The Smears Of Mohammed

What are the Smears of Mohammed? Are the Smears a holy relic?

Is there a piece of muslin robe akin to the Shroud of Turin, but covered in brown streaks after Mohammed followed through while scoffing dates?

How do hate protests follow the Smears of Mohammed? Does someone run along waving the Smears, with the crowd behind them screaming: “Death to infidels! No-one may deride our Holy Smears!”?

What if the Smears were dropped in the stampede? Or got wet? How would a devout Muslim know they were the True Smears?

Perhaps the True Smears are kept safely locked away in Mecca, but in a process akin to the Catholic transubstantiation, the smears of any devout Muslim may temporarily become the embodiment of the True Smears in an atmosphere of sufficient religious fervour, such as a mass stoning or the torching of a church.

Now, all of this is very puerile, but that should not be a crime. It is certainly not a justification for murder, assault, arson or any other crime which large groups of disgruntled Muslims have tried to justify under the banner of outrage at blasphemy.

Satire is a vital element of freedom of speech. It doesn’t have to reach a prescribed standard of wit to qualify. Satire with the ironic quality of mocking the people angered by it, rather than the literal target is far more powerful, even if the literal piece is not particularly funny.

Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons on the topic are hardly side splitters per se. But their satire is valid political commentary. Their humour is greatly increased by the fact they satirise the people who are angered by them, rather than the literal targets.

The Onion loves stirring the religious pot. "Controversial Christian Faction Believes Jesus Was Nailed To Two Parallel Pieces Of Wood" is gold (especially the picture). Their more recent blasphemy: "Archaeologists Discover Site Where Desperate Jesus Christ Turned Tricks" seems not to have evoked a wave of fundamentalist Christian demonstrations, beheadings or bombings. Now imagine the speculative violence which would have ensued had the piece been written about Mohammed.

Here’s another one. It is literally directed at pretty much every mainstream religion but Islam, although actually directed at anyone in favour of blasphemy laws, particularly Islamists. It is obscene and childish, but has a reasonable point: Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists are not taking to the streets as a result, threatening death to all infidels and blasphemers, assaulting people, burning cars and buildings. As the article said: “No-one murdered because of this image … upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.”

In an open society, citizens would never tolerate laws preventing cartoons or literature mocking or satirizing politicians or political parties and their supporters. In fact, this is an entrenched part of political discourse in free societies. Even debasement via ridiculous depiction comes within the ambit of our freedom of expression, as this gem from Pickering testifies:

Ridiculing self important or moralizing targets by depicting them engaged in some sexually deviant act is a common device, favoured by schoolboys and professional cartoonists alike.

If politicians are fair game, why are religious leaders and figures exempt?

A cartoon showing Cardinal George Pell being blown by an altar boy while writing a letter calling for the sacking of the rector of St. John’s College may be in poor taste (to some), but it makes a valid point. How about a cartoon of the Pope stoking his fireplace with copies of reports of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, while dictating a sermon on the sin of contraception?

Many people who aren’t even Catholic would consider satirizing the Pope crossing the line. But this taboo is absurd: it’s a culturally inherited relic of feudalism.

Religion is political philosophy with some fabricated metaphysics and revelations from “higher beings” added as justification for claiming the correctness of the philosophy and hence the error of all others. The metaphysical and revelational components are almost necessarily articles of faith because they are almost certainly untrue. In many cases, the claims are at least practically and often literally untestable. Many other claims are either directly falsifiable or patently absurd.

Adherents who believe the metaphysical and revelational aspects of their religion as articles of faith tend to believe the social and moral elements as corollaries. They are “God’s laws”: instructions for how to live. Hence, religion and politics cannot be separated, since religion tells us all the correct way to live and politics is about how we live together.

These are the people who are dangerous to those who reject their beliefs. They are precisely the types of people who make the ideals of secularism, liberalism and freedom of expression so important.

They are the types who co-opt the law to proscribe blasphemy, which may include telling them their beliefs are delusions.

The likely falsity of the metaphysical and revelational claims religions use to justify their moral and political pre and proscriptions does not invalidate the latter, many of which are reasonable in a liberal society. It simply means that any reasonable moral and political positions need alternative justification, by logical argument and (God forbid) evidence. This is in part how people of religious faith can comfortably live in, support and in fact, create a secular society.

However, part of freedom of speech in an open, liberal and hence secular society is the right to satirise inconsistent and hypocritical philosophical perspectives, which includes religions.

Suppose the beginning of this post had satirized the Shroud of Turin. I’m sure plenty of lefties would have smugly agreed with it. But Mohammed? His worshippers are brown. This article should not be published because it is inflammatory. It reveals me as another crypto-racist!

No it doesn’t. There is no Muslim gene. Their DNA is not the issue. Muslims’ mediaeval, superstitious stupidity is just as bad as Catholics, Baptists or any other white, religious people.

If the left truly believe in a secular society, they must support the fundamental principle of freedom of expression and its extension to satire, not selectively apply it to religions favoured by white people.

And Muslims living in Western societies who use blasphemy as a cover for speculative aggression should be deported. Send them back to the societies whose institutions and structures derive from their interpretation of their religion.