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Another day; another cartoon; another controversy:
A cartoon by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro in The Mail and The Guardian weekly newspaper on Friday shows the Prophet grumbling to a psychiatrist about the furore in the Muslim world created by a Facebook page called Everybody draw Muhammad Day.
“Other prophets have followers with a sense of humour!” the turbaned, bearded figure, who is stretched out on the psychiatrist’s couch, complains.
The newspaper editor defends his decision to publish the cartoon in what is a wonderful quote:
My view is no cartoon is as insulting to Islam as the assumption Muslims will react with violence.
To me, this assumption seems more insulting — but hardly anything offends me, so I’m not the right person to compare. So I make this question open: What do you think is less insulting?
1. Portraying Muhammad in a cartoon.
2. Not portraying Muhammad, but replacing it with the South Park style “Censored for fear of extremist Muslims”.
Yes?
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I don’t want to bring in Everybody Draw Muhammad Day here. I maintain it is in bad taste, but I will defend its right to exist.
I wrote about Everybody Draw Muhammad Day in an earlier post :
I think the idea is in bad taste and here’s why : When South Park lampoons public figures, celebrities and holy figures, they are doing it as satire — something the creators think of as serving as a larger purpose. But drawing Muhammad is just to offend an entire community, without any other purpose. It will include Muslims who were probably offended by South Park, but left it at that.
That being said, I have way less of a problem with it than with extremists issuing threats.
That day is tomorrow, and its effects are visible. Pakistan banned Facebook until May 31st. And photos are being uploaded by the thousands at the Facebook page. As I would expect, there is hardly any satirical (or otherwise) value in most of the photos. They’re derogatory — and in many instances, racist — comments directed at Muslims in general.
The campaign guys have every right to continue with the campaign, but I don’t agree with them. It is in bad taste and partly racist, but they have every right to be stupid.
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I’m not sure how I would react to something that offended me. For starters, I can’t come up with anything that would offend me, but I know this : If I were to be offended by someone, I would disagree and ignore, but defend the offender’s right.
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Dammit! Why can’t I think of anything that would offend me?!
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Cafe Pyala, one of the good Pakistani blogs I follow, has a post on this, much of which I disagree with:
The US 1st (free speech) Amendment does legally protect all forms of speech but even in the US, it is socially and politically suicidal to say anything in the mainstream media that questions certain sacred cows, such as the right of Israel to exist, having sex with those ‘under age’, or to make fun of Jesus. I am not weighing in on the merits of these prohibitions, only pointing out that the freedom always exists within certain limits prescribed by society.
There are enough voices against Israel in the U.S., almost every second person makes fun of Jesus and I didn’t get how sex with those ‘under age’ is pertinent. I agree there need to be limits on free speech (mostly dealing with extreme forms of hate speech such as direct incitement to violence), but the bar on the limits shouldn’t be so low that free speech isn’t free speech anymore.
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To get an idea of what is allowed in the U.S., any standup act of Bill Maher is a good starting point.
Salil Tripathi has a piece in Mint on the South Park-Muhammad controversy, where he makes a good point :
There is a story Vivekananda recalls, of the swami being angry over the destruction of a temple by Muslims, when he hears the goddess ask him:
Am I here to protect you, or are you there to protect me?
Divinities are strong enough to look after themselves. Artists and writers aren’t. They need our protection.
Well-put, although I do realize the irony in rebutting the logic of those that follow no rationale.
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LA Times has a piece, and I liked this bit :
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh said that although he sympathizes with the predicament faced by Comedy Central, the network has potentially empowered other extremists by how it has chosen to handle the situation.
“The consequence of this position is that the thugs win and people have more incentive to be thugs,” said Volokh, who teaches free speech and religious freedom law. “There are lots of people out there who would very much like to get certain kind of material removed, whether religious or political. The more they see others winning, the more they will be likely to do the same. Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.”
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I’d rather live in a society where everything and everyone is lampooned, than in one where I have to be scared of offending others — because taking offense has no lower limit.
The South Park issue continues.
First, The Daily Show with their take. Jon Stewart and the guys at The Daily Show always rise up to the occasion, and they did it this time too. They usually pick on Fox News and related parties, but I liked the bit when Jon said that at the end, these were decent human beings he disagreed with. But extremists like the Revolution Muslim guys are enemies, not because they were offended by South Park’s depiction, but for issuing veiled death threats and going against free speech and expression — which Americans hold in high regard. In fact, those very laws that protect free speech, protect extremists from getting into trouble in the U.S.
Do watch it — you can’t possibly disagree.
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Then there is the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day on May 20th that I learnt of via Xeb.
I think the idea is in bad taste and here’s why : When South Park lampoons public figures, celebrities and holy figures, they are doing it as satire — something the creators think of as serving as a larger purpose. But drawing Muhammad is just to offend an entire community, without any other purpose. It will include Muslims who were probably offended by South Park, but left it at that.
That being said, I have way less of a problem with it than with extremists issuing threats.
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Just to backtrack and make sure I am not being hypocritical, let me bring in M.F. Hussain. Had he painted nude goddesses with the sole intention of offending Hindus, I would have a similar reaction — that it is in bad taste. But I consider M.F. Hussain to be an great artist. I can’t possibly apply my thinking to him, and that is why I don’t consider his paintings to be a deliberate offense. People are welcome to think otherwise, but their offence should stop at disagreement.
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Oh, and none of the above actions are or should be punishable by law.
Last week was the 200th episode of South Park, and it was worthy of the milestone.
The plot was clever in its satire : It revolved around antagonists (celebrities previously ridiculed on South Park) wanting a glimpse of Prophet Muhammad. The best scene of the episode — and one of the best of the series — was where Buddha snorted coke, but Muhammad’s form showed a Censored tag. Superb.
Eventually, Muhammad’s voice was heard and I wondered with the characters : Is that okay?
Then, to sidestep the problem of showing his form, the protagonists decide to put him in a bear costume. This, readers, is Muhammad from South Park :
The irony is that South Park has earlier run episodes showing Muhammad, but well before 9/11 and its related events. Radical voices got louder since then, to a point where Comedy Central refused to run a South Park episode featuring Muhammad in 2006 — years after running similar episodes.
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As expected, the creators have received threats from radical groups.
