Cartoonists Strike Again
In another saga; a series of events that started related to the depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), after the recent airing of a South Park episode, and the receiving of statements warning that such events can create violence, then ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad Day’ surfaces as their idea of a “response” to such events.
And amidst all this furore, Cartoonist Zapiro comes in with more depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) making fun about how we as Muslims “lack a sense of humor”, ignoring the fact that humor differs based on perspective, cultures and language.
Lack of consideration despite warnings that this might generate violence amongst certain circles of Muslims, and people like Zapiro still fail to realize that not everybody is as “free” of the rules as they are when it comes to freedom of speech and expression, and when violence sparks up and somebody gets terrorized, hurt or possibly killed, the violent people are eventually the people to blame, but what started all this? How can you expect to stick your hand out in a fire and not get burned? It all comes down to cause and effect.
People of such attitude claim to be open minded to explore other beliefs and other cultures and interact based on that, but I see they have more preference to generally impose their mindset over others, and then label you as the fundamentalist narrow-minded person should you ever resist such a mind manipulation process.
Bias, prejudice, ridicule, all directed towards Islam by many tools. This current wave of Islamophobia that’s sweeping the World is nothing different than other forms of racial phobia and racial profiling that had occurred in the past throughout our World history.
When you attack black people, they call it racism. When you attack Jewish people, they call it antisemitism. When you attack women, they call it sexism. When you attack homosexuality, they call it intolerance. When you attack your country, they call it treason. When you attack a religious sect, they call it hate speech… But when you attack the Prophet Muhammad, they call it freedom of speech.
I’m just sayin’
Join the Conversation
Have you heard of Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” (a photo of a crucifix in a jar of urine) and “Jesus Paints his Nails” by Dana Ellyn? (The latter was part of the Blasphemy Day campaign hosted by the Center for Enquiry). Profane art has become fashionable.
Freedom of Expression is a such a wonderful concept, but again, some humans always tend to get arrogant and manage to mess things up for everybody else. It looks like every good thing that gets developed has a tendency to get tainted somewhere along the line. Over the last few years, the term “Freedom of Speech”, for example, has gained quite a bad reputation, thanks to a few bright sparks.
By infiltrating the world’s media with absurd campaigns, a small minority of people are hijacking a large portion of international news, ousting the real issues, such as human suffering, that we should be trying to address and alleviate.
So I think the issue is even more serious than insulting people’s religion (which is serious enough in itself). It means that the absurd is receiving more and more emphasis as values change and the serious issues in the world are getting pushed into the background until a new generation of children will be incapable of thinking clearly, plunging the world into more confusion.
How do you feel about this, do you think it’s simply coincidence that the absurd is gaining such prominence in the human rights/free speech/freedom of expression arena’s or do you think it’s a case of people having lost the battle for a search for meaning in their lives?
It’s not only muhammad that’s being satarized. Jesus, buddah, the pope and other religious figures has been satarized. The irrational reponse of muslims to these snides makes them an easy target. That’s why they’re being picked on right now. Just grow up and accept that not everybody shares your passion for muhammad.
Why Muslims should be like fire, not water or even air?
You made a really good point, although I just want to point out, South Park never “made fun” of Muhammad. Watch the episode(s), if you can find them. Muhammad is literally protected by the main protagonists of the show because other celebrities want to be LIKE HIM, ie unmockable by the public. It’s brilliant. But I digress. I made a video that acts as a “community response” from South Park fans over the issue, found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWlLXLVmC3Y
Thank you for reading and commenting on my post, in response:
Lord Kavi: I was using mainly that as a metaphor as you’ve surely noticed, although not referring ‘Muslims’ but more like about ‘angering Muslims’.
EgonSpangler: I did not watch the episode because they do not air South Park where I live, besides I was never interested enough, I appreciate your gesture. Although I did not refer in my post anything about South Park making fun of the Prophet Muhammad, this article was mainly done as a response to the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” and the Zapiro cartoons.
Hope
I hardly believe anything is a coincidence, judging by your comment, I’m assuming you’re feeling almost the exact same way I do about this topic. Indeed a lot of people have lost the will to search for a real meaning in their lives and what counts, they simply tend to fall more for materialistic ideologies, which to them are “tangible” henceforth more real.
As due the freedom of speech; I find that incidents like this show how to a dangerous level how anarchistic can such a phenomena be, they speak of intolerance and how we should just “laugh” alone with their jokes like the people or icons they ridicule have no meaning to us.
And yes I have heard of both of those so called “pieces of art”. Art is meant to inspire people, and there’s nothing inspirational about mockery and bigotry.
Too much freedom is chaos and anarchy, and too little freedom is oppression and suppression. And what they do, is just an extreme behavior that generated as an equal and opposite reaction to another extreme. But we’re the ones labelled as “radicals”. Balance and moderation need to be achieved.
Ninedays: Not sharing passion, and mockery are two entirely different things, there are limits as to when and where you’re supposed to be humorous that are set differently according to different types of people.
Dear Ahmad,
I didnt mean why you used that metaphor; I meant why Muslims or “Angering Muslims” (I think every mulism is an angering muslim) should have such an attitude.
I believe hate breeds hate. And that’s the consequence of Islamic fundamentalism. The more Muslims show savagery to Muhammad’s depictions, the more they try to draw his cartoons.
Dear ninedays,
I do agree with you. Muslims should understand that freedom of speech is understanding that everyone has not the same passion about something. There are many adherents out there, and certainly they don’t care how a savage muslim thinks about Muhammad.
Ahmed says,
Please let us know when and where Muslims’ humorous supposed to be?
My response to Comedy Central’s censorship of the South Park episode would have been to make fun of Comedy Central. Targeting the Muslim community’s aversion to depictions of the prophet in response to something Comedy Central did says a lot about the prejudices, stereotypes and willingness to attack Muslims that many westrners carry in their heads. And the 2006 cartoons I would certainly not have published, for they portrayed the victims of extreme Western violence as the aggressors without understanding that this stereotype is both inaccurate and self-perpetuating, in that it victimises the victims more and makes the real aggressors feel more superior.
While the Zapiro cartoon much more gently points out that some Muslims do not find cartoons of the prophet amusing, I still think that he was making the wrong point; after all, there are people in all communities that fail to be amused by certain types of characterisations of their religion, traditions, lifestyles, etc. But that’s precisely why pluralist societies cannot take the offence taken by any one community as a legal or moral guideline for policy.
Ultra orthodox Jews in Israel are deeply offended by their country for allowing people to work on Saturdays while Christians are offended by those who work on Sundays while others are annoyed when they are told when they are allowed to work and when not; Muslims are not permitted to draw the prophet while Christian, Jewish or atheist cartoonists are offended by prohibitions on what they’re allowed to draw or discuss. We have to accommodate all these by creating a society where freedom of action overrides the offence taken by the communities. White South Africans are offended by the basically racist songs that the ANC still sings while the ANC is offended by white people’s dislike of their racist anti-apartheid songs. Freedom of speech allows all this to be placed into the space of debate where we can then talk about them. Banning or deeming as immoral speech simply because it offends some community will narrow our intellectual lives by placing some things beyond discussion. Occasionally cringing at offensive statements directed at us is preferable to having one community’s standards forced onto whole populations.
And be careful about equating the content of this with the usual Islamaphobic rubbish; the 2006 cartoons suggested that the religion was violent by depicting the prophet as a terrorist, the South African cartoon merely suggests that it is unfortunate that some Muslims cannot just shrug off offence. Ferial Haffajee, who is Muslim and the former editor of the Mail and Guardian said that she found the cartoon offensive but, “knowing what one knows about the Prophet Muhammad, of his wisdom and patience, he might well have had a chuckle at the Zapiro cartoon and moved on to weightier matters like the well being of humanity and of ordinary people.” And that’s precisely the point that the cartoon tried to make.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/21/24_prattartist_2010_05_21_bk.html?comm=1
Write to the president of Pratt Institute at presoff@pratt.edu to voice your opinion.
I did. There is no way in Hades that Pratt would allow a similar exhibit against another another religion.
The exhibit which is scheduled to open next week is titled “How to Paint Moo-Ham-Mud”
Lord Kavi: I do not approve of savagery that was shown by Muslims in the past to similar incidents, such as the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the Muslim who committed that man is a murderer and I support him being tried properly by law.
Not every Muslim is an ‘angering Muslim’, anger is a natural human emotion, not exclusively tied to us, but to everybody. In regards to the limits, the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad is one limit that we do have in our creed, why depict the Prophet to represent the actions of a few extremist Muslims who are no different from any other extremists? What is the point? This only helps create false stereotypes about the truth of Islam and it’s teachings.
Leigh: I agree about what you’ve said, especially that many Muslims would need to address matters with a higher priority to help improve their communities for the better, although I do not know about how the impact of such a cartoon may have on people who hardly know about Islam, it only helps create false stereotypes, and you know very well like I do how the media’s capability of manipulating minds and perspectives in this Century we’re living in.
Robin: I thank you for the link you’ve just posted, and I just sent an e-mail to the President of Pratt institute, and we will see what happens, hopefully all for the best.
Pingback: Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead » Call to Muslim Facebook Users!