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February 6, 2006

The Case For Mocking Religion

Topics: Understanding Islam

Christiphor Hitchens writes that there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And he bashes the Bush administration for expressing an opinion on the matter at all. He writes that If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right (of free speech and critical dialogue), and no more, and points out that we can be sure that the relevant European newspapers have also printed their share of cartoons making fun of nuns and popes and messianic Israeli settlers, and taunting child-raping priests. Although there was a time when this would not have been possible, those taboos have been broken.

(...) the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.

(...) "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

(...) Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people.

(...) Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the (their) prophet--who was only another male mammal--is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

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Posted by Richard at February 6, 2006 2:16 PM

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