Sacrilege, Blasphemy?
Who would believe that such a degree of mass hysteria would erupt in the Muslim world over something which seems so utterly unconsequential to Westerners. Outrage of this kind was never exhibited when Islamists were responsible for truly reprehensible acts of violence toward others. Including the murder of other Muslims. It was easier initially to blame the West, the U.S., Israel, for fomenting these dreadful acts and attributing them to Muslims, rather than to accept that their own were promulgating a murderous creed in the name of Islam.The question remains: why wouldn't great hordes of peace-loving, Allah-venerating Muslims express outrage of this same quality that we're being treated to daily, when confronted with the excesses of fundamentalist Muslims who have committed mass murder in the name of the Prophet? This is where blind faith and the human propensity to relate to a self-interested group dulls the intellect and revs up uncontrollable emotions directing the believer toward hatred without examining one's own responsibility for the polarization of cultures.
Is an act of sacrilege paramount, rather than the act of murder? Is it reasonable for murderers to be elevated to the status of martyrs because they murder in the cause of a perceived righteousness in the name of Allah? I don't believe any religion demands of its adherents that they be partners in murder for the greater glory of their god. I can accept that all Muslims adhere to the prohibition against blasphemy directed against Allah, against his prophet. But how can any reasonably intelligent person react so vehemently so as to demand that death be visited upon other people for whom Allah is but a word, a concept, a belief they don't share, and feel free to criticize, even to satirize?
Granted, it was neither civil nor courteous, but dangerously provocative for an influential entity such as a respected news outlet to publish demeaning, socially cruel and clearly inflammatory caricatures of a supremely venerated symbol to a large group of people already convinced that the ungodly world of the west has nothing better to do than denigrate them, contest their authentic belief in Allah.
But this was the decision of a newspaper in Denmark, to pin the tail on this particular donkey by publishing crude satirical drawings in an attempt to illustrate how absurd it is to insist that Islam's prophet demands the death of infidels for the greater glory of Islam. Brave little Denmark, the only country in Europe to face up to a tyrannical mass murderer in the 1940s, now crossing the line once again in defence of freedom. Or so it would seem. But is it wise? Can one culture so completely at variance with another hope to teach a lesson in balance? Not too likely.
This prod to pride and the heavenly esteem with which Muslims hold their glorious Prophet, and their one true Supreme Being, is not to be trifled with. Muslims are enjoined by the Koran never to speak lightly of either Muhammad or Allah, nor to make physical representations of any type of these seminal figures. Muslims, however, appear to believe that while they are never to cross this threshhold of accepted behaviour, neither should non-Muslims. To do so is, to the great puzzlement of those populations governed by Democratic secular values, guaranteed to inflame passions and generate a hotly outraged flashback by a deeply religious segment of the globe who already envision themselves as misunderstood by the great Satans in the western world.
How can one deal reasonably with such closed minds? Well, one supposes, by bypassing this blind spot and accepting what one cannot alter. By respecting their blind adherence to their faith. By not deliberately challenging that very same faith. Poking someone in the eye is certainly guaranteed to get their attention, but it is also guaranteed to earn their ire. And in this particular instance, when groups of outraged Muslims living, for example, in England, can carry signage encouraging further 7/7-type attacks, one is given pause for thought. Never the twain shall meet, indeed.
The cartoons would never have been created, never have been published, had not the situation arisen that challenged a spirit of fairness, a goad against absurdity occasioned by the declarations by insurgents, terrorists, call them what you will, but Muslims all, promising death and destruction to all who stand in their path. Taking up the aged cudgel of revenge against the western European world that ousted an ancient Muslim regime, and pledging to overturn history in the service of Allah. Muslims identify their religion as one of peace, but they need to persuade the doubters among us who see daily instances of news reportage indicating otherwise.
This is precisely what the cartoons attempted to point out. Unsuccessfully, obviously. Yet the onus should still be upon Muslims in general to demonstrate as vociferously (please, not quite as murderously-inclined) against their religion being taken in vain by its too-many fundamentalist xenophobes, misanthropes and pathological murderers. A good start would be for Muslim societies to deny their home-grown militants the privilege of carrying assault weapons in public and discharging them in thunderously dangerous displays of fealty to the Prophet and to their vision of neighbourliness.
Let all Muslims understand that a test of their piety, their fealty to their god requires a condemnation of murder. Until and unless a concerted effort is put forward by true worshippers of Islam to suppress the zealots among them, to identify and condemn the absurdity of murder-martyrdom, it will continue to be rather difficult for the rest of the world to accept their desire for universal respect. If, on the other hand, the medievalism of a holy war in the name of Allah is to continue to be advanced by fundamentalist mullahs and their adherents, there will never be a meeting of like minds.
We will all, in the end, be responsible for crafting an uninhabitable world of festering hatred and revenge, profiting no one at all.
posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 03, 2006
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