South Park & the Mohammed cartoon 25, April 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Islam.Tags: Danish cartoons, Danish muslim cartoons, Mohammed cartoons, Muslim cartoons, South Park, South Park censored, South Park mohammed cartoons
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The creators of South Park the highly irreverent US cartoon have been forced to censor a cartoon from depicting the Prophet Mohammed. They did this after receiving threats to their lives and in the wake of the attacks on the Danish cartoonist who penned the now infamous Danish Mohammed cartoons.
This whole issue is fraught with contention and I have sympathies on both sides.
I see no reason as to why people in the West feel the need to prove their freedom of expression by purposefully going out of their way to insult other people in a way that they know perfectly well will cause offense and hurt. In these instances, I believe that the production of such cartoons has less to do with promoting and protecting the West’s freedom of expression and more to do with publicity, a desire to purposefully provoke a negative reaction and to try to make certain Muslims paint themselves and by association swathes of those following their religion as foolish barbarians.
Yet I find the idea whole idea of ‘I am insulted’ to be deeply annoying and unconvincing, as if people have a right not to be insulted. I am offended by countless things on a daily basis. I fervently hate the headlines on the Daily Mail, I am truly offended when the BNP try to speak for me as a white Briton and I deeply resent the fact that I was/am reticent about writing this. Some Muslims may say that it is different for them as I cannot possibly understand just how offensive it truly is to insult the Prophet Mohammed: how offensive! They don’t know the strength of my personal convictions. Yet I do not send death threats. I take the mature approach and moan a bit on my blog.
There is also, of course, the eternal question of just how many Muslims are offended by these cartoons. I’ll rephrase that, I am sure that all Muslims are offended by negative depictions of Mohammed, yet I wonder how many take my more philosophical approach as opposed to the militant bleating.
If you want to see the cartoon picture in question click here. (Mohammed’s the one in the middle…). If you want to see some more cartoons try here. If you’re likely to be offended by the cartoons, don’t click on the links.
The Gulf blog 
I know from experience.
Muslims go on and on about freedom and peace.
Then say, “Die,” when you open your mouth or take one step thewrong way. You’re being awfully liberal.
Err….that’s quite the generalization there with which I wholly disagree.
Yeah Ephemeral, I’d disagree. Life isn’t quite so black and white, and among other things, we make it harder to support genuine efforts at communication when we make generalizations like that. No community spanning millions of people and dozens of nations is going to only do or say or be one thing, and that counts for categories like Brits and Americans too. Thanks David for eloquently summing up the issue in so few words.
David and ilmgirl
Not sure you’ve been fair to Emphemeral.
I certainly enjoy living in a more tolerant and reasonable Christian society.
Why not so long ago a very tolerant Christian gun downed George Tiller in Kansas City. What better place to do the Lord’s work than a church?
And who can forget one enlightened TV pastor who called for the nuking of the US State Department (a small nuke mind you so as to not disturb too many other folks).
Or conducted repeated prayer sessions on his 666 Club asking the Good Lord to smite one or more bad Supreme Court justices so that then enlightened president could appoint God-fearing judges. And what better way to reinforce that quality than seeing their predecessors’ fate.
And what can one say about the good folks at the Westboro Baptist Church and Pastor Fred who continually travel great distances to comfort the families of fallen service men?
To avoid increasing the distress of any Muslims out there, I won’t list any more examples of the innate moral and intellectual superiority of the West. There are lots more — as sadly there are with all human societies.
Yes. I’m talking about strict muslim countries I suppose.
Btw, my whole family is muslim and I am an ex-muslim so I know that everyone isn’t like that. I’m just a little bitter.
My apologies. đŸ™‚
Again, you are preaching to the converted. I agree with all these points. But this is thegulfblog.com – https://thegulfblog.com/2010/04/25/this-blog-is-about-the-gulf/
Thanks for your thoughts.
Ephemeral – perhaps a degree of cynicism can help guard against total bitterness and disillusionment: it’s not that “Muslims” say “Die” – but that “some” Muslims say it when they view someone else as blaspheming.
Ask “Cui bono?” enough times and things start to fit together, without necessarily rejecting faith or culture. The Danish cartoons had been out for months before the protests and death threats really started getting underway. Who stirred the pot? Why?
While conspiracy thinking is a regional fixation, understanding social movements – in the West, or in the Muslim world – requires assessing how something comes to be said broadly. Movements only endure if they confer benefits on somebody…
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day will be on May 20.
http://tinyurl.com/draw-mohammed-day
Really?