Yesterday I alluded to a few new features that I’ll be adding to the site in the upcoming months. Well, here’s the first post in what I hope will be an ongoing series. Smite Me! will serve up a weekly helping of blasphemous imagery, starting of course with the now infamous Danish cartoons. I say “of course” because the whole ridiculous “cartoon row” is my impetus for starting the Smite Me! series. Allow me to explain.
As a liberal, I think my take on the cartoons and the subsequent rioting should be obvious; however, I’m more than a bit dismayed to see liberal bloggers, for the most part, siding with the rioters vs. the cartoonists and newspapers. Why should I expect a different response, you ask? Well, two reasons: freedom of speech and secularism, both of which liberals should support wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, libs have mostly backed the rioters, on the grounds that the cartoons were racist and - although the papers are well within their right to do so - it is nonetheless irresponsible for them to publish such antagonizing and insulting images. My objections to this approach are two-fold.
Firstly, the cartoons attacked Muhammad, an Islamic prophet. Islam is a religion, not a race. While many Muslims are Arabs, membership in this racial/ethnic group is by no means a prerequisite to practicing the religion, no more so than is being Italian a precondition to belonging to the Catholic faith. Taken at face value, the cartoons clearly derided Islam and Muslims, not Arabs. You can accuse the cartoonists and papers of being anti-Islam or even anti-theist, but not racist. At least not with absolute certainty.
Even so, the cartoonists’ and/or papers’ underlying intentions could have very well been to insult Arabs as an ethnic group, as many Arabs are Muslim. To the extent that the cartoons were meant to insult Arabs as a race, they (Arabs) certainly have my sympathies. Racism - disliking and/or discriminating against a racial group simply for how they look or what they are - is abhorrent. However, I will still defend the cartoonists’ and papers’ right to create and publish racist images, commentary, etc., because one person’s right to free speech trumps another’s “right” not to be offended. After all, every form of speech will prove offensive to someone; unless we all become shut-ins and never communicate with one another, we will, at some point or another, offend others. Hell, even the mere existence of some groups of people is offensive to other groups. If, for example, the most extreme fundies (Christian and Muslim alike) had their way, we’d summarily execute gays, as allowing them to live would be an affront to God.
That’s why I ♥ the ACLU, even though they’ve shared their bed with the KKK and NAMBLA. As much as I abhor both groups, they still have a right to think and say what they want, as repugnant and hateful as it may be. If we start trying to regulate thoughts and opinions, there’s no telling where it would stop. Before you know it, the government will be assigning us breeding partners and confiscating all non-approved literature. Think 1984.
In this particular case, the issue of racism is moot anyhow. Unless the Western media has all their reporting ass-backwards, the protestors themselves are not rioting because they find the cartoons racist; they’re upset because images of Muhammad - even benign ones - are blasphemous. That’s a big fucking difference. Rather than calling for respect as a racial group, Muslims expect non-believers to adhere to their own silly superstitious beliefs. That’s called a theocracy, people, and it’s wrong no matter the religion or the crusaders, be it Muslim rioters or our own fundie president.
I’m really sick (to the point of actual physical nausea!) of hearing liberals excuse and even justify intolerant and fanatical behavior with cries of multiculturalism and moral relativism - just because the offending group is a minority and/or oppressed. Muslims who demand that infidels never, ever scribble a sketch of Muhammad - and putting a bounty on the head of anyone who does so - is no better than Catholics who attempt to limit everyone’s access to contraception, just because their religion looks down on family planning and responsible reproduction. (Not to mention churches that are allowed to ignore zoning laws, thus infringing on their neighbor’s property rights, or Christian “Scientists” who sacrifice their children for their own cockamamie beliefs, etc., etc., etc. - you get the idea.) I don’t give a fuck if Muslim immigrants are treated poorly in European countries; I don’t care if they aren’t allowed to wear their burqas to school and have a hard time finding work. While such discrimination is deplorable, in no way does it give them the right to demand that everyone, everywhere, the world over, follow their religious edicts. Period.
Now, don’t get me wrong: as much as I will defend the papers’ right to publish the cartoons, I’ll also support Arabs’ and Muslims’ right to protest the cartoons, whether it’s because they find them racially or religiously insulting. Muslims are well within their right to voice their objections to the papers, to take to the streets in peaceful protests, and to boycott the offending publications or even their home countries. But their actions have clearly crossed the line; protestors have destroyed the property of both businesses and governments - with no regard for their targets’ actual involvement in the cartoons’ publication, mind you. At least forty people have died, and the cartoonists have been the subject of public death threats. And these actions are by no means restricted to a small minority of Muslims or protestors; the situation is so dire that the Danish PM has declared it Denmark’s worst international crisis since WWII. All because of twelve stupid cartoons.
Perhaps most chillingly, the rioters are of the belief that all non-believers should be required to observe Islamic restrictions - whether they interfere with our own secular / human / natural rights or not. While they certainly have a right to request that individuals respect their religion, they have zero grounds to demand complete deference. Their willingness to resort to violence to get their way is no better than the xian who intimidates abortion providers with death threats in order to “save the fetuses.” In fact, the ironic part of this whole sorry affair is that the vehemence shown by many of the protestors affirms one of the cartoonists’ points - namely, that Islam is a violent religion that encourages terrorism (just as those who murder abortions docs contradict their supposed “respect for all life”).
And to reduce the rioting to a simple, black and white case of the have-nots rebelling against the haves is at best naive. Sure, I have no doubt that many Muslims hate industrialized nations and Westerners because we have more wealth than they do. Envy, after all, is a natural human emotion. But let’s be honest - that’s not the only reason they hate us. They also hate that we “let” our women drive and wear mini-skirts. They hate us because we don’t stone homosexuals to death. They want our heads because we don’t drop to our knees in prayer five times a day in order to please some make believe sky Daddy. No matter how you try to spin it, they hate us because we love freedom - freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom to be who you are. (Theoretically, at least, seeing as how our own brand of Godidiots is currently hard at work, trying to strip us of the very freedoms that allowed their own silly belief system to flourish. But at least we’ve got those freedoms on paper, and that’s a good start.)
I know it ain’t much, but Smite Me! will be my own small celebration of this freedom - freedom of and from religion, in all its corrupting forms. Though I’ve self-identified as an atheist for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been quick to add that I’m primarily opposed to organized religion, as the hierarchical structure encourages religious leaders to treat their followers like sheeple, while robbing them blind.
Since I began blogging back in May, however, I’ve also come to realize that I’m an anti-theist as well. Witnessing the violence and irrationality that twelve amateurish cartoons were capable of inciting has brought me to the point where I’m actually proud to call myself both an atheist and an anti-theist. Religion, no matter how (seemingly) tolerant or merciful, is a pox on humanity. At its best, it fosters superstitious, irrational thinking; at its worse, it demands complete obedience, including the forced submission of non-believers. No matter what God you follow, rest assured that he, she, or it is most certainly a dick.
Although the first Smite Me! post features those damned Danish cartoons, future editions will be equal-opportunity offenders, with anti- Christian, Catholic, Buddhist, Mormon, Sikhism, pagan, New Age [insert your religion here] imagery. Save for a brief description of the picture, future posts will be largely devoid of commentary. Fellow heathens who have an image they’d like to suggest or contribute can email me at smitemedotnet [at] gmail [dot] com.
So, zealots and fanatics, go ahead and smite me. Let’s see what your god(s) is made of. (Maybe he’ll even surprise you with a fucking sense of humor. Imagine that!)
No cheating, though - your omnipotent god has to do it on his own. That means no mail bombs or anthrax, which will only emasculate your deity. Then he’ll have to smite your sorry ass, too.
