The Islamic religion has a taboo against making drawings or statues of
revered figures such as Allah and the prophet Mohammed. Judaism has a
prohibition against making graven images of God. Christianity
encourages respectful portrayals of Jesus, a Jew, particularly if depicted as a blonde, blue-eyed, northern European. See Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.
The newspaper of a Danish political cartoonist published a drawing of the prophet Mohammed to make some sort of a point and now all hell has broken loose, what with Muslim outrage and European counter-outrage over the outrage. Result: more cartoons. Messing with people's symbols is serious business, as we know from our own efforts to keep church and state separate, to keep evangelical Christian religious symbols out of the town square and courthouses, and to resist mainly Christians from forcing schoolkids to mouth approved Christian prayers in school or other civic exercises, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, and in particular, the words "under God" in the Pledge. Demanding equal treatment, some Jews agitate to have symbols of Chanukah displayed alongside Christmas scenes at city halls as though two breaches of the wall correct one breach. At any rate, if you've been wondering what the drawings or cartoons of Mohammed that have been the source of the current controversy look like, here they are: http://tinyurl.com/a98jp By going nuts over publication, my guess is that the Muslims are playing into the hands of the anti-Muslims who have now learned how easy it is to get their goat. I expect to see a lot more of this just to anger them, but good. In the name of freedom of speech, of course. Freedom of speech in this country means the right to anger the next guy, even by blaspheming his religion, as we no longer have laws against "blasphemy," the denigration of religion or a particular form of religion. If you think the Muslims are being silly over this, how do you like it when anti-American Muslims trample and burn the Stars and Stripes, or when they dragged the bodies of dead American soldiers through the filthy streets of Mogadishu? Or an American appeals court holds the words "under God" in the Pledge unconstitutional? Since we know that such activity generates a lot of feeling, but a lot of feeling settles few questions involving the need to reason things out, why not divide your reaction into two columns, A-Reason, and B-Feeling, in order to keep the two separate, as in "I feel this, but I think something different" (or the same, if that's how you figure it out). Here's an interesting take from the American cartoonist, KAL. Did you know that Prophet Mohammed has been depicted respectfully and not for a very long time? Here's a compilation. Thanks to reader Mike Cheek for the pointer to the site. Much of our humor, especially the schoolboy variety, draws the laugh by making us imagine a taboo image. I'll have to cogitate awhile before coming up with examples. Meanwhile, discussion continues over why such a strong reaction of Muslims over the Danish cartoons of their prophet. And speaking of cultural clashes, China doesn't want Google to put on-screen anti-Communist Party messages, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, as the product of certain searches. Google has truckled under to the Communist Party, China, claiming that eventually the word will get out anyway. Boooo! Google has gone Communist, in order to make a buck, of course. Try CLUSTY.COM, instead. CLUSTY promises not to go Communist any time soon. -------------------- -rs
"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." Wm. Faulkner |