Why “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is Doucheful
Wherein I complain about western imperialist thought.
A lot of blogs I read have been talking about Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. This all started because a some fringe Islamic fundamentalists threatened violence against the Cartoon Network and the creators of South Park and the house of a Swedish cartoonist was firebombed (he wasn’t there, thankfully).
I want to start out by saying that violence over free speech – even the threat of violence – is something I find deplorable at all levels. If one is enlightened, one should seek diplomacy as a solution first and violence last.
Let me further say that “Freedom of Speech” is probably my favorite right granted to me by the founding fathers. If I could Facebook “like” it, I would.
However, having freedom of speech does not grant one freedom of responsibility for those words, nor freedom to be a douchebag. Citizenship in America is hard fucking work and it requires patience, tact, and a willingness to forgive.
“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is not an attempt to “win the rights to draw Mohammed”, nor is it “standing up to the radical Muslim right.” It’s a bandwagon event where a bunch of people try to piss all over the beliefs of a large percentage of the world’s population.
It is against Muslim belief to create an image of Mohammed. Those who ascribe to that religion believe there is power there. By drawing Mohammed, what you are saying “I disrespect your beliefs, what they stand for, and by extension, I disrespect you and everything you stand for.”
Congratulations. You’ve just declared yourself as a douchebag without empathy.
To every Muslim. Everywhere.
There will be a small fringe group who may threaten (or even perform) violent acts over this. That’s horrible. But, you know: it’s unlikely that you, safe in your internet anonymity in the basement, will encounter this (bully for you, Mr. Man!). However, the large majority of people you offend will be just that: offended. And now you’ve lost any shred of respect they may have had for you, and done a damned good job of sinking diplomatic relations with them.
Why would they want to talk to you? You’ve just spit on something they care about.
See, you’re not fighting the radical fringe. You’re starting a war with the center. Why would you do that?
Everyone has something in their lives that they consider “sacred”. For some people, this is their religious beliefs. For others, patriotism. Family. Gender or sexual identity. Hell, I’ve seen people get into fistfights over their choice of computer operating systems.
Consider the American Flag. Say I wanted to set one on fire – for no reason other than to provoke a reaction.
I could go to downtown San Francisco and do this and have a fairly tame reaction. There would probably be many people who cheered and an equal number of people booing. There would probably quickly be a police presence, and I’d likely get cited for disturbing the peace if things got ugly.
Now, think about doing that in the great state of Mississippi.
It would be a different experience. Few (if any) individuals would applaud my actions and I could expect a classic beatdown that I would remember for decades.
What would happen if burned a gay pride flag in the middle of the Castro?
Them’s fightin’ words.
As my friend Chip points out, participating in “Draw Mohammed Day” puts you in the same crowd as the students trying to start shit on Cinco de Mayo. You’re just stirring the pot to stir the pot; nothing of value is going to be gained.
This is why I’ve never been a fan of Piss Christ.
So, okay. Maybe you don’t have any religious beliefs, and you could give a fuck about patriotism or whatever. What would you do if I wiped my ass with, oh, the first crayon drawing your child brings home from nursery school? Decided to melt down your wedding ring?
For no reason except to piss you off.
Ultimately, we’re talking about vandalizing someone else’s beliefs.
Lance: Still got your Malibu?
Vincent: Aw, man. You know what some fucker did the other day?
Lance: What?
Vincent: Fucking keyed it.
Lance: Oh, man, that’s fucked up.
Vincent: Tell me about it. I had it in storage for three years, it was out for five days and some dickless piece of shit fucked with it.
Lance: They should be fucking killed. No trial, no jury, straight to execution.
Vincent: Boy, I wish I could’ve caught him doing it. I’d have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.
Comments on Why “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is Doucheful
That’s the problem, though – there’s no real way to attack fringe fundamentalists of any religion without risking offending the more moderate people. If the more moderate people were truly “moderate”, however, there would be some level of understanding – “They’re not trying to offend me, they’re doing this in response to the outrage over bullshit that was going on earlier.”
Tolerance is definitely a two-way street – we should be tolerant of their beliefs, but conversely, there seems to be little to no acknowledgement by the average that we don’t have to hold those same beliefs and are not obliged at all to follow them, and that we live in secular countries and that religion never trumps someone’s rights.
The LOLMOHAMMED situation is really just a synecdochic metaphor for the larger secular/Muslim conflict in society: we do things differently in North America and Europe, and anything that you choose to put into a public forum for any reason can be mocked for no better reason than that the scoffer has had a bad day. The (very) common perception of Muslims in the West is that many think that their right to not be offended trumps everyone’s right to be heard, and the responses to the initial depiction of Mohammad in the Swedish newspaper (despite the fact that it was inflammatory and arguably “racist”) only reinforce that perception.
Muslims are free to believe that Mohammad can’t be represented in media, but they have no right to enforce that belief on anyone who is not Muslim; the currently existing threat of violence towards those who do is terrorism (v. textbook definition thereof). The only proper response towards terrorism is defiance, and punishment of those who choose to follow through with their threats.
If you’re correct in the statement that not respecting the Islamic proscription against depicting Mohammad is akin to vandalizing Islam, then a) not respecting the fact that freedom *from* religion and freedom of speech both exist in the Western countries where said depictions are occurring and b) threatening to use violence to correct what they see as an issue is, therefore, vandalism of every Western nation, the concept of freedom of speech, and my freedom to not be regulated by their faith.
This is how Mohammed is depicted on a tapestry in Tehran, Iran.
http://www.frontaalnaakt.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tehran_carpetmuseum_muhamad.JPG
Now, if I were a homophobic religious extremist I’d be rather offended.
I think your comments are rather harsh.
Humor is a way to deal with fear.
I feel there are sensible reasons to fear Muslim extremism.
Dealing with this without carpet bombing is pretty OK in my book.
I think you’re misjudging Andres Serrano, and Piss Christ, here. His work is too complex, and probably more importantly, too *gorgeous* in it’s own right, to be lumped in with “I just wanna start a fight” people.
(I love that photograph.)
One would think that having generally had your ass beaten by anyone who felt you needed it for most of your life, and having them get away with it, that you would have formed at least an inkling of a suspicion that being understanding and accepting doesn’t work too well when dealing with someone who wants to hurt you.
I’m not entirely sure of what you’re saying here. Are you saying that you think it’s okay to engage in “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” is okay because certain sects of Islamic fundamentalists believe in using violence to quell free speech?
I ask because it seems unclear to me who you are saying was generally getting their ass beaten by anyone.
At one level, I agree in thinking, oh, grow up alderay when it comes to the cartoons. But this is obviously a complex issue to me, one who can paint overly borad strokes at times and overly simplifies at times. Your point of reference, Dave, is you and how you process things. That ain’t how things, in general, are processed by those inflamed by the cartoons.I won’t even comment on the radicals using this for political gain to stir anger for their benefit. We have those here in this country as well, known as Republicans & Democrats, even though their stirring is less violent.You have over there a large mass of poor, uneducated, and highly pissed-off people. Their religion, as silly as it may be to educated people, is what they identify and define themselves with, more than anything else I am aware of. Tends to happen with poor people, even in this country. To insult their religion is more than just a poking of fun to them, it goes much deeper.You would think that atrocities such as the moronic crusades would be out of their system by now, but the crusader term is still used by them. The violence between the Palestinians and Jews is a vicious circle, only further entrenching the belief that there’s an attack on Islam. Bitterness takes long to die. They think very differently about reality than you or I might.The violence is past my understanding. Yet I see few people, at least in the media, try to understand the perspectives of the really angry over there. I am not empathizing as much as thinking that if we expect the violence to stop anytime soon, we must strive to have a much better understanding of how the thinking of others not like us is appreciably differnt; a very differemt reality perspective. Then again, if it doesn’t affect them, most people in this country could care less.