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

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing how tricking an orthodox jew into eating pork is the same as drawing a picture of Mohammed as a means of standing up for free expression. If this had sprung up out of nothing, I'd agree that the people behind it were just being assholes for the sake of being assholes, but this arose in response to a specific incident.

Also, I'm aware that a lot of people jumping on this are islamaphobes and racists, and that some of the pictures are deliberately meant to insult (though the founder of the page specifically asked that the page not be used as an excuse for hate speech). Just because the page is attracting a lot of assholes, doesn't mean that agreeing with the idea behind it makes you one.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[babyraven.livejournal.com]

Granted, but answer me this, Dave -- exactly what GOOD does this do? Will the minds of any of the people who were opposing the free expression be changed by this?

No. If anything, they'll hate us more. And maybe, so will many other Muslims who were previously neutral. So in the end, it's at best a petty little dart thrown that will hit Muslims of ALL stripe -- oppressive or no -- by mocking one of their beliefs. At worst, we actually recruit for the extremists by giving them fodder to sell to the younger generation about how much we hate their way of life.

At heart, all I'm saying is that if you want to stand up for something, do it! But do it with justice and make it productive, rather than resorting to pointless mockery that injures more than it heals.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

You don't stand up to a bully to change the bully's mind.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[babyraven.livejournal.com]

You make fun of them, and lots of innocent people not even involved instead? And that works?

Bullshit.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Bullies hate being laughed at. Hate it hate it hate it.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[babyraven.livejournal.com]

Sure. Everyone does. Including the 12 year old Muslim kid they just insulted who now has reason to believe that the extremists are right about us, and will now decide to join them to save his religion from the infidels.

Re: Unsurprisingly, I completely disagree with you.

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

How are we supposed to change their minds? By pretending that not causing offense to their religion is more important than freedom of expression? Because in our society, that just isn't true. In a free society, religion is not exempt from criticism or satire or mockery. You can certainly show your disapproval - that's all a part of free speech too - but you don't get to hurt or kill or threaten people because you don't like what they're saying. I think that reaffirming those values is the good this does.