Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.
"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.
The magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism in suburban Amherst, includes four of the drawings that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse....
I have some sympathy for Borders here. It seems to me that leading bookstores, like leading universities, need to take some risks -- and, yes, even risks that involve potential risks to customers and employees -- in order to protect the marketplace of ideas that sustains them. Nonetheless, I can certainly see why Borders might worry about this risk.
The real point here, though, is that speech suppression caused by the threat of extremist Muslim violence has come to the U.S. We are all Danes now. What is the West, and what are we, going to do about it?
Related Posts (on one page):
- We Are All Danes Now, Latest Installment:
- Canada's Largest Retail Bookstore Bows To Fear of Anti-Cartoon Demonstrations,
- "Racist" Cartoons:
- It Appears Borders Is Carrying the Harper's Issue
- Harper's Magazine Apparently Publishing the Mohammed Cartoons,
- Free Speech and Tort Lawsuits Over Attacks on Bookstores:
- Fear of Extremist Muslim Violence Suppresses Speech in the U.S.:
They carry all sorts of books, magazines, etc., some quite bizarre. Do they inspect each magazine/book/newspaper before putting it up for sale? Otherwise, how did they know to ban the magazine?
That's okay, though. They have a perfect right to not carry the one little magazine out of fear. I can get those same images online very easily.
Just like I can order books very easily from various online retailers like Amazon...
I find the Borders comment to be lacking in any sense that not carrying a visual depiction of Mohammed might be declined simply due to not wanting to *offend* people.
As far as I know, Borders does not carry hardcore pornographic videos. Is it because they're afraid of violence?
I'm not saying that the threat of violence isn't real. The sick thing is that it is, and lots of Muslims on the international scene seem to ahve the idea that they get ot censor people outside of their own countries. That's wrong and abbhorent.
But on the other hand, ignoring the fact that a picture of the prophet really *is* insulting to Muslims is ignoring an entire valid side of the issue.
Sometimes I wonder if you teach using similar methods. If so, I feel sorry for your studetns.
A "marketplace" implies, potentially, the need for some form of OSHA. It would imply that Borders sees selling magazines that contain the Danish cartoons as being akin to selling something dangerous to the safety and health of its employees.
Such a theory appears to be at least part of Borders's argument.
As long as we have a "marketplace of ideas," it is perfectly rational for private businesses to make decisions like the one Borders has made. The only thing that "the West can do" is try to make the goods that are being sold less dangerous to health and safety of the employees selling such goods. And that is not as easy as it might seem.
So when Borders carried the Kanye West issue of Rolling Stone that depicted him as Jesus, which was really, really insulting to many Christians, they were doing what, exactly?
Borders carries hundreds of books and magazines that are very insulting to people of various faiths, and they make a big deal about fighting censorship (they have a big push for Banned Books Week).
So, when it comes down to it, folks like Josh_Jasper are really just defending hypocrisy and the rights of some religious groups to threaten the rest of us for fairly minor reasons, and the tendency of some people to pretend they're "fighting the good fight" when they're really not.
Which shows why the "marketplace of ideas" is a theory that has limits.
What "the West can do," per the "marketplace of ideas" and its concomitant need for a type of OSHA, is make the goods less hazardous to the safety and health of the employees selling such goods. That does not necessarily mean banning anything. It means improving workplace safety.
How do we go about doing that? One method is censorship. But it's not the only method. A much preferable method is to try to "win hearts and minds" and instill universal liberal (lower case l-liberal a la JS Mill) values, thus defusing the safety hazard. "Winning hearts and minds" is very difficult to do. But it's worth the fighting for.
And forget peacefull protests - just think what 500,000 people really could of done to this country - screw immigration law, lets burn the country down until they kneal before us and give us whatever we are asking for.
Fairly soon we can be France West. Protest enough and get what you want. Pay the Danegeld - it always worked, didnt it? well, it worked for the Danes
And this is essentially a no-cost action, since Free Inquiry is obscure not selling one month's worth will have nearly zero effect upon Border's income. Would they have done the same if it was Time or Newsweek? Sadly, we won't know since those magazines aren't publishing the cartoons.
Well, I will no longer patronize Borders or Waldenbooks, and I am composing a letter to the Borders Group telling them why. I encourage others to do the same.
To puff and look important and to say:—
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
Rudyard Kipling
Likewise with much of the other fringe stuff they carry.
But of course, the threat here is very real.
I was unaware that Borders started in Ann Arbor. If this is so, do they have some kind of headquarters there, and would the threat level be increased because of the proximity to so many Arabs living in that area?
And I just got one of those Rewards cards too. I'll still browse I suppose, but perhaps I'll exercise my own freedom of choice as well, and buy from Amazon. (Can I buy this magazine from Amazon?)
Yes, the headquarters is in Ann Arbor.
LGF is reporting that a Borders employee was told not to put Korans on the bottom shelf. Interesting, if true. Some reporter should ask Borders about this.
While I agree with what you say, I do think that David C. makes a valid point with regard to the action that Borders and Walden have taken. If a bookstore will sell material that many find offensive but will not sell material that offends a group that will kill in order to prevent its sale, purchase, perusal, etc., there is an incentive on the part of any offended group to resort to violence.
Amazon will certainly sell you a subscription; whether the subscription will start in time for you to get this particular issue is not a question that I can answer. Here's the link for a subscription:
...but there have been threats of violence against Borders for that sort of thing in the past, and there were threats (and actual actions) of violence against most book chains when The Satanic Verses came out - and they mostly didn't fold. Funny how a million-selling novel is worth defending, even though it annoys most of the Moslem world, but a minor magazine printing something that's been all around the world (the cartoons were even published in Egypt, incidentally) is suddenly something they need to discontinue.
Borders, incidentally, will happily sell you books on how to make bombs (The Anarchist Cookbook, $21.95), but are suddenly dodging the issue of what happens when someone uses that knowledge in the real world.
It is copyrighted material ... perhaps nobody can make a T shirt with the cartoons for that reason.
Thanks in advance...
-dk
By the way, it would be wrong to call this hypocrisy anyway. Inconsistency is not holding to your own standards. Hypocrisy is not doing what you tell others to do. Borders isn't telling anyone what to do, so even if there were an inconsistency in their policies it wouldn't thereby by hypocrisy.
Also for sale at Borders:
The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. $27.95 hardback. Also available in trade paperback.
Tell us about this new definition of "hypocrisy" you've developed.
http://www.bookweb.org/news/abffe/496.html
I was working at the Emeryville (CA) Borders at the time, and I don't think we had any books destroyed, though there were loud individual protesters, and our copies were shrinkwrapped and put so high on the wall that you had to use the ladder to get one down. (For those unfamiliar with the book, it consisted largely of naked portraits of prepubescent children. They weren't overtly sexual, and were made with the parents' consent.)
Let me be clear. You are wrong. I'm not. ALL I am doing is sying that there is potentially more than one side to the issue.
I'm not in favor of any censorship. But a bookstore owned by hypocrites is not censorship. It's free enterprise.
And please, before you put forth any more straw men about what my views on the subject are, ASK.
Is it at all possible to be opposed to showing the cartoons, but suppor the right of them to be published, because I belive in free speech? Or is that somehow supporting terrorism, which is the stock right-wing response to anyone who's not in lockstep agreement?
There's always potentially more than one side to an issue, but some of those sides are very, very small sides, and not equivalent in importance. You were defending Borders on a fairly trivial practical issue when, in the past, they've made huge noises about moral stances in similar cases.
Note that I didn't claim that Borders was censoring anything. I just pointed out that their claims of being worried about this one particular bit of risk pale in comparison to previous risks that they've happily faced in the past (when much more money was involved). This is, by the way, true hypocrisy (pretending to have a strong moral stand on some issue until it impacts the bottom line certainly qualifies).
I didn't need to, your words were right there to be read by all. If you have problems with what you said, take it up with the author.
The "straw man" is pretending that Borders suddenly came down with a case of manners when it comes to people's feelings, when they certainly made a buck off of hurting those same people's feelings in the past (one more time: "The Satanic Verses," which caused at least as much uproar, generated the same sort of threats, but which sold a whole lot more copies than an issue of some little magazine that 99% ofthe population never heard of).
I also wonder, mordantly, whether The Satanic Verses would be publishable if Rushdie wrote it today. I suspect publishers and booksellers would put paid to the project before it was even published.
Yes, but the threat today is far more credible and certain in light of the current world state. Riots over the cartoons, etc.
I don't agree with Borders' decision, and I do plan to make more purchases from Amazon now, However, the point at hand is that there is now, today in the United States, there is much higher level of threat from Islamic violence.
A second observation; I typically try to stay away from pointing out hypothetical double standards that can never be proven. You know the type; if a conservative had said that, . . . . Anyway, here goes.
If a Christian or Jewish group had made a strong enough reputation for certain violence, and a book was published condemning them or mocking them in some fashion, how would this same scenario play out? Would Borders not run the item? If not, would the NYTimes accuse them of being part of a religious right conspiracy? Or would the need to make a stand be all the more obvious since the threat was coming from a perceived majoritarian sector such as Christians or Jews?
Just a thought. . .
For whatever reasons, those threats of violence in the past didn't rise to the level of action (or non-action, depending on you shape the sentence). Now they do.
In a way, it's a slap at the Muslim community to regard these threats so seriously.
There's a lady with whom I work that I just can't get along with. She takes everything as confrontation, and so I am always being accused (behind my back) of being hot-headed. The problem is her emotional state, really, but it irks me that there are people within my larger social circle that think I'm a tempermental nut.
Point being, is that this indirectly confirms the radical nature of Muslims as a whole, whether it's true or not. As a Christian, I would feel a little sheepish if people were afraid of me, because of a perceived radicalism or tendency towards violence.
I find the Borders comment to be lacking in any sense that not carrying a visual depiction of Mohammed might be declined simply due to not wanting to *offend* people.
I think this squares pretty well with the idea that, were it *only* offensive, they wouldn't carry it.
Again, I'm *not* defending Borders. I'm trying to make the point that people, *including President Bush* have condemned the publication of the cartoons for the reason that it offends pepole, and somehow that side of the issue is getting ignored here, or worse made unimportant in the rush to publish the cartoons in order to defy the people who protested violently.
The "straw man" is pretending that Borders suddenly came down with a case of manners when it comes to people's feelings
Except I never pretended that. Sheesh.
I have to wonder now how many customers that morning passing through the mezzanine who stopped at Borders and grabbed a Times, a Post or a coffee and croissant before stepping into the elevator to their deaths that September morning.
Islamofacists literally destroyed our Borders that morning and now they have destroyed their corporate soul.
Doesn't Borders owe something to the customers who made that last purchase?