, the French government proposed
a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules.
One of the reasons I post on France is that, where France leads, Europe follows.
Well, today Baron Bodissey posts about censorship in Finland, The proposed law, however, is much more far-reaching and included IM and IRC, and includes the hiring of moderators censors to monitor it all.
The items in italics are the replies by Finnish State Prosecutor Mika Illman on the proposed law:
Hiring an adequate number of moderators would become mandatory, as it already is mandatory for a network publication to have an editor, who is responsible for controlling the journalistic work.
…
3. How does your suggestion take IRC and instant messages into account?The principle is the same. The administrator would have a duty to monitor the discussion and in due time to take action against clearly illegal material. This is no stronger obligation than the one TV or radio broadcaster has in the case of live broadcast.
Who would pay for all this and how it would be done two of the many unasked questions.
Couldn’t happen here, you say? Here in the USA, broadcast radio is trying to censor internet radio. Little Miss Attila explains why you should support H.R. 2060.
Update: And then, there’s using the Fairness Doctrine As Political Intimidation
In preparation for the 2008 elections, Democrats in Congress are trying to intimidate radio and TV broadcasters into including more Democrat views into their programs.
They are trying to resurrect an antiquated Federal Communications Commission regulation, the Fairness Doctrine, to require that opposing sides be presented to arguments. The Fairness Doctrine emerged at a time of very few radio, then TV, stations. Although in 1969 the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality, in 1974 the Supreme Court did conclude the Doctrine “inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate”, and in 1984 that a scarcity of airwaves argument was by then flawed as a multitude of stations emerged and were expected. In 1985 the FCC ceased to support a Fairness Doctrine, and formally scrapped it in 1987. The number of radio stations has doubled since 1970, the former three networks’ TV stations are now challenged by over 500 alternatives, and the Internet carries a wide-diversity of views.
At root of the current push by Democrats is, as conservative columnist Geoge Will observed, “The illiberals’ transparent, and often proclaimed, objective is to silence talk radio.” Why? “By trying to again empower the government to regulate broadcasting, illiberals reveal their lack of confidence in their ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and their disdain for consumer sovereignty – and hence for the public.”
Read evert word.
Gates of Vienna on free speech in Finland, and here in the USA
Dymphna at Gates of Vienna sent these two must-read posts:
Muzzled in Finland
One of the foremost Finnish immigration and islam critical bloggers Mikko Ellilä is facing a police investigation concerning his blog posts.
Please read the posts in full; Dymphna and the Baron are suggesting we take action: Finland Cracks Down
1. If you are a blogger, publicize this on your blog. If you are Finnish, and have additional information on Mikko Ellilä, send it in to us or to other blogs to add to the publicity. In particular, a photo would help — I couldn’t find one.
2. Contact the Finnish authorities. For our American readers, the Finnish embassy has a handy US map with state-by-state contact information here.
Here’s the main contact info for their embassy in Washington:Embassy of Finland
3301 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008
U.S.ATel. 1-202-298 5800
Fax: 1-202-298 6030
E-mail: sanomat.was@formin.fi
Homepage: www.finland.org
As a follow-up,follow-up,
The Finnish government is apparently trying to impose Chinese-style totalitarian censorship on the internet. Since the parliament would not approve of any new censorship laws, the government is trying to impose censorship ILLEGALLY by abusing existing laws against hate speech. Such laws were originally obviously meant to be used against Nazi-style “kill all Jews” rhetoric, but since the Muslims use that kind of rhetoric all the time, and THEY are not being interrogated by the police, whereas people who say things like “Islam is a totalitarian ideology” ARE interrogated, the hate speech laws are obviously being used AGAINST their original purpose.
Again, this is an extremely important issue. Do not give in.
I emailed today.
You believe something like this can’t happen here?
Well, think again.
More on the “hate crime” legislation here (PDF file)
Update No Law Abridging, 2007 Edition
Any number of groups eager to force their views upon their opponents and their opponents’ audiences would swarm aboard any such enterprise. Imagine a law that would require Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch to permit “rebuttal” entries from CAIR, ISNA, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Consider the prospect of environmentalists and global warming flacksters being legally entitled to “equal time” on contrary Websites. Or imagine, if you can, giving Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan the legal privilege of forcing a “rebuttal” into this document, in the name of “fairness.”
Combine “fairness doctrine” legislation with “hate speech” legislation, some of which is already pending before several state legislatures, and what would anyone be allowed to say without fear of prosecution or a crippling legal action?