Fwd: [Reader-list] Muhammad Cartoons

[mahmood farooqui]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mahmood farooqui <mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com>
Date: 04-Feb-2006 00:40
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Muhammad Cartoons
To: rajesh mehar <rajeshmehar at yahoo.com>


You know, I think that people printing cartoons of Mohammed is not
such a big deal-or is it?

Let me approach it from the other end. Pakistan has something called
the blasphemy laws.  Under those laws anybody who says anything which
can be shown to be undermining anything Mohammed upheld is a
blasphemy.

Consider the full implications of this. Mohammed, peace be upon him,
said many things in llife. On occsion that he did not, the people who
wrote his seerat and the people who wrote the Hadith, traditions and
anecdotes of his life, are particularly garrulous and numerous.
Altogether therefore, there is nothing, like Ali or Marx or Gandhi,
that Mohammed has supposedly left unsaid. They include enjoining
perfect equality, non-violence, solidarity and humility upon mankind.
By extension, in theory and sometimes in practice, if I were to
complain that the human race is hugely fucked up and will remain so
forever might count as blasphemy.

On the other hand, however, the western European society has been
having a field day caricaturing Mohammed forever. Did they not
identify him as Mahound, the name given to the anti-christ in Dante's
Inferno-a thirteenth century text. Or was it the fourteenth century-I
tell you, these European dates!

Of course to a prosecuted and quasi-self-persecuted Muslim world it is
a hugely cathartic occasion that they have found an issue when
self-healing chest thumping can be accompanied by a genuine sense of
grievance-i.e. we may, with perfect justification inflict imaginary
violence upon the creators and purveyors of these cartoons.

I share your sense of outrage. Ghalib, I think, has been there before,

hum aah bhi karte hain to ho jaate hain badnaam
voh qatl bhi karte hain to charcha nahin hota

SInce it is, eventually, about power relations, I acknowledge the
wantonness of the powers that circulated those cartoons. But they are,
after all, cartoons. What can one say about the minds that would
create and enjoy cartoons like these. What can we say, on the other
hand, about jokes that continue to circulate related to the sexuality
and other quirks of the father of our nation, viz Mahatma Gandhi. Of
course jokes and cartoons are different media, I understand that.

What I am trying to say is that our minor yet hegemonic brothers of
Islam, that is the Arab world, have made protest enough about these
cartoons, perhaps they have little else to contribute to the Muslim
discourse anyway. What we should do perhaps is to hold steadfastly to
our rising sense of importance and clout in the world. If India is
rising, can Muslims be far behind. Then they won't bloody be able to
say anything, will they.

Of course, if our Hindu brothers want they may forsake Danish
products-in case they know any.

To approach this from another angle, yet. The annals of Mughal Empire
are full of instances of people being brought to trial for having
insulted the Prophet, often in the most obscure way. The MUghal qazis,
to their great credit, usually dealt with these things in the most
common-sensical way. One of the great casualties of modernity, and its
attendant discourses, has been that same robust common-sensicalness of
which we onec had aplenty.

Did not Kabir once say-taapar mulla bang de, kya bahra hua khudaaye?

(It wont do to blame Kabir's ignorance-for one of the meanings of
bang daadan in farsi is to give azaan...)

Mahmood



On 03/02/06, rajesh mehar <rajeshmehar at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Looks like there's been an all-out battle royale erupting all over Europe
> and West Asia over this issue:
>
> "The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began when twelve
> editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad were printed in
> the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 (and later
> in the Norwegian Christian newspaper Magazinet on January 10 2006, the
> German newspaper Die Welt, the French daily France Soir, and many other
> European newspapers)..."
>
> Full article at -->
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy
>
> Related Wiki News articles -->
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Saudis_boycott_Danish_dairy_produce
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/%27Denmark_will_be_attacked%27_says_one_expert%2C_%27Denmark_safe%27_says_another
>
> What's even more remarkable is that the mainstream media in India has not
> even whimpered about the issue. If not for Wikipedia's home page I probably
> would not have come to know about this at all.
>
> --Rajesh.
>
>
> Gonna make a lot o'money, gonna quit this crazy scene.
>
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