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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.
They could have put him in a pedobear costume.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
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.
...is to increase the number of targets by several orders of magnitude. No, really, I'm quite serious. If everyone posts or publishes a cartoon simultaneously mocking Mohammed, Jesus, and Moses, there will be no practical way for religious extremists to respond. (Yes, I know there are other religions, but it's the big three monotheist camps that are making most of the trouble.)
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Part of the plot of the episode was the characters worrying that Muhammad was going to appear in their town. They kept asking "is that okay" in the episode... representations of Muhammad as a stick figure to Muhammad inside a U-Haul prompt worried questions from the characters... eventually the characters opt to place Muhammad in a full-body bear suit so he was not visible.
"is that okay?"
I guess not.
[signature]
I mean, so far, South Park has lampooned Christ, Budda, etc....and yet none of these groups have threatened them with anything more dangerous than possibly a boycott.
Seriously, what the fuck is with these people? Isn't it time to move into the 21st century with the rest of us?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This is exactly the reaction that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were looking for.
If you watch the episode, the members of South Park conclude that the only way to _NOT OFFEND_ Muslims is to put him in a bear suit.
Unfortunately, it looks like in the real world, the Muslims are even more crazy than South Park has depicted them to be. It shows exactly how wacko the muslim community is.
It's similar to the Scientology episode...except, they didn't actually get sued by Scientologists. I daresay, that Scientologists are more sane in this regard than Muslims.
I mixed up things, they actually depicted him 2001 as TFA says in "super best friends" , but as I stated, I don't recall anybody said anything back then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends
"Cartoon Wars Part II" is a different show aired after the danish
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Wars_Part_II
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
OK, OK, *Somebody* had to make the joke.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
"Extremists Warn South Park Creators Over Muhammad in a Bear Suit"
What a total wimp-out of a headline. A 'warning' is when the weatherman says 'it looks icy out today, drive slow.' When someone calls upon the nut-jobs of the world to murder you because you pissed off their bronze-age sky fairy, that's inciting violence, an explicit threat. I'm willing to go pretty far in support of free speech, but this is definitely "fire in a crowded theater" material.
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.
Christianity used to honor a similar tradition to prevent idolatry.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Too be fair, the terrorists are no more about Islam then Pat Robertson is about Christianity.
Not to mention that the KKK are all radical Christians, but we wouldn't want them speaking on behalf of the entire faith, now would we?
If they're such extremists what are they doing watching South Park?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
From watching the episode, the entire point of it seemed to be to show the absurdity of a prohibition on any depiction of someone. By making a depiction of Muhammed (PBUH) that involved no image that was recognizably of him, they showed that the prohibition was ridiculous, because it is then a blanket prohibition on any image. I could say that the category icon for this story was a depiction of the Prophet disguised as a white man in glasses with a black rectangle over his mouth - suddenly that would be a prohibited image.
CAVEAT: This line of argument also means that prohibitions on depictions of things that _we_ think shouldn't be allowed are also absurd.
Finally, this is not to say that I think that any image is acceptable, but it must have to do with the objective content (or at least consensus agreement of what the objective content is), rather than what the artist intended it to depict, or what it may have been interpreted as depicting.
Is that Islam has not undergone a process analogous to the Enlightenment.
Pre-Enlightenment, much of Europe was basically a mass of warring theocracies, split between the Catholic ones and the Protestant ones. Separation of church and state were basically nonexistent, blasphemy laws were on the books(and had real teeth, with limited exceptions[thanks a whole fucking lot Ireland] the ones that remain are just relics at this point). You easily could be, and people were, killed for having the wrong doctrinal positions. Censorship was rampant. Things pretty much sucked.
Thanks to the dedicated(and at times heroic, not a few faced jail, or worse) efforts of various Enlightenment figures, along with a number of political occurrences(the French Revolution had its minuses; but it did have the salubrious effect of annihilating a schlerotic and corrupt divine-right absolutism and replacing it with a secular nation-state. The Glorious Revolution in England was less dramatic; but went rather better. Then, of course, you had the American Revolution, which was absolutely dripping with Enlightenment sentiment[much to the displeasure of today's crop of "America is a Christian Nation founded on the Bible!!! Dominionist nutjobs]).
The Enlightenment was not an easy process. Much blood, sweat, and ink were spilled; but the results helped make the modern west the more-or-less pleasant place it is today. It was basically the death-knell of absolutist theocracy in the west, and the impetus behind the broad introduction of fun concepts like "human rights" and "freedom of religion"(also coffeehouses and atheism, what's not to love?).
The relatively benign forms of Christianity that we think of today are basically creations of the Enlightenment(even among the zealous, things like persecution and warfare between Catholics, protestants, and various sects thereof are basically off the table). It wasn't always that way. Even today, there are reactionary hardliners who would really prefer to roll things back(Rushdooney and the "Reconstructionists", for instance, "Dominionists" more generally, are the main thrust of that in the US, where the hardcore are predominantly fundamentalist protestants. On the European stage, we still have the Catholic church pretending that its "canon law", rather than being simply a set of rules for a private club, somehow takes precedence over Civil Law. Without substantial moderating influences, Abrahamic monotheisms are mean, ugly, primitive, and brutal.
Unfortunately, Islam has not, historically, experienced an analogous process. This doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of more-or-less modern people who are nominally "muslim" in the same way that much of the west is still nominally "christian"; but it does mean that none of the major strains of Islam have been subjected to the radical reduction in power that all the various flavors of Christianity have. For instance, a Christian advocate of theocratic government qualifies as a right-wing nutjob(they exist in surprisingly large numbers, unfortunately; but they still qualify as a fringe position). In large areas of the world, Islamic theocracy(either as a matter of law, or in the form of a state so heavily subservient to religious enthusiasts and Sharia courts that it might as well be) is simply the local form of government.
This is not to say that there is anything intrinsically superior about Christianity. It fought progress tooth-and-nail, every step of the way, during the Enlightenment. To this day, it harbors downright nasty reactionary elements. And, despite protestations to the contrary, most of the noblest aspects of our society exist in spite of rather than because of it. (Fun stuff like "Civil law" and "freedom of conscience" are either classical, or modern derivations from the classical philosophical tradition). However, because Islam has not been subjected to the moderating(some would say "neutering") influence of an Enlightenment, it retains many of the ugly elements that Christianity no longer has the political power or cultural clout to employ.
To be fair a good percentage of those being brought up as Muslims are being taught that it'd be an honor to kill a few infidels like Matt and Trey.
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
Source.
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.
The IRA were, and are, Marxists in all but name. If you doubt, read the Sinn Fein manifesto, available online now. What, you never heard that on the news? How could that be? The rule, "All terrorists are collectivists or Muslims" is only rarely violated.
And that somehow makes it better? They're ALL fucking idiotic barbarian cretins, no matter what they do or say to try and disguise that fact.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
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.
British born muslims of Pakistani heritage blowing up the London subway because of British involvement in the war = Religious.
Irish terrorists blowing up shit in the UK and the rest of the catholic world not really giving a shit about it = Nationalist.
Call us when multiple Western nations blow up basically everything in Afghanistan and Iraq because of what they perceive as Muslim terrorist atrocities against their fellow Western Christians.
Fixed that for you...
I have to admit it's not quite the same, but you have to see that it's also not that different... especially not in the eyes of the 'insurgents/terrorists/whatever'.
Part of the problem with the Western understanding and handling of Islam is that Islam is inherently political as well as religious. Like the Old Testament, Islam dictates many of the laws that a society is supposed to have in order to please Allah. Christians get around that by saying the Old Testament was for another time, but many Muslim-majority societies do not. Even Muslim communities within non-Muslim host societies want to have Islamic "law" to the extent possible, such as in England by taking advantage of contract law and arbitration and using Islamic law as a basis for contracts in civil issues like marriage, inheritance, etc.
People like you try to say the same thing about Christianity. The IRA are Christian terrorists because they are terrorists who are Christian and want to kick out rulers of another sect of Christianity. Okay, that's true, but are they kicking out those rulers so that they can set up a certain Christian *society* as well? Are they going to not allow freedom of religion? Have special rules and laws for people of other religions?
I don't think the IRA ever claimed to want any of those things, but that's exactly what Muslim groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda want. That's why people like me don't understand or agree with those kinds of comparisons. Sure there are groups-that-are-composed-of-Christians who do bad things, but there are very few organized Christian groups that are pushing for actual Christian rule.
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.