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Extremists Warn South Park Creators Over Muhammad In a Bear Suit
An anonymous reader writes "A radical Islamic website is warning the creators of South Park that they could face violent retribution for depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode broadcast on Comedy Central last week. RevolutionMuslim.com posted the warning following the 200th episode of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park."
They already had depicted him before in season 10 "Cartoon Wars Part II":
http://images.southparkstudios.com/media/images/504/superbestfriends.gif
I was kind of surprised when I watched the show since they did this right after the danish
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy
What surprised me even more is that I don't recall anybody saying anything back then. Nevertheless, apparently Comedy Central is now refusing to show depiction of Muhammad so it seems the authors decided to masquerade him as a bear.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I think they actually knew what they could be getting themselves into when they did this. Even though South Park seems "childish", it does do social commentary, and it shows that the authors seem to be paying attention to the world around them. I may not agree with everything they have done, but in my opinion, it's better that they do too much than too little. It's important that someone has the balls to stand up and speak out. And now they dared to touch Muhammad.
That said, have they ever refused to parody or ridicule someone or something? Is there anything that is "sacred" to them?
Muhammad might be sacred to Muslims, and they may be offended by this. But this is exactly why Muhammad needs to be ridiculed even more. Nothing should be above criticism and ridicule, and if some think that they or their symbols are, they should be the target of even more ridicule, until they understand that they will not be able to do anything they please without criticism for their wrongdoings.
Let's hope Matt and Trey won't end up as "martyrs" of free speech, though. We need them around to keep doing what they do.
Clever signature text goes here.
The reverse is also true though, this is getting Al Amrikee much more attention than he deserves.
Really? I think he deserves a little more attention. I eagerly await the South Park episode where a whiny little pissant runs around saying, "This is not a threat but a warning that you are on murder lists ..." to everyone in South Park. It'd be hard but I have confidence that Matt and Trey would adequately portray the stupidity of Al Amrikee. "Raising awareness?" More like a power trip or inciting a murder.
My work here is dung.
Funny you mention the "move into the 21st century with the rest of us" bit. I've been taking a seminar on terrorism and one (of the many) reasons the middle east and (some of) the Muslims that inhabit it are so prone to violence is because they've had considerably less time to modernize. Europe and America had hundreds of years to turn from an agrarian society into a modern one. The middle eastern world has had considerably less time, and yet they still have access to all the AK-47s they can imagine. The modernization of the western world was not a clean process, but we had a lot of time to do it. Now we expect the same of all these random goat herders, but they don't want to drop their farm and start working in a cubicle and watching comedy central. This isn't the only reason for terrorism, but its something to ponder anyway.
My other thought as soon as I read the summary is, "You idiots. They did this to illustrate how stupid it is to get up in arms over a mere image. The fact that you took the bait and threatened actual violence against the South Park creators shows how backwards and moronic your whole life is. You have failed epically."
Of course, that would sound a bit like flamebait itself, but its pretty much the case. If a poorly drawn bear suit on a cartoon on TV thats merely purported to be "Muhammad" is an issue for you, maybe its time to grow some thicker skin.
Let me first state that I don't condone terrorism of any kind from anyone. Having said that, your comparison between The Troubles and jihadi's is flawed. Irish terrorism was motivated more by politics than religion, whereas the opposite is true with Al Queada.
Sure, the IRA played heavily on the Catholic vs. non-Catholic angle as a recruiting tool, and Al Queada plays on the Imperialist vs. anti-Imperialist angle for the same reason. But Irish terrorism was mainly political (i.e. get the Brits out so we can run our own country) not like Al Queada (kill all the infidels and impose an Islamic caliphate world order).
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Maybe the Muslim community supports them more than you think.
What I've found talking with moderate Muslims from Muslim-majority countries is that they are all for tolerance in principle, but in specific instances they'll say "Yeah but why do they want to say THAT about Muhammed? What does that contribute to free speech?" and so on.
We don't exactly help the situation when we have Western countries that outlaw hate speech (e.g. Canada, which recently threatened Anne Coulter when she was going to speak at a university).
I don't know if you've ever read Terry Pratchett novels, but a recurring joke is when the police investigate a death and classify it as suicide instead of murder - because the person did something provocative that would obviously lead to murder. The assumption is that the people who murdered him HAD to murder him.
Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan have a segmented society and the moderate, liberalized, urban Muslims who you typically see as journalists, authors, etc, are very much like Terry Pratchett's characters. They see a huge segment of their population as beyond help. The bad Muslims have a "tribal" (not "Muslim") culture. They are uneducated and ignorant. They don't know the true Islam. Maybe they are funded/co-opted by the CIA/Israel/India/Blackwater. Whatever the excuse, the purpose is to say "See, we have all these people who JUST HAVE TO get violent when you do something un-Islamic like insult Muhammed, promote women's education, say something positive about the US."
So for the sake of the stability of their society, they say, they can't support the kind of "destructive" free speech that we want them to support.
The debatable part (for us) is whether those "tribal" people really don't understand Islam, or if it's the moderate and liberal minority who doesn't understand Islam. (As if there's one "Islam" anyway.) And to what degree the moderates are actually moderate compared to using the "tribal" excuse to appear moderate while pragmatically leaning towards fundamentalism.
That's just my experience though.
do you expect them to get violent and angry about people getting violent and angry in their name? If that's not actually how they are, then the "reaction" will be substantially more passive.
For my part, I saw an ad right after 9/11 for an outreach from the Muslims to demonstrate their faith and that they didn't want to kill white people. So I showed up, talked to a few guys for a long while. During the discussion I learned that if someone asks about their faith, then one of the core principles is that the person has to stop right then and there and explain it to them. Then I learned that the guy that was doing most of the talking had his wife sitting in the car for the 2 hours he had been in there with me - he seemed sensitive to the fact that this was the case, but...fact is, there was no where on the grounds that the wife was allowed to be other than in the car in the parking lot. Not that I was going to be converted anyway, but the fact that the wife wasn't even allowed in the building...or any other buildings on the ground...they can talk all they want about being the "religion of peace" but sorry, I have a bit too much respect for women for that.
Turkey went through a period of Enlightenment like what you're describing after WWI(Ataturk was a big proponent of Enlightenment ideals) and it's amazing how quickly things have changed there. The religion itself is unimportant, it's all about the people who have opportunities to change things.
The crusades ended over 700 years ago. Since then the Catholic church has changed dramatically. The pope is no longer the ruler of any kind of an empire. In fact, in the US, he is pretty much just a dirty joke. Since the end of the crusades western civilization has gone through the Renaissance, the Reformation, a long series of civil wars, that has all but eliminated the direct influence of organized religion on government. We've gone through the whole experience of the new world and contact with the civilizations of the Americas, Japan, China, India, Africa, Southeast Asia.... the list is too long to write and I appologize to those I missed.
In other words we have changed. We are not the people who carried out the crusades.
In the US we have as a basic concept of law that the government may not interfere with the practice of your religion so long as that practice does not infringe on the rights of other people to live their lives as they see fit. We aren't perfect on holding to that principle. But, it explains why I can be a Buddhist living in Texas who drives past a Mosque on my way to the grocery store. My friends, neighbors, coworkers, and relatives include everything from born again fundamentalist Christians to Wiccans, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Native Americans, Mormons, and Atheists.
Here in Texas you can celebrate Cinco De Mayo in front of the Alamo. We can watch Anime on December 7th. And on St. Patrick's Day, my Irish relatives can sit down with my Scots Irish (Orangemen all by their ancestory) relatives and all drink a beer and toast Ireland. Not one of them cares about which side their ancestor were on. We're all just Irish on St. Patty's day.
And yet, when I listen to Muslim Clerics and such talking about why they hate us they always talk about something that some people from Europe did some folks from where they live 700 years ago. We aren't the people who did it them. And you are not the people it happened to. What kind of sickness is at the core of a society that keeps a grudge for 700 years?
Of course, that is the problem. The extremist Muslims seem to still be nursing a grudge from 700 years ago. Every heard a European express a grudge against the Mongols 700 years ago? No? Me neither. But, we are dealing with people who use something that happened 700 years ago as justification for killing us.
One last comment: You don't want to piss off every South Park fan in the world. You really don't. Kill South Park and millions of people who don't currently even bother to vote will become your implacable enemies. Blowing up lower Manhattan is one thing. Messing with a favorite TV show, now that is something you do not want to do.
Stonewolf
P.S.
I'm a great great grandson of John D. Lee. (look up "The Mountain Meadow Massacre. And yes, according to my family he did it.) So I understand what religious fanaticism can do to people at a deep personal level. I truly hope that this problem passes into history with no more violence. But, I deeply fear that it will lead to the deaths of millions, if not billions, of people.