Conflict art and religion

You Thought the Danish Cartoons Were Bad?

Dance, as though no one is watching, Love, as though you've never been hurt before, Sing, as though no one can hear you, Work, as though you don't need the money, Live, as though heaven is on earth. ~Rumi~

As you can see above, anti-Islamic drawings are neither a new nor rare thing in this world. The preceding cartoons were found around the web and are shown here as an example of a burgeoning anti-Islam picture movement that is just now exploding on the Internet.

These few pictures are posted here on this blog to point out the relative inoffensiveness of the Danish pictures and to note the exploding anti-Islam movement being pushed mainly by anti-Muslim bigots, primarily on the Internet. They are not meant as a cynical "free speech" measure, nor are they meant to insult, attack or provoke Muslims.

They are meant to be simply informational, similar to the anti-Semitic cartoons reprinted by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. The purpose is to show that blasphemous depictions of Muhammad have occurred throughout history and to illustrate, discuss and condemn the recent explosion in anti- Islam blasphemy.

We should note that the Muslim riots rocking our TV sets, instead of dampening the production of such artwork, have had the paradoxical effect of causing a burst of creative effort in that department.As far as the recent artwork above, who is making it? Those producing this art seem to be mostly White Europeans, Canadians and Americans, typically conservative men aged, say, 20-50. Most of them seem to be atheists. The Europeans are rightwing by European standards (often to the left of the US Democratic Party).

The Americans are almost all US conservatives and supporters of George Bush and the US Republican Party. A few of the artists are US Jews. One was produced by American White Supremacists.Almost all of those producing the cartoons are supporters of the imperialist wars on the Chechen, Kashmiri, Iraqi and Palestinian people.

Needless to say, most of them are strong Zionists, though most are not Jewish. All of them oppose liberals and Leftists as "appeasers of Islam", "Quislings", "dhimmis", etc.A couple of the works above are older drawings, one a German woodcut and the other a painting depicting a scene from Dante's Inferno. One is a satirical drawing by famous US cartoonist. Two remind me of the worst Nazi anti-Semitic poster propaganda.At this point, there is no stopping this Islamic blasphemy juggernaut. The "can't draw Muhammad (pbuh)" taboo is out of the bag, the Ridicule Muhammad (pbuh) and Attack Islam Train is on the tracks, racing at 80 mph, with plenty of fuel and no obstacles in sight.

Since the flood of anti-Islam blasphemy is only beginning, Muslims need to think hard and calmly about what to do next. They can't exactly riot and rage forever about this, and the more the Muslims riot and rage, the more drawings the provocateurs and the Muslims' enemies gleefully churn out, the more anger at Muslims, and the more support for the Muslims' enemies.

Perhaps the best response, though it has been ham handed so far, is for Muslims to produce cartoons ridiculing some choice Western taboos. As long as this culture war is on, pens are superb weapons, since they neither kill nor physically harm. In this way, Muslims fight the provocateurs and bigots on their own turf, with their own weapons, in their own way, without rising to the bait and hurting their own interests.For Muslims, a retreat from stones to pens takes the fight beyond schoolboy tantrums towards coolheaded adult behavior. The first choices in the Muslim counteroffensive have been cartoons about the Holocaust, which, unfortunately, which isn't a very funny subject.But then, many of the pictures above are about as nasty, mean and ugly as your average "Holocaust howler". At some point, a joke traverses from funny to vicious.By and by, I feel that Islam will reach an accommodation with modernity. Until then, though, it looks like a wild ride.