February 3, 2006
Have you noticed the Muslim extremists don't have a sense of humor? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe they take life, in general, too seriously. Take the recent row over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. It all actually started back in September when a Danish newspaper ran a series of cartoons lampooning the terrorists. Islamic tradition bans the depiction of Muhammad or Allah. How we, or they, would have any idea what Allah looks like is beyond me but, needless to say, the cartoons set off a firestorm. Muslim leaders met with Denmark's prime minister. Protesters, their faces wrapped in typical terrorist fashion, stormed the Danish embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, burning the Danish flag and pelting Danish symbols with rotten eggs. Similar incidents were taking place throughout the Middle East and Europe.
Have you noticed something very strange in America? The land of free speech and freedom of the press is afraid to publish the cartoons. CNN showed one of the cartoons but blurred the image as not to offend Muslims. I had to search online to find them. I must admit they were pretty darn funny.
One shows Muhammad in a black turban. The turban is actually a bomb with the fuse lit. In another, Muhammad is standing on a cloud. Terrorists are lined up in front of him and Muhammad, with hands outstretched, says, “Stop! Stop! We ran out of virgins!”
In the words of Larry the Cable Guy, that's funny, I don't care who you are.
Apparently, there are those who don't see the humor but that's not what really bothers me. What gripes me is the way our own mainstream press has handled this story. It's as if we should all tiptoe around those who find these cartoons offensive. Where was the tiptoeing when Andres Serrano put a crucifix in a jar of his own urine, took a picture of it and got a grant to display it from the National Endowment for the Arts? Not only did the media call this art, they saw nothing wrong with taxpayer dollars paying for this junk!
These cartoons have been running all over Europe – Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain – but, to my knowledge, have not been published by a single major U.S. newspaper. Why is that? It's because Christianity is the whipping boy of the liberal press. There's nothing sacred when it comes to offending Christians. In fact, American journalist bow up at the mere mention of censoring anything offensive to Christians yet they practice self-censorship when it comes to offending Muslims.
Iraq's top Shia Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, condemned the publication of the cartoons. However, he said militant Islamists were partly to blame for, themselves, distorting the image of Islam. Very well said. That's the issue here. It's not Islam. It's those who use that religion to kill. That is who is being ridiculed in the cartoons. That's who is being chastised through humor.
At least one website schools the uninitiated on the guidelines for Muslim humor. “ Monitor yourself when you are feeling humorous,” warns the website. “Joking should not deviate from the truth.” From where I'm standing, the Danish cartoons were dead on in the truth department.