Monty Python may have expected some backlash, but they certainly did not expect a Spanish Inquisition when they released Life of Brian (1979). However, that was quite what they were met with when the movie first came out and a large number of priests throughout the Western world who wanted …
Read More »Religious censorship – the Salman Rushdie affair
“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” Salman Rushdie On Valentine’s Day 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini sent a different kind of love letter to Salman Rushdie through the Radio Tehran station. He issued a fatwa against him calling all Muslims on Earth to …
Read More »Blaming the victims – The Danes against barbarity
“There is no god, and we are his prophets” Cormac McCarthy, The Road This story would be funny, if it wasn’t tragic. It’s the story of how a dozen comic cartoons contributed to the deaths of roughly 200 people, while Western leaders, and the Western public at large, failed to …
Read More »The survivors of Charlie Hebdo feel alone, while the enemy still runs loose
On 7 January 2015, a tragedy befell the capital of France, when two brothers attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing and injuring many of its staff. Cause of the attack were the blasphemous cartoons on its front pages, which depicted Mohamed; a depiction that constitutes a …
Read More »Animation of the Parthenon violations through the centuries
When the Athenian Acropolis museum opened, another attempt to intervene in the intellectual world of the country was made by the Greek Orthodox Church. The reason was a short animated video, directed by none other than Costa-Gavras, where the damages to the Parthenon where depicted. Around one and a half …
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