Well, first of all, a headline like "Christian groups oppose stem cell research" will be read and interpreted differently. Since Westerners are very familiar with the diversity of Christian groups, we automatically discount that such a headline is representative of all Christians. The same can't be said for Islam; as many of the comments here show, people are interpreting the headline as if it were representative of Muslims in general.
80,000 on an internet petition IS an insignificant number, especially given (a) that many if not most of the signatories are anonymous and (b) as someone pointed out, many of those who signed the petition left comments stating that they are AGAINST it.
Theo van Gogh's murder was committed by a crazy man who happened to be of Muslim heritage. Many have noted that the murderer didn't fit into Dutch society OR his ancestral Moroccan society-- he was a misfit. So you cannot generalize from his case. No one generalized anything about Christianity when Tim McVeigh killed innocent people in the name of his ideals, nor did anyone criticize the animal rights movement when one of its activists killed Pym Fortuyn. (The Animal rights movement, incidentally, has a record of murderous vandalism.)
As for the Danish cartoon protests -- as Juan Cole (Salon) has pointed out, the protests were not all that large in size -- perhaps on the scale of football hooliganism in terms of numbers and casualties -- and they weren't primarily motivated by religion, but by various political grievances.
Even the Salman Rushdie case was an exception to the rule. As this Cambridge professor points out, the Sunni world's authorities rejected Khomeini's fatwas. And most Muslims saw it as a political, not a religious, move on Khomeini's part, to boost his flagging popularity.
Bottom line: Yes, there are some Muslim kooks out there, just as there are kooks in the Western world. And these kooks receive a highly disproportionate share of the media coverage, because (a) Westerners don't know the Muslim world very well, and people fear the unknown, (b) there is a real witch hunt going on in the name of greedy political interests which have a desire to make the Muslim world look bad for their own exploitative purposes. And because of this, we tend to play up the weirdness in the Muslim world, while playing down the awesome amount of violence in our own societies, and the much greater violence we inflict on other societies and have been doing so for the last few hundred years.
It is very misleading to say that "Muslim groups attempt to censor Wikipedia".
First of all, we are not talking about Muslim "groups" like CAIR, or the OIC, or the like. The article only mentions a lowly internet petition-- one with just 80,000 signatures, many of them anonymous, most of them probably just kids. Who takes these petitions seriously? This is not even a noteworthy protest, let alone a fearsome act of censorship.
Second, even if you do accept the use of the term "Muslim groups", it should read "*some* Muslim groups". Although many ill-informed Westerners look at every wacky thing that emanates from the Muslim world as being typical of the whole 1.3 billion-strong community, the reality is that there is a heck of a lot of diversity in the Muslim world. 99% of the actual Muslim world thought the whole teddy bear thing was an idiotic fiasco, but people took it as being representative of Muslims generally.
The reality is that there are no established, representative Muslim groups behind this mostly anonymous petition. Neither CAIR, nor the OIC, nor any other major body that legitimately represents a substantial number of Muslims has attempted to censor Wikipedia.
The recent documentary by Oxford historian Brittany Hughes, When the Moors Ruled in Europe, revealed (among many other very surprising findings) that the strikingly gorgeous Alhambra Palace also contains a very interesting mathematical curiousity within the design of all of its walls and floor patterns. (I won't spoil it for people who want to watch the documentary, which is available in its entirety on Google Video.)
Also, many more Islamic patterns from throughout the Muslim world are available on flickr's Muslim Cultures group for those intrigued by the sort of artwork mentioned in the article.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, first of all, a headline like "Christian groups oppose stem cell research" will be read and interpreted differently. Since Westerners are very familiar with the diversity of Christian groups, we automatically discount that such a headline is representative of all Christians. The same can't be said for Islam; as many of the comments here show, people are interpreting the headline as if it were representative of Muslims in general. 80,000 on an internet petition IS an insignificant number, especially given (a) that many if not most of the signatories are anonymous and (b) as someone pointed out, many of those who signed the petition left comments stating that they are AGAINST it. Theo van Gogh's murder was committed by a crazy man who happened to be of Muslim heritage. Many have noted that the murderer didn't fit into Dutch society OR his ancestral Moroccan society-- he was a misfit. So you cannot generalize from his case. No one generalized anything about Christianity when Tim McVeigh killed innocent people in the name of his ideals, nor did anyone criticize the animal rights movement when one of its activists killed Pym Fortuyn. (The Animal rights movement, incidentally, has a record of murderous vandalism.) As for the Danish cartoon protests -- as Juan Cole (Salon) has pointed out, the protests were not all that large in size -- perhaps on the scale of football hooliganism in terms of numbers and casualties -- and they weren't primarily motivated by religion, but by various political grievances. Even the Salman Rushdie case was an exception to the rule. As this Cambridge professor points out, the Sunni world's authorities rejected Khomeini's fatwas. And most Muslims saw it as a political, not a religious, move on Khomeini's part, to boost his flagging popularity. Bottom line: Yes, there are some Muslim kooks out there, just as there are kooks in the Western world. And these kooks receive a highly disproportionate share of the media coverage, because (a) Westerners don't know the Muslim world very well, and people fear the unknown, (b) there is a real witch hunt going on in the name of greedy political interests which have a desire to make the Muslim world look bad for their own exploitative purposes. And because of this, we tend to play up the weirdness in the Muslim world, while playing down the awesome amount of violence in our own societies, and the much greater violence we inflict on other societies and have been doing so for the last few hundred years.
It is very misleading to say that "Muslim groups attempt to censor Wikipedia".
First of all, we are not talking about Muslim "groups" like CAIR, or the OIC, or the like. The article only mentions a lowly internet petition-- one with just 80,000 signatures, many of them anonymous, most of them probably just kids. Who takes these petitions seriously? This is not even a noteworthy protest, let alone a fearsome act of censorship.
Second, even if you do accept the use of the term "Muslim groups", it should read "*some* Muslim groups". Although many ill-informed Westerners look at every wacky thing that emanates from the Muslim world as being typical of the whole 1.3 billion-strong community, the reality is that there is a heck of a lot of diversity in the Muslim world. 99% of the actual Muslim world thought the whole teddy bear thing was an idiotic fiasco, but people took it as being representative of Muslims generally.
The reality is that there are no established, representative Muslim groups behind this mostly anonymous petition. Neither CAIR, nor the OIC, nor any other major body that legitimately represents a substantial number of Muslims has attempted to censor Wikipedia.
For an idea of what mainstream, traditional Muslim scholars -- the legitimate representatives of the religion -- have to say, read this article by Imam Zaid Shakir or this article by Fareena Alam.
The recent documentary by Oxford historian Brittany Hughes, When the Moors Ruled in Europe , revealed (among many other very surprising findings) that the strikingly gorgeous Alhambra Palace also contains a very interesting mathematical curiousity within the design of all of its walls and floor patterns. (I won't spoil it for people who want to watch the documentary, which is available in its entirety on Google Video.) Also, many more Islamic patterns from throughout the Muslim world are available on flickr's Muslim Cultures group for those intrigued by the sort of artwork mentioned in the article.