What in the Name of God is Going On?
Friday, February 3, 2006 at 10:51AM In October 2005, the Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, published a dozen cartoons of the prophet Muhammad (listed below/click on photo for full image) Denmark is now the target of outrage across the Islamic world, as more European newspapers published them in the name of freedom of speech. Denmark, France and Germany are particular targets of angry Arabs who are threatening kidnappings and deaths in retaliation for publishing the "offensive" cartoons. In fact, today is the "International Day of Anger" for Muslims. Angry Muslim mobs have been on a violent anger spree across the world. The "US is backing Muslims and calling for tolerance."
Muslims in Iraq have also been protesting the cartoons and Aljazeera reports that: "Iraqi Christians said they feared a new wave of attacks by Muslims, driven by anger over the images." Oh, great. This ought to help world peace become a reality.
Back in the US of A, sensitivity to (or fear of) Islam is rearing its head. CNN says in a report:
"Muslims consider it sacrilegious to produce a likeness of the Prophet Mohammad. CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam."
CNN had no problem running images of Abu Ghraib, which were certainly offensive to Muslims. They aired the disgusting Army amputee cartoon and in fact had the cartoonist Tom Toles on CNN at 8 am yesterday. Apparently CNN has more respect for extremist Islam than for the United States Military, but that’s not news.
In April of 2001, CNN’s founder, Ted Turner, called Roman Catholic’s "Jesus freaks" on Ash Wednesday:
Turner noticed that some employees had a smudge—from Lenten ashes—on their foreheads.
"I was looking at this woman and I was trying to figure out what was on her forehead," Turner was reported to have said. "At first I thought you were in the [Seattle] earthquake. I realized you’re just Jesus freaks." Turner added, "You ought to be working for Fox"—a reference to a more conservative news network which competes with CNN.
There is no such sensitivity for Christians. Rolling Stone Magazine featured rapper Kayne West as a persecuted and crucified Christ. Considering the nature of Kayne’s "lyrics" and admission that he is addicted pornography, this would be particularly offensive to Christians.
In New York City, the National Black Fine Art Show is exhibiting this painting by Harlem artist "Tafa".
It depicts an upside down Christ-like figure with a face strongly resembling Osama Bin Laden. The email read in part, "This is outrageous. This is an attack against my religion. How can an artist go so low? Most people are outraged, most Christians."
On the phone with me, the artist declined to do an on-camera interview, telling me the work speaks for itself, but adding, the resemblance to Bin Laden was no accident…
Then there’s the Piss Christ piece of…… art. (liberal friends will appreciate the link to Wikipedia)
Then the movie The Last Temptation of Christ , which was a colossal flop in 1988 due to it’s blasphemous errors.
NBC’s flop The Book of Daniel (cancelled after 4 airings)
All of these anti-Christian expressions of art or entertainment have been largely unsuccessful for two reasons: 1) they preach to the converted, those already disdaining the faith, and it’s a fairly small crowd. 2) Those offended boycotted the networks that aired such entertainment or began letter writing campaigns to the exhibitions. This has been far more successful than taking to the streets with machetes.
Despite the obvious rejection of anti-Christian displays, the assault continues.
NBC’s Will & Grace will air on April 13, just before Good Friday, an episode starring Britney Spears called "Cruxi-fixin’s" .
ABC’s Desperate Housewives (Catholic smear campaign)
The list goes on and on and on.
Maybe it’s because Christianity preaches forgiveness and love that it is relentlessly assaulted. Perhaps it is because in an increasingly godless and secular world the moral Law of God within Christianity (such as a call to turn from adultery, murder, sex outside of marriage, homosexual practice, lying, stealing, murder…..) many feel condemned by their own actions in contrast with Christian teaching. Maybe it’s because everyone knows Christians won’t tie bombs to themselves and blow you up if you disagree. Or, perhaps, there truly are forces of good and evil in the universe and the evil seeks to discredit, ridicule, mock and abolish the good.
Michelle Malkin
Expose the Left
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Reader Comments (32)
I believe there is artistic/theological merit in works such as Last Temptation, which genuinely explore the awe-inspiring concept of being fully man and fully God. Given that it presents itself as *fiction*, I think it must be exempt from charges of blasphemy, which to me needs to be presented as truth. I wouldn't call it a flop. Maybe not a commercial success, but an artistic achievement.
I'm sorry, Isn't that ummmm EVERYDAY?
Even piss christ is more interesting than the cartoons. You might see it purely as sacrilage, but it makes the point that Jesus went wee-wee too. Also, it puts another perspective on the bodily-fluid intensive imagery of the bible. "This is my blood" -- think about actual blood, real human flesh, piss, everything. That's what it says. It's obviously calculated to shock as well, but that's an established technique in art to put the viewer into a surprised, baffled state from which he comes to understanding. Eg Marcel Duchamp's urinal. (I like Kanye West too, although I gather he's made some bold PR moves in America which aren't well known over here. His record's good though)
AMY -
Great post but, as a reader commented on my site, Muslims do not mock Jesus.
However, in my humble opinion, that is about the only argument they have here. For Islam, everything else seems to be fair game. Can't speak for all non-muslims, but I've had just about enough of their anger directed WEST, when in fact they should look to their own families, mosques and communities.
Currently, there are a few brave nations standing beside the United States in this fight against terror. Despite Europe's overall complacency and downright cowardice on this issue, they are now beginning to realize what this has wrought upon their own lands.
Forget a few silly cartoons -- Muslims had better wake up before the rest of the world does. The Crusades were nothing compared to what very well could happen next.
(*Nath made a comment about Hilter being a Christian... the rest is just as stupid)
"islamophoiba."
*(Amy's comment: I had to leave this term up, "ISLAMOPHBIA", that the "Communist" watcher invented. Now I've heard it all! Muslims can't be judged by what they do, but by what others do in cartoons)
Even if they are focussed in retaliating only at the provocator, why bother? Why don't they just get their own column and draw pictures they like?
I see no reason for journalists to pledge to write only ineffectual pieces. This code of ethics
http://www.spj.org/ethics_code.asp
has no mention of your stipulation. The closest it gets is to "avoid stereotyping by ... religion...".
(One thing though - most of the banners looked like they'd been handwritten by the same person, and simply handed out to a group). I hope MI5 got good pictures of them all.
Several points:
The reaction of Muslims to those cartoons only served to prove the very point which the cartoons were making, I thought. If they object to the idea of Mohammed (and by association, all Muslims) being thought of as violent human timebombs, then they need to change their PR strategy.
Total Muslim hypocrisy. Open any Arab newspaper and look at the almost daily cartoons of Ariel Sharon, or of Jews in general. People in glasshouses.......
Total police hypocrisy. Why were these animals not arrested on the spot and charged with "using words or behaviour likely to incite racial hatred"? Oh no, I forgot, that law only applies to, ahem, certain other people.
This is living proof (if any more were needed) that Islam is totally irreconcilable with Western democracy. It is an enemy which needs to be fought, not appeased or reasoned with, or tolerated in any shape or form. Its practise should be totally outlawed in Britain, and its followers sent packing from these shores.
Unforunately, based on history, the answer is most probalby yes. He was NOT a good man, nor a prophet. Islam seems to be very accurately carried out by Muslims today. Mohammad justified the raping of pre-teen girls by his followers when they took over villages. He was a sicko. Islam is a twisted religion.
I got very depressed writing this story; almost as depressed as when I did the one on gay ads. The depravity in the anti-Christian movement is unbelievably deep.
As for the quotes you gave from the Old Testament, of course it doesn't sound good to you! First of all, what you cited was Judiasm. Secondly, those verses certainly won't sound good to His enemies, but his followers are comforted by them. Which are you?
Muslims do NOT mock Jesus, you are right, but they do persecute His followers. They respect Jesus as a holy prophet and are very respectful of Him. However, when my hubby was in Iraq, the Christian Church was horribly done wrong by Muslims. If a Muslim converted to Christianity, his home could be burned down, he killed and his daughters raped. Also, the Churches that our Iraqi priests/friends were attached to were all bombed in Baghdad by Muslims. Christians have been fleeing Iraq because of Muslim persecution.
I wasn't defending the cartoons, just disputing your call for journalists not to write anything that might affect anybody. Read my comment again. (and my previous comment which criticices the cartoons as an attempt at satire).
Amy P pointed out that such mutations of the Christian story are published fairly regularly, eg. Jesus having a sexual relationship with Mary Magdeline in the Last Temptation of Christ. While Christians made more of a fuss than I would have liked about that, they certainly didn't threaten large-scale terrorist attacks over it (as both Tom and I have seen in London, for exmaple).
There can (must) be freedom of speech, even if some people use it in a silly way (as with the cartoons). Islam is big, popular and strong enough to take someone tweeking its nose without getting all violent. Welcome to being a mature part of 21st century international culture. Islam cannot impose its rules and ideas about blasphemy on non-Muslims, any more than Christianity can on non-Christians. (The UK blasphemy law is an anachronism, nobody's been successfully charged with it recently). I suggest that Islam gets used to a large part of the world not being Muslim.
I have no religion.
It's a shame, this would have been a good line of questioning from a non-troll.
I agree. It could have been a good discussion, but the Commie Sultra has abused me, my name and my images in such a way over the past year that I'm not tolerating their crap. One of "the Watcher"'s statements were,
"Feel free to deleted my posts as much as you want.
The main thing is that you read what I write."
So full of himself that he thinks his words, riddled with a threat against my children, it would appear, are worth reading.
From you I have learned that to win a debate one needs only to:
A. marginalize the opposition by calling them Liberal, Terrorist, Communist, or a Troll thereby making anything they say meaningless.
B. delete anything that you disagree with or that you cannot refute easily
C. if all else fails, invoke God, Jesus or your favorite translation of The Bible
Also, Amy, I am shocked that you did not know that Jez's country, the UK, is at war. Afterall, they have thousands of troops in Iraq and over 100 UK troops have been killed there. And the word "Islamophobia" was notinvented by The Watcher, it has been around for many years.
I'm not interested in discussing why I delete what I delete. I know what I'm doing, thanks. Please don't critique my style, just stay on topic.
AMY et al -
On this subject, I responded directly to a Muslim's comment thus:
Muslims don't draw caricatures of other religious figures? I have seen evidence to suggest otherwise - but cannot prove it was an actual Muslim who did the drawings.
However, as you can see in the photo, organized muslims seem to have no problem burning our flag and calling for assassinations. Not to mention beheadings, hijackings, kidnappings and mass-murder of innocents.
Despite the peaceful lives of most Muslims, your religion is currently a blight on the world. As a Muslim, you and all others of your faith need to stand up and be counted against the terrorists and the nations of malevolence -- otherwise, you are going to remain part of the problem and a growing target of widespread outrage.
The truth is painful, but it is clear that most non-Muslims are quickly losing patience with the misdeeds, and broader complacency, of Islam. This explosive situation is in YOUR hands. What will you do?
((Amy - Blogspot server was down yesterday, in case you tried to visit!))
look at this, it's sad.