Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

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darter
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Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by darter »

I was a little pissed off when I was sitting at a Starbucks and a Cat Stevens song came on - since I look unfavorably upon censorship, especially when it involves actually killing an author. I figured some young hipster, ignorant of history, had put together some product for Starbucks to push. Now I see that the google myTouch marketing campaign is using Cat Steven's music. WTF? Below is the wikipedia account of the fatwa endorsement:




--

On February 21, 1989, Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his conversion to Islam and was asked about the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's execution. He replied, "He must be killed. The Qur'an makes it clear - if someone defames the prophet, then he must die." [5]

Newspapers quickly denounced what was seen as Yusuf Islam's support for the assassination of Rushdie and the next day Yusuf released a statement saying that he was not personally encouraging anybody to be a vigilante,[1] and that he was only stating that blasphemy is a capital offense according to the Qur'an.

However on March 8, 1989, while speaking in London's Regents Park Mosque, Yusuf Islam was asked by a Christian Science Monitor reporter how he would "cope with the idea of killing a writer for writing a book." He is reported to have replied:

In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Flex »

-bleep-

After a few attempts at edits, I realized I'm too tired to put forth my position clearly. Perhaps after sleep, I shall return to the topic.
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by arsebundren77 »

Cat Stevens, Yusef Islam, whatever... if the dude at Starbucks with the beard and the bars through his ears tries to convince me to put whipped cream in my espresso one more time, I'm gonna... yeah, that's right, I'm gonna call for a fatwa on him.

Seriously though, I'm pretty sure there's something about the Rushdie fatwa in Starbucks' mission statement.

But seriously darter, are you calling for censorship in the name of anti-censorship or am I missing something?

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

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All I know is that listening to Tea for the Tillerman gives me the almost uncontrollable urge to kill.
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by ThousandStances »

Flex wrote:All I know is that listening to Tea for the Tillerman gives me the almost uncontrollable urge to kill.
It worked pretty well as the closing credits for The Office (or was it Extras?).

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by JennyB »

ThousandStances wrote:
Flex wrote:All I know is that listening to Tea for the Tillerman gives me the almost uncontrollable urge to kill.
It worked pretty well as the closing credits for The Office (or was it Extras?).
It's Extras, and I was going to say that as well. :mrgreen:
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by tepista »

JennyB wrote:
ThousandStances wrote:
Flex wrote:All I know is that listening to Tea for the Tillerman gives me the almost uncontrollable urge to kill.
It worked pretty well as the closing credits for The Office (or was it Extras?).
It's Extras, and I was going to say that as well. :mrgreen:
Is that what this is? It's on the menus too, drove me the fuck crazy.
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darter
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by darter »

I'm not calling for censorship. I'm calling for banishment. He should just be quietly forgotten by civilized people.

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Silent Majority »

darter wrote:I'm not calling for censorship. I'm calling for banishment. He should just be quietly forgotten by civilized people.
Rushdie or Islam? I like loads of Cat Stevens songs.
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Heston »

Silent Majority wrote:
darter wrote:I'm not calling for censorship. I'm calling for banishment. He should just be quietly forgotten by civilized people.
Rushdie or Islam? I like loads of Cat Stevens songs.
I like his poppy stuff, Matthew and Son is magnificent.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Flex »

I sort of thought I'd be the only one here who listened to any Cat Stevens.

Didn't he suffer enough already by having 10,000 Maniacs leave their cover of Peace Train off one of their albums? :shifty:
Last edited by Flex on 30 Sep 2009, 12:48pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by BostonBeaneater »

Cat works pretty well for the Harold And Maude soundtrack. I have no problem with him, at least no more of a problem than I have with other religious people.
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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Noise Inspector »

I dig the Cat, he's got some good tunes. Peace Train, Father & Son, First Cut is the Deepest etc

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by darter »

His tunes are okay and I'm sure he's helping various record companies and now phone service providers make money. But he endorsed the idea of having Rushdie killed because of blasphemous writings. But hey, I guess that's no big deal. If sociopaths like Michael Vick can be cheered by millions then I suppose Cat Stevens fits right in. Though, as criminal sociopaths go, I prefer Charlie Manson above all of them. They really should all appear together to market Dick Cheney's memoirs.

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Re: Google backs fatwa with Cat Stevens?

Post by Flex »

darter wrote:His tunes are okay and I'm sure he's helping various record companies and now phone service providers make money. But he endorsed the idea of having Rushdie killed because of blasphemous writings. But hey, I guess that's no big deal. If sociopaths like Michael Vick can be cheered by millions then I suppose Cat Stevens fits right in. Though, as criminal sociopaths go, I prefer Charlie Manson above all of them. They really should all appear together to market Dick Cheney's memoirs.
Charles Manson and Michael Vick actually did horrible shit, though. They're actual psychopaths, not just idiotic musicians duped by religion into spouting nonsense. Cat Stevens made a really, really shitty comment at one point and has spent most of his time since then telling folks that he didn't mean it the way it sounded. Maybe he's full of shit and he full well meant it, but if all we're concerned about is his effectiveness in advocating a fatwa on rushdie, it's simple: he has no agency. Since he seems, if not repentant about his previous comments, to now at least be expressing views on the issue that are diametrically opposed to the one's he supposedly advocated for initially, I fail to see the big deal. Lots of people say super, super stupid shit from time to time (musicians especially, it seems). Since he's not actually going around killing anyone, or funding people to go kill anyone, or anything else like that and since I don't have to interact with the guy myself and hear him spouting insane bullshit, it's easy and pretty morally acceptable to just chalk it up as "crazy religiosity" and pay it no real attention.
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