Fathi Aris Omar has collated an interesting list of opinions in his latest post and also in a post on kartun. For those who have not seen the cartoons that have spark suck uproar and violent reactions, click here. If you are not on broadband or on limited connectivity, be warned that the page has really huge graphics so it will take forever to load.
In my opinion, the reason for such violent reactions from both sides, whether those who were highly offended by the depictions of the Muslim prophet or who defend the right to do so, is based on two very different planes altogether. For a vast majority of religious adherents (and I would say that this applies across the board to ALL religions), the icons of their faith are sacred (though of course, there are individual sects who pay little or no heed to such need for icons, whether in the Muslim or Christian faith, though that does not make them less offended). For the agnostic/atheist/non-believer/nihilist, everything is profane and available for critique. Seeing that each have a different level of intellect and comprehension of the world, hence the diverse and different quality of critique. Many criticism are reactionary and emotional, even by the so-called rationalists, because when all logic fails, the easy way out is always to descend into emotionalism. And in the case of these cartoons, there are merely an example of excessive emotionalism. Hence, for so many Muslims to pour so much energy into such reaction becomes a symbol of their helplessness and subaltern position in the world.
I disagree with some scholars that the Muslims are new to western influence and outlook. They are not. It is just that a period of isolation that their civilisation underwent during their version of the dark ages (as the Dark Age of Islamic civilisation) and the continuous propaganda that they have been subjected to that the Western Civilisation is evil has been the cause of their suspicion and subliminal hatred. However, Western civilisation too has its share in its propagation of stereotypes based on ignorance and hatred. In this gratuitous power struggle between the artificial divide of the East and West, one always forget that religious adherents populate all civilisations, and Muslims are not precluded. Hence, when a supposed spokesperson for the western civilisation speak of defending their right to critique the Muslims in the same way that they have accussed the Muslims of lampooning them (and I daresay that the latter are guilty of that as well), whom are they speaking for? The atheists, the agnositcs, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims in their societies. OR are they speaking for the rights of a few person who decided to make a field day out of religious lampoons? And Muslim nations who insult the religion of their minority populace are just as guilty. But using such arguments to justify their personal vendetta is childish in its extreme. But then, mental sloth is one reason why such stupidity exists in the first place. (:
Religious adherents, and in this case the Muslims, who have bitten into the bait of their detractors by their excessive show of violence, hence lending further credence to the stereotype which they should instead have been trying to dismantle. I am sure I need not say this more because others have said this before me and many will continue to use this as a way of criticising Muslims. I am not merely saying that the Muslims are the only ones with this problem, because many Christians too are just as capable of blind judgement when they respond to perceived insults. The failure of religious groups to rise to the same level of power and control as many agnostics and atheists, hence making the transmissions of their intellectual heritage and intelligent thought powerful and indelible, is the lopsided preoccupation with life after death. They lost sight of the capacity to live life to the fullest (and that does not equate to hedonism, unlike what most fanatics seem to think) and achieving the best with the abilities that God has given them. Instead of glorifying God, their reactive preoccupation is equivalent to flinging mud at God's face.
In the case of point of Muslims here, if they are really serious about Jihad, they will strive towards regaining the reigns of control through legitimate means of equitable treatment for their fellow men, respect for the rights of women, strong emphasis on liberal arts education (and this has always been equated with a secular, atheistic focus without understanding the spirit of inquiry that is the mainstay of its philosophy) that allows them to open their minds and to build strong foundations for their societies. If you feel that your enemies and rivals are despicable, why stoop even lower than their level when all they are doing is just to push at your buttons?
Or do we with to go back to the Biblical Old Testament Age (a tradition that the Quran shares) of wiping out your enemies just because we can't figure out a different way of dealing with them? Assuming that we consider the records a true depiction of the actual events, we might also be interested to know that the climate and condition of that particular age is different. Or perhas we are fast approaching the age of that past?
Any discussion to alleviate this problem will not go far as long as the two different planes of arguments of both parties are not reconciled. Or perhaps the only way out of the issue (a pessimistic way out that is) is to let them kill each other off. Or kill them fast enough so that they have no chance to breed. There is such an argument in the history of Western intellectuals that I will discuss the next time around. (:
Going back to the argument that atheists and agnostics would see everything as profane, hence they would feel that lampooning neo-Nazies is equal to lampooning Muhammad. So do the neo-Nazis have the same moral ground to react in the way that the Muslims do? And if we work under the assumption that all is equal under the principle of equitability, in that Hitler and Muhammad are mere humans (and they both are in principle just normal men), why should it be less likely for one to be lampoon than for the other? This is because for the believers of Islam, they see Muhammad as God's divine Messenger (and in calling him a divine Messenger, I am in no way saying that he is a divine figure), just as Christians would react strongly to the depiction of Christ (as they did in Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ) because they see Jesus as the reincarnation of God's Son in a human form. Perhaps it is high-time that religious adherents should also be trained to understand the mind of others who might not share their beliefs and faiths, and to realise that gentle rebuke/peaceful protestations will go towards, in the long run, in winning the admiration of others. Just as many from the faith might reneged on their professions, a number of hardcore, crusading non-believers and critics of the faith have also been converted.
There are many questions as to why people behave the way they do, or why history is the way it is, that I am still trying to figure out. Even the concept of what God would really want and require of us is still something I am grappling with. As a person who believes in God, I wonder too that all these hoohaa that has happened is not perhaps a way in which God is trying to tell us that we have miss the woods for the trees, and that instead of worshipping him and doing His Will, we are preoccupied with the worship of iconoclasts.
The above is my two-cents take on the issue.
