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

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

The Zarathustrans don't have much in the way of temporal power, but otherwise, for this purpose... yes. I think you can lump all of them together as a generally oppressive, generally inimical force that seeks to impose its morality on others.

[saltedpin.livejournal.com]

I agree with you from the outside looking in, but the problem is that the various adherents don't. And this is where the problems start.

[ornythopter.livejournal.com]

So the contradictory commands "Murder the Infidel" and "Love thy Neighbor" somehow have the same generally oppressive, generally inimical value for society?

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

Right. Because there's nothing in the qu'ran about loving your neighbors. And nothing in the Bible about violence. That must be why Christian regimes have so much lower of a body count over the centuries than Muslim ones...

[ornythopter.livejournal.com]

zing for extra irony!

So if a particular group of Christians advocates violence and another particular group of Christians advocates compassion, their actions must still have the same moral value, right?

So, can we agree that it's NOT okay to shit on all of Islam, but it IS okay to shit on the specific belief that "murder is justified if a person draws a particular cartoon?"