QUOTE(SenseMaker @ Sat 29th December 2007, 4:41pm)
"Not certain myself how these tie together"? The parallels are very similar. In the Holocaust article the undesirable material was relegated to the "See also" section, which is what I was arguing where we should limit the depictions of Muhammad too. What I don't think you are grasping is that showing depictions of Muhammad in Islamic cultures is as fringe as denying the Holocaust in Western cultures.
But not coincidentally, both of these topics are seized upon by people looking to bait either Jews or Muslims. The fact that you only see one side of the issue is more surprising to me.
Wikipedia rightly doesn't allow for the baiting of Jews (notice the banning of Farazilu), but I ask, why does it continue to allow the baiting of Muslims?
Yes, but why always Hitler and holocaust denial…a subject that comes up in many Middle eastern political contexts, not just those related to depictions of Muhammad? Other commentators have made the much more direct cognitive connection that Jews are somehow behind the Danish cartoons and other slights to Muslims.
The same charge is found from time to time in the Wikipedia debate, not just re editors, but even the medieval Muslim artists themselves (one had converted to Islam from Judaism.) It's not at all an arbitrary example, but one aimed at exactly who many Muslims believe is the source of their political problems generally, and depictions in particular.
Some prominent Muslim figures, such as Ahmadinejad, have not only drawn the cartoon-holocaust censorship connection, but have also questioned the holocaust on its own (having nothing to do with making a point about the Danish cartoons.)
In this instance, it could well be what he really believes; proof, then, that Westerners are happy to suppress even elephant-in-the-room-level truths if the right chosen people ask.