A few days back, small groups of college students at Northwestern, Illinois and Wisconsin -- angry that Comedy Central had been intimidated into censoring a South Park episode depicting the Prophet Muhammad -- chalked their quads with stick figures and labeled these drawings "Prophet Muhammad."
One of the members of the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers (AAF) group leading the event at the University of Illinois wrote a letter explaining his actions: "No one's sacred cow unwrites basic human rights. You can cater to the whims of fundamentalists, or you can cater to fundamental rights, but you can't do both."
Sounds like another battle in the war pitting free speech against fundamentalist Islam. Or is it?
Muslim Students Associations (MSA) on all three campuses said they believed in free speech and were opposed to fringe groups who threaten violence, too.
The President of the University of Illinois MSA, Omar Fareedi, wrote: "It appears to me, this event seems to be a reactionary and rash response to the actions of a fringe organization that does not represent mainstream Islam in any way whatsoever ... Revolution Islam is a radical group and in no way do we lend credence to their practices and ideology."
"I assure you we believe in freedom of expression just as much as you purport to do," wrote the Vice President of the University of Wisconsin's MSA.
One of the arguments that the Muhammad chalkers seem to be making is that attacking sacred cows protects free speech.
This seems to me largely a trick of language. When something gets called a "Sacred Cow," it must be attacked. When the mantle of free speech is raised, it must be defended. And when Muslims are in the picture, all 1.5 billion of us somehow get linked to the Dragon Threatening Civilization rather than being viewed as your neighbors just trying to go about our business.
It's always interesting to see which items get labeled sacred cows and therefore invite attack.
Is a sick grandmother a sacred cow? If you staple pictures of that image on bulletin boards and write, "Isn't cancer hilarious?" are you defending free speech, or are you just being a jerk?
Is the "N" word a sacred cow? If you walk into the middle of Harlem and scream that slur at the top of your lungs, are you a First Amendment hero, or just a bigot?
Is someone's mother a sacred cow? If you saunter up to a random dude in a bar and say, "Your mother's a fat whore," are you exercising free speech, or are you just being an offensive idiot? And if he chases you down, will people say that this proves he is inherently violent, or only add to your credentials as an idiot.
Will the free speech cloak protect you from social outrage if you went to a party dressed in blackface? If you chalked a swastika on the sidewalk leading to the campus Hillel? If you stood on the college quad and chanted "fag" at every male with blow dried hair who walks by? If you applauded as champions of free speech the handful of Palestinian kids horrifically dancing in the streets after 9/11?
The key issue here isn't free speech -- it's actions that intentionally and effectively marginalize a community.
It seems to me that there's another dangerous sleight of hand going on here -- a pretense that by chalking Muhammad you are bravely taking on the Dragon Threatening Civilization when in fact you are just hurting your Muslim classmates. It's a little like sticking your chest out and claiming you beat up the school bully, when all you really did was pick on the little kid on the playground. The former may make you a hero. The latter makes you a jerk. Doing the latter while claiming the former, that just makes you a joke.
Let's not pretend that Islam is somehow beyond offense in 21st-century America. Does anyone remember the 2008 Presidential campaign? When our nation was proud that a black man and two white women were breaking race and gender barriers by running for high office, while the whisper campaign about Barack Obama being a Muslim kept getting louder and louder until Colin Powell finally went on national TV and called it what it was -- not free speech, but unacceptable, un-American bigotry.
It is true that fringe Muslim groups are quick and public with their ugly threats. Mainstream Muslims spend an awful lot of time saying we have nothing to do with those groups. Part of what's disturbing about the Draw Muhammad campaign is its implicit attempt to draw a direct line between mainstream Muslims and violent fringe groups. It's the "We have to stand up against you people" message.
You people? That line ought to make us a little uncomfortable.
It's not so different from saying that the black students on your campus remind you of the armed robber you saw on the five o'clock news because they share a skin color. That's called bigotry when it involves race, and it's called bigotry when it involves religion.
If there are heroes in this situation, it's the Muslim student leaders who are not only keeping their heads but trying to use this situation to advance understanding and cooperation on their campuses. Omar Fareedi, in his letter responding to the actions by the AAF group, didn't threaten violence and didn't demean secularists. He lifted up the higher value of pluralism, cast a light on the overlapping principles shared by secular humanists and Muslims, and suggested that they join together to do something useful for the broader society:
My biggest goal is to seek to understand other people and the perspectives from which they come and I think this is a valuable goal for anyone to pursue ... As I understand it, our groups share many positive beliefs. Principles such as positive ethical conduct and bettering the world are shared by both of our organizations ... I am in full agreement with you about the freedom of expression and free speech, but I implore you to understand that this event is completely unproductive. I would be more than willing to sit down to explain our tradition further in this context or in a much more general one and would hope that you would be willing to engage me. I ask only for mutual respect and understanding between our organizations and I stand directly against the bigotry and intolerance that is purported by people of both religious and secular humanist backgrounds.
Sounds more like a guy who is getting the issue right than a Dragon Threatening Civilization.
Come on folks, this isn't about Free Speech vs. Fundamentalist Islam.
This is about Actions that Build an Inclusive Society vs. Actions that Marginalize a Minority Community.
(Click here to read a related piece by a Secular Humanist blogger, Chris Stedman.)
This piece originally appeared on the Washington Post's "On Faith."
Follow Eboo Patel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EbooPatel
Eboo Patel: 'Everybody Draw Muhammad Day': The New Campus Culture Wars
Yours is just another stupid religion. It's not my mom with cancer, it's not a race, and to say I think it's stupid is not hateful, it's me stating my opinion. If you want to roll back to the middle ages there are parts of the world where they are really into that, of course you'll have to give up all the great economic opportunities of the West, but hey, better to be poor and spiritually pure, right?
What is the difference between your goals and those of Revolution Muslim? Different tactics, same goal.
Everybody Draw Muhammad Day has a context. By comparing ridiculing cancer or someone's mother or sick grandmother to people drawing Muhammad, you're building an obvious strawman easy for you to attack and for others to agree with you. If extremist or fringe supporters of the American Cancer Association had a history of threatening and perpetrating violence against individuals who draw comics or cartoons making fun of cancer-ridden grandmothers then you might have a fair comparison, but that isn't the case.
This protest isn't just about the South Park episode or the violent attacks on the Danish cartoonists, though these were the primary inspirations for the protest. It's about a group of people (not "you people" - another strawman of your own creation - but rather specifically Muslim extremists and terrorists) who think that they can bully others with violence and threats of violence any time they get their feelings hurt. The South Park writers, amongst others, have repeatedly and mercilessly poked fun at every major modern religion. Islam does not get a free pass because a few individuals use their religion as an excuse to attempt to silence those willing to criticize via ridicule - or even just those who ridicule purely for the sake of ridicule. Satire is one of the great traditions of free speech.
An important point you fail to mention is that if *everybody* draws Muhammad then it will become impossible for the fringe Muslim groups to retaliate against *everybody*.
http://mfhusainpaintings.wordpress.com/
Mohammad!
@:7>
* Pakistan Tougher on Facebook Than Terr0rist Associates "What's the difference between Facebook and [terr0rist-associated group] Jamaat-ud-Dawa? Ans: Facebook is banned in Pakistan."
* How Facebook Is Like Pakistani Terr0r Groups "What's common to Facebook and Lashkar-e-Taiba? Ans: They are both banned in Pakistan, but Pakistanis can still find them if they want to."
* 'Good Facebook and Bad Facebook' Indian journalist Sidin Vadukut riffs off the oft-repeated claim that Pakistan can support certain insurgents because there is a "good" Taliban and a "bad" Taliban. He tweets, "Yes but why don't Pakistanis get that there is good Facebook and bad Facebook?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvgb7SuxD8g
Here's one believer who gets it. And the following is hardly the same as drawing swastikas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wuiu4ZzDrE
but we got this narrative, that tries to paint smiling stick figures and messages about Muhammad as blanket islamophobia. It's not. There is indeed a message here and we should not only listen but speak.
Isn't is clear that if the Muslim religion did not prohibit the drawing of images of the prophet, that almost no one would draw images of the prophet?
Isn't is clear that if the Muslim religion did not have loud fundamentalist members who refer to non-believers as infidels, and subscribe to beliefs about the survival of those infidels, that almost no one would draw images of the prophet?
This holds true for any religion, for the most part they are mocked for their arrogance and supremacy.
There is no doubt that within these two invisible minorities there exist the visible, women wearing burkas and men dressed as women are demonstrating visibly the minority they belong to, but we can and are invisible if we choose to be, unlike women or blacks.
As a member of an invisible minority, who is also a minority within a minority I find it interesting that Omar Fareedi writes not of the factions within his minority that have caused the reactions, but of the futile negative effect of the reactions by people who are reacting.
If the moderate Muslims, Christians, Evangelicals or any other theists want to be taken seriously why do they not hold themselves accountable for the behavior of their more fundamentalist peers?
Why do they not speak out loudly when the fundamentalists threaten life and liberty?
I submit that their loyalty lies with the religion more than it does with their fellow human beings.
O||O close-up, relaxed
o//o morning wood
= swimming
oio newly circumcised
~ finished with Ayesha
O
-|-
/ \
Because I can