I suppose we can all look forward to another anguished 500 word howl of indignance and platitudes on the Comment Is Free website about how its perfectly acceptable to label people as gays and homos if they represent ‘non-progressive’ viewpoints as you are actually subverting the cultural norm and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Twat.

“The Danish cartoons were “works of art”? Not even the most hardened HP-types would use that pretext JaiMan. The cartoons were an act of cultural gesture politics commissioned by a media-savvy opinion makers. Not comparable to MF Hussain’s work, please. Not in the same league and the intentions dude.”

So you are now the latest guru on the blog or what ?.

I bet you never ever read the article in connection with the cartoons, when it was published ?.

And.. I am positive you havent got the slightest clue about the art of caricatures = you must be muslim…

Pete

u ABCD’s are pathetic.

Maybe if you accepted the humour of Westerners, you wouldn’t have been so offended by what was clearly a joke. And South Park is hilarious!

Offending people keeps them on their toes. I still maintain that whatever this artist’s intentions, he should have the right to his freedom of expression.

He’s not inciting death. He’s not gathering people to destroy Hinduism. He’s not even trying to be funny.

Besides, it’s about time the world stopped being such prudes. Ashamed of their own bodies and hence other bodies.

OK, the animal porn may be taking it too far, but that’s HIS projection of HIS own thoughts.

With the cartoon thing, and this, I fail to see how anyone complaining can have any conviction in their faith. Their “relationship” with God should not be so easily destroyed.

(P.S. I agree. If God hated it, he’d smite them all.)

Hurray for Hindus on a peaceful removal of these offensive paintings!

Threats were made to the painting and not the painter or the organisers.

Energy and time well worth spent.

I just wish the whining Asians would put their energy into something more productive :S

Da-vinci film, danish cartoons and now hussain’s paintings…. this is what competitive intolerence is turning India into. The UPA knack for bending over backwards in its minority appeasement gives enough ammunition for Hindutvadis to lauch another tirade against free speech.

>>because a bunch of some silly muslims make a fuss and make life for other artists difficult, does this mean that automaticall y all hindus have to rise up and do the same sort of thing.

But it is not ALL hindus, not by a long shot.No Hindu mass street protests that I can see. Though I rather suspect that if there were such mass outpourings of anger or pain, PP commentators will find it easier to justify censorship on account of the fact it is not nice to offend so many people for so little reason. The arguments extended here during the Danish cartoon furore come to mind.

MF Hussain’s staunchest supporters are Hindu too. The harassers are specifically an unholy cabal of hindutvadis – the Bajrang dal, Shiv sena, VHP, BJP and now, it seems some of their supporters in the UK. Sunny was right to highlight and decry what happened at Asia House. Craven appeasement is hard to stomach.

BTW, the Hindutvadis’ sins are all their own but the tactics they have adopted – criminal intimidation – have been proven increasingly successful since the time of Rushdie, circa 1989. If you want to fight back the religious extremists and the outraged religionists,and hold on to a secular public space which offers protection to the individual rather than the community, you’d have fight all such threats equally strongly.

there is a difference also between an individual’s expression and a collective outpouring of wrath.

Anyway, Sepia Mutiny posted the link today to the debate they had on MF Husain’s paintings a few months ago, so here is the link for anybody who is interested:

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/002980.html

It also includes several snapshots of his more controversial paintings.

Your only answer to my #157 is :

>>Its unfortunate that when your standards are shown to be a bit on the limp side themselves, its Sid who is trying to “shut down debate” Sid’s “personal attacks”, Sid’s “hyperbolic nonsense” and Sid who is trying to “do an HP” on you and xyz, whatever that means, who is to blame.

Cowardly. I take it that you concede you lost the entire argument.

>>My point was how quick you were to point out MF Hussain’s “inconsistent actions” whereas Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a “flawed individual” speaking on behalf of secularism and atheism.

Again, nonsense!

Xyz made the point about Husain in post number #37. I did not enter the debate at all until #49 and that was to express disdain for those agitating against Husain, not to castigate the artist. In fact I di not address xyz’s comment about Husain until a full 3 hours later, after having gone to the trouble of finding out for myself if the accusation of double standard was true, at post #108. Yes, that’s being trigger happy, for you!

And this was the sum total of what I said then:

“Ah, I did not know this. MF Hussain, with remarkable alacrity, withdrew his movie from all Indian cinemas in 2004 due to complaints from muslim organisations over ONE song. Xyz’s points about the double standards of the artist himself appear valid.”

Yes, I was gleefully pissing all over poor Hussain, wasn’t I? Like I said, don’t judge me by your abysmal standards.

As for my implied ‘quick’ defence of Ayaan Ali, there was a whole thread that I was aware of and avoided participating in for more than a day because I wanted to distance myself from the usual dickwaving some of you asian blokes seem to favour almost reflexively. I still have thoughts on the AHA controversy that I have not expressed because I am wondering what bloody good it will do in a macho forum such as PP.

Your point about my ‘inconsistency’ is just so much hogwash.

7 hours down the international time line and there, on that expected spot, is blood on the carpet.

Its unfortunate that when your standards are shown to be a bit on the limp side themselves, its Sid who is trying to “shut down debate” Sid’s “personal attacks”, Sid’s “hyperbolic nonsense” and Sid who is trying to “do an HP” on you and xyz, whatever that means, who is to blame.

My point was how quick you were to point out MF Hussain’s “inconsistent actions” whereas Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a “flawed individual” speaking on behalf of secularism and atheism.

I am guilty of inconsistency – I’ll admit it. But have the courage to face up to your own.

Yes, wonderful. But let’s be consistent and let the gods decide in every case: da vinci code, jerry springer, mo cartoons, the whole bloody lot of them.

If the Hindu gods are really pissed off with M.F Husain then he will surely be struck by one of those lightening-maigical-goldish-summersaulting arrows.

As a Sid-designated member of the ‘hindutva’ cabal, I’d like to state that I find nothing to complain about in Hussain’s choice of material – whether it is the silly mother india painting or the goddesses getting it on with the animals. I do not believe that artistic expression has to wait on someone’s need or sensitivity to offence.

>> Back then the same, by and large, set of commenters who were defending the right of the Danish paper to publish those cartoons in the spirit of Freedom of Expression are, right now, casting aspersions on MF Hussain’s artistic intentions.

1. So these commentators are … me and who else? XYZ? What about Charlie Brown – is he included in this gang though he was not around then or Don?

Just the ones you’ve labelled hindutva/communalist in the past like me and XYZ?

You do love that tactic of throwing dirt and hoping that it sticks but tough luck, I am not letting you get away with it a second time.

Btw, here you are cheerleading Hussain’s freedom of expression (as you should!) when in the case of uncomfortable expressions much, much closer to home say Ayaan H Ali or the Danish cartoonists, who were facing credible death threats , you were very much less than sympathetic (and this is to put a kind interpretation on your reactions then.

I do not know your views on Theo van Gogh- but something tells me that you would not have stuck your lil’ neck out for HIS right to express himself freely. Who are the hypocrites here on PP? Who is being consistent?

2. You’d maybe (if your head wasn’t so far up your arse!) notice that MY opinion is that MF Hussain has unqualified artistic freedom as the Danish cartoonists had the same freedom of expression,fucking regardless of INTENTION or HISTORICAL PRETEXT(I don’t pantyfoot my way around unlike yourself on these issues). Thus they are in my book free to mock and ridicule and be subversive and divisive. Quote me one word or line where I renege on this stand. Do.

3. Where did I cast aspersions on the Hussain’s artistic intentions? Come on. Just one sentence. One word.

4. I am dismayed with his BEHAVIOUR when faced with criticism. He has not buckled in to the hindu hardliners. Fantastic for him! I mean this sincerely. But giving in to muslim censors without a whimper of protest- shameful and worthy of at least an explanation from the man as to the double standards.

Again there is a parallel with the Danish cartoons- much noise was made here on PP by those of your ilk over the fact that the newspaper had previously censored a christian cartoon – leading to charges of hypocrisy and ill-intention. Forgotten that?

>> Now his freedom of expression are subservient to his rank hypocricy

Not at all! Just rank misrepresentation on your part.It is sleights of hand like this that make me dislike your style of ‘argument’ so much. Don’t judge others by your limp standards.

>> and mirax, ever the unstinting anti-religion crusader has second thoughts and

True I am atheist but anti-religion-fucking-crusader??? Hyperbolic nonsense! In fact, I’d be a damn stalwart defender of your right to believe and practise your particular religious tosh. I simply reserve the right to deride said tosh (though this is a something that I rarely do in fact)

>>instead, “double standards of the artist himself appear valid”.

Your argument is the double standards are not? At all? Why? Come on – lay out the argument like a woman instead of hiding behind personal attacks!

>>> So he’s nothing more than a communal agitator and this proven for his retraction of Muslim paintings that caused offence and not his Hindu paintings.

And now to the glorious conclusion of this whole polemic: communal agitation!!
Problem is this: I am concerned by the inconsistent action of ONE man in ONE instance that has just come to my attention. I never said anything else.

YOU are the one who is deliberately fanning the communal angle with words that were NOT written or sentiments that were NOT expressed.
Why? And again, WHY?

I suspect I know why. You are trying to do a HP on me and I daresay, xyz.

You constantly and often irrelevantly (see above) putdown HP (including its writers) as rabid Islamophobics whose every utterance is suspect and therefore to be vilified. The truth of what HP or Gene or David T may actually be saying is completely irrelevant to your obsessive need to demonise and marginalise their opinions. You can thus remain complacent and snug in your tiny corner.

See the links to the offending paintings and decide for yourself. The fact that he removed his film on protests from Muslim groups exposes his double standards. While at the same time you could argue for his freedom of speech but i believe there was *no need* for these paintings.