Everyone Draw Mohammed (may Allah honor him and grant him peace) day

[yagathai]

So recently it was apparently Everyone Draw Mohammed Day, wherein people were encouraged to draw the Prophet of Islam. This was in direct reaction to some high-profile and recent terroristic threats made by certain Muslim extremists towards (primarily Western) artists, threatening violence in reaction to depictions of Mohammed which are forbidden according to strict religious codes.

tithenai and I had some words over the 'holiday', because she believes that it's wrong to offend an oppressed minority for the sake of satisfying some jingoistic urge to "put Muslims in their place".

This strikes me as a terribly defensive and reactionary view, and that is certainly not my motivation. However, honestly, even if it does offend the world's Muslim population, on a personal level I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, mockery is always a valid response to threats of unreasonable violence -- it may even be the best response. If people that hew to a frankly absurd tenet are offended because of a reaction to violence perpetrated other people that hew to that same tenet, I have not one iota of pity for them. Underclass or overclass, victims or perpetrators, violent desert barbarians or ancient and maligned culture -- I don't care.

To put it another way, is it OK to blame vegetarians if, say, a militant ecoterrorist group kills a security guard in an attempt to liberate a factory farm? Absolutely not. But you'd better believe that I'll be participating in "Eat A Rare, Juicy Steak Day" that week to show the murdering assholes that their abhorrent tactics haven't cowed me, but rather energized their oppositions. If that offends all the non-violent vegetarians, tough titty.

In other words, it's OK if it offends the emperor's tailors to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. Pointing out the Emperor's nudity is a good in and of itself, but if one of the tailors has been threatening to hurt me if I pointed out his flimflammery, so much the better. A statement of defiance and scorn towards that violent tailor is an additional good, and if the rest of the tailors get hurt feelings that's too bad. No matter what the tailors' circumstances, the Emperor is still completely goddamn naked.

Comments

[aghrivaine.livejournal.com]

In addition, if the whole world ends up drawing the Prophet Mohammed, it makes such a target-rich environment for the extremists that the original cartoonist who was the first pebble in this avalanche won't have to worry so much about say...getting his house burned down. When the violent extremists only have one or two offenders to bully and terrorize, they've got a manageable situation. If half the world is guilty though... what will they do? Kill everyone?

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

That's another excellent point.

[aghrivaine.livejournal.com]

That poor man did have his house burned down, BTW.

Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[babyraven.livejournal.com]

No, Mike, you're just wrong. Shitting on someone else's beliefs is never justifiable.

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

Except that viewing the Muhammad cartoons and the response to them in a vaccum is silly and useless.

Despite a few isolated incidents to the contrary, and despite a horseshit campaign of fear mongering against the 'muslim threat,' the facts on the ground -- the NUMBERS -- are clear: The 'western world' hasn't been suffering mass violence at the hands of Muslims. Exactly the opposite is true. And therefore viewing the Muhammad cartoons as anything other than a scummy, self-important insult added to a hundreds-of-thousands-of-dead-people injury is dishonest. One western cartoonist or filmmaker getting stabbed or burned out of his house is a tragedy. But hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and Afghans is just business as usual. This has been the state of affairs since long before Bush II and it hasn't changed with Obama. Half a million muslim kids died from US sanctions on Iraq in the 90s. Do you know any of their names? No. But you know Salman Rushdie's.

This isn't 'eat a bloody steak' day. It's more like 'spit on a queer' day. Watching all these twits patting themselves on the back for their bravery in kicking people when they're down is pathetic.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

I agree with Jill. And to be honest, the idea of "Eat a Juicy Steak Day" bothers me less than "Draw Mohammed Day," even though the absurd tenet being transgressed here is one that I agree with. Eating a rare, juicy steak is enjoyable for its own sake, but most people who are drawing a stick-figure Mohammed don't get any satisfaction from the act of artistic creation.

Besides, it's hard not to notice the discrepancy between the reaction to death threats that the South Park creators received from Muslims and the death threats that many other people have received for controversial art that offended other groups. When the people who tried to put on the play Corpus Christi received death threats for their trouble, there was no "Put On A Play In Which Christ Sucks Cock Day."

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

I think the reason for the vehemence of the reaction is pretty obvious. Violent fundamentalist Muslims are the current national boogeyman, so the urge to strike back is strong.

The intrinsic value of eating a tasty stake vs. drawing a stick-figure Prophet doesn't really factor into my reasoning.

[saltedpin.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with you more if Islam actually affected my life in any way in a day-to-day sense. As it is, I'm snug in my majority white country (as, I'm willing to bet, most of the Mohammed artistes are too), and Islam is not even approaching anything like my emperor, naked or not.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get why the discrepancy exists. And I assume that you personally would participate in a demonstration designed to offend some equally arbitrary conservative Christian tenet should a similar incident arise. But I seriously doubt that most people who are drawing Mohammed would join you, and in any case this sort of demonstration probably wouldn't even get started in that case, because Christian death threats and Christian violence wouldn't be greeted with the same kind of media firestorm. I know you to be ecumenical in who you piss off; but a lot of people doing this just want to show how much they hate Muslims.

[dear-amaranth.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Your rhetoric aside: Queer isn't a choice, like vegetarian or Muslim. Queer isn't an on-its-face ridiculous restriction on behavior. Drawing a picture of Mohammed doesn't actually cause anyone any harm, which is very different than assaulting a homosexual.

I live on this side of the cultural divide. Were I to live on the other side, I could see myself being motivated to, say, burn an American flag on the 4th of July. But I'm not. I'm on this side, and so instead I stick up for people scribbling stick figures (though on a personal note I don't really have a problem with flag burning either).

People are frustrated and scared, and while certainly I think the "Muslim threat" has been far overblown, it doesn't mean that people don't have some right to be frustrated and afraid, regardless of how real the threat is, regardless of who threw the first punch. They're going to lash out, and I think that drawing stick figures is a pretty benign way to do it.

Am I defending US policy in the Middle East? Certainly not. I'm not supporting violence or direct action against any Muslim. Am I supporting disrespecting a (especially ridiculous) religious tenet? With a work of defiance through art? As a response to violent assault both real and percieved? Hell yes. I supported Piss Christ*, and so I'll sure as hell support this.

*Personally I think I have more to fear from fundamentalist Christians than Muslims, but that's beside the point.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

I showed up for Anonymous's protests against Scientology. That was fun.

And so what? So what if they're motivated by Islamophobia? Honestly, if the worst thing they can think to do is draw a fucking stick figure, that's a pretty harmless way to blow off steam.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find that you still live in a country firmly yoked to the mores of Middle Eastern desert cults.

[arya.livejournal.com]

Who did? Trey Parker and Matt Stone were the original targets, I thought...

[arya.livejournal.com]

This isn't 'eat a bloody steak' day. It's more like 'spit on a queer' day.

Seriously?

Because if a bunch of Christians were to decide that Good Friday is also going to be "Eat a bacon cheeseburger day" I don't think you'd find a single Jew threatening to kill anyone over it.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Certainly pointing out the absurdities of religion is for the greater good, and often if not always justifiable.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

It didn't get burned down. They caught it before the cans of gasoline caught.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/15/AR2010051501524.html

[arya.livejournal.com]

Zing.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

And so what? So what if they're motivated by Islamophobia?

Then people like the friend you mentioned above are justified in seeing it as primarily a tribal act directed against scary foreigners, and not primarily about freedom of expression. It's not the biggest deal in the world (Islamophobia has much bigger consequences), but that doesn't make it laudable.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

It can be both, you know. And I think it is.

[saltedpin.livejournal.com]

But not the one people are drawing silly pictures about. If they were, that would somewhat more justified.

[saltedpin.livejournal.com]

Not really.

[ornythopter.livejournal.com]

firmly yoked to the mores of Middle Eastern desert cults.

So there's really no difference between Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and all the other Mid East desert cults?

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Allah of one, Yahweh of the other.