re: #14 47 turn it up to 11

Repeat from earlier thread: if these new democarcies in the Middle East want to be taken seriously and treated as democracies, then they have to learn to respect the way we do things in the west.

These include freedom of speech and artistic expression.

The problem arises with the fact that a lot of the undereducated masses assume that anything published, broadcast or distributed must be government approved, as was always the case in their home countries.

The educated members of these societies know better, they just take advantage of the situation to push their own agenda. They are the ones we need to confront, as they are truly responsible for the mess, not the satirists, filmmakers or even the masses.

Is there a satirical tradition in the Arab world?