Like the US politicized fundies, a tiny minority of Moslems is stirring people up as a sort of proxy for the general third-world experience of disrespect and abuse by richer, mostly Northern and Western societies (I would argue, nowadays, really by corporate megaculture which will trade in that colonial and imperial legacy as it’s profitable). They don’t represent Islam, and they don’t represent the Third World, but just as the US and allies cast the communists as their designated representative and leader of the Third World to justify attacking Third World nations all over the world, they’ve designated Islamists to fill the same role, and they’re as willing as the Soviets and Chinese were to play along.

There really aren’t universally accepted prohibitions in Islam against allowing outsiders to criticize the prophet Mohammed, first because Islam is decentralized and second because even the prohibitions against images involved other people and even animals and were to prevent excessive veneration, not criticism.

And maybe we’ll revisit the original controversy about the Danish cartoons, and it will be better known that the paper that did it is famous for being pro-Nazi even before Hitler attacked Denmark, that it bans anything that criticizes Christianity, that the editor wanted a Crusade against the Arabs and Moslems, and that in the riots afterward, with the exception of one African country where the Christian president went back on his pledge not to seek power again and was probably the real cause of rioting, it was the rioters who were killed by their repressive regimes, not the rioting violent Moslems killing people over cartoons.

At least PZ Meyers is consistent; he holds no one’s beliefs sacred (see “crackergate” on his site), acts accordingly, and is willing to accept the consequences.

“draw muhammad day” is hardly about free speech. it’s not like people r not allowed to criticize islam or muslims. the media are replete with blatantly islamophobic rhetoric – the kind that would not be acceptable were we talking about any other religion, or ethnic group or culture. so it’s certainly not that we can’t criticize islam which is what counts as far as free speech.

this insistence on ridiculing muhammad is more about spectacle and less about substance. it’s not to advance political debate or engage in dialogue, it’s to provoke. making fun of/denying the holocaust is also covered by free speech but u can go to jail for that in some european countries. making fun of 9/11 is also permissible under free speech, but what goal will that accomplish? u don’t wear a t shirt with a swastika to a bar mitzvah. it’s a matter of respect and commonsense, not free speech.

in the present context of wars with and occupations of muslim countries, this is even more provocative. it’s not enough that muslims r being tortured in black jails or blown to bits by drones or incarcerated in guantanamo, no, they also have to grin and bear the denigration of something they hold sacred and dear. coz it’s free speech? that’s a joke no?

what about debbie almontaser’s free speech? she was forced to resign for talking about a keffiyeh. what about norm finkelstein’s free speech? his academic career has been willfully destroyed for voicing his views on the middle east. what about ward churchill, a professor at the university of colorado, who was fired for writing an article on 9/11 and bringing up the genocide of native americans?

the academic and political arenas are where free speech really matters. that’s where ideas, ideologies and policies r brought to life which make us who we r as a people. that’s where we should be fighting for free speech. this is just a distraction, a circus.

The badly drawn results can be seen at link to jsears.xidus.net

Hurtful speech is often both the most useful and the most necessary kind.

Yes, it is childish. It’s a childish world we live in. Nevertheless, as Myers pointed out, it’s a humorous and non-violent protest of the very real threat of violent theocracy. As you point out, this isn’t limited to Islam; in my own life I’ve suffered far, far more at the hands of Evangelical Christians.

I accept your challenge, Prof. Cole, and I’ll immediately put the same complete lack of care and talent I did challenging theocratic members of the Islamic into offending a wide variety of theocratic groups with bad stick figure drawings.