Once more a cartoon on the prophet Muhammad has become the target for some Muslim protests.
This time it was a Swedish artist who portrayed the prophet as a face on a dog’s body. (More details here.).
Before it had been a Danish cartoonist and newspaper that were under pressure. (What’s wrong with you, northern European people?)
During my lifetime I’ve been reading much more sensitive material on the Muslim faith than any of the cartoons mentioned above could ever aspire to. Including a recent psychological theory that links suicide-bombers to a polygamous society, where sexual frustration of many who hadn’t have access to women could play a decisive role on the education of those who are about to enter Allah’s realm in the company of seventy two virgins. Not to mention Christopher Hitchen’s article, «Was Muhammad Epileptic?»
Do you remember any demonstration being held against such theories? What does that seem to tell us?
In my humble opinion, that shows us the importance of education. Indeed, the fact that only cartoons seem to be raising protests might unfortunately mean that the majority of Muslims don’t know how to read anymore. According to Steven Weinberg’s book review «A Deadly Certitude» (obviously referring to mortal’s religion), Islam turned against science already in the twelfth century, maybe with the exception of the military type of science, I add. And continues, “The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God’s hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries.”
And now, after centuries of obscure breeding of minds, destruction of educational infrastructures and the cult of oil, Islam fails to teach its children how to read, the most important way of conveying past knowledge to this ever renewing human world. It is a terrible thing, from my perspective. Education is not the solution to problems in itself but it is the way to produce solvers. And let’s ignore that that is an endless circle, shall we?
Analphabetic Islam, if images are indeed the only thing you can understand now, have a look at surrealist painter René Magritte’s art, ask someone to read you the text below, and please realize that a cartoon of Muhammad is not Muhammad. And that a cartoon is as offensive as a mosquito. And that your protest is the one that advertises worldwide what would have been seen and forgot by a few hundreds of local readers.
