WHY IS IT “OK” TO DEPICT JEWS with hooked noses or blacks as simpletons or Orientals aS subservient but it’s forbidden to make a caricature of Mohamed.
Moses is caricaturized. Jesus caricaturized. Buddha is caricaturized
No one runs to kill the artist or the publisher.
But Mohamed …
Caricaturize Mohamed and the Muslims will kill you.
TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE, neither Moses nor Buddha is (a) god or claimed to be a god. Paul claimed Jesus was Part 2 of a trinity of god, Jesus, and a holy spirit, but — I am not a scholar of Jesus — I don’t know that Jesus himself claimed to be god.
Mohamed, worshiped by Muslims on a level with Jesus, claimed only to be a prophet of god, although he elevated himself above both Jesus (whom most Muslims claim as a prophet) and Moses.
So what sets Mohamed above all others? What makes a caricature of Mohamed sacrilege worthy of death?
What religion allows, encourages, its followers to murder others simply because they object to a cartoon?
Is Mohamed such a minor entity that he is offended by such things — and given that he has been dead for centuries, how could he care?
Granted, the Roman Catholics were no better: the Inquisition, the Crusades as but two examples.
The early Protestants were equally bigoted.
Neither followers of the “peaceful” Jesus tolerated non-believers. In early America, people who failed to “toe the line” were branded as witches and, in New England, drowned in “dunking chairs.”
Even today, there are Protestants who fear any Catholic in any position — the recent clash over a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Still, Paul’s followers now rarely murder someone “in Jesus’ name.”
Has anyone heard of a Buddhist killing people in Buddha’s name? Not recently, anyway.
IT IS UNFORTUNATE for thinking Muslims that a few of their coreligionists are so extreme that they take it upon themselves to slaughter non-believers and not a few believers who had the temerity to do something the fanatics oppose (e.g., wear modern clothes, drive, have social intercourse with non-believers).
It is human nature to tar with a broad brush anyone who is “different” from ourselves for any reason: religion, dress, skin color (or lack thereof), education, etc.
One (pick an attribute) does something against society’s standards and all people of a similar attribute are, if not guilty, then at least suspect.
As for cartoons about Mohamed — I find nothing funny about the man or the religion founded on his name.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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