Seattle cartoonist launches "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"
mynorthwest.com
mynorthwest.com
It is just a certain subset of Islam is recently arguing that a bunch of things which had historically been non-controversial are now crimes against Islam. Giving them the authority to define what Islam is simply because they'll kill you if you disagree too loudly is far more of an insult to the religion than a few drawings, from my Catholic perspective on the matter. (Individual Muslims are free to disagree, but not to kill me.)
Reminds me of a British group I heard about on NPR a few months ago, I think the name was "British Muslims for Secular Democracy" who hold up protest signs that say "To those who choose to insult The Prophet... Let's agree to disagree."
I studied this in a college - very fascinating all the fighting and back and forth over simple images. Leave it to Wikipedia to offer up something I never read about: 'According to Arnold Toynbee, it is the prestige of Islamic military successes in the 7-8th centuries that motivated Byzantine Christians into evaluating and adopting the Islamic precept of the destruction of idolatric images.'
There is some cross-over of course, where a non-muslim cannot for example walk around half-dressed in a muslim country but making depictions of mohammed in a Western publication is certainly not one of them. I cringe when I hear people say something like 'Mohammed's image might be sacred to muslims, but not us'. Muslims are, you could argue, some what responsible though as mohammed has been elevated to something far above a human being in some of their minds, ironic when his one message was that God alone is worthy of worship.
The real issue and what is being continuously glossed over when this brouhaha boils over is that some muslims take deadly issue with mohammed or Islam being mocked. There are a few accounts of poets in mohammed's lifetime who slandered either him or Islam and were subsequently murdered. Most muslims doubt these accounts are factual, believing perhaps they were made up to suit someone's agenda after mohammed died. after all Mohammed was constantly berated by a multitude of detractors while he was alive and he didn't call for their deaths, but rather peace treaties.
Some muslims though - the dangerous ones - see them as valid and regard them as instructions as to how to conduct themselves when a similar situation arises. If you managed to watch the video clip revolutionmuslim created, you will hear that the audio which plays over the montage is of an imam discussing some of these stories. So this is why the Danish cartoonists are being threatened, not because they made an image of mohammed but because they slandered him. This is why Theo Van Gogh was murdered and this is why the South Park creators are being threatened. Behind the mask of these veiled threats of course lies a sub-section of muslims who wish to rouse their brethren to engage in a full-on assault of the west. The vast majority of muslims will ignore them but those already holding a vendetta might give them ear.
One quick clarification though: AFAIK, Mohammed is always depicted with a veil in Islamic iconography.
But some traditions aren't simply "a traditional approach from a small sect in Islam"
The Hijab (head scarves) is an Islamic requirement. The different sects will disagree on its implementation, style, enforcement, and other details...but the vast majority of Muslims will agree that it's not simply "again a traditional approach from a small sect in Islam"
Depictions of holy figures is another example. Yes, there is Persian, Turkish, Indian, and other art depicting the prophet, the angels, god, etc. Yes, some Shia Muslims will have no problem depicting the prophet respectfully. Yes, some Sunni Muslims are more liberal than others. But in reality, when you look at the whole Islamic population, those groups are the ones that historically have represented a small sect in Islam. The vast majority of Muslims stand against such depictions; it's important to note that the vast majority of them will also simply boycott or ignore said depictions, rather than go through more violent channels.
Just my two cents.
The different sects will disagree on its implementation, style, enforcement, and other details...but the vast majority of Muslims will agree that it's not simply "again a traditional approach from a small sect in Islam"
That is factually inaccurate -- that is certainly one historically mainstream option, but it is not true in all times and all places.
See generally the Wiki article.
Now, I think this sort of approach can have two consequences: Either the increased exposure can nudge the Muslim thinkers gradually into seeing this as a non-issue. Or, more people will become marginalized. The Muslim world has reacted in the second way in the past couple of hundred years, let's see if these innovative approaches can change the tendency.
All cultures have their soft spots. You have every legal right to hit those soft spots. And in most cases, nothing will happen - just like you have a right to offend people, people have a right to be offended(without being violent, of course). Yet, when you play with emotions of millions of people, simple numbers dictate that a few will go apeshit. And when they do, they should be punished.
I don't see us having a EVERYBODY USE THE N-WORD DAY. How come? Largely because it will get your ass kicked.
Now, you can argue that n-word is different than these cartoons because it is based on more solid and recent events. Fair enough - but I thought this whole debate was about free speech? Specifically, that free speech should not get you killed or your ass kicked no matter what. Yet in each society, you will find speech that will get your ass kicked.
But most people avoid that word not out of fear that they'll be murdered, but because they legitimately don't want to cause offense. But if some fringe group started trying to enforce our little social prohibition on the n-word by force and fear, I would expect that lots of people would start to push back -- and anyone who happened to be offended would just have to live with it.
A very similar thing happened with flag-burning. I've seen a lot more flag-burnings (in the U.S., of the U.S. flag) done in protest of laws against flag-burning than I've ever seen them as standalone political statements. The people doing these burnings probably never would have done them except that they're offended by the heavyhanded prohibition.
With the possible exception of the very first one, the people drawing pictures of Muhammad generally aren't doing it to make fun of Islam, they're doing it to take a strong stance against (and mock) those who would use fear to push their morality.
The underlying idea, I think, is to make it very clear to militant groups that they can't get their way via force and fear. The more they try to intimidate, the louder and more offensive the opposition is going to get.
That's cool, we just have a simple disagreement there. I wouldn't want to offend millions in the process of getting back at a fringe group.
Also, don't quote me on this but I think the very first cartoon that triggered all of this was done by a guy specifically to rub it in and cause hurt--and not as an innocent comedic act. I don't think you would start a LETS USE N-WORD DAY if you knew the guy getting the threats was purposely using the n-word to provoke a reaction. Would you?
If you're referring to the bomb-in-the-turban cartoon which was published in the Danish newspaper, then that probably isn't true. I'll quote the newspaper editor who ran the cartoons:
"One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet."
I recommend reading the full NYT editorial from which I drew that quote, called "Why I Published Those Cartoons", which can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02...
So it's tough to say what I'd do if someone who was honestly racist, and was perpetuating a violence-laden dialogue of racism, started getting death threats. That might seem like par for the course.
But if they were a comedian who used it as part of a routine, in a venue that most people understand to be one of satire, then I might very well think that the cost of offending a lot of people in order to express solidarity with them, and rub it in the face of violent extremists, was worth it.
It depends a lot on the context and how much worse the person making the offensive statement is than the violent extremists. In the case of the Muhammad cartoons, I think the original cartoonist may have definitely had some race issues, but you'd have to use a logarithmic scale of crazy in order to plot where he falls versus the people who decided it was worth killing over. So in that particular situation I'm solidly on the side of cartoonists, even if the first one was in poor taste. The response was so disproportionate to the original offense that I'm willing to set aside good taste temporarily in order to make it clear that using the threat of death to push your religious morality is totally not OK.
Do you really believe that?
A "EVERYBODY USE THE N-WORD DAY" is unlikely to happen -- precisely because no-one would actual kill someone for drawing a cartoon offensive to black people, even if it called them all niggers or something. You see, I did it there but I won't even get any death threats.
Contrast with someone drawing one cartoon and actually being killed, you know, his blood splashed across the ground.
Also, it's one thing some kids never learn at school -- if you can't take a bit of teasing, then you get picked on. If you get picked on, you either: get miserable, get used to being teased, or become the crazy kid, the one even the bullies won't touch, who kicks and bites, and even the teachers despise.
But they're not in school any more, and they need to grow up. Take offence if you want, but threats, violence and murder are a child's solution.
One nutcase's actions should result in offending millions more who express their hurt in their own homes quietly. If a guy killed another for using the n-word, I would not be rooting for a LETS HAVE AN N-WORD DAY and offend millions others who have little to do with that one nutcase. Perhaps you and I are sensitive to different things.
So you're saying that we shouldn't do things if people threaten us?
If a few guys threaten you, do you offend millions others just so you can get back at the few idiots?
The Qur'an doesn't explicitly forbid visual depictions of Muhammad.
To think this can change the view of a larger audience - there's nothing to change...super vast majority of Muslims are just offended when they find these stories and then go about their daily business. For me, it's like some dude cursing at my Mom. For 99.99% of the time, I will laugh it off. But do that enough times and to enough people and someone will be very ticked off.
I believe what you say about being offended entirely, but I find it almost impossible to wrap my head around the idea. Getting mortally offended by just a picture of a historical figure -- is just wierd.
Now, I could understand some mean mockery being offensive. A better example than the N word people have been using would be drawing MLK eating watermelom in blackface. That's really offensive, and unnecessary. You have to go out of your way to do something like that.
But just a depiction of Mhd. in a lightly humorous or non-mocking context or a context that is ambiguous just doesn't seem like it would be a that much of gut punch -- taking that kind of offense just seems really thin-skinned to me and borne of silly religious dogma... (sorry).
I'm fully willing to admit that I "don't get it", however. :-)
I'm not Muslim and am not offended by depictions of Mohammed. I have no problem with political commentary through mediums like cartoons, but this "Everybody Draw" day seems childish and rude. It offends some people, have some respect.
There are several Muslim artists who would love to draw the prophet, but they know they can't and respect it.
What is so hard about respecting someone who says "Don't draw pictures of my leader"? There are millions of people you could draw.
I guess some people like a challenge. I like a challenge. But you can bet your salary I would not mess with some people who have proved to end lives if they don't find you funny.
To most muslims (the normal ones that this), we'd just say: "Hey, the most significant figure in our religion is so beautiful and amazing to us that we prefer not to have a physical depiction of him. We'd appreciate it if you respect this and respect our religion."
I wonder if this cartoonist would pull the same publicity stunt if the radicals didn't exist and instead was faced with my simple message and request that I have for my religion.
I wonder if South Park would try to still do a depiction if they were faced with my simple message and request instead of a death threat.
Catholics? The Pope and his crazy hats. LOLpedophiles. Bad conspiracy theories. Basically everything Dan Brown has ever written. Gay priest jokes.
Mormons? Magic underwear. The Angel MORONi. Multiple wives. The total hilarity and necessary suspension of belief required to buy that God buried a bunch of Additional Commandments in upstate New York.
Jews? Don't even get me started.
I can't think of any religion that doesn't "deal with disrespect." There are some that I'm not familiar enough with (Native American religions), but I'm 100% sure they've probably taken crap over it at times.
You can ask that people respect your religion, and probably most people will, but some people just aren't going to. Because religions are, pretty much by definition, arbitrary and weird to people not involved in the religion.
So then the question becomes, how do you want to respond to that disrespect? You can just ignore it, which is a pretty popular choice, or you can engage with the critics, which is pretty effective but probably tiring and obnoxious, or you can even invert it and be self-effacing and try to disarm them. Or you can flip the fuck out and start making death threats, maybe kill some people.
But if you do that latter path, it's probably not going to do anything about the amount of disrespect -- it's going to make it much, much worse. Either Muslims will, as a group, figure this out, or we'll just continue to see this sort of needling forever.
So, in response to your question, "I wonder if South Park would try to still do a depiction if they were faced with my simple message and request instead of a death threat," I think the answer is of course not. Because that would be boring. But as long as they continue to get death threats and other crazy, disproportionate responses, they're going to keep mocking. (Just like they're going to keep needling the Scientologists.)
I respect your view point, but mine is equally valid; that it's unfortunate that one of my core held beliefs, freedom of expression without fear for one's life, is disrespected by radical Muslims and spineless network chiefs alike.
Net-net, the people that actually care about the religion lose.
If the message is "If you draw the prophet you'll die, just as these other artists died" then it suddenly becomes meaningful social commentary about tolerance and speech in a free society and also becomes fodder for (cheap) humor like what they do on South Park. Seriously, people still watch South Park?
In any case, it's very, very wrong that there are people in this world who consider being obnoxious and mean-spirited a capital crime.
This difference matters. The intention was not to actively motivate people to draw something offensive, but to get people to laugh at a situation that is, from many perspectives, preposterous and therefore funny.
Or, in the style of The Onion: "Area humorist attempts to be funny. Some people don't laugh."
If you are in support of free-speech, you don't have to engage in speech you despise in order to back the principle that it should be protected.
There is no municipality involved, there is no violation of free speech. It's not the government who is causing the censorship. It's a group that, one or another, is menacing your values. The only way to deal with these people is to not negotiate and show that scare tactics do not work.
"... because a municipality threatened death to anyone who attened the KKK convention."
Be careful with the analogies. Saint Godwin is watching... ;)
1. You can legitimately argue against the KKK as being a dangerous organization with a violent past. Although I'm glad that we have strong free-speech rights in this country that guarantee even their right to assemble, there's a world of difference between a KKK rally and some cartoons, even racist ones.
2. I'm not so sure that "everyone dress up as a Klan member day" would be so unreasonable, if some other group of crazies showed up and started killing people, crazies so crazy that they made the Klan seem sympathetic by comparison. It's hard to envision anyone that much crazier than the Klan, but that's because it's a bad analogy.
I wouldn't normally be in favor of racist cartoons, but if it's between racist cartoonists and nutbags who would actually kill someone over a cartoon, I'm with the cartoonists. Making race jokes is dumb but murdering people is orders of magnitude worse.
"Engag[ing] in speech you despise in order to back the principle that it should be protected" seems like a fairly decent strategy to me, insofar as it demonstrates the fruitlessness of trying to achieve censorship through terror and drives the murderers into more and more indefensible, outrageous positions. It's a dangerous tactic, but quite possibly an effective one. Mockery is a powerful isolating tool.
I'm a Canadian and while I admit they are imperfect, I fully support our Hate Crime legislation that forbids many forms of speech that are permitted in the USA. At the same time, I understand why the USA takes a different road and I support that as well.
So to sum it up, my point is, "Isn't the debate about flag burning interesting in the context of the debate about cartoons?"
It's utterly ridiculous that people would riot over a cartoon, and the South Park debacle is upsetting (especially given that the show has always used kid gloves with Mohammed and Islam). I don't think it's possible to feel anything other than contempt for the conduct of Revolution Islam. That said, making fun of Islam for the point of making fun of Islam just seems like something that (although it's not intended this way) would be interpreted by many as very mean-spirited.
Of course, there are legitimate and severe problems with "the Muslim world" with respect to human rights, and nothing should stand in the way of criticizing this, just as we aren't afraid to criticize the governments of China or the US for their human rights violations.
Doing a drawing sounds like something a human shouldn't be afraid, wouldn't you say ?
>I don't think it's possible to feel anything other than contempt[...] >Doing things that are offensive to Muslims to make the point that we should have the right to do things they find offensives is... something I'm not sure about.
I think that would be a sign of fear, not contempt.
Video here: http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2010/04/philip_pullman...
To mangle a quote from Voltaire, "I may not like that dick move, but I'll fight to the death for your right to be a dick like that"
Update: I don't mean to paint everyone who doesn't like this as wanting to make it against the law. I personally don't like this, just as I don't like flag burning, but I do like and appreciate the fact that it can be done.
It's kind of silly that you can't argue against this without people assuming that you're in favor of criminalizing the cartoons. You can disapprove of something without wanting there to be a law against it.
I thought South Park was harmless and funny in its 200th and 201st episodes, because the poignancy-to-offensiveness ratio was high (they were pretty inoffensive in their treatment of Islam).
What's odd and somewhat inconsistent here is that Islam doesn't forbid only the depiction of Mohammed, but of any of God's creations (defined as the animals including humans). This aversion to depiction isn't rare in human cultures; Renaissance-era Christians considered theatre morally impure and actors were refused Catholic burials at one time.
Yet, as far as I know, few Muslims are offended when non-Muslims create cartoons in general, even though strict Muslims aren't allowed to do so. Yet when Mohammed is involved, it's considered to be on a different level.
All of these things are harmless to you, but I would not be surprised if you were offended by some of them.
Disgust is cultural.
It's important to recognize that large numbers of people can as a result of their culture be disgusted by things we consider normal. It's unreasonable to say "you shouldn't be disgusted".
The best we can say is that the value of free speech outweighs the value of pandering to various groups' definitions of good taste.
I can think of a lot of sexual practices that strike me as really disgusting. Eating shit, for instance. Yet the fact that people out there do it doesn't offend me; being forced (or tricked) into watching it would be, but the act itself is merely disgusting. It becomes offensive when it's forced. To be offended, particularly to the point of violent action, over something that doesn't affect you (or any other person, or even an animal) strikes me as unreasonable.
Of course, since you've opened up the rabbit hole of cultural constructs I'll admit that "reasonableness" is cultural as well -- but I think the Western, Enlightenment-inspired idea of "reason" and "reasonableness" is worth fighting for. If that makes me a cultural imperialist, so be it.
(bearing in mind that this was a discussion about why Muslims take offence at the cartoons and their response. I may have misread but the above poster seems to suggest that Muslims generally give death threats over this offence - which is untrue. The extremist is giving the threats not the Muslim :-))
The main message that is trying to be conveyed is not "Islam is silly," but rather "We will not be cowed by death threats." I wish there were ways of communicating the latter without conflating it with the former so we didn't have to wade into that mire of offending innocent Muslims. Unfortuantely, the death threats being rejected in the latter are issued for making the former statement, so the two statements are inherently entangled. If there were a better and less contentious way of making the point, I would support it, but I haven't seen one and can't come up with one myself.
The one thing I don't like about the whole thing is that taking action is taking sides in a conflict, and that implicitly accepts the conflict as valid. I don't like dichotomous reasoning in general, and I disagree with the whole Islam vs Western Secularism conflict in specific because I think they're less incompatible than partisans of either side want to realize. In this particular incident though, I think I disagree with radical Islam more than I disagree with the conflict as a whole, so I'm tempted to take a side for once.
Such delicate and tender social sensibilities we all suddenly have. As a Christian, people deliberately trying to offend me is merely part of the background noise of my life. Can't say I see it every day, but every week is probably fair.
Does "intentionally offending Christians" taste just as bad to you? I address this to everyone who would agree with that statement, not you personally, because I'm sure the answer is "yes" for some people. I mean it more an a question for introspection, because it's been a long time since I've actually been offended by anything.
And if the answer is no, my followup question would be "What's the difference?" and "Are you sure that's a social incentive structure you want to set up?" Allowing people to cow you with threats like this goes beyond even religion; "give me my handouts or I'll commit violence" is a threat that has been used in the real world, after all, it's not even theoretical. It's better not to encourage that.
Freedom of speech isn't for tasteful, inoffensive, popular speech as that doesn't need any protection. Freedom of speech is there for the unpopular, offensive, tasteless, vile, and controversial because sometimes what needs to be said may be interpreted or portrayed as any of those things.
Yes.
I mean it more an a question for introspection, because it's been a long time since I've actually been offended by anything.
Thanks for framing the question this way. I hadn't really considered it until you did.
Seconded. South Park's portrayals of Jesus are extremely offensive. Does Comedy Central censor that? Nope. Do I make death threats? Nope. I just don't watch.
So Comedy Central's lesson for extremist "Christian" or "Hindu" or "Muslim" groups is this: to silence those who offend you, make death threats. It works!
This cartoonist's campaign is an attempt to make the opposite statement: threats will not control us. And if IT works, we'll all be better off.
Deleted comment
PS: My smiley face was some other Mohammed and not anyone’s prophet.
Disagree? Write your own comment.
The South Park episode was clearly a fine piece of "offensive comedy" - not deliberately targeting Muslims (because of the context of the episode). However this is saying "hey you want to send us death threats, fine. Here's some more content designed to be offensive to you". It's a problem because then it begins to escalate (perhaps someone gets beaten up - so everyone prints T-Shirts with the cartoons, then a bomb goes off.... etc etc.)
Does this show us as not being scared? I think it actually shows fear - and crucially is the kind of reaction the extremists are looking for! It increases the media coverage; I'm sure there will be more threats appearing if this makes it "mainstream" and they will all be reported. And it is the response they want in a "war" where making us do offensive things wins them support in the Islamic world.
Not being scared would be to continue as usual, make our comedy as normal, including Muhammed when required - and ignore the death threats and extremism. Don't give them the platform. That seems the least fearful thing to do! :)
Not showing the scene was bad on the part of Comedy Central - and I feel it is censors like that whom we should be taking to task over this. Not the extremists - because if you do that they will delight in fighting back :)
Historically ostentatious shows of "no fear" never end well.
No, I can't support this. :(
EDIT: rereading there seems a slight emphasis on the idea of using all kinds of religious iconography. That's something I could get more behind - simply because it's no longer about the extremists, but about Comedy Central being censors. That is a good cause.
So long as this doesn't promote targetting religion or the idea of entering into a fight against extremists (rather than the censors) then perhaps it has merit.