Portrait of the Artist as a Dhimmified Man
Given the history of Islamist violence directed at European artists, writes David Rusin, their fear of critiquing Islam is justifiable. However, the current level of self-censorship is deeply problematic. "Their eagerness to assume the role of subjugated infidels living under Islamic rule can only demoralize the population and embolden the extremists."
“Art is not what you see,” noted Edgar Degas, “but what you make others see.” Ninety years after his death, a new maxim applies to Europe: The art that you do not see reflects what everyone already sees. And what we see is the preemptive surrender of public freedoms in the name of appeasing the continent’s restive Muslim underclass.
Grayson Perry serves as the ideal poster boy – or perhaps poster girl – for this discomfiting trend. A Turner Prize recipient and England’s most famous cross-dressing potter, Perry has been heralded for his controversial explorations of religious imagery, which include a vase entitled “Transvestite Brides of Christ” and a portrayal of the Virgin Mary that is best left to the imagination. Yet apparently there are some boundaries that even groundbreaking artists dare not cross.
“I’ve censored myself,” Perry told the Times, admitting that he treads lightly around radical Islam. “With other targets you’ve got a better idea of who they are but Islamism is very amorphous. You don’t know what the threshold is. Even what seems an innocuous image might trigger off a really violent reaction so I just play safe all the time.” Self-censorship thus boils down to self-preservation. “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.”
His fears are not without logic. On the morning of November 2, 2004, hours before Americans would vote in an election shaped by the conflict between radical Islam and the West, that conflict violently manifested itself on the streets of Amsterdam. There, filmmaker Theo van Gogh succumbed to a rain of bullets from the gun of Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan extract. Bouyeri proceeded to slash his victim’s neck to near decapitation before leaving a pair of knives impaled in his chest. One pinned a letter outlining his grievances and threatening ex-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The controversialist’s life and death form a microcosm of Europe’s new realities. An equal-opportunity offender, van Gogh loathed all religions and never missed a chance to insult the faithful – Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. However, his demise was directly linked to Submission, a short film written by Hirsi Ali that depicts the abuse of women in Muslim cultures. The contrast is striking. Christians and Jews responded to van Gogh’s provocations with the occasional letter or picket sign, but a young Muslim chose an HS 2000 firearm as his instrument of “protest.”
Van Gogh’s murder was neither the first nor the most recent case of Islamists employing violence to intimidate the Western creative class. Just ask Salman Rushdie, the British author of The Satanic Verses, who is now completing his second decade of sequestration following the death sentence pronounced by Iranian clerics. Renewed pledges of retaliation rose up on the heels of his knighting in 2007. The danger is undeniable. Several translators of Verses were assaulted at the behest of the 1989 fatwa; one, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed.
Violence also erupted in the wake of the infamous Mohammed cartoons, first printed by the Danish broadsheet Jyllands-Posten in fall 2005. Dozens perished across the globe, consulates were set ablaze, threats of murder and kidnapping were issued, and several of the artists went into hiding. Islamists also marched on Denmark’s London embassy, raising placards that read “Europe you will pay, your 9/11 will come,” “Behead those who insult Islam,” “Freedom go to hell,” and “Be prepared for the real holocaust.”
Ironically, the cartoons were put forth as a protest against the type of self-censorship described by Grayson Perry. Jyllands-Posten editor Flemming Rose commissioned them after learning that a Danish writer had been unable to find an artist willing to illustrate his book about the life of Mohammed. A report noted that “one [declined] with reference to the murder in Amsterdam of the film director Theo van Gogh, while another [cited the attack on] the lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute in Copenhagen.” The latter victim was assaulted for reading passages from the Koran to an infidel audience.
The cartoon controversy has only accelerated self-censorship. A museum in The Hague recently declined to display a photograph by Sooreh Hera that shows two gay men wearing masks of Mohammed and Ali, based on fears that “certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive.” Though critics of this action were assured that “all Dutch museums are free to choose what they exhibit,” Hera disagreed. “Apparently a Muslim minority decides what will be on display in the museum.” The artist has now retreated to an “unspecified location” following emails promising to “burn you naked or put a bullet in your mouth.”
Similarly, in October 2006 London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery removed erotic works by the surrealist Hans Bellmer. According to the curator, “the motive was simply to not shock the population of the Whitechapel neighborhood, which is partly Muslim.” The pictures were pulled merely one week after a Berlin opera house had cancelled – then sheepishly reinstated – performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo, in which the title character grandstands with the severed heads of Poseidon, Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. Needless to say, the severed heads of Poseidon, Buddha, and Jesus were never an issue.
Amir Taheri has compiled other disturbing cases from across the continent: German carnivals prohibiting costumes that might look “Islamic,” Spanish towns canceling traditional festivals marking the victory over the Moors, the blacklisting of books deemed critical of Islam, and the removal from public view of illuminated manuscripts that feature images of Mohammed.
Even art aimed at children has not been immune, as evidenced by a British school that excised the pigs from The Three Little Pigs to forestall Muslim objections. “If changing a few words avoids offense then we will do so,” a teacher explained. The school later reversed the decision. Likewise, British author Kes Gray just postponed a reprinting of his “inclusive” children’s book so that Mohammed the Mole could be renamed Morgan. “I had no idea at all of the sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan,” he said, referencing the teacher imprisoned over a class teddy bear. “As soon as I saw the news I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I’ve got a mole called Mohammed – this is not good.’”
Particularly “not good” is the preemptive nature of these capitulations. “At this point, it seems, terrorists don’t even need to issue a specific threat in order to intimidate us,” observed Der Spiegel. Indeed, many of the above productions or exhibits faced no threats at all. Some Muslims are even helping to expose the hypersensitivity for what it is. Regarding the Pigs fiasco, the Daily Mail reported that “Islamic leaders condemned the politically correct move as misguided and said decisions like this were turning Muslims into ‘misfits’ in society.”
There can be no true freedom in a climate of fear. Given the history of Islamist violence directed at European artists, a significant portion of that fear is justified. However, the continent’s groveling cultural elites have needlessly exacerbated this atmosphere. Their inability or unwillingness to distinguish between Islam and Islamism magnifies the perceived strength of the radicals, while their eagerness to assume the role of dhimmis – subjugated infidels living under Islamic rule – can only demoralize the population and embolden the extremists.
Will Europe ultimately choose to preserve the foundational values of classical liberalism forged during its Renaissance and Enlightenment? Or will it suffer a long, slow decline into the dark ages of dhimmitude? For now, only one conclusion appears certain: somewhere in a Dutch prison cell, Mohammed Bouyeri is smiling.
David J. Rusin is a Philadelphia-based editor for Pajamas Media. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania.
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48 Comments
1. RE:These alleged ‘artists’ existing out there on the decadent fringe should be concerned for themselves, for after heaping their insults on the very decent and honorable mainstream of Western society they should hardly expect anyone to come to their defense.
I’ll fight for the concept of freedom, but unconstrained egoism is something I most definitely won’t. With freedom comes responsibility. That the culture tolerates them is a tribute to the culture, yet in return they are malicious embarrassments to he culture. As the worst ambassadors of Western civ that one can imagine, these moral cowards are completely and utterly on their own.
Jan 10, 2008 - 3:54 am 2. Ubu Roi:I’m rather enjoying the convoluted logic and elaborate lengths that the “artistic” community is showing in order to avoid a confrontation with Islam; they are not trying to be respectful, they are afraid of being hacked up in the streets. The preoccupation with being sensitive to the Muslims is really just the indirect expression of cowardice.
Jan 10, 2008 - 5:54 am 3. RE:People like Grayson Perry or MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell represent Classical Liberalism’s Parasite class.
And as we know, parasites can and will overwhelm their host.
Can it be that Western’s Civ’s tolerance of parasites is indeed its own death sentence?
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:15 am 4. teplost:RE has an excellent point. Far too many of these “artists” have cut their moorings to western civilization even as they make their living off it. It is difficult to have sympathy for people whose livilhood consists in slapping the rest of us in the face, simply because they can do so without risk.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:17 am 5. sfcmac:Yes, with freedom comes responsibility, and the need for moral courage.
How ironic. The same loony-bin crowd that screams
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:18 am 6. Anne:about “censorship” by Bush, America, and the VRWC, are the first to censor themselves because they’re scared shitless of the Islamofascists we’re protecting them from. Good gawd.
>these moral cowards are completely and utterly on their own.>these moral cowards are completely and utterly on their own.<
Can’t help but disagree. I’m certain, as a Christian, I would be very offended by some of Grayson Perry’s so-called art. However, a free, civilized society has an obligation to protect even those people with whom we vehemently disagree.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:24 am 7. Joe:The moral cowards to whom you refer are only on their own in the sense that I, and other people who disagree with them, choose to competely ignore and disregard their “art.”
However, every citizen of a free, civilized society deserves equal protection of life and liberty under the law.
This so called “artist” desicrates Christianity with impunity but dares not offend the delicate sensibilities of the Islamofascists. Coward!
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:29 am 8. Charlton Hawking:“Artists’ Law of Bravery: Criticism of a religion is inversely proportional to the probability of its proponents killing you multiplied by their density.”
http://pommygranate.blogspot.com/2007/04/self-haters-guide-to-science.html
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:33 am 9. Diggs:I considered these “artists” to be nothing more than moral cowards prior to their surrender to islamic fascists. And their penchant for spoiled-teenager-angst displays against “the man” (whomever they believed to be “the man”) was nothing more than a means to cover up their lack of artistic ability.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:35 am 10. Mark William Paules:I see no reason to reassess my opinion of them now just because some of them have actually stated out loud that they are moral cowards.
These “artists” never offered us more than adolescent nihilism and personal decadence. Their attempts to stoke artistic controversy are nothing more than a display of personal exhibitionism. Freedom of speech to them means only a license to express depravity. Their cowardice only reveals that they were never brave nor daring. The emperor has no clothes.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:46 am 11. tanstaafl:That’s funny (or would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic)
So this cross dressing potter is only brave enough to denigrate religions when he thinks he knows the boundaries of the retaliation potential.
So much for his (or her) “art”.
His cravenness reminds me of Lawrence O’Donnell’s recent statements following his attack on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism on a Sunday talk show.
O’Donnell happily disses Mormonism but admitted he is “fearful” of dissing Islamism.
Anyway, if “artists” across the globe are pulling in their tendrils of expression (stupid as some may be, like some recent Christian demonstration pieces that don’t need mentioning)…the “free world” is bending over to the Radical Islamist (often unspoken) pressure.
Exactly as it is meant to happen in the Islamist agenda.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:57 am 12. Ray Robison:Just another reason I hate shock artists (I mean real ones, not people who just do art). Most are moral cowards. They strut about claiming to be brave for exposing themselves emotionally, but if the threat is a hair on their head, so many of them run for cover…cowards…even journalists look brave next to them.
Ray Robison is the author of Both In One Trench: Saddam’s Secret Terror Documents’
http://www.bothinonetrench.com
Jan 10, 2008 - 7:01 am 13. dan:The sooner everyone recognizes these people for and treats them as the untalented and vain Assholes that they are – that is, completely ignores them, or at best mock them – the better for everyone. They’ve had their run. Let them wallow in obscurity, and work at McDonalds if they have to. Enough already.
Jan 10, 2008 - 7:12 am 14. RE:Anne,
In the abstract, you might have a point, but where the rubber meets the road, your argument is a cop out. We have very limited resources. I feel duty bound to defend the good before bad, the innocent before the guilty. Perhaps that makes me a worse Christian than you, but I tend to doubt it. Nowhere does the Bible call on us to be stupid. If these souls cannot divorce themselves from their behavior they will have to place their fate in God’s hands, because clear thinking people – the ones who have struggled though the difficult process to acheive some degree of moral clarity – have thier hands full defending the good and the innocent.
The Bible is very big on people reaping what they sow. Who am I to try to thwart scripture?
Jan 10, 2008 - 7:39 am 15. mishu:Of course, there is another target that these ‘artists’ won’t direct contempt towards. That is the self-indulgent, hedonistic lifestyle they lead.
Jan 10, 2008 - 8:33 am 16. tanstaafl:I highly recommend Amir Taheri’s article (linked above).
Not mentioned often is enough is the terrorist’s desire for revenge.
The terrorist kills because he cannot compete with his adversaries…With the advent of globalisation, Islamist terrorism is now able to strike beyond the frontiers of the Muslim world…The terrorist knows that he is incapable of building an alternative civilisation capable of competing with the one he despises. So he tries to destroy what becomes the cause of his humiliation.
Jan 10, 2008 - 9:00 am 17. syn:Art is Dead in the Western World killed by its very own Politically Correct Poet.
Jan 10, 2008 - 9:01 am 18. BMoon:David Rusin,
Jan 10, 2008 - 9:24 am 19. Teplost:In your excellent article, you ask,
“Will Europe ultimately choose to preserve the foundational values of classical liberalism forged during its Renaissance and Enlightenment?” The irony of your question, is that the mindless decadence, moral cowardice, and fawning dhimmitude evident in so many European intelligensia, is really due to their rejection of the very same element glaringly absent in your question. It was the Reformation and the rediscovery of Christian principles that truly led to what we know as “classical liberalism.” The Enlightenment without the leavening effect of Christianity only gave Europe the Terror, the Triumverate, and Napoleon. The 21st century West’s wistful desire to eat the fruit while severing off the root, to have their cake and eat it too, will only result in more Mohammed Bouyeris sneering with utter contempt at our utter lostness, and with bloody knives and suicide jackets, challenging a decadent culture that is barely surviving by feeding off the bare remains of past generations’ moral, political and spiritual capital.
These are among the most intelligent and insightful posts I’ve every read. Wow!! There’s hope for the West yet.
Jan 10, 2008 - 9:35 am 20. Dr_Deano:These so-called artists are leftists who share the same dhimmi-leaning tendencies demonstrated by rabid feminists, multiculturalists and other leftist sects.
The quickness with which they attack non-Islamic religions and other realms of thought are well known. The blatant cowardice they display in the face of Islamism however highlights their true values.
Western civilization has cultivated the pathetic behaviors displayed by these “artists” and as the tide of Islam rises over a Europe predisposed by decades of multiculturalism to accede to Islamist’s demands these “artists” will fade from existence by their own lack of courage. Unfortunately, much of Western civilization will go with them. For it is one of our many strengths that we tolerate such pathetic creatures. The problem is that we are also tolerating the same forces that will destroy us.
Jan 10, 2008 - 10:18 am 21. Right Wing Nutter:What the world needs is a former SEAL or Delta type, with an artistic streak and a concealed carry permit, to produce the art that the dhimmisphere is afraid to.
It’s the flypaper theory.
Jan 10, 2008 - 11:26 am 22. Eric:Several words come to mind to describe these “brave” Leftists such as cowards and hypocrites and their lack of courage in the face of the real possibility of violent reaction to their intentional offense has them hiding in corners. They are oh so brave and cutting edge when despoiling the image of Christ because they are know they are safe from any form of violence by the victims of their “work” but the won’t even dare to depict Islam. This controversy has exposed them for the self-important cowards they are.
Jan 10, 2008 - 12:01 pm 23. P. Ami:Europeans call us cowboys and consider it an insult. I hope we continue to raise cowboys here in the States as there should be large doses of that attitude in any great art.
Jan 10, 2008 - 12:09 pm 24. southdakotaboy:The sad part is that the people on the left see absolutely nothing wrong with these artists saying stuff like this. You point this out to any of your leftist friends and then say, “doesn’t this prove that Islam is a bigger threat than Christianity”. They will either look at you blankly or launch into a tirade about some Christian group holding a boycott of some company or place because of what some artist did.
Jan 10, 2008 - 12:30 pm 25. penny:It is that last part that gets me they are in such complete and utter denile. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Well, David, things aren’t going to work out any better for me if in exercising my free speech I slap a “Go To Hell Mohammed” vanity plates on my car. It’s a bigger picture than the art community dhimmis, never afraid to offend non-threatening Christian targets, are now cowered by. It’s hard to feel your pain.
I doubt that there are too many in the feckless artistic community that have a clue to their responsibility in destroying those western values that you are concerned about reviving.
When the priceless classical, but offensive to Islam, nudes in the Louvre are blown up I’m betting that elements of the artistic community will be more enraged to that act than any of the human carnage that the jihadis have dealt to living humans.
Jan 10, 2008 - 12:34 pm 26. John Sobieski:Still trying to make that distinction between Islam and islamism I see. good luck with that!
Jan 10, 2008 - 1:45 pm 27. Bill:When you play with fire ….sooner or later you are going to get get burned.
Jan 10, 2008 - 2:19 pm 28. Beaugereau:Don’t wave a red flag in a mad bulls’ face. Even if you have the right to do so…the outcome can’t be pretty. This artist should not be surprised by any
outrage in his (her) community. He made himself a target, plain and simple.
I’ve always thought the predilection of islamicists for offing leftard pseudo-artistes to be their most endearing quality.
Jan 10, 2008 - 4:20 pm 29. venividivici:Well, “artists”, pick up the damn cudgel on behalf of the West. You’ll probably find your art improves the less alienated you position yourselves to be. Sophocles was probably the greatest poet of Ancient Greece and he was a hero among the Athenians and seems to have genuinely loved his country. Let him be your model instead of whoever it is now (Jack Kerouac? Or, in the case of this guy in the article, Milton Berle?) Change the way you think about the relationship of the artist and the state because obviously this whole cult of the adversarial artist isn’t really working out for either artists or the audience.
That’s the optimistic side of me talking. The pessimistic side echoes Nietzsche’s statement that the democratization of Europe is merely the stage for its descent into tyranny. Part I of that tyranny was obviously fascism and Nazism. Part II appears to be the “soft tyranny” of the welfare state. Part III could easily be the resurgent Islamic caliphate.
Jan 10, 2008 - 5:03 pm 30. tanstaafl:Still trying to make that distinction between Islam and islamism I see. good luck with that!
Seems like a slam dunk to me, John.
Jan 10, 2008 - 5:34 pm 31. senatortombstone:It is amazing to consider what passes as art these days. For hundreds of years, the greatest artists that ever lived created beautifuly, inspired art depicting epic moments from the Bible. Now whenever Christianity is depicted in “art,” it is deliberately blasphemous — this is happening at an exponential rate.
Grayson Perry is no artist, he is an abominal deviant. He hates Christianity and Jesus Christ because they chaff his conscious.
I suspect that islam appeals to him at some level because because he shares its inherit and murderous hostility towards Christianity.
Of course, once the muslims eradicate all remnants of Christianity, cross-dressing perverts like him are next, but who can make sense of a fool.
Woe to the inhabitors of Europe.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:19 pm 32. Mark William Paules:Okay, tanstaafl, I’ll bite. Islam is a religion. One who practices Islam is a Muslim. There is no Islamism. Nor Chritianism. Although a Jew practices Judaism, a Buddhist Buddhism, and a Hindu Hinduism. Bad grammar should not be excused.
While I’m at it . . .
An artist is one who uses a visual medium to express truth, beauty, and nobility. A person who uses the same medium to express vulgarity, pornography or filth is a pervert. A person who claims filth is art is a fraud. Those who believe in fraud are known as fools.
Jan 10, 2008 - 6:54 pm 33. opinions:Artists or not, the fact that people are afraid to express themselves freely because of violent repercussions seems to me more serious than what art truly means. I’m not talking about those who look for trouble on purpose by insulting others knowingly, I mean the ones that preemptively censure themselves out of fear that their opinions might offend a bully. A bully who like all bullies is very insecure with their philosophy or values and has to hurt everyone who makes them question themselves.
This fear defeats the purpose of free speech. You can talk about anything but if I don’t like it I might/will slit your throat. Be free!
This is becoming a trend lately from what I have seen. Long live Political correctness…. Not!
Jan 10, 2008 - 8:56 pm 34. RE:Bullies only exist because people permit them to.
For crying out loud, grow a spine!
Jan 11, 2008 - 3:12 am 35. Muhammat Hat:@Bill jan 10, 2008 02:19 PM
That teacher in Sudan should have known better, that insulting woman. And those teachers who dare to tell the story of three little pigs in threir classes, how rude. A mole called Muhammed, how offensive.
Get real with your “play with fire” arguments.
Jan 11, 2008 - 4:10 am 36. Anne:RE: Dan; RE: Anne,
>your argument is a cop out. We have very limited resources. I feel duty bound to defend the good before bad, the innocent before the guilty.Perhaps that makes me a worse Christian than youNowhere does the Bible call on us to be stupid.If these souls cannot divorce themselves from their behaviorthey will have to place their fate in God’s handsthe ones who have struggled though the difficult process to acheive some degree of moral clarity – have thier hands full defending the good and the innocentThe Bible is very big on people reaping what they sow. Who am I to try to thwart scripture?The Bible is very big on people reaping what they sow. Who am I to try to thwart scripture?<
Jan 11, 2008 - 6:47 am 37. Chip:Reaping what we sow is about dealing with the natural consequences that result from our decisions, i.e: tell a lie, loose people’s trust; steal money, make restitution and go to jail. Sowing offensive art should reap the anger and derision of society, financial failure as an “artist,” jail time for violating obscenity laws, etc. NOT death.
This is the most important subject nobody is talking about. I’ve heard leftists whining about hypothetical “chilling effect(s)” my entire adult life. Now there is a real one and they’re in favor of and abetting it.
Jan 11, 2008 - 7:12 am 38. Chip:Bill just compared all Muslims to an angry bull. I’ll bet he fancies himself a real secular progressive renaissance man.
Jan 11, 2008 - 7:35 am 39. RE:At what point does a your role of ‘protector’ become that of an ‘enabler’ then, Anne?
1 Corinthians 5 1-13 is the basis for my position
Jan 11, 2008 - 8:23 am 40. tanstaafl:Ok, Mark William Paules, I’ll bite back.
Islam is a comprehensive way of life highly valued by its peaceful practitioners for its sense of orienting them to their place on this Earth and giving them a moral grounding. The call to prayer is beautiful, the 5X day prayer lends further grounding to the rhythm of an individual’s daily life.
“Jihad” means individual striving for personal excellence.
As for “art”, some of Islam’s mosques are among the most exquisite creations springing from the hands of man. The giant Baniyam Buddha statues gratuitously destroyed by the Taliban (justified by one line in the Koran) had been an integral part of the Afghans’ cultural milieu for centuries.
Islamism (usually preceded by the word “radical”) is a creed dreamed up by a bunch of outlaws to whom the word “jihad” means that a “good” Muslim is necessarily required to slaughter any individuals labeled infidels, polytheists, unbelievers, Jews, even fellow Muslim shi’ites …whoever the creed declares to be non followers of Islam. Or, in the case of shi’ites, non followers of the correct Islam.
According to the creed of Radical Islamism, anyone not believing in the necessity of violent jihad cannot be a “good” Muslim.
(The alternative to death for the unbelievers is dhimmitude where you might be allowed to live in a state of submission to your Islamic superiors as you might be useful as a source of tax money.)
Let me note that Sayyid Qutb (the “inspiration” for Al Zawahiri’s version of Salafist Islam) was a genuine, Grade A down to earth crackpot.
The followers of Radical Islamism The Creed have attempted to convince themselves that they are following Allahs’ single plan for this small Earth by spreading the creed to all corners of the Earth and overwhelming (through destruction) anything that is not it.
In order to justify itself, the creed relies on certain (bellicose) passages in the Koran relative to conditions under which Mohammed lived 14 centuries ago.
Jan 11, 2008 - 8:52 am 41. Anne:>At what point does a your role of ‘protector’ become that of an ‘enabler’ then, Anne?
>1 Corinthians 5 1-13 is the basis for my position>At what point does a your role of ‘protector’ become that of an ‘enabler’ then, Anne?
>1 Corinthians 5 1-13 is the basis for my position<
Please remember that the letter of first Corinthians is written to the church in Corinth to correct wrong doing among the believers in Christ as the resurrected Lord.
Everyone in society is constrained to conform to the laws, rules, and social mores of that society or suffer the consequences. Christians, however, are held to a much higher standard than merely what society requires, especially in these times (and incidentally, during the time Corinthians was written. That was the whole point Paul was making to the Corinthian church.)
Yes, protecting the offensive artist’s life does enable him to continue whatever it is that is offensive.
My point is that there is a whale of a difference between producing offensive art and killing someone for offensive art. Offensive art can break our heart; infuriate us; drive us to retaliate by boycotting the artist and his sponsors; lead us to be certain that we, as taxpayers, do not support it. But to kill or threaten to kill someone for a piece of so-called “art” is certainly outside the bounds of Christianity, and outside the bounds of our society, even with the sad state modern society is in.
I’m not saying buy the guy’s “art.” But a civilized person doesn’t kill some one for producing art with which one doesn’t agree. I’m saying, if someone threatens his life, he should have our (society’s) protection of his life. If some one murders him, the murderer needs to be subject to the law.
Jan 11, 2008 - 10:32 am 42. Mark William Paules:Tanstaafl, as long as we have a dialogue going . . .
I will agree that Salafism (aka Wahabism) is a particularly violent and virulent strain of Islam responsible for most of our current problems. Sufism on the other hand is completely compatible with the values of western civilization: pacific, charitable, and internally focussed. Yet where Islam breeds fatalism and apathy in a populace, its affects are always pernicious. I see no beauty in any religion that keeps its adherents mired in poverty and ignorance.
If there’s a compromise to be found, it means a more secular Islam blended with a more sober, less hedonistic, and (dare I say it) more pious Europe, even if that piety arrives via Islam. That’s a best case scenario. What we have now is worst case: violent radical Islam allied with decadent western socialism. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
Moderate Muslims have much to gain if they embrace western enlightenment values. Secular Europeans would gain by integrating a new population of people along with their conservative religious beliefs. Extremism is the enemy of both.
I teach my students that Rome did not fall in AD 476 as stated in the textbook. The Roman Empire gradually morphed into something new: a blend of Germanic custom, Latin language, and Church hierarchy. The conquered are always absorbed. The conqueror is corrupted by the ideas of the fallen empire. It has to be a blend. And it always is if history is any witness.
Jan 11, 2008 - 5:11 pm 43. Silly Allah:Read the Koran I don’t understand why people are so surprised by the violent nature of Islam. Since terrorists came over to kill thousands of people, and those terrorists all happened to be Muslims, shouldn’t it make sense to understand a little about Islam? It is also especially important to understand more about the religion before commenting on it or changing one’s behavior. How many pundits have tried to convince us that Islam means peace? (It does not, it means submission, as unfortunately Van Gogh found out.)
We should not give up our rights to freedom because of a 7th century violent, racist, misogynist religion. Spend a little time and read the Koran
Jan 11, 2008 - 6:15 pm 44. Marcus:Spend a little time and read the Torah.
You will see where the real hate comes from.
Jan 11, 2008 - 11:09 pm 45. tanstaafl:Mark William Paules,
I admire Sufism, but it is also much under attack by radical Islamists as an aberrant, incorrect and “wrong” version of Islam.
Its peaceful practitioners and whirling dervish dancers would be more on the radar screen as targets if their numbers were greater. As would that transcendently beautiful Persian poet of yore, Rumi.
The notion that most drove the (madman) Sayyid Qutb, and, by extension, Ayman al Zawahiri, is a notion of “purity” (oddly enough) and the extreme mindset cannot and will not tolerate anything on this Earth that it judges to be not it.
Even the bloodshed and blood itself is tied in with notions of purification.
Muslims have lived in Europe, relatively peacefully, for a long time. Maybe that is the more “secularized” version of Islam to which you refer, Muslims who understand that they are subject to the laws of the country in which they’re living. “Moderate” Muslims embraced “western enlightenment values” a long time ago. Or, if not completely embraced, at least made some kind of peace with them.
However, I don’t see much possibility of integration into European culture of this relatively “new” and virulent strain of Islam.
Nor do I think radical Islamists want to be integrated into the European countries to which they’re migrating, see, for example, recent statements of Islamists in Great Britain who teach exclusion and aloofness from the corrupt, infidel culture surrounding them.(links below)
The extremist slayer of Theo Van Gogh has no regrets for his heroic act in service to the glory of Allah and Allah’s plan for this Earth.
Given declining European birth rates and increasing immigrant birth rates, it is not a stretch to imagine that Islam will rise in Europe through sheer numbers alone.
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2402973.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/06/nislam106.xml
(another Amir Taheri essay)
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={1F890361-DF36-4B4B-823C-77A0F7442FA9}
Jan 12, 2008 - 9:21 am 46. ray:For those of you that studied Darwin know that survival of the fitest and that the strong will rule over the weak is a natural and un stoppable progression, Islam is strong, there is no need for censorship because there is respect from strength, criminal rob because they can,, they might get a court fine or slap on the wrist, but steal under Sharia and get your hands cut off, that strength, self preservation, call what you may.
It only a matter of timne before the strong rule over the weak.
Get your Burkas ready it’s just a matter of time.
Jan 13, 2008 - 3:22 pm 47. RE:Not to worry, ray. Gulliver will be waking from his sleep soon.
Jan 14, 2008 - 7:24 am 48. tanstaafl:Oh yes, the strong against the weak.
Steal under the Taliban in Afghanistan and receive your punishment, following yet another single line in the Koran.
A hand removed from one side of the body, a foot from the other.
If you steal and are well connected (financially), you could even pay to get some poor schlub to stand in for your crime and receive the treatment.
I see no strength in these precepts.
I see the endless rules of shari’a and Hadiths and fatwas being issued for every conceivable aspect of human experience (often contradictory, depending on which Ayatollah is doing the issuing) as creations of insecure individuals who want little more than what insecure people have always wanted, to control other people through intimidation and fear.
And Mohammed’s wife (and financial benefactress) Khadija never wore anything resembling that stupid black bug suit.
Jan 15, 2008 - 11:53 am