A few weeks ago I stumbled into an argument on Twitter about Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. The fellow I was tweeting with made the claim that drawing Mohammed was disrespectful, given that Muslims find it offensive, and thus nobody should do ever do it. His position was clear, direct, black-and-white, and seemingly inflexible. I countered that artists should be free to depict whatever their imaginations demand of them… that if you start placing limits on what is and is not acceptable, you eventually have 1984… that if Muslims don’t want to depict Mohammed, they don’t have to… but it all fell on deaf ears. The dude wouldn’t budge.
The dude was wrong, I believe… but let me defer that point for a moment.
I said to him—not knowing him well—that I was certain if he was an artist, he would sympathize with my opinion. To my utter astonishment, he said he was an artist: an actor and a director and a playwright. My immediate response, which I kept to myself, was uncharitable. A moment later, I was simply a bit befuddled: how was it possible that an artist might not agree with me on this matter? How could any genuine artist hold such a conservative opinion? (Kelsey Grammar is tough for me to figure out; Mel Gibson is beyond my comprehension.) It didn’t make sense to me.
And then I realized: he’s not actually a conservative, this fellow. He thinks of himself as a liberal. In his mind, he’s being supremely sensitive to others’ feelings, even people very different from him. He thinks he’s thinking nice thoughts. And I applaud him for that… even though I still believe he’s wrong.
So then I got serious, and I decided I had to write about our conversation.
—————————-
A loud percentage of the citizens not only of our country, but of the world, hold a singularly dangerous belief: that their dogma must be our dogma, and it must be taken seriously and literally by us or we shall suffer the consequences. This much is true not only of the fundamentalist Muslims who threatened to kill Molly Norris—the founder of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day—for her cartoon, not to mention the ones who’ve threatened to kill any number of other artists for similar acts, but of the many fundamentalist Christians here in the United States, and similarly extremist members of other world religions and ideologies, who have done similar things.
They believe what they believe not because their opinions are rational or reasonable or informed by evidence. They believe what they believe because they’ve been told what they should believe, because their beliefs make them feel good, because they like the way their beliefs sound, because their beliefs are written down in a small number of very old books, because they can’t bear the difficulty and complexity of not believing… maybe all of the above. But not because reason and logic and evidence have played a central role in forming their opinions. Not at all.
These people number, by any reasonable estimate, in the billions. Here in the United States alone, 15o million or so citizens do not believe in evolution. Of that number, a significant percentage would rely on that belief to dictate not only how their own children are taught, but how all children everywhere in America are taught. They would prefer that those of us who disagree with them keep our ideas to ourselves.
Beliefs derived from reasoned examination of evidence make them uncomfortable. Undermine their dogma. Remove the veils from their eyes and make them face the world’s complexity and difficulty head-on.
If a given idea isn’t sanctioned by their clergy or holy books, it simply isn’t welcome. They want the story of the universe and humanity’s place in it to be told in the established way. No permutations allowed.
This makes us, as artists, their enemies, because our job is to tell new stories, or to take the old stories and transform and adapt them to fit the callings and needs of our age. By doing that, we keep the world’s mind fresh and re-invigorated. We give the world a new vocabulary to use in grappling with our evolving understanding of the universe. We are performing a service for our fellow citizens. Extremists see us, however, as assaulting the battlements of their belief systems.
Extremists like the Muslims who would kill an artist for depicting Mohammed.
—————————-
They think of us as their enemies. We must not, however, think the same of them. We must instead think of them, I believe, as potential audience members.
We must create the stories we need to create to help their minds open, to help them ask questions. And sometimes, that’s going to mean depicting Mohammed in our work, if only to ask questions about him.
Some of our fellow artists have already taken this brave step—think about our hero in this matter, Salman Rushdie—and paid a steep price for doing so. But his work has opened tremendous dialogue and, in the process, softened more than a few extreme minds.
I say it again: we must think of extremists as potential audience members. The surest way to lose an audience is to condescend to it or insult it. It doesn’t make sense, in other words, to depict Mohammed just because it will ruffle a billion people’s feathers. It has to be done with good intentions and compassion. As a Jew, I get enraged when a member of Ku Klux Klan hangs a swastika flag somewhere; when I see the same flag in, say, Inglourious Basterds, I have no problem whatsoever.
In neither case, of course, would I be justified in killing anyone.
—————————-
Ms. Norris created Everybody Draw Mohammed Day in response to the censorship of an episode of South Park that depicted Mohammed. Her thought was that if everybody drew Mohammed, the futility of murdering countless heretics would deflate terrorists’ ambitions… and, perhaps, invite them to question the wisdom of their intent to do so. As of last week, she’s been forced to go into hiding due to the number and seriousness of the death threats against her… for standing in solidarity with her fellow artists.
We need to defend her, not accuse her. I have a great deal less interest in defending the creators of South Park, who strike me as hopelessly juvenile in virtually everything they do—they seem like the artistic equivalent of the KKK—but I think we need to defend them, too. Ultimately, it comes down to this: we simply have to side with creating new stories over protecting the old ones, because creating new stories is what we do.
And that’s exactly why, if my creativity demanded it, I would write a play that depicts Mohammed. I wouldn’t do it lightly. I wouldn’t do it to spite or belittle or mock people. I’d do it out of compassion for whatever subject I was wrestling with. I’d do it with full awareness of how it might affect my life (and the lives of my family and friends) once it hit the stage, but I would do it nonetheless. I wouldn’t consider myself a true artist if I wasn’t willing to take that sort of stand. I don’t romanticize what Ms. Norris must be living through now, or what Salman Rushdie has been living through now for quite a long time, but I do want to think I’d have the courage of my convictions… and perhaps I would.
I believe – also, Hi, blog readers, it was me he had this conversation with – that my problem with it, once I was able to give my kneejerk reaction a reasoned think, is that, as can be seen by what ended up happening to her, her initiative doesn’t actually address an issue so much as ridicule it. The problem with this is that if Muslim extremists see themselves as the defenders of Islam – all Islam, not just extreme Islam – then doing something overtly offensive to the sensibilities of Muslims*in general* results poorly, and also offends people only distantly associated with your target. It is tantamount to ridiculing all Catholics as stupid because all priests are pedophiles, rather than artfully addressing a real issue in a real way. My problem, then, is with the efficacy/merit of this as a valid political statement.
Rushdie’s work, and the play you propose here, are fundamentally different than what Norris did. No one would be justified in enacting violence on her, naturally, but as we see again and again, irrational people will want to do stupid things, First Amendment be damned.
Hi, Matt — I’m really SO glad you wrote. Thanks for joining the conversation…
I think where we differ is in our understandings of the woman’s intent. My reading suggests that she was standing in solidarity with the creators of South Park — that she was saying, in essence, “Let’s all make ourselves targets so that they won’t be able to hurt any one of us.” I don’t think she was trying to enrage anyone.
The South Park people, on the other hand… they were belittling Muslim fundamentalists. That I find… well… stupid. But I also defend their right to do that, too, even if I find it distasteful. And, as you’ve said, not a valid political statement.
In the Gospel of Thomas (not part of the Canon), Jesus is often frustrated with his disciples. “Who do you think I am?” he asks. The son of God, they say. The one and only. He scolds them, in effect: you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t understand what I’ve been saying this whole time.
It couldn’t be any other way, of course. He’s where he is. They’re where they are. Einstein could explain the theory of relativity, but it must pass through the filter of me first. So here’s the question: if not even the disciples *got* it, how can we? If the authors of the book themselves had only a limited understanding (which, incidentally, is the premise of the Bible itself), how much can we rely on our own?
Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha. I will never be able to understand what they really mean until I’ve gotten there, too…at which point I’ll have no reason to think about it anymore. Ultimately, then, perhaps there’s no such thing as faith, but rather faith in one’s faith. You don’t have faith in God, but in your understanding of God, which is to say: in yourself.
When God looks you in the face and says, “pssssh, you have no idea!,” if that’s not an argument for humility…
I generally don’t reply to anonymous comments — if you don’t have the courage to stand by your comment, it’s not worth a response — but to this one I just have to say: what the heck? You haven’t in any way made any sense or responded to what I wrote.
I feel similarly about Dan Savage’s response to the first letter, here, which a number of my friends are lauding:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=5135029
Is the *point* right? Sure. The approach, however, is alienating and ultimately does nothing but reinforce L.R.’s prejudice by ridiculing her and doing precisely the thing she’s complaining about.
I had EXACTLY the same reaction when I read that earlier today.
I mean, I totally understand his anger. I share it, too. The woman who wrote him is clearly an idiot.
How much more effective might it have been, however, if he had shown his emotions in a more responsible way? If he gave her the space to see how hurt and frustrated and angry he was by her actions and ideas without belittling her for having them. What a more empowered, adult choice that would have been!
Then again: an argument could be made that, if you’re writing to Dan Savage, you’re familiar enough with his general POV (which is far more acidic than the “It Gets Better” campaign would lead one to believe) to expect that kind of response. In other words, perhaps she wanted some kind of public beat-down. You never know.
Still, this is why I no longer read Dan Savage; as much as I used to love him, I’m thoroughly tired of the rancor in public conversation. I’m tired of participating in it, and I’m tired of consuming it. Discretion and adult communication are my new guiding lights.
I’m not an expert on Islamic art by any means, but I have seen enough of it to know that sometimes Mohammed is depicted: Often with a veil, but also with his face clearly shown without a veil.
The point is that there is a great diversity of religious opinion even within Islam on this matter, and while deliberately offending someone else’s religious sensibilities may not be the liberal thing to do, giving tacit support to extremists who want to oppress their more moderate co-religionists (as well as people outside the faith) is not what a liberal should be doing.
I am with you for certain.