Are you following the furor over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons that depict the Islamic prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632)? See here. Some bloggers are calling for the cartoons to be published in American newspapers. I don't get it. Yes, people have a legal right (at least in the United States) to publish the cartoons, but it doesn't follow that they should, morally. Sometimes it's wrong to exercise a right. Whatever happened to respect for other people's religious beliefs? If you're a Christian, ask yourself whether you'd like your deity/prophet to be lampooned. Don't say that your deity/prophet is already lampooned. That's not what I'm asking. Is it right that your deity/prophet is lampooned? If not, then why is it right to lampoon someone else's deity/prophet? Can we all please respect other people's religions?
Disrespectfulness
Posted at 6:29 PM CT on Wednesday, 1 February 2006
First, if you accept that the lampooning of a religion is morally wrong, then is violence and threats of death or injury a proper reaction? I argue that these are not proper reactions.
Second, I think Christians have the right to bring up attacks on their faith in reactions to this furor. Remember the "The Piss Christ"? I was offended by Mr. Serrano's incredibly bad work because it first; offended my religious beliefs, and second; was funded by my tax dollars. Liberals who disagreed with me argued that stopping federal funding of this exhibit amounted to suppression of free speech, an incredible twist of logic. I don't remember any Christian leader issuing a decree to kill or maim Serrano, merely stop federal funding of his maiming the name of "art". (Sorry, besides offensive, his work is juvenile and weak.)
The discussion should be on the Islamic (or radical Islamic if moderates want to differentiate) reaction to these slights. Is the different reaction a difference of religious tenets, or a difference in the fact that Christianity spawned western culture's stress on freedom of expression and thought and Islam spawned mid-eatern culture?
The anger among many Muslims is due to both the fact of an image of Mohammed being presented as well as the content of the cartoons.
Should nonMuslims have publicized these cartoons, knowing that Muslims would feel insulted and enraged, while at the same time beleagured European nonMuslims would be cheered and inspired at this demonstration of free expression -- free expression being anathema or forbidden to many Muslims?
The key question is not would some segment of the population feel insulted or revitalized, but what is at stake, and for whom, in the publication of the cartoons.
Western European nonMuslims recognize the threat of cultural and physical extinction due to Islamist jihadism. The vast majority of Muslims collude with the murderous jihadists by remaining silent out of fear, or favor of, the jihadist plan for subjugation, coerced conversion, or murder of nonMuslims.
Therefore, in REALITY, how is the religion of Islam being expressed by Muslims, and should this real world expression of what Islam is NOW, be respected or opposed by all means necessary? It appears to me that the cartoons in question have performed a necessary function in clarifying and focusing on a major feature of the threat.