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My Picture of the Prophet

Okay, no picture, because I can't draw.

But if I could . . . I would draw a birka and caption it that Mohammed was hiding under it.

No doubt by now everyone is aware of the violence that has erupted in some places in the Muslim world over caricatures of Mohammed that appeared originally in a Danish publication, and have since been reprinted in some other countries. U.S. papers have so far chosen not to reprint them, only describing the content of the images in words.

Problem 1 for the protesting Muslims is that their religion forbids depictions of Mohammed. Even had the content of the images not been offensive to them, the fact of them would be problematic.

Problem 2: They're upset that the government of Denmark, and the governments of other nations in which the cartoons were published won't apologize. See, in Syria--where the worst of it seems to be taking place--the press is basically under the government's thumb. Not clear on the concept that the government has little or nothing to do with the press in most western democracies (yes, one might safely argue that certain media outlets are mouthpieces for the current U.S. administration, but they're not supposed to be, and they're not required to be, and the administration and said media outlets would never admit such a thing to be the case, so let's at least permit them the illusion for the purposes of this discussion), this seems to those who are protesting as if the governments are condoning the images.

Now the people who are out there burning embassies are probably the Middle Eastern equivalent of the American Fox News viewer, people who aren't eager or willing to understand those subtleties even if they have access to the information. (Note the time lag between the original publication and the hue and cry.) They'd rather run around shouting whatever their local Sean Hannity-equivalent tells them to. See, our cultures aren't so different after all! They are just more likely to destroy nice stuff like cars and embassy furnishings because they don't have their own. Our ranting idiots tend to be flush and hold Stuff in higher esteem. Frequently higher than humans, especially humans who might not share their race or creed. But that's a whole 'nother post.

That being said, I want to get back to the legitimate issue of what is appropriate in regard to religious images. I suspect we non-Muslims don't grasp the anger--because there are sane, sensible, peaceful Muslims who are distressed and offended, too, but their protests have been largely drowned out by the embassy-burning nutjobs--around this because Christianity, our majority religion and the one, like it or not, that holds sway in western culture today, doesn't have a comparable prohibition. (One might point to the prohibition against idolatry, but that's not the same as saying you can't have images of the key figure in your religion: some few may argue it to be idolatrous, but the fact is we have pictures and sculptures of Jesus all over the place, and the whole public-displays-at-Christmas foofawraw is about having more such images in the form of baby Jesus statues in creches on city hall lawns.)

There have been offensive portraits of things Christians hold dear, but it was the content of the portrait, not the very act of portraying Christ in any form that was offensive. For the Muslims who are upset by the Danish cartoons, it's a double whammy.

But it's not the press's job to avoid offending people, or at least it's not supposed to be. Some papers in Europe have reprinted the cartoons specifically to make the point that a free press should be able to do just that.

Still, I find myself a bit uncomfortable about that. Perhaps the Danish editors were unaware of the prohibition against portraying Mohammed when they commissioned the cartoons. If they were aware, they were at best insensitive--these were, after all, specifically commissioned images, not a news item being covered. If they knew they were setting out to violate the tenets of a faith, I think they used poor judgment.

But let's assume they were ignorant. Now they're digging their heels in defensively. Yes, they did have the right to publish what they did; still doesn't make it a great idea. The New York Post has the right to publish a cartoon of the Virgin Mary French-kissing Jesus, too, but I doubt they'd ever do it. (And the Post seldom lets mere sensitivity get in its way.)

There's nothing wrong in a free society with commenting on or criticizing a religion and/or its practice, particularly when the practice of religion is affecting the sphere well beyond the religious, as is the case in several countries in the Middle East, and as is the case with the increasing influence of the so-called Religious Right in this country. Go to it. But if that comment or criticism takes a form that is inherently offensive to believers in that faith, one should at least consider whether the same view can be expressed in a different way. You don't need to burn a Bible on the steps of Tribune Tower to be able to discuss in that paper whether there's a lick of sense to the creationists' argument.

So I think the U.S. papers who have opted to describe the cartoons rather than reprint them have chosen the right path: they can discuss the controversy, and the views that the original cartoons were intended to depict, without having to repeat the affront to the Muslim faith. If readers want to see the cartoons, they'll be able to find them. Hey, this is the 21st century--we have the internet.

Okay, why does my cartoon show Mohammed under a birka? It doesn't show the Prophet, really, so it is (I hope) not inherently offensive to his followers. But that's not my point. My point is that the fundamentalists of Islam (just like certain other fundies we could name) have veiled their Prophet, have made the basic tenets of their faith--the ones in which you don't go around killing people--less visible, are hiding and taking control over Islam much as they have of the women they oblige to wear the birka.

Now, to learn to draw . . .

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