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Artists and bravery The "Clareification" controversy The Muhammed cartoons affair The threat of violence The limits of what I will do

Criticising and satirising religions

But you can't do the same to Islam. Leftists will call you a "racist" if you try to criticise any religion other than Christianity.

• Mocking Christianity is important, but less important now that Christianity is tolerant.
  • Supposedly "daring" modern artists ridicule Jesus and Mary and other Christian figures, showing crucifixes in urine, or Jesus having sex, and so on. Of course there is nothing daring about it, because modern Christianity tolerates criticism. If they were really daring, they would do it to Islam.
  • You're joking if you think this is satire - Mark Steyn mocks a supposedly "daring" song called "We're Sending You A Cluster Bomb From Jesus." - "You can sing "We're Sending You A Cluster Bomb From Jesus" because there are no "fundamentalist Christians" within 20 miles of the Birmingham Rep - or at least none that is going to be waiting for you at the stage door. "We're Sending You A Schoolgirl Bomb From Allah" might attract notice from a livelier crowd. If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked."
  • Dozy condescension - Mark Steyn on the movie Saved!, set in a Christian high school, "American Eagles Christian High". - "USA Today called it "irreverent" and "subversive". Au contraire, if you wanted to be irreverent and subversive, you'd have set it at American Eagles Wahhabi Madrassah ... deriding Christians is obvious and risk-free". I agree, and I am not a Christian.

• Mocking Islam is not acceptable.
  • Islam - the final taboo by Ibn Warraq, The Guardian, November 10, 2001
  • A True Islamic Reformation by Ibn Warraq complains about how the left protects Islam from criticism: "we who live in the free West and enjoy freedom of expression and scientific inquiry should encourage a rational look at Islam, should encourage Koranic criticism. ... Instead, political leaders, journalists and even scholars are bent on protecting the tender sensibilities of the Muslims. We are not doing Islam any favors by protecting it from Enlightenment values."
  • Fatwa: Coming to a Country Near You by David Harsanyi

• The threat of violence in Islam
  • The lack of freedom of speech in Islam
  • Salman Rushdie
  • The killing of Theo van Gogh
  • The Islamic street

Whitewashing of Islamic history

• Killings for Islam

• PBS whitewashings
  • PBS, Recruiting for Islam by Daniel Pipes - In America, it is illegal for taxpayers' money to be spent on missionary films for Christianity. But only Christianity. The leftist world view is such (and I don't understand why) that taxpayers' money can be spent on missionary films for Islam. See also here.
  • PBS has a long history of modern left-wing bias, like the BBC and RTE. Again, the bias itself is not the problem. The problem is that people are forced to pay for it.
  • Muhammad, the Qurayza Massacre, and PBS by Andrew G. Bostom

• Karen Armstrong writes like a devout Muslim, but apparently she is not one. She is a "freelance monotheist". "I draw sustenance from all three of the faiths of Abraham."
  • Karen Armstrong on Muhammad: "He was -- in a word, he was a genius."
  • Karen Armstrong's praise for Islam
  • Review of Karen Armstrong's book "Islam: A Short History" by Daniel Pipes, September 2001 - "Armstrong goes out of her way to soften every hard edge, explain away every unpleasantness, and hide what she cannot otherwise account for."
  • Karen Armstrong: Islam's Hagiographer (also here) by David Thompson - "Islam's foremost hagiographer and shill has found an audience among Muslims and those on the left with little appetite for unflattering facts and a preference for being told whatever they wish to hear."
  • Efraim Karsh, Sept 25, 2006, on Karen Armstrong's whitewashings.
  • Robert Spencer on Karen Armstrong
    • Karen Armstrong's Fantasies About Islamic Terror, Robert Spencer, July 12, 2005
    • The Guardian of Islamic Extremism, Robert Spencer, September 21, 2006

Artists and bravery

• Piss Christ - boring, boring! Why don't you do something risky?

• Dogma (1999)
  • A boring, brain-dead attack on conservative religion (but not on religion itself) by people devoid of history or philosophy, or culture, or real emotion. Pro-religion, in a stupid, trendy, foulmouthed sort of way (the director, "Silent Bob" Kevin Smith, attends church weekly). In short, a movie for left-wing theists, not for atheists like me. Humourlessly pee-cee too. (God is a woman! Jesus is black! An abortion clinic worker will save the world! Oh shut up you sanctimonious preacher.)
  • Interestingly, Kevin Smith acknowledges my central point in discussing a sequel: "Scary thing is this: the film would have to touch on Islam. And unlike the Catholic League, when those cats don't like what you do, they issue a death warrant on yer ass (see Rushdie). And now that I've got a family, I'm not as free to stir the shit-pot as I was when I was single, back when I made "Dogma". I mean, now I've gotta think about more than my own safety and well-being." Full marks for honesty. But your film is still shit.

• Sonofagod Pictures by Gilbert and George - Boring! "God loves fucking!" Boring! Why don't you do something risky?
  • It's so cowardly to attack the church when we won't offend Islam - Nick Cohen on Gilbert and George. "The gallery owners know that although Catholics will be offended, they won't harm them. That knowledge invalidates their claims to be transgressive. An uprising that doesn't provoke a response isn't a 'rebellion', but a smug affirmation of the cultural status quo. If they were to do the same to Islam, all hell would break loose."

• The play Corpus Christi by Terrence McNally is another supposedly "brave" piece, showing Christ and the Apostles as gay.
  • As Mark Steyn says: "in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked."
  • However, this isn't the whole story. Terrence McNally was under no threat from Christians, but surprisingly he got death threats from Islamists (because to Muslims Jesus is still a holy prophet). So maybe mocking Christianity does mean you are brave after all. Oddly, Islamists may be the ones to defend Christianity with violence, since Christians (thankfully) won't.

• Jesus cartoons:
  • In response to the Muhammed cartoons, the leftie moonbat Univ. Oregon student paper "The Insurgent" prints cartoons of Jesus with an erection and other blasphemous cartoons. Ooh, they're so brave. They might get .. criticised by Christians!
  • In an issue packed with refreshing blasphemy, they would not print the Muhammed cartoons. Conformists.

• "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" - Trendy! Boring!
  • Why doesn't Abie Philbin Bowman do "Muhammed: The Guantanamo Years"? Would that be too close to the truth?

• South Park (and online)
  • List of episodes
  • I love South Park. I'm just making the point that they too are safe and predictable.
  • "Bloody Mary" doesn't take much guts. Catholics aren't going to kill the South Park team. Just complain.
  • South Park had a (very timid) go at Islam later in "Cartoon Wars". Their network censored it, but even if they hadn't it wasn't exactly shocking. I don't blame South Park for not being very brave. If they had a go at Islam and Muhammed in the same way as they have done Scientology and the Virgin Mary, then there really would be violence. I don't blame them for not doing it. So long as they don't think they're that brave and taboo-busting. They're not.
  • Team America: World Police does have some guts. They insult and parody a genuine living genocidal mass murderer - Kim Jong Il.

• In Iain Banks' novel Espedair Street (1987), one of the rock stars is assassinated by a fanatic Christian for her supposedly blasphemous act. Recent events have made plots like this (and there are many more) seem safe and conventional, as if they are ignoring the elephant in the room.

• Christian fundamentalist terror as a "threat"

• New Jersey School Stages Practice Hostage Drill - Portrays Killers as Fundamentalist Christians, Apr 3, 2007
  • "officials at Burlington Township High School enlisted the help of two local policemen to carry out a mock 'hostage situation' drill at their school. ... the student body was told that the alleged gunmen were "members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who don't believe in separation of church and state." ... The drill organizers explained that the supposedly Christian gunmen 'went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.'"
  • School Superintendent says, "We need to practice under conditions as real as possible"

• There are some intelligent and philosophical attacks on Christianity.

• Artists too frightened to tackle radical Islam, November 19, 2007 - At least Grayson Perry is honest: "I’ve censored myself. The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat. ... With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time."

Artistic attacks on Islam and Islamism

• "Jihad" by Michael Shapiro.

• "Charlie Brown: Jihad Christmas"

• "A Duck Napping" (and more search), the "duck beheading" video by students from Brookville Hall at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, 2007. A spoof of jihadi beheading videos. Hurray for anyone who pokes fun at maniac religious killers.

• National Lampoon's 72 Virgins: OK, I don't actually find National Lampoon's humour very funny. It's too simple and obvious. But fair play to them for making this. Braver than most.

The "Clareification" controversy, Cambridge, Feb 2007

• The "Clareification" controversy, Clare College, Cambridge, Feb 2007. A student is forced into hiding from death threats for criticising Islam. The university, instead of supporting him, shuts down the paper, stops its funding, recalls and destroys the issue, and disciplines the student, forcing him to apologise under threat of expulsion. The UK police question the student, and may press charges (if they are idiots). The college promises to take action to prevent a similar incident occurring.

• The National Secular Society: "We are shocked that the staff and even the students union at this supposedly liberal college have joined the attack on this student because he had the temerity to poke fun at religion. Free expression is such a precious commodity and is under such ferocious attack at present from religious interests that it is disgraceful that no-one is standing up for this young man's right to be rude about religion - even about Islam. ... Satire aimed at religion is no different to satire aimed at any other ideas and should not be punished or restrained."
  • It is true. Why should people be allowed to poke fun at atheism and Darwin if we are not allowed to poke fun at Islam and Muhammad?
  • On the threats to the student: "This episode demonstrates terrorism in action. If critics cannot be silenced by reason, then they must be silenced by intimidation - real or imagined."

• The student is forced to apologise to "women, Jews, Christians and Muslims". As if women, Jews and Christians were the reason he went into hiding.
• What Cambridge is doing is teaching ultra-right-wing Muslims that the threat of violence works, and so keep it up, and expect more.

• Before we were allowed see some of the issue, I said:

  It is hard to form an opinion on this since we are not allowed to see the censored work. Apparently the piece said "I hate Islam", which sounds stupid but legal. After all, it is legal to say "I hate atheism". Anyway, knowing the intelligence and wit of most ultra-smart Cambridge students, I doubt very much that this was simply a bald statement: "I hate Islam". Again, one would want to see the whole piece. Apparently, the piece also implied (via a switched pictures joke) that the Prophet was "a violent paedophile", which again is perfectly legal, even perhaps uncontroversial. After all, it is legal to say that Moses was a violent rapist (because he was). Again, one would want to see the whole piece, but it sounds like harmless satire if this is the worst they can dig up.

• My instinct was right:
  • We are finally allowed see some of the banned content (also here), and it is not brain-dead BNP-style abuse, but rather intelligent, witty satire. Exactly what one would expect from super-smart Cambridge undergraduates. See below.
  • See summary of the other content we are still not allowed see.

The Muhammed cartoons affair, Denmark

• The Muhammed cartoons affair (and category). The genuinely brave artists of Jyllands-Posten newspaper, Denmark, received death threats from Islamist fascists for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, Sept 2005.

• Kare Bluitgen, author of the illustrated children's book, "The Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad".

How to find the Muhammed cartoons:

• N.B. I DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH THESE SITES. THIS IS SIMPLY A LIST OF WHERE TO FIND THE IMAGES.

Jyllands-Posten site All of them are here in small size. They used to be in large size here (from here to here, or from here to here), but violent Islamist threats have led to their removal. Other sites All of them are at the Mohammed Image Archive (and mirror). All of them are at the Face of Muhammed site: "The drawings have become a symbol of the muslim threat to free speech." All of them are at cartoonjihad.com. All of them are at muhammaddrawings.com. All of them are at muhammadcartoons.com. All of them are at mohammed-cartoons.blogspot.com. All of them are at cryptome.org. All of them are at faithfreedom.org. All of them are at My Pet Jawa here and here. All of them are at LGF. All of them are at Michelle Malkin. All of them are at The Brussels Journal. They are reproduced in small size in The Weekly Standard. All of them are here and here and here and here and here. All of them are in Michelle Malkin's video "First, They Came". Based on the cartoons: The silliness of mohammeddance.com. See also jesusdance.org. The Dashboard Mohammed

• Other cartoons and images of Muhammed:
  • Depictions of Muhammad
  • The Mohammed Image Archive (and mirror).
  • There is an ongoing cartoon strip Jesus and Mo (which is actually quite sympathetic to both).

  • Normal Bob Smith (atheist cartoonist)
    • Muhammad Dressup
    • Jesus Dressup (and other versions)
    • "Find Jesus" game
    • Anti-religious pamphlets
    • If you're offended by these, you can get revenge on Normal Bob Smith (hilarious).

  • South Park (and online)
    • List of episodes
    • "Super Best Friends"
    • "Cartoon Wars Part I"
    • "Cartoon Wars Part II" - This was censored by Comedy Central, not because of sensitivity to religious fundamentalists who might (for some bizarre reason) be watching South Park, but simply out of fear of their violence. This is fair enough, so long as people are honest that's the reason. It's the same reason why I will not display the cartoons, for example (but I admire those who do).

• Do I support the Jyllands-Posten cartoons themselves?
  • Not really. I think they are almost all pretty poor. What I support is the right of Jyllands-Posten (or anyone else) to print them (or any other religious satire). The cartoons don't really express my thoughts about Mohammed - but that is not relevant. The issue is not this bunch of cartoons. The issue is whether religious satire is legal in Europe.

The "Muhammed cartoons" riots and killing

• The Islamic street disgraces itself yet again over the cartoons - reacting with death threats, rioting, arson and the slaughter of innocents, including children.

• Democracy in a Cartoon by the hero Ibn Warraq - "Freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it or it will die from totalitarian attacks. It is also much needed in the Islamic world.".
• As Victor Davis Hanson says: "The radical Islamists are our generation's book burners who search for secular Galileos and Newtons. They are the new Nazi censors who sniff out anything favorable to the Jews. These fundamentalists are akin to the Soviet commissars who once decreed all art must serve political struggle - or else. If we give in to these 8th-century clerics, shortly we will be living in an 8th century ourselves, where we may say, hear, and do nothing that might offend a fundamentalist Muslim"
• Victor Davis Hanson says this may be a moment for Europe, a moment when Europe starts to get serious about the Islamist threat.
• The Belgian philosopher Etienne Vermeersch has the right idea. - Cartoons of the prophet should be printed every week "so that Muslims could get used to the idea".

• Pessimism
  • Naturally, the EU and UN have shown (yet again) that they do not know what freedom of speech means and cannot be trusted on this issue (as on so many others).
  • The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sides with the fascists! Instead of supporting free speech, a right that hardly exists in any Islamic country, Louise Arbour apologises to the fascists, and says "I regret .. a lack of respect for the religion of others". So in the UN's view it should be illegal to criticise Islam? More on the appalling Louise Arbour here.
  • How long before books criticising Islam are banned as "racist"?
  • The EU proposes making it illegal to criticise Islam.

  • Sharia law in Europe

• Optimism
  • As LGF says, "Don't look now, but backbones seem to be springing up all over Europe": German Papers Print Mohammed Cartoons. The German paper Die Welt said: "There is no right to protection from satire in the West; there is a right to blasphemy." Hurray!
  • The dissident frogman: "for the first time in years, I have the slight hope that Europe might finally wake up. They want to fight us, on what is without a doubt a pillar of Western civilization? They want to deprive us from freedom of speech, a concept we invented 2,500 years ago, improved and expanded ever since? An idea for which we did not hesitate to pay the highest price, and which we defended against foes far more formidable and lethal than them? So be it."
  • supportdenmark.com

• Moderate Muslims respond:
  • Sorry Norway and Denmark (sorrynorwaydenmark.com) - "In the middle of all the mayhem surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy, a group of Arab and Muslim youth have set up this website to express their honest opinion, as a small attempt to show the world that the images shown of Arab and Muslim anger around the world are not representative of the opinions of all Arabs. We whole-heartedly apologize to the people of Denmark, Norway and all the European Union over the actions of a few, and we completely condemn all forms of vandalism and incitement to violence that the Arab and Muslim world have witnessed." They are offended by the cartoons (no problem with that) but want to respond like westerners respond when offended.
  • Nice, apart from the irrelevant stuff about the Palestinians: "There is a strong tradition of friendship and cooperation between the Norwegian and Danish people and Arab people. Of most note is the continued support that these governments give to the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and liberation, and the brave stance that these governments have often taken to defend Palestinian rights." Bringing in an irrelevant and controversial question like this wrecks the idea of their site. They should remove it.
  • There is no evidence that the Palestinian people are struggling for "freedom and liberation". If they were, they would support secular liberal democrats, not groups like Hamas and Fatah that will establish a standard Arab Islamic tyranny to rule over them. The fact is, the Palestinians are struggling to set up a tyranny.

• "Toonophobia", Cox and Forkum's funniest cartoon.

• "Grow up", says Deroy Murdock. He talks of the "global march of the crybabies" as Muslims rampage and kill around the world.

• Flemming Rose, editor of Jyllands-Posten, on why they published the cartoons: "Equal treatment is the democratic way to overcome traditional barriers of blood and soil for newcomers. To me, that means treating immigrants just as I would any other Danes. And that's what I felt I was doing in publishing the 12 cartoons of Mohammed last year. Those images in no way exceeded the bounds of taste, satire, and humor to which I would subject any other Dane, whether the queen, the head of the church, or the prime minister. By treating a Muslim figure the same way I would a Christian or Jewish icon, I was sending an important message: You are not strangers, you are here to stay, and we accept you as an integrated part of our life. And we will satirize you, too. It was an act of inclusion, not exclusion; an act of respect and recognition."

Follow-ups

• Danish People’s Party cartoon: "Freedom of Speech is Danish, Censorship is not."

• The "roundabout dog" Muhammed cartoon controversy, July 2007 onwards.
  • Instead of ignoring this daft cartoon, or responding with reason or ridicule, Islamists of course respond with threats of violence (the only language they know).
  • The butchers of Al Qaeda in Iraq (and here) offer a bounty to kill the cartoonist.
  • Swedish MP Fredrik Malm, Aug 2007, defends the western Enlightenment against criticism by Iran and other foreign Islamic tyrannies over this cartoon controversy: "There is no reason to keep quiet about this question. One must be crystal clear that in Sweden it is not the government that decides what appears in newspapers. Iran should change their own press laws and not try to change ours."
  • Forthcoming musical "Dogs". "We will also have an elegy by the 'choir of the offended'. ... A sense of humour about this has been missing so far."

The limits of what I will do

The stream of semi-literate death threats he got from violent Muslims explains, I hope, why my blog has some barriers, such as:

1. No comments facility.
2. No email.
3. I will not do any media appearances or personal appearances (yes I have been asked).
4. I would not host something like the cartoons myself (though I admire those who do).
5. I do not ever directly criticise the Koran or Muhammed myself. I may link to people who do, but I never do myself.

• The threat of violence

• See also the violent, illiterate death threats Michelle Malkin has got for hosting the cartoons.
• The violent, uneducated, illiterate death threats at the Mohammed Image Archive.

• Media geopolitics of the Mohammed cartoons - A survey of which newspapers around the world published the Mohammed cartoons. A barometer of how free different parts of the world are to criticise and satirise religion.
  • Twelve ways to show the Mohammed cartoons
  • List of newspapers that reprinted the Muhammad cartoons

"The college is now arranging a meeting for next term to discuss the problem of maintaining free speech while avoiding offence."
- Clare College, Cambridge, 16 Apr 2007, after disciplining a student for criticising Islam, show they have no idea what "free speech" actually means.