Although I am vehemently opposed to the mating of religion and politics, I find myself uncomfortable in the anti-theist community. I can find many reasons to lambaste religion and do so loudly and often, but I'm hesitant to be associated with "atheists" as a whole. Internet atheism is largely young, white, and male, and thus plagued with all the things you would expect such a group to be plagued with. Is it just me, or does it feel a bit hostile in here?
In light of the violence that occurred in the wake of The Innocence of Muslims, another game of "Let's all draw Mohammed and piss off the silly Ay-rabs!" has caught fire among skeptics and religious critics everywhere. I'm an artist, and an agnostic, so people sort of expect me to want to join in on this game. I do not want to join in on this game.
Although it isn't only atheists involved in this, the "draw Mohammed" meme speaks to a certain childishness that I see as rampant in the atheist community. I fail to see the logic behind repeatedly inciting the extremist fringes of a religion. There's all the lofty rhetoric about freedom of speech, but at its core it's nothing more than a schoolyard spat.
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| Granted, this is pretty clever. |
I assume the idea is to demonstrate that those who want to draw cartoons of Mohammed will not be censored, even in the face of violence, and that inviting a bunch of people to participate in a Facebook event is a show of strength in numbers. There seems to be a bit of a disconnection, however, between the idea's inception and its intended result. Let's break it down, shall we?
A. Visual depictions of the prophet Mohammed are discouraged.
B. A non-Muslim draws a caricature of Mohammed. It is likely unflattering.
C. A segment of the Muslim population gets angry, loud, and violent.
D. More caricatures of Mohammed are made.
From step D, I think we have two outcomes here.
E1: An infinite loop of cartoons that result in death threats, anger, and violence that result in cartoons that result in death threats, anger, and violence.
E2: The previously violent and angry Muslims realize they will never be able to stem the tide of Mohammed cartoons, renounce their violent ways, reform their religion and culture, and we all hold hands and coexist happily forever after, and there are rainbows and wheeeee!
I DON'T THINK WE THOUGHT THIS ALL THE WAY THROUGH, GUYS.
The reason that making more offensive cartoons isn't gonna work is because it's not really all about the cartoons. It amazes me, given the anti-theist love for critical thinking, how little of that is present here.
High-school-me got pissed whenever I heard "The terrorists hate our freedom," and yet I laughed at this:
I failed to see the correlation between the two. Religion was a proxy through which decades (centuries, really, depending on how much context you want) of political tension were expressed on 9/11. After learning a little bit about the US's history of mucking about in the Middle East, and examining bin Laden's statements regarding Palestine, and taking a look at Islam itself, suddenly this wasn't so funny anymore. Suddenly it was simplistic; a product of whitewashed history.
The U.S. is largely responsible for the turmoil in the Middle East. The fundamentalism and oppressive cultures that exist in some predominantly Muslim states did not simply emerge from the religion unaided. The idea of violent political revolution is particularly appealing to those living in war-torn and poverty stricken areas--desperate people, in other words. Fundamentalism claims to target the root cause of that desperation (namely the West), and thus it spreads.
There is tension. There is anger. Though I don't agree with violent expressions of that anger, the anger itself is kind of justified. So it's important to me that people realize when they make a Mohammed cartoon it's not really the Mohammed cartoon that's the problem. It's the smug dismissal of an entire culture from a privileged, white standpoint. It sends a clear message--we've been fucking you for years, which we'll conveniently forget about when you retaliate, and we have no real interest in coexisting.
So here's the part where I make a bunch of stupid disclaimers I shouldn't have to make, because as an atheist and an American I'm basically required by law to think that Islam is fundamentally a horrible thing and I don't think that and I don't want to hear about why I'm supposed to think that.
I am not trying to erase the struggles of those who are persecuted and censored and sometimes hurt or killed for something that isn't a crime.
I am not denying that the Islamic world has serious cultural problems, evident in the horrific medieval practices like female circumcision and the stoning of LGBTQ individuals and the treatment of rape victims and and and and.
I am not saying that the correct reaction to what you view as an offensive depiction of your prophet is anything other than looking at something else.
What I am doing is pointing out that these smug, stubborn little drawings aren't accomplishing anything productive. That maybe making these cartoons to incite violence and make all of Islam look awful is going to drive an even bigger wedge between the Muslim world and the secular West. That maybe, just maybe, given the shared history of eye-for-an-eye political manipulation and warmongering and violence, a bigger wedge is the last thing we need.
And I'm adding that people like Sam Harris--lauded as one of the Four Horsemen--claiming that Islamophobia isn't a real thing completely erases the struggles of people who experience it on a daily basis and never did anything to warrant it. (And by the way, Sam Harris, the day that a white male gets to tell other people what forms of discrimination do and don't exist is the day that you motherfuckers don't run everything.)
And I'm getting to my central point that maybe there's something a little hypocritical and petty about the behavior of one distrusted minority when they incite and insult another distrusted minority. These Mohammed cartoons are accomplishing something, that's for sure--they essentially ensure that the extremism on the fringes of Islam is never going to die. They alienate the moderate Muslims who could be potential allies in the struggle to combat ignorance and theocracy. And they guarantee that the Muslims who want to take responsibility for the ills of the culture their religion has cultivated are always going to be drowned out by the ones making death threats and burning books.
My dislike of Mohammed caricatures doesn't stem from a desire to see them censored. The line between "free speech" and "being an asshole" is often blurry and I don't advocate trying to bring it into focus.
Should you be able to draw a cartoon of Mohammed without facing the threat of violence? Absolutely yes.
But would your time maybe be a little bit better spent on other things? Opening up dialogue with moderate Muslims. Reading a little history and then putting it into context. Or just asking yourself why you want to draw a caricature of Mohammed until you come up with something with a little more depth than "herpa durr because First Amendment, y'all!"
