Response to "Anonymous" on Wafa Sultan and Insulting Islamists

Andres Serrano, Piss Christ (1989)

(Borrowed from Wikipedia)

There have been occasional comments here by anonymous visitors, some of them pleasant enough and some of them unpleasant enough. I can understand that some people prefer anonymity to onymity, but I'd prefer that they go for pseudonymity because a name, even if false, would help to keep actually distinct commentors more conceptually distinct.

That mild rant aside, let me post here a pleasant-enough anonymous comment to a previous post dealing with Wafa Sultan in which I acknowledged that Sultan is angry and too often inaccurate but that I understand her anger while regretting her factual carelessness. Anyway, here's Anonymous:

Hi Guys; this is Anonymous again. Sorry for this late rejoinder, but I think I need to clarify few points here. You can challenge the Islamists from within their communities and Islamic framework, and this is I think the way that can produce progress and good change; or you can challenge them from outside, as a member of a different religious or cultural group, which, though sometimes inevitable, is more tricky and unpredictable. In either case, though, it is pointless, and even counterproductive, to engage in hyperbole polemics and attacks on the core beliefs and values of Islam itself. By depicting Prophet Muhammad as a pig or as a terrorist you're simply insulting most Muslims and soliciting outrage and calls for revenge. If you do this from within, you are doomed to failure and perhaps risking your very own life. And if you do it from without, you're looking like a crusader and you’re just creating more demons to fan the fires of the clash of civilizations. I concur with the need to oppose extremism and dogmatic Islamists, but this must be done carefully and rationally, without denigrating the foundational beliefs of Islam. Any opposition to Islamists that finds it somehow necessary to humiliate Muslims everywhere, no matter how noble its objectives are, is misguided and can be easily construed as a tool of extremism itself. Finally, let me just use jj mollo's metaphor in its literalist meaning and say that I personally wouldn't care to be in the same room with either Wafa Sultan or seemingly cool and collected Islamists; If I could choose, I'd rather be with Zhang Ziyi, Charlize Theron, Halle Berry, or Scarlett Johansson! Now, wouldn't you?

On this last query, my wife says that I'm required to state that I prefer to sit with the Islamists or Wafa Sultan. That formality aside, I see your point.

As for your more serious point, that we non-Muslims shouldn't insult Muslims in presenting our critique of Islamism, I would generally agree. I think that one is standing upon higher ground, ethically, in avoiding insults. And you're correct that gratuitous insults are going to be counterproductive.

But I want to make a couple of points here.

First, whatever the moral status of an insult, I think that the law should generally protect people's right to express themselves freely even if this means insulting others individually or in groups.

Second, Islamists -- and even many Muslims -- seem especially senstive to 'insults' of Muhammad and readily take offense even at what non-Muslims would consider not insults but criticisms.

You mention two insults: "depicting Prophet Muhammad as a pig or as a terrorist."

Let's take the second insult first. One of the cartoons did present Muhammad in a guise that could be interpreted as the image of a terrorist. If if recall, this was an image of Muhammad with a turban shaped like a bomb. I can easily imagine that Muslims might feel insulted, but that might not have been the intent of the cartoonist, who may instead have genuinely held that Muhammad acted as a terrorist even in his own day and may in fact be prepared to provide reasons for why he holds this view. I don't happen to think that Muhammad was a terrorist in the strict sense of targeting civilians with violence in order to achieve a political goal, but I do think, based on some of the hadith that I have seen, that Muhammad could act with extreme cruelty for reasons that I find difficult to warrant. I can state this as a criticism of Muhammad, but I suspect that many Muslims would take it as an insult.

As for the first insult, depicting Muhammad as a pig, this would be insulting, I agree. But I should like to point out that the pig 'cartoon' was not one of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, was not originally a cartoon or even an image of Muhammad, and may have been a hoax perpetrated by the Islamists themselves to incite Muslims. The Islamists, ironically, would themselves seem to have been insulting Muhammad. But even if this pig image had been one of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, then I think that it should be legally protected as free expression even though I myself would not choose to publicly depict Muhammad in this way.

I would, generally, agree with you that our opposition to "extremism and dogmatic Islamists" should "be done carefully and rationally," but I can't see how we can avoid "denigrating [some of] the foundational beliefs of Islam." Even careful, rational criticism can implicitly denigrate some foundational beliefs.

Finally, I think that Muslims should learn to tolerate the ridicule of their views, just as Christians have had to learn this lesson and accept such 'insults' and 'ridicule' as Andres Serrano's Piss Christ.