Everybody Draw Muhammad Day
So, the first annual “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” was four days ago. I had my entry ready, but what I forgot was that I have no way to digitize it, so I had to wait ‘til I went out to Mama’s so I could use the scanner at her library. Also, I had no art supplies, because I’ve been broke for so long, and did it in twenty minutes with a four-for-69-cents ballpoint pen. So, it’s crap and it’s four days late, but here it is:
In case you missed all the news about this for the past three weeks or so, it all started when those jackasses at South Park decided to include Muhammad in an episode. Now, of course, it is forbidden under Sharia for anyone to make any visual representation of the Prophet (in fact, if you want to get right down to it, Muslims aren’t supposed to make visual representations of any living thing whatsoever), so Parker and Stone got around this by dressing him in a bear costume. Yeah, I didn’t ask.
Anyway, there were the predictable death threats and people acting crazy and Comedy Central ended up editing him out of the episode. A cartoonist in Seattle was offended by this censorship and declared May 20th “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” Then she chickened out after she got some death threats (actually, to be fair, “chickened out” is the way most people would react in that situation) but the idea had taken on a life of its own, and so it kept going in her absence.
It isn’t really about the religion itself, but about censorship and the particularly bloody and ludicrous version of it practiced by Muslims. All Americans should hate censorship (though I’m fully aware that not enough actually do). Since that was the battle being fought, most participants tried not to be disrespectful in their representations. They just drew, you know, a guy in a keffiyeh and beard. Their point is that if you’re offended enough by that to threaten to kill someone you are being unreasonable, and they’re right.
I’ve been going back and forth on this, about whether I should be placatory or not, and although I can see the point of the organizers, I finally decided to be offensive. Not as offensive as I could be, but frank and contentious. I know I am trying to be a better person and maybe I made the wrong decision, but before you judge me I ask you to remember this: we’re not talking about the censorship practiced by ignorant school board members, odious as that is. We’re talking about the censorship practiced by the people who killed Theo Van Gogh, the people who have hounded Ayaan Hirsi Ali around the world, the ones who set fire to girls’ schools and keep the firemen away ‘til everyone inside has burned to death. In my opinion those people deserve to be offended, every minute of every day, until they either stop doing stupid shit or brighten the world by leaving it. I’m doing my part.