For The Love Of God

Hard to believe that February 6th has seen the first deaths in relation to the continuing protests concerning a cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Armed police were forced to open fire on a crowd that would not disperse killing perhaps as many as five Afghan men. I think it’s a safe bet that this will add fresh impetus to the riots and will give some fresh venom to the speeches of the extremist minority currently whipping crowds up into a frenzy.

Although I have often stated my desire for religious tolerance, despite the fact that I view all organised religion as odious, I can’t help but feel that this whole series of events is ridiculous to the extreme. All those organisations who have tried to portray Muslims as evil savages with no regard for freedom of expression must be feeling pretty satisfied watching the way these rioters are conducting themselves. There will be many liberals who find this whole affair distasteful and disgusting, doubtlessly allowing a slight touch of prejudice to creep into their otherwise egalitarian mind…

 

And why not? There can be no bigger priority than protecting someone’s freedom of expression and the root of this ideology is also the same one that is tolerant of all faiths. While Islamic groups are calling for their faith to be respected they are also now calling for the people who drew the offending cartoons to be beheaded… It really is difficult for me to swallow.

The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that printed the cartoon knew there would be controversy surrounding the images. I’m quite sure they had no idea that they would be responsible for nearly ten days of global rioting, Danish embassies being besieged and would result in their address appearing on a Muslim terrorist website as a potential target. So why exactly did they do it anyway? Quite simply, to prove the point a lot of us are now thinking is true, that to criticise Islam in any way is an extremely dangerous thing to do.

A Danish author had contacted the newspaper stating that he could not find anyone willing to illustrate his new book about the life of Mohammed. The newspaper responded by asking twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them and then published the resulting pictures. Over 5000 Danish Muslims took the streets in protest the day that the images were published and leaders of their groups demanded apologies. The editor of Jyllands-Posten rejected this as a necessary move stating, quite correctly, that:

“We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures.”

There are those that maintain the move was done deliberately to provoke Muslims but the exercise was performed to show that there are many artists and writers who censor themselves through fear of extremist Muslim reaction. Surely in true democracy, a secular society, there can be no special treatment handed out to one faith, especially if that treatment is a product of fear of violent reprisals. Such pressure has more akin with fascism than a faith that promotes peace.

Of course the Christian notion of god, that of a vast, old, white bearded old man, has appeared in numerous sections of the media. The same goes for Jesus Christ. I’ve even seen Buddha being arrested for stealing a car and threatening a police officer on The Simpsons. After these images, both blasphemous and insulting to certain people I have no doubt, there were no riots, no calls for bloodshed. There may have been a few strongly worded letters to the BBC… Even when Jerry Springer the Opera was aired on television, with its images of a homosexual black Christ engaged in direct contact with Satan, by comparison it barely called a ripple. If Monty Python had created a film today called “Life of Iqbal” parodying the life of Mohammed and also cleverly demonstrating that there will always be groups of people who will follow anybody, would anyone have the courage to go to the cinema to watch it?

Deities and prophets are the perfect targets to satirise as they represent the divine, an abstraction that cannot possibly exist within the human form. If we take it that they have existed / do exist it is safe to say they are beyond the trivial concepts of image. No matter what you say you will never shake a believers faith so it does not impact on the religion in that way either. And if there is some kind of all-powerful being out there it’s a safe bet, given the cosmic scheme of things, they have a fucking sense of humour. Are these people really so insecure in their faith that a picture poses such a threat in their eyes that they must destroy those responsible?

This situation needs to be brought under control and instead of respected Muslims fuelling the fire by calling for beheadings and other such nonsense, they need to start calling for some sense of sanity, one big fucking reality check for the people they represent. This reaction is completely unwarranted and there can be no excuse to suppress the freedom of the press. Especially as there is absolutely no harm done as a result of the pictures that have sparked these scenes other than a few people have been offended. If these riots are not brought under control soon we’re going to see a backlash from people who have been waiting for the Muslim world to do something that will be easily accepted en mass as a typical reaction from a dangerous people. The people leading this backlash may also have a few surprising faces amongst them. Country simple – this is mob mentality at its most repulsive and ignorant.

And as I finish typing this it’s brought to my attention that one Muslim from Brussels has retaliated by creating a painting of the Virgin Mary with her naked breasts exposed. Although there have been some small murmurings of disquiet from a few Catholics, we have yet to see an eruption of violence. What punishment for the Muslim who created such a graven image? A subsidy from the Belgian ministry of culture…