The Dragon's Eye View: Draw Mohammed Day

[athelind]

"Draw Mohammad Day" offends me, despite the fact that I read Gods Playing Poker, which depicts Mohammad in every single strip.

GPP is irreverent and snarky, but it isn't in the least mean-spirited, and this "crusade" most certainly is.

(Of course, it's in "defense" of one of the most mean-spirited shows in U.S. television history, so yeah.)

This little stunt offends me because it's not just aimed at the Fundamentalists; this is a deliberate slap at moderate and progressive Muslims, as well (not that many of the Draw Mohammed Day crowd actually bother to acknowledge that there's a difference). It's a wide-sweeping smackdown of an entire group, and it's saying the same damned thing that the real offenders keep saying: "all of them hate all of us."

Gods damn it, people. how hard is it to grasp? If you're really opposed to an ideology, don't let its adherents frame the argument.

I'm not saying "don't do this". I'm not saying "it shouldn't be allowed". I am saying that we need to examine the motives and sincerity behind it. So much of the output is a tedious repetition of hackneyed Prophet-As-Terrorist memes that it's hard to see it as a statement of "artistic freedom".

If this were really about "free speech", we'd be following it with "Draw Christ Getting Raped In The Nail-Holes Day".

---

Wow. I think that's the most Regrettably Appropriate use of the word "crusade" I've invoked in a long time.

Comments

[odiedragon.livejournal.com]

If this were really about "free speech", we'd be following it with "Draw Christ Getting Raped In The Nail-Holes Day".

I'm down with that :P

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I think it's the double standard that people are angry about. See how Southpark had to deal with it. They could animate Jesus shitting (and did) and throwing his own feces at the American Flag and nothing happened. Yet they couldn't even show Mohammed's face.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Ah, so it's not really a movement to offend all Muslims because of the actions of a few Fundamentalist Muslims.

It's a movement to offend all Muslims because of the double standards of the executives at Comedy Central.

And here I thought it was somehow "misaimed".

[pathia.livejournal.com]

The double-standard exists everywhere, in all media. People have been murdered for drawing it. It's not just in the USA you realize, this is something being done over the entire world, including Europe where the killing/assaults occurred.

Addition: And of course the reason why the double standard exists is because if he is portrayed the extremists RIOT IN THE STREETS and cause havoc. It's happened REPEATEDLY in Europe.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

By the same logic, in the name of free speech, and to protest violence, we should declare a day to go to the ghetto and scream "NIGGER!!" until people stop getting the everloving shit beaten out of them for it.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I don't see how that compares at all. How is drawing a religious figure the same as a racial slur?

Addition: And, as for using something to ruin its power. There's lots of instances of that. Gays use Fag, I personally use shemale and dickgirl to describe myself, because it saps the power of the insult that was hurled at me daily on the east coast.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Gosh. That's a good question. How is a deliberate and calculated insult to the members of a religion different from a deliberate and calculated insult to the members of an ethnic group?

[toob.livejournal.com]

I think you can view it as a deliberate and calculated insult to all members of a religion (it could be argued that progressive and moderate Muslims would NOT find a drawing of Mohammad offensive) -- OR you could view it as people standing up to threats with defiance. No one has the right to demand or attempt to force others to adhere to the rules of his religion. After all, if hundreds or thousands of people draw Mohammad, continuing to threaten one or two of them makes no sense. I have an idea that that was the initial concept, however poorly conceived it might have been. And I think people feel that their own sense of religious freedom is being threatened. They have a right to respond to that.

Hanlon's Razor suggests I go with the latter explanation, despite the obvious meanness and stupidity of some of the participants.

It's kind of interesting, if you think about it -- the Christian church has had its own, similar, prohibitions against artistic depictions of Christ. It caused a schism that may or may not have been described as Great, as I recall, though it's hard in retrospect to see what was so great about it.

At any rate, I'd caution against equating irreverence with insult, and refusal to kowtow to threats with bigotry.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Hanlon for the win.

As I noted further below, I still think it's damned rude.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

I have several coworkers that practice Islam, none were offended by the day. They think the extremists should wake the fuck up too. Some of them...PARTICIPATED. They have pictures on their doors today.

[odiedragon.livejournal.com]

Religion is a choice. You are born with your genetic background. To me, that's a significant difference.

[toob.livejournal.com]

I think that the fact that to compare the two you can't just say "draw Christ," but say "draw Christ getting raped in the nail-holes" says a lot about why this exists in the first place.

I agree, the day is unnecessarily antagonistic and ought not to exist, but honestly, the only way people are going to be able to criticize and satirize Islam THE SAME AS EVERY OTHER RELIGION is if not one or two prominent artists are doing it, but if EVERYONE does.

As an agnostic, and one who believes that organized religion of ANY stripe is inherently dangerous, I reserve the right to make fun of Mohammad and Islam along with any other religion out there, and call it out for its shit when its shit it wages. Peoples gots to realize their cow is no more sacred than their neighbor's.

[scarfman]

This. What I wish I'd said about it.

I put Mohammed in a cartoon once, in the days before Arthur, King of Time and Space (though still a cartoon with Merlin and Arthur in it). It was some years before the hulabaloo over the Danish cartoons, and I remember being confounded at not finding any images of Mohammed at Google.

My initial reaction to the hulabaloo over the Danish cartoons was to feel left out for never having generated any controversy - but then I realized their motivation was very, very different: i.e., to generate controversy.

Later when, as I often do with older gags, I reused the gag for Arthur, King of Time and Space, this time I did it without actually picturing Mohammed, because my intention had never been to show disrespect for Islam or any of its beliefs - but rather, ironically, to poke at the many, many people on both sides who prefer to look at the differences between us instead of the similarities.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Respect, manners, empathy -- they're all out of fashion in modern discourse.

Dang kids. Git offa my lawn.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

I'm with this. In my own LJ I wrote:

I don't think there's anything wrong with drawing a picture of the Christian God as a man in robes with a big white beard. Or however else you wish to draw him.

I'm less sure about doing so for no other reason than to piss off the Free Church of Scotland.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[moult.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. I'm glad to find I'm not the only one (by a long chalk) who found this deeply insensitive and misconceived.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

So the two coworkers I have from Iran were being...insensitive...to...uh...themselves, when they put his picture up?

[moult.livejournal.com]

That's a bit anecdotal. Two coworkers from Iran don't define Islamic law or what Muslims believe. (I mean, nor do I, but then I'm not going out of my way to flout either of them.)

[pathia.livejournal.com]

Then why is it OK to define/redefine/mock/blaspheme Christian beliefs in just about...uh...everything on TV/Movies/News/everything.

Why is it bad when it's Islam, ok when it's anything else? Free speech is free speech is free speech.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I think this bears repeating.

I did not at any point say that it shouldn't be allowed.

I'm saying it's RUDE. And I'm saying that, whatever the original motives, a lot of the people are participating not out of any Brave Devotion To Principle, but because it's a way to be an asshole to an out-group while claiming high motives.

And I'm not going to be cowed into suppressing my protest just because of peer pressure from the cool kids.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

You do know that Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr and were all banned, indefinitely, from Pakistan due to them 'potentially' having pictures of Mohammed.

Also, it's not even in the Qur'an. It's in their equivalent to dogma.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay.

A deliberate act of trolling caused the targets of the trolls to react in an entirely predictable manner.

This, of course, justifies the trolling.

It's obvious, once you point it out.

[pathia.livejournal.com]

Again, I've yet to see any evidence of moderate/liberal practitioners of Islam being offended. All I see is a bunch of NON-practitioners browbeating other people in blogs.

I hardly *KNEW* about this day until my IRANIAN coworkers brought it up because they thought it was HYSTERICAL. I've seen two people on my LJ list draw him and they were decent, non-hostile, non-'troll' pictures of him.

Meanwhile I've seen about 20 LJ entries like this one waggling fingers over offending people who as far as I can tell haven't been offended.

[starblade-enkai.livejournal.com]

What if Labor Day were subjected to the principle you're using in this post? I'm pretty sure those Tea Party folk would love another reason to garner attention to themselves, and I'm pretty sure anything with even vaguely socialist connotations offends them.

[bfdragon.livejournal.com]

I had a long thought about how I felt about it the other night. On the one hand, I think that it's really quite angering the threats and violence that has resulted from people doing such depictions. I do believe in a freedom of speech and expression, people have a right to say insulting and derogatory things.

On the other hand, I do believe people should be basically civil to each other. While the actions of a few might anger me, the majority don't seem to have the intention of such things. It seems to be a bit of nuclear diplomacy to do it with such a broad stroke, it isn't civil to the millions of others who do not share the view of the others.

There is of course a sort of wildcard in this all though. As Parthia alluded to, the Shi'a don't have such a strong prohibition against the depiction of Muhammad. Thus depictions of Muhammad are quite common in Iran. This does make me just that much more angry at the ones who are doing the threats and the arrogance of the 'everyone else is wrong' attitude.

Civility though, still wins out for me, I do think that people have the right to do it, I wouldn't have the southpark guys go back and undo what they did, but I just have little patience for the outright derogatory. Sure, you have a right to be an asshole, but you are still an asshole.