Today I read horrible, racist comments here that I have only seen so far from LGF and I am upset. I wanted to take this chance to respond to some of the comments that I saw on Georgia 10s post on Muslims and Islam. I also wanted to make it clear why I think this cartoon has turned into such a big issue.
One thing people need to understand is that the Prophet Muhammad is not portrayed anywhere. Not in writing not in pictures. I have no idea whether he was tall or short-fat or thin-had long hair short hair or no hair at all. I cannot say with any certainty whether he wore a beard and a turban. The media however has chosen to represent Islam in this manner. A terrorist in a beard and turban.
You could pass my family on this street and never guess that they are Muslim (Briefly thought I would post a picture of them here but I don't want the Bush SS banging on their doors in the name of the Patriot Act!)
However the Media continues to push the image of sinister looking turbaned and bearded folks wreaking havoc on the "civilized" world.
Now why does this bother me so much? You would not believe in the aftermath of 9/11 the kind of comments I heard from folks. In front of me and my son-although I hope that he never really understood what was being said since he was quite young. And the Medias cartoonish portray of Muslims. They have done an excellent job! My ten year old cousin, when he saw Muslim clerics at the door of his house in India (they were there to get money to feed the poor) ran to his mother and said "Mom there are three terrorists at the door". That's right terrorists. All because they had beards (no turbans though, only skull caps) this is the image that kids are being fed of their own religion.
So now you have this cartoonist who publishes images of Prophet Muhammad. What would you expect to happen, given that this is what we see day after day in various newspapers around the world? Consider also that a huge chunk of the Muslim world is poverty stricken (yes there are exceptions and yes they are pretty damn backwards) People are frustrated by what they see as a general disrespect and prejudice from the Western world. After all the West preaches democracy but calls foul when Hammas wins the election, or when aid is extremely slow getting to Pakistan where kids are freezing to death. Or let's not forget about Bushcos ill advised war. So now do you really expect folks to reach out and have a reasonable discourse?