Satire? No laughing Matter in the Islamic World

The picture to the left is a ‘Buddy Christ’, the mascot of the ‘Catholicism Wow!’ campaign that features in the film Dogma directed by Kevin Smith. The movie is a comedy that satirises Christianity, poking fun at some of the religion’s (and particularly Catholicism’s) most sacred precepts. In the film there is the Character Rufus, supposedly a thirteenth member of Jesus’ band of apostles - written out of history because he’s black. The main character Bethany, who works at an abortion clinic and teams up with two junkies - so-called prophets - to save the world, is also claimed to be a direct descendant of Christ. To moderate Christians the film is an entertaining parody that highlights some of the hypocrisies of organised religion. To say this kind of material is offensive to hard-line fundamentalist Christians would be an understatement. The film faced distribution problems because of its subject matter and its website feature a page that published the hate letters that the director received from ‘actual people, many who had not even seen the movie before they wrote in.’

However while ‘Buddy Christ’ et al. may have upset some Christians there were no violent protests outside American Embassies, none burnt down, no deaths, no offensive placards calling for the beheading of people who blaspheme against Christianity, and no boycott of products from the USA in, say, the deeply Catholic countries of Latin America. Contrast this with the widespread violent protest that has erupted in recent weeks because of a few cartoons in an obscure Danish newspaper. Scandinavian Embassies in Damascus and Beirut have been razed to the ground, Muslims dressed as suicide bombers have protested in London and there is a boycott of Danish goods in much of the Muslim World. Dogma was a major motion picture with a very high profile yet it did not illicit protest on this scale. Imagine what would have happening if such a film had been made about the life of the Prophet Mohammed.

Depiction of the Prophet is taboo for many Muslims although this has not prevented many images from being created in the past even by Muslims themselves. These pictures have never generated the kind of vitriolic protest that we are witnessing today. The Danish Newspaper that published cartoons of Mohammed did so last September in an exercise in free speech, the editors having become concerned with the self censorship that has become common in much of the media. While they undoubtedly knew that this would cause offence, and so were not as sensitive to Muslim feelings as they ought to have been, the publication passed with little incident and the controversy blew over. The cartoons only became an issue after Danish Imams toured the Middle East with the pictures (including some that were even more offensive) and more importantly when the French tabloid France Soir, republished the cartoons in a move that was deliberately provocative. Was their sudden desire to exercise their right to free speech by any chance influenced by the Muslim rioting that had taken place in the French banlieue late last year? It was undoubtedly intended to cause offence.

This is not to absolve Muslims of all of their guilt in the current uproar. Certainly it has been the extremists who’ve led the charge in instigating protests which have become even more offensive than the cartoons and even caused deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but this has also been spurred on by moderates who have participated in boycotts of Danish products. Never mind that the Danish government have condemned the cartoons and aren‘t responsible for the content of their newspapers. It can be accepted that these cartoons, published now across the West, have become yet another reason for Muslims to feel - in some cases rightly - under attack by the West. It adds to other issues such as the Iraq and Afghan wars, the Israel/Palestine conflict and the prejudice that Muslims have to live with in Western countries.

However when these serious injustices - at least form the point of view of many Muslims - are measured against the controversy surrounding the cartoons it makes these doodles pale into insignificance. Why is it then that it has become such a rallying cause for Muslims regardless of there level of extremism? Why is there this reaction among Muslims when Christians are regularly insulted by parodies of their religion, Jews live with extremely nasty cartoons of their people in Arab newspapers and Hindus are satirised on The Simpsons? The excuse that it is because of the depth of feeling Muslims have for their prophet is not enough, as other religions revere their sacred figures equally without resort to violence when they are mocked or laughed at.

It seems ridiculous that atrocities in Iraq or the scandal of Guantanamo Bay don’t arouse the same protests that these not very funny cartoons have. In these cases people, Muslims, are actually being killed or abused. Of course it could be said these issues encourage terrorism but where are the widespread protests on the streets? To take this idea even further al-Qaida have killed many hundreds of Muslims, in Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere. Where are the violent protests then? Rather than criticise these murderers, al-Qaida has growing levels of support in the Islamic World. This is what happens when the extremists hijack a religion. The radicals are not yet in the majority in the Islamic faith but they are louder, more determined and so are gaining more attention both within there own community and in the West than their moderate counterparts. Proof of this can be seen in the widely covered pronouncements of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on the destruction of Israel or the success of Hamas in the Palestinian elections.

There are disturbing elements of extremism in other religions as well, in Christianity not least, but they are the minority and are often ridiculed for their out-moded beliefs. We’re a long way from a time when the release of a film such as Dogma would create the kind of unrest among Christians than we have seen among Muslims in the last month. There were death threats certainly, no actual deaths. It is essential that Muslim moderates wrest back their religion, the Islam of compassion, equality and tolerance, from the extremists. As it stands Muslims cannot be expected to receive much sympathy when cartoons are met with violence, and terrorism is often met with adulation among some Muslims. Only when the moderates take back there rightful place will they regain the moral high ground to protest against the issues where Muslims are genuinely hard-done-by.