Those who work at this newspaper have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures. For example, they have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. They have also shown Muhammad in pornographic poses.The people at Charlie Hebdo were not on my side any more than the guys who shot them. A pox on both their houses.
While some Muslims today object to any depiction of the Prophet, others do not. Moreover, visual representations of him are not proscribed by the Koran. What unites Muslims in their anger against Charlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years.
Interestingly, while the people on Twitter agitating for reproducing Hebdo artwork might not know the full, scurvy truth of the content of that rag, it's a good bet the Muslims do. If you wanted the Muslims to feel isolated and surrounded by hateful, filth-encrusted infidels, this was a great way to do it.
Be careful who you take on as an ally. They may bring with them enemies you wouldn't have had otherwise.
Update: Good friends Tim and Foxfier have taken me to task over this to some degree. My question is, why would anyone, individually, implicitly defend Hebdo? Would our lives be missing something without sufficient porno pictures of Mohammed? Is there a crucially important characteristic to the kind of people who draw pictures of masturbating nuns that we can't do without?
I have no fear that there are plenty of guttersnipes who will now draw all manner of slime about the Prophet in retaliation. That crowd will be plenty big enough without us. Why should we feel the need to join in?
Find and prosecute the murderers, yes. But publish nasty pictures of Mohammed? Why?
8 comments:
Well, if I were to say, "why are you in favor of letting murderers shoot whoever offends them?" I would be misrepresenting your position just about as much as you are misrepresenting mine.
If you go back and read what I actually said, you will note that I never even suggested that I thought publishing purile anti-islamic crap in retaliation was a good idea. In fact, I don't disagree with you as much as you seem to think. I just don't think brushing it off with a "they deserved it" is useful or helpful.
The point is that we don't want to give the terrorists what they want[1]. The problem is making sure that what we think they want, is what they actually want.
[1] "Once you start paying the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane."
Do you think I have time to read and understand things before I leap for the keyboard? You must be mad! I'm a blogger, man, not a sane, rational human being!
;-)
By the way, Tim, I didn't think you or Foxie were defending the sleazy Mohammed pictures, I was just restating my position in a different way. I did it in a clumsy way which made it seem like you were.
There, I changed the wording. Hopefully that's better.
Sorry, I fat fingered the above comment. It is all mine, and The Curator bears no responsibility for its contents.
--- Trigger Warnings
I'll be the last person to carry water for either Charlie Hebdo's badly-drawn prophet cartoons or Andre Serrano's pointless "Piss Christ". Both are examples of the gutterization of contemporary "art-as-speech", perhaps most clearly illustrated by artists who choose menstrual blood as a medium. This sort of talentless attention-seeking has been sought and ridiculed since Duchamp's "Fountain" scandalized the New York art world.
What is more relevant here was perfectly captured by Muslim imam Anjem Choudary's commentary in USA Today:
[T]he potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
One cannot utter a clearer warning than that: paraphrased, Choudary warns "If you insult our religion, we will kill you."
In my opinion, the Crusaders got it right the first time.
Hebdo didn't cower (see NYT, AP, yahoo) to terrorism over his right to publish whatever he wanted.
As with any offensive material, be it "art" or empty shock value for page clicks, you don't have to look.
The people that killed Hebdo don't want people to have that choice.
I think it's important his work is reproduced. If it wasn't, it would send a message to these savages that they can use such means to suppress certain freedoms.
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