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Dear Editor,
"You can insult me, my mother, my father, but not the Prophet," my friend Abdelghanni tells me, going on to explain the heart of the matter... so we don't draw him because we don't need to and because we don't want" -- he searches for the word -- to pollute our image."
But you see, Abdelghanni is wrong; I can insult the prophet! I’m not going to for the simple reason that I don’t feel any real animosity toward Mohammad and therefore don’t see the point in it. But if I want to draw a picture of Mohammad –let’s say something puerile and silly like with a bomb in his turban—then I can! And I expect to be able to do it without some wing nut getting all medieval on my ass.
I’m perfectly aware that this depiction of Mohammad does not represent Islam well or the majority of its adherents, but that isn’t the point at all. Religious sentiments should be tolerated only insofar as they guarantee and actively support the liberties that all people have a right to—in this case the freedom of expression. Screw cultural relativism! Just because a minority of people expects me to be sensitive to their religious or cultural superstitions does not mean that I have to be or should be. This is called an enlightened secular viewpoint and it’s something that I don’t feel inclined to apologize for.
I laud the stance by many Moroccans to abjure the violence but I reserve and wholeheartedly defend my right to insult or make fun of anything that I disagree with (read: “Western disrespect”), especially when it is done in the one of arts and letters greatest genres; satire. After all that’s what satire is all about; mocking violence, stupidity, demagoguery, hypocrisy, human folly, pretensions and superstition. All of which, I might add, are in abundance in this so-called controversy.
Chad Bagley
Shanghai, China
