One man's joke is another man's Jihad

So we’ve all heard about it in the news. A Danish newspaper last September published cartoons portraying the Muslim prophet Mohammed wearing a turban made out of a bomb. I would offer a link if I didn’t value my own life. Now recently it has gathered global Muslim attention as Islamic law forbids visual portrayal of the prophet Mohammed as a precept to prevent idolatry, or to take the focus away from worshipping Allah. What some people tend to misunderstand, is the small scope that some of these people have for personal expression living in fairly remote parts of the world. Muslims cherish the idea of ‘imminence,’ or that Allah is offended by things we do on Earth and that offending him through cartoons risks punishment.

It has already taken five months for the cartoons to come into the light of the Muslim world, and violence has typified their discontent. However, let me ask this. Is it worth the ten or more people killed in protest? Does it warrant chanting “Death to the Americans, death to the Danish!” An America, who I might add, has taken an unusually neutral stance on the subject…except for Bush’s calling yesterday for Islamic countries to denounce the violence and protect international diplomats.

This is not the only test of freedom of expression that has wracked the religious world. Let me use the example of “Piss Christ.” Some of you may remember it, I don’t…I was a year old. In 1987 a piece of artwork depicting Jesus on the cross and embossed between two pieces of piss and blood covered glass was being shown around the country…underwritten by the United States National Endowment for the Arts. It sparked controversy and congressional intervention as it was a federally funded project. This is an excerpt from the poem Andres Serrano wrote to accompany his ‘artwork’ and the rest…being a Christian, I refuse to include on my page.

If we did not know it was cow's blood and urine,if we did not know that Serrano had for weekshoarded his urine in a plastic vat,if we did not know the cross was gimcrack plastic,we would assume it was too beautiful.We would assume it was the resurrection,glory, Christ transformed to light by lightbecause the blood and urine burn like a halo,and light, as always, light makes it beautiful.

What I think Serrano has misunderstood, as well as the Muslim world…is that there is no power in what he is conveying. Sure, I would have wanted it out of art galleries…and the rest of the poem absolutely infuriates me. Hell, I would pee on Serrano if I could. But it is my anger that gives him the power to make his art seem important, plus ‘Serrano’ was a kick ass character in the Major League series. Serrano the ‘artist’ suggests that it is ‘light [that] makes it beautiful’ (the depiction of Christ). I have news for him. Take away your piss. Take away the glass, the plastic cross, the beautiful depiction of Christ in all its well-lit glory. The sacrifice of God’s son still remains. Oh, and Hitler was an artist too, and he had gas, so…go swallow a knife.

In the same light, while Muslim imminence is an important thing to remember about their religion, they are letting a picture that was neither written by a Muslim nor portrayed as a means of idolatry or worship…enrage them insofar as to let death, and fear, and hatred become their sole means for expression. Why not pray for the writer of the cartoons to see your religion in a different light? How about protesting peacefully?

What does Iran have to say about all of this? ‘I think we will have a contest, to see who can come up with the best cartoons about the Holocaust.’ No, I’m not kidding. An Iranian newspaper says that it will “apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed,” and winners will receive rings! Wait a minute; didn’t Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad call the holocaust “a myth” very recently on more than one occasion? So first you pretend it didn’t happen, and now you want to see how funny the genocide of 6 million people can be? Not to mention…Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said “The West's publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons was an Israeli conspiracy motivated by anger over Hamas' win in the Palestinian elections.” Wow, that makes sense…anyone else frightened by the fact that Iran just so happens to be enriching uranium and moving ever so quickly towards nuclear capability? I think we are on the verge of World War IV (WWIII being the Cold War) Imagine the unrest over a cartoon, and now imagine that same unrest with nuclear capability and the determination to destroy Israel (which according to them, apparently doesn’t exist).

Now the real question here…is…if there was an illustrated bomb in a Where’s Waldo book, would you go crazy and get nuclear weapons and say you are going to destroy people? No…you would be way to busy yelling across the room “Seriously guys, my eyes hurt, where the hell is Waldo!?”

I think cartoons should stick to what they are supposed to do...make us laugh.