Kathleen Parker has a column on the beginnings of this day (May 20) and how it’s gone viral because sticking it in the eye of Islamic extremists is a good thing. (go read the column if you need to catch up)
Here’s the deal. While Revolution Muslim is an Islamic extremist site, no person of merit in the Muslim world has picked this amateur fatwa up and run with it. Like Ayaan Hirsi Ali says the threat is real. But the threat is a direct call for overreaction.
We all remember the Dutch cartoon riots. People died. It started with one Iman spreading the “blasphemy” and trying to get a rise out of people and spread the insult. If I remember correctly there were 3 extra cartoons thrown in the midst that hadn’t been printed anywhere except by the Iman. The plan worked.
Comparatively this is a guy (maybe living in his mother’s basement) trying to get a rise out of people. It’s working amongst those of us who believe in freedom, but mostly because we want to DO something and this makes us feel like we’re fighting the enemy. (and frankly, if this fatwa was coming from Imans, we would be, but it’s not.)
I am religious enough to care about other people’s sensibilities. I walk away when people “God damn” this that or the other thing or use my favorite, “Jesus #$@@ Christ”, and so I choose to not hurt the sensibilities of most Muslims but will instead focus the hurt, where it belongs.
Revolution Muslim. With a cc to the pussies at Comedy Central.
We of course have the right to say what we want to, draw what we want to and blasphemy or make fun of anything or everything, but my line in the sand says to me not to join this particular blogswarm. (mobblog?)
South Park is genius. I love them and all their blasphemies. Mr Deity, used to be genius. Watch the first 10 episodes or so. After hiatus, they came back and now they are just trying to stick it in the eye of Christians everywhere. I don’t know why they decided to go that route, maybe some born again Baptist living in his mom’s basement threatened them, but they aren’t funny anymore. They’re rude.
(no I’m not equating..Islamic extremism is the real enemy, but at the same time there are real nonextremist Muslims out there too)
Go ahead and give these guys at Revolution Muslim their illusions of grandeur if you must, you’re not really yelling “I am Sparticus” while standing sooooo far from the actual danger zone.
Maybe I’m just not a joiner, but May 20, I’ll be sending my “protest” direct to the source (unless of course in the meantime Imans decide to join these idiots in which case – nevermind – all bets are off).
Three Sources has a good discussion on this which links to Best of the Webs opinion and Ann Althouse.
The link above to the Jawa report links to this column by David Hazony on Commentary which is also a good read.
While I can see your point, the situation as I see it is that Muslims AREN’T standing up and condemning those who would do violence in their name – so even if they’re not tacitly supporting the Islamofascists (and many are), they’re choosing to step out of the debate.
The Muslim community that does riot over such trivialities as cartoons is a bunch of religious thugs. They riot because they consider drawings of Mohammed as disrespectful to their religion – in the same way a Mafioso is obsessed about respect – at the same time they engage in all the violent, sexist behavior I’m sure you know about. And they’ll continue to behave as thugs as long as they think they can get away with it.
I see your point, but still think the most respectful way is to send the image directly to the source and not spread this across the ‘verse.
The web – assuming Muslims cruise it as I do – is an enjoyable place of freedom. If all of a sudden 51% of the sites I visited put up images that made me cringe, I would no longer feel welcome and I’d spend my time elsewhere.
I would not think “oh – I guess I should have been standing up for these folks all along”.