Nancy Rommelmann

Draw Mohammed Day, Part 2

I did not get a chance to draw yesterday, due to 14 hours of plane travel (don't ask) and then, within 30 minutes of landing, having to be in court (on a story).

It's just as well, as words are my medium. And we are going to continue this conversation.

Just reread Reason's post about DMD -- which includes (as I could not see yesterday on my iPhone) the shocking images drawn by the imams, shocking not for aesthetic reasons but because it was the imams who created them in order to throw gas on a smoldering fire. As Nick Gillespie writes,  "It is as if the pope created 'Piss Christ' and then passed it off as the work of critics of Catholicism."

Also included is a May, 2010 Guernica interview with Paul Berman (whose #1 fan I am apparently becoming) in which, astonishingly (or maybe not), he needs to explain to the interviewer that, no, Theo van Gogh is not responsible for his own murder; the murderer is. 

The Reason post also led me to this interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, controversial, yes, and parts of her book drove me batty, but look at this quote in relation to what we're discussing here, or better, read the whole thing:

I accept that there are multitudes seeking God, seeking meaning, and so on, but if they reject atheism, I would rather they became modern-day Catholics or Jews than that they became Muslims. Because my Catholic and Jewish colleagues are fine. The concept of God in Jewish orthodoxy is one where you’re having constant quarrels with God. Where I come from, in Islam, the only concept of God is you submit to Him and you obey His commands, no quarreling allowed. Quarreling or even asking questions means you raise yourself to the same level as Him, and in Islam that’s the worst sin you can commit. Jews should be proselytizing about a God that you can quarrel with. Catholics should be proselytizing about a God who is love, who represents a hereafter where there’s no hell, who wants you to lead a life where you can confess your sins and feel much better afterwards. Those are lovely concepts of God. They can’t compare to the fire-breathing Allah who inspires jihadism and totalitarianism.

...

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?

Hirsi Ali: I think that’s where we’re heading. We’re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?

Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.

Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.

...

The Western mind-set—that if we respect them, they’re going to respect us, that if we indulge and appease and condone and so on, the problem will go away—is delusional. The problem is not going to go away. Confront it, or it’s only going to get bigger.

Discuss.

Draw Mohammed Day

Getting on a plane so this will be briefer and shorter than I want it to be: today, Reason magazine is sponsoring Draw Mohammed Day, for all the right reasons. Reason's Nick Gillespie explains:

It's worth meditating on the whys and wherefores of the contest, which was inspired by a jihadist death threat against the creators of South Park and was originally suggested by Seattle artist Molly Norris.

...There comes a point in any society's existence where it must ultimately, to paraphrase Martin Luther (who himself was more than happy to see opponents put to death), dig in its heels and say here we stand, we will do no other. We don't need to be perfectly consistent philosophically or historically or theologically to assert what is special and unique not just about the United States, with its bizarre and wonderful articulation of the First Amendment, but the greater classical liberal project comprising not just the "West" (whatever that is) but human beings in whatever town, country, or planet they inhabit. And at the heart of the liberal project is ultimately a recognition that individuals, for no other reason than that they exist, have rights to continue to exist. Embedded in all that is the right to expression. No one has a right to an audience or even to a sympathetic hearing, much less an engaged audience. But no one should be beaten or killed or imprisoned simply for speaking their mind or praying to one god as opposed to the other or none at all or getting on with the small business of living their life in peaceful fashion. If we cannot or will not defend that principle with a full throat, then we deserve to choke on whatever jihadists of all stripes can force down our throats.

...Our Draw Mohammed contest is not a frivolous exercise of hip, ironic, hoolarious sacrilege toward a minority religion in the United States (though even that deserves all the protection that the most serioso political commentary commands). It's a defense of what is at the core of a society that is painfully incompetent at delivering on its promise of freedom, tolerance, and equal rights. It's a rebuttal to the notion that we should go limp in the clinches precisely because bullies and bastards can punch or blow us up.

Here's my pal Amy Alkon's contribution. Where's yours?

Hubble Telescope Images

Am listening to Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great," read by the author. It's simply smashing, and really, who better to deliver it?

I do not believe in God, at all, not even one tiny little bit. Nor do I believe in some greater unnamed deity who's somehow responsible for organizing the universe. I do, however, stand in wonder and awe of the universe, and agree with Hitchens: why would you turn to God for comfort, when you have this? Isn't this enough? Isn't this more than enough? And here's more.