Holte's corner

Cartoons and Mobs

I think a little backbone is in order on the issue of Cartoons. Yes, Moslems have a right to be offended by cartoons lampooning their religion by depicting their founder rediculously. But they do not have the right to force other people to stop expressing their thougts. If they want people to stop lampooning Islam, then they need to present the best face of Islam to the public. That is their duty as human beings. Attacking opponants is the way of war. The can hardly call themselves the "nations of peace" if they are at war with everyone who disagrees with them.

And we in the West need to resist the effort to impose limits on cartoonists. These efforts have nothing to do with assuaging Moslems and everything to do with controlling the press and ending freedom of the press. Sure there is a need to stop incitement all around. But we have to uphold the freedom of Press for our own sake -- and ultimately for theirs as well. If we let go of our freedoms to Kowtow to fanatics and murderers, then they are gone for good and gone for nothing. The fanatics will just seek new pretexts to try to attack us and goad on warfare. The fanatics in their idealized visions of a "nation of peace" would turn their countries into nations of war.

Sure we need to stop incitement. Rather than stopping offending people, more importantly there is a need for accuracy; to stop all lies and the resultant deluded behavior. It is lies, and the resultant bad behavior, that are the real enemy. If someone lampoons somebody with the truth -- it is good for the somebody and good for the public -- in the long run. It may create outrage -- but only outrage can lead to someone doing something about a condition or behavior. If someone lampoons with lies -- it only muddies the water and creates blind rage.

These cartoons aren't about Mohammed, they are about Mohammed's followers. It's not Mohammed with a bomb in his hat, but his disciples with bombs in their coats. They are the ones acting like fools, cutthroats and madmen, murderers and fanatics. They need to stop -- and as long as governments and religious institutions use cartoons as an excuse to incite more such behavior, then it will continue to be Moslems who are harming their own image. We don't need cartoons to feel the image of Islam (of Mohammed) as a bomb slinger and a promiser of 70 virgins. All we need is to encounter literalist and perverse Moslems to feel that way.

If Mohammed decried imaging himself -- then Moslems still have to be aware that when they follow him they are imaging him -- and their behavior creates images in other people's minds. If he decried imaging himself as a God, but as a Prophet, then we need to remember that he was first and formost a flawed human being like the rest of us. That is Moslems have to pick and study their Koran and teachings in context -- and not always so literally! -- Not just their own, but that of the Prophet himself -- and look at him as a human being who wasn't picked to be prophet because he was particularly saintly but because his people were in need and perhaps because the Ultimate had made a promise to his ancestors. It is their behavior that determines the images others have of Islam. There have been a huge number of sages within Islam. Moslems should listen to Sufi Saints, to Omar Kayyim, to Jews and Christians, to everyone. They should study the past and learn objective lessons -- not fanciful ones; Accuracy.

Cartoonists may offend Moslems by graphically illustrating the absurdity of it all -- but the absurdity comes from Moslems not the cartoonists. As long as these are people who have "ethnic cleansing" (genocide) in their hearts and as long as their co-religionists apologize for them or even champion them, there will be no good cause for cartoonists to draw milder cartoons except fear of death.

Posted by cholte at February 12, 2006 10:23 AM