Kurt Westergaard's Muhammed

One of the more insidious Danish Muhammed cartoons, by Kurt Westergaard (hosted at Religiousfreaks.com)

After the recent attacks on Kurt Westergaard, one of the Danish cartoonists that drew the infamous Muhammed cartoons, the debate about the limits of freedom of speech, blasphemy and religions has resurfaced again. Norwegian daily Aftenposten reprinted a facsimile of the cartoons, and was promptly condemned by Iranian and Pakistani politicians. I don’t know if I can add much to the debate, but these are my two cents.

Firstly, many of the drawings are rather vulgar and stupid. (And the coming cartoon in Fremskrittspartiet’s magazine will probably be no better.) I enjoy poking fun at religions as much as the next guy, and there are many hilarious aspects about islam as well, but I generally had problems laughing at these drawings. They didn’t provide a surprising take on the connections between radical islam and terrorism or oppression of women, and to some extent they provide more of a window on Danish prejudices and quasi-racism, than on islamist oppression.

Secondly, the outrage at the drawings is also vulgar and stupid. For instance, the Iranian Holocaust competition provided some drawings that carry a very strong subtext of Holocaust denial (see below).

By anonymous.
By anonymous. The use of quotation marks carries a Holocaust denialist subtext

And then you have all the horrible demonstrations and violent actions that followed in the wake of the publications. Such as the recent flagburning in Pakistan (VG, Dagbladet). Now, authoritarian politicans are once again trying to capitalize on the renewed publication of the drawings.

Thirdly, I believe there should be no limits to free speech, and we have to cling to that. That is also the reason I include these stupid cartoons in this blogpost, because they are just pictures. If we prohibit things we don’t like, or that can cause rumblings, then we limit our potential for moving forward intellectually. We do not need a new Dark Age.
But then again, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha’i, Shinto and what not are all old-fashioned, medieval superstitions that need to be fought back each and every day by clearheaded people. Publishing stupid cartoons is just a way of giving the religious fanatics something to mobilize around. It’s doing them a favor. Although there should be no limits to freedom of speech, and although blasphemy is highly necessary and should be encouraged all over the world, there are far more intelligent instances of it than these cartoons. Next time you intend to mock a religion, try to be intelligently blasphemous, like these guys.

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