Barbarians at the Gates of Mecca?

The rise of fundamentalism in Islam can be only be countered by reformation within Islam itself. The ability to evolve and adapt to a new world is the only way for Islam to survive as the great religion it aspires to be to its billion plus followers around the world. Free speech is the lifeblood through with Islamic states can transform into democracies and coexist in the diverse world we are fast moving toward. The recent attacks on Islam are deplorable but also understandable given the deafening silence of the Muslim clergy to steady rise of fundamentalism over the last few decades culminating in the shocking terrorist attacks of 9/11. These recent attacks on Islam however, under the guise of free speech, is shortsighted and designed to be counter-productive on the whole. Belittling and demeaning a religion only serves to create further division, anger and violence among the majority, giving more credence to the jihadist minority. Since real change always comes from within, we need to engage with the Islamic world at multiple levels - diplomatic, educational, cultural, economic etc. to create the environment to support their inner transformation.

Most religions generally could care less how their deities being caricatured. In fact, most encourage positive images of deities, prophets, gurus, gods and godesses etc. as an efficient method to propagate and constantly reinforce the principles of the religion to the average followers who are too distracted with the stuff of everyday existence and need regular gentle reminders of their spiritual path. A picture is worth a thousand words, so images are an efficient, compact way to inspire followers to aspire to certain the noble qualities of role models like Jesus, Krishna, Buddha etc. Islam on the other hand, takes a different approach and although images of the prophet are not explicitly forbidden, centuries of tradition and social customs discourage the glorification of human images through pictures and imagery. The suppression of this mode of expression made Islamic art channel its energies to architecture, calligraphy etc. and resulted in many great accomplishments in these areas. Note that Salman Rushdie, primarily incured the wrath of the clerics, not the majority of Muslims, for what he wrote, not what he drew. In fact, I bet very few English speaking readers could keep awake reading through his "Satanic Verses". I'm certain that those clerics who issued their death-decree did so without even reading Rushdie's blasphemous work. These images however, are directly experienced and felt by the majority of Muslims.

The recent Facebook pages promoting the "draw Mohammed day" ratchets up tensions between both the West and Islamic states, resulting in a increasing polarization between Islam and the rest of the world. Cutting off Islamic states from our global village is a dangerous development since we make it infinitely harder for these culturally isolated states to naturally evolve into democracies over time. In fact countries like Pakistan are bound to clamp down on access to Facebook, Google and who knows what else, further entrenching censorship, suppressing free speech and giving Islamic governments big-brother powers. The incessant cries of "Death to Facebook" and "Death to America" have now become accepted everyday language in many Islamic states and a whole new generation of young impressionable minds are being radicalized in their millions. Autocratic governments, like Islamic states, generally don't voluntarily give up power once acquired, making any chance of transformation even more of an elusive dream.

Once again, the two-bit opportunistic cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, has acted irresponsibly by caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed. The timing of the cartoon is simply to capitalize on the brouhaha swirling around the recent Facebook incident, to bump up his declining ratings as a mediocre cartoonist - a relic of the apartheid era. What the media fails to understand is that unlike other religions, the heart of the matter is not the whether the prophet is depicted favorably or not, but its the fact that ANY image of the Prophet Mohammed is regarded as blasphemous.

Some caricatures are inherently blasphemous. Like depicting Jesus as a pedophile, would make most Christians go ballistic. Showing a bunch of Rabbis eating pigs at a braai, will incur the wrath of the Jewish community. Even through nothing much fazes Hindus, I would wager that making Krishna a star of a porno movie, will bring hordes of Hare Krishna devotees at your doorstep in a jiffy. Anyway, the point is that there are sacred cows in all cultures, and the quicker we learn to be more tolerant of others beliefs, the better the chances are of effecting real transformation within these cultures. The true test of one's beliefs comes from treating others with whom you may vehemently disagree with, with the respect and humanity they deserve.

Fortunately, the Facebook page has been taken down and even the the Seattle cartoonist whose satirical cartoon "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" that inspired the Facebook page has apologized and underscored that her cartoon was actually about the censoring of a television show called South Park, and called for this "day" to be called off. Freedom of speech comes with responsibility and I have no doubt that, had the Facebook page continued to incite religious controversy, leaders like Obama, would possibly have had to step in to speak out forcefully against these incendiary acts under the guise of free speech. Unfortunately, in the absence of local watchdog organizations overseeing our media, apartheid era cartoonists like Zapiro, are given free reign to be as "controversial" as they wish, without repercussions. Belittling and demeaning other belief systems is not the way to create lasting change in fact its the surest way to slow down the transformation so desperately needed in Islam.

Muslims are justified in asking others not to depict Prophet Mohammed in images since strict adherence to this Islamic tradition is designed to, like most other cultures, constantly remind believers that the prophets were mortals, not to be confused with God and to realign their focus to true north - toward the concept of a God that is formless, timeless and infinite - indeed a powerful idea that every human contemplates at some point in their short existence on this earth.