I know there are a couple swedes on this board, and I am wondering how they feel about all of this.

Has your oppinion changed at all since the danish mohommad cartoons that were printed about a year ago.

heres a link for people that dont know what this is about
Muhammad as a roundabout dog

This is an incredibly important topic and as a swede myself it's particularly interesting now.

As I see it it's the same situation really. Has my opinion changed since last year? Maybe, probably not much though.

I may consider muslims the most pathetic people around for overreacting over a bloody picture when they don't say a word when raped girls are stoned for "dishonouring" their families. But as always there's two sides of every coin.

Everyone understands you don't, unprovoked, walk up to a homosexual person and say "you're a fucking faggot", and expect him/her to respect that. First of all, you'd understand it's wrong doing so in the first place, secondly you'd expect the person to react negatively towards you.
The ONLY reason Lars Vilks made this picture was to provoke muslims. They try to claim they did it only to make sure freedom of speech is respected. Well, they're simply wrong, this has NOTHING with freedom of speech to do.

If it would've been about freedom of speech, then why don't we see caricatures of gay people in the papers? Simply because we know they'll feel disrespected, and will react to it. But because WE think a picture of Muhammad doesn't matter to us, it obviously does matter to them. So we just respect it and don't make pictures of him. It's not like it's impossible avoiding making pictures of him, right?

Freedom of speech can never be about provocations. But if you think it is, then expect the black person to hit you back when you call him a nigger. Please tell him you're only using the freedom of speech, and I'm sure he'll perfectly understand.

I'm not defending the overreacting, pathetic muslims, but I fully understand the logic in reacting when being provoked. And the muslims didn't start this.

Just to let you know, virtually everyone over here support Lars Vilks. Haven't really spoken to many about it, as I know they'd be pissed if I said otherwise, but I think I'm quite alone in definitely not supporting Vilks and not supporting the muslims either.

Our economy will have a negative impact on this as they'll ban Swedish products and there's even more polarization in society now. Lars wanted to "ventilate" the topic, I just don't see that happening.

I can't see any winner in this.

I'm English, I apologise in advance...

Caricatures throughout history have been used to capture a moment in time. Rightly or wrongly expressing pleasure, displeasure at a politician or <insert religion here>. Mohammed should not be treated any differently to anyone/thing else. It is the artists right denounce Mohammed as it is Ahmadinejad's right to denounce the holocaust. At least the artist is taking the mick out of a fictional character rather than a sickening historical fact.

I think this artist is doing a great service by showing Sweden, the rest of the world how radicalised Islamic society is becoming in our own back yard and abroad. Tolerance is no longer a option, Sharia law the only option.

I could not disagree more. I think this was all about freedom of speach and the fundamental values of western society as a whole. The simple fact is that this picture should have been nothing more than an honorable mention in a local art magazine (if even that). Vilks picture was more of a question: Do we as a society have a compatibility problem with the radicalised Islamic society? The radicalised Islamic society answered the question through their reaction. The mere fact that it has gotten international attention quite eloquently demonstrates a real threat to freedom of speech around the world.


completely agree