Maybe I didnt say this right, I have a knack for writing without any content. This has nothing to do with
the separation of church and state; nor does a separation of church and state have
anything to do with the reason Fox, ultimately Rupert Murdoch, censored the
image. This isn’t strictly a political
or fundamentally religious problem either.
Certain sects of radical Muslims may be terrorists, but so are guys from
Montana. The seed of the problem lies in the fact that
there’s a fundamental flaw in the way we view Islam. So,
consequently, by going over board in attempting
not to appear racist or ethnocentric (the reason the people of south
park buried their heads in the sand) we often end up insulting people
the same people
we’re trying to appease.
I’m not going to pretend I know much about Islam. But one of the rationales offered by one fox
executive as to why the image of Mohammed was censored was that it’s against Islamic doctrine to show an image, or even
print the name of Mohammed. This simply isn’t
true. What she was trying to stumble ass
backwards into is that in Islam, saying, writing, or even thinking the name of
God, not Mohammed, suggests that you know God. To know
God puts you on his level, and to be on God’s level nullifies him.
South Park “calling out” the stupid and ignorant is exactly
right. It’s what they do, and that’s exactly
what this episode was trying to point out.
They weren’t calling out Muslims, Christians, or even a political
ideology. They
were trying to show that
by denying them their right to free speech will ultimately cause much
more harm
than good. My point was that if we as a culture are now going to
become so intent on not offending certain groups, why does it only go
so far as the latest sympathetic news paper headlines.
-Pey