Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 1:50am

Lars Vilks, Gay Muhammad and Freedom of Expression

This past week brings news of yet another fracas involving Swedish cartoon artist Lars Vilks (CNN.com):

When Vilks entered a classroom where he was to deliver a lecture to about 250 people — all of whom had passed through a security checkpoint to gain admission — about five people started protesting loudly, Eronen said.

After Uppsala uniformed and non-uniformed police calmed the protesters, the lecture got under way at about 5:15 p.m. (11:15 a.m. ET), Eronen said.

But as Vilks was showing audiovisual material, 15 to 20 audience members became loud and tried to attack Vilks, he said.

As police stepped in, a commotion started and Vilks was taken to a nearby room; police used pepper spray and batons to fend off the protesters, Eronen said. Vilks did not return to the lecture. [Video footage of the event].

Last March, an American woman who called herself “Jihad Jane,” Colleen LaRose, was indicted in the United States for allegedly conspiring to support terrorists and kill Vilks.

In a 2007 interview with CNN he had drawn the cartoon of Mohammed with a dog’s body in order to take a stand.

“I don’t think it should not be a problem to insult a religion, because it should be possible to insult all religions in a democratic way, “ says Vilks from his home in rural Sweden.

“If you insult one, then you should insult the other ones.”

His crude, sketched caricature shows the head of Prophet Mohammed on the body of a dog. Dogs are considered unclean by conservative Muslims, and any depiction of the prophet is strictly forbidden.

Vilks, who has been a controversial artist for more than three decades in Sweden, says his drawing was a calculated move, and he wanted it to elicit a reaction.

“That’s a way of expressing things. If you don’t like it, don’t look at it. And if you look at it, don’t take it too seriously. No harm done, really,” he says.

When it’s suggested that might prove an arrogant — if not insulting — way to engage Muslims, he is unrelenting, even defiant.

“No one actually loves the truth, but someone has to say it,” he says.

Vilks, a self-described atheist, points out he’s an equal opportunity offender who in the past sketched a depiction of Jesus as a pedophile.

A few days later, Vilk’s website was hacked and the southern Sweden home of Vilks was hit by a suspected arson attack (The Washington Post).

In an act of deliberate provocation, Vilks’ film during his lecture included footage from the Iranian-born activist Sooreh Hera:

[Hera] photographed gay men in masks of Mohammad and his son-in-law Ali. Her video [Allah o Gay-Bar — warning: graphic sexuality] mixes photos of gay men and Muslim clerics, Islamic chants and the hard rock of “Gay Bar” by Electric Six.

The municipal museum in the Hague backed out of its plan to exhibit the photos from Hera’s “Adam and Ewald” series and a related video, according to recent news reports. Wim van Krimpen, director of the Gemeentemuseum, announced that the images were removed because “certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive.”

Hera, 34, accused the museum of caving in to pressure from Islamists, who also sent her death threats. Hera withdrew the rest of her photos from the show in protest, and another Dutch museum in Gouda has agreed to exhibit them in the future.

[…]

“Religion always wants to control human sexuality, most prominently with a compelling taboo on homosexuality,” she says in a statement on her site. “I have tried to show a recognisable beauty of homosexuals, but also an alienating beauty that to many may be unimagined, or dishonorable.”

Reactions have been all too predictable — this, for instance, from Nathan Harden (National Review):

These are the desperate acts of an extremist movement that is utterly bereft of moral courage, and awash in its own intellectual insecurity. Look at these Western-educated students in their designer clothes, calling down curses on a man who represents the freedom they hate so much, and yet have benefited so much from.

They are unaware of the irony they embody as they go about enjoying the fruits of Western civilization, while clinging to a repressive ideology that could never permit such a civilization to flourish. In defense of their failed belief system, they have nothing to offer but physical violence.

Ok, so there is some truth in Harden’s remarks. But I’m also tempted to ask: what is the ideology and belief system of artists like Vilk? What type of civilization is permitted to ‘flourish’ by providing a public forum (or financial patronage in many cases) to artists who strive to shock and offend religious sensibilities?

Consider the Vatican’s reaction to the Muslim outcry over caricatures of Mohammed in 2006 (aka. the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy)?

In an unsigned statement released by the Vatican press office Saturday, the Holy See stated: “The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion.”

“This principle applies obviously to any religion,” the Vatican said in response to several requests for the Church’s position.

Coexistence, the statement continued, calls for “a climate of mutual respect to favor peace among men and nations.”

The statement continued: “Moreover, these forms of exasperated criticism or derision of others manifest a lack of human sensitivity and may constitute in some cases an inadmissible provocation.

“A reading of history shows that wounds that exist in the life of peoples are not cured this way.”

Vilk’s depiction of a ‘Gay Mohammad’ calls to mind the recent, but non-violent, protest over a Texas film student’s plans to stage Terence McNally’s Corpus Christi — with a gay Jesus performing gay marriage; successfully canceled with pressure from Lt. Governor David Dewhurst.

There is no question that the Muslim reaction to Lars Vilks has been grossly disproportionate and ultimately contributes to the general caricature of Islam as a violent religion — after all, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary have been frequent subjects of ridicule by the Western media with nary a death threat, violent protest or firebombing.

Nonetheless, I find it disappointing that the controversy, at least in discussion among blogging conservatives, has been framed in large part as a conflict between “artistic freedom” vs. “religious censorship”; “Western freedom” vs. “Islamic fundamentalism” — with precious little attention is paid to questions such as:

  • Might Muslims be justifiably offended by Vilks’ and Sera’s “gay Muhammad”?
  • Should Western academia be providing a public forum or financial patronage to artists who continually assault religion?
  • When faced with our own depictions of religious blasphemy prevalent in the Western media, should we as Christians seek censorship?
  • Are there any limitations to such ‘freedom of expression’, or is it to be defended at all costs?
  • Is a preservation of complete and unrestricted license with relation to artistic expression condusive to the health of our society?
  • What is the purpose and calling of the artist?
  • What is the nature of freedom that Lars Vilks strives after?

In closing, some recommended food for thought on this topic (incentives for further discussion):

This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the wear and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. And all of this is through your hands. May these hands be pure and disinterested. Remember that you are the guardians of beauty in the world. May that suffice to free you from tastes which are passing and have no genuine value, to free you from the search after strange or unbecoming expressions. Be always and everywhere worthy of your ideals and you will be worthy of the Church which, by our voice, addresses to you today her message of friendship, salvation, grace and benediction.

~ Pope Paul VI, December 8, 1965

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Jim
Jim
Sunday, May 16, AD 2010 7:36pm

This “artist” will learn the limits of free speech – the hard way.

Moozorz
Moozorz
Sunday, May 16, AD 2010 8:03pm

Why should some peoples belief supercede the beliefs, or lack of belifs, of others?

Why should I, or anyone else be forced to abide by the rules of THEIR faith?

What right does religions have to put themselves above everyone else? Is it a godgiven right? Thats what they believe isnt it?

Religions mock the entire world with their existance alone. Grown men and women believing in old fairytales make a mockery of humanity as a whole.

Yet we shouldnt be allowed to point out the glaring flaws, the insecurities, and the barbarism their faith entails?

The very thought is disgusting. The very reason religions are mocked is because they demand respect for their belief, while having no respect at all for those of us who do not believe in any god.

If one imposed limits on the freedom of expression it would cease to exist.

Freedom: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Joe Hargrave
Sunday, May 16, AD 2010 9:09pm

I really am disgusted by the abasement of religion in this manner.

Showing a gay Mohammed is almost as repugnant to me as it is to a Muslim, and is a deliberate act of provocation.

Things were bad enough with Comedy Central. But the reason I defended the creators of South Park is that, first of all, they already SHOWED Mohammed in an earlier episode before the Danish cartoon scandal and no one cared.

It wasn’t a particularly vulgar depiction either. What happened this time around was absurd – they only wanted to “show” Mohammed as they do other religious figures, they’d done it before, and saw the proscription of this time around as arbitrary and irrational, which it was.

In this case, though, I’d say we’re way outside the scope of the Danish cartoon scandal or South Park. To depict is one thing; to associate a revered prophet with sexual immorality in such a blunt way is another. This isn’t about expression because no one believes Mohammed was gay. It is about pissing off Muslims and doing a thing simply because it can be done.

Maybe the distinction I’m making is wrong, maybe it doesn’t exist. But I do see a difference.

restrainedradical
Monday, May 17, AD 2010 2:10am

Joe, I’m not aware of the South Park depictions of Muhammad before the Danish cartoon scandal. Do you have a source?

I think censorship, whether religious or otherwise, should be based on community standards. In America, we’re not sufficiently outraged over irreverent depictions of religion to warrant legal censorship.

Should material of academic value that offend community standards be protected speech? Would Islamic states be justified in completely censoring (as opposed to hide behind a “spoiler warning”) drawings of Muhammad from Wikipedia?

c matt
c matt
Monday, May 17, AD 2010 8:27am

Well that kind of begs the question – what academic value does this really have? That Nathan quote could be re-worded only slightly and it would apply to the artists tehmselves – living off the fruits of Christianity, they can only mock it because they do not have the talent to meet or exceed Christianity’s greatest accomplishments. Where’s our contemporary Sistine Chapel? Our Mona Lisa? Our Pieta? Our art is ugly because our society is ugly.

Largely we are not outraged because most of this “art” is ignored, at least by the unwashed masses.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, May 17, AD 2010 1:34pm

Art ought to be all about aesthetics and edifying the beholder. Soap boxes/op-ed pages/letters to Congressmen are venues for free speech.

I’m a charter member (from birth) of the unwashed masses.

Here’s the reason I ignore art that scandalizes Christ: “Forgive all injuries. Bear wrongs patiently.”

Our Lord will come again in glory and He probably will foresake those that made fun of His Redemptive Life and Salvific Sacrifice.

Finally, it’s not my job to bring justice to poor benighted elites.

Er, I don’t frequently shave, either.

OTOH, muslims must defend Muhammed. That mass murderer is not getting out of Hell.

Moozorz
Moozorz
Monday, May 17, AD 2010 8:17pm

Couldnt help but notice that my original comment has “Your comment is awaiting moderation” stamped on it and is hidden from view of other visitors to this page.

Since my post contained no links, no swearwords, no racism etc the only reason I can think of is because I do not agree with the viewpoints in the article.

The viewpoints in this article must be fragile indeed if only comments of agreement are allowed.

Here, there is no freedom of expression, there is only the freedom to agree.

Moozorz
Moozorz
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 6:41am

First of all, I find it hard to believe that you “had no idea why it was stuck in moderation”. Its your blog after all, even if its an automated process registering on key words, you should have some idea how it works.

Secondly, how long it takes for you to moderate a post was not an issue at all. I reacted to the fact that it was marked for moderation in the first place.

I used the definition of freedom together with the term “freedom of expression” spesifically because I suspected that you might try to use the definition of freedom in the way you just did.

The concept of freedom of expression should be free of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. Just like the definition.

I didnt, like you imply, include concepts like “freedom of murdering people”, “freedom to steal” or “freedom to set oneself above the law” when I put down the definition of freedom.

As for your thoughts about moral conduct:

Laws and norms of human conduct is a result of the society one lives in.

If you some day take a good look at the world around you, I think you will realise that in socities in parts of the world that do not have the luxuries and/or traditions of western culture, the defintions of right and wrong are vastly different.

Surely,if “upholding certain laws or norms of moral conduct” springs from something deeper, as you say, shouldnt people in all corners of the world share the same sense of morality?

Yet they do not.

I also note that you are labeling me a “stalinist”.

Indeed, atheism and stalinism are required to go hand in hand arent they? There is no way that anyone can be opposed to religion without being some sort of communist.

Labeling any opposition communist or stalinist regardless of which issues are being discussed seem to be popular in america.

And then you preach about intolerance. Or spesifically “this kind of intolerance”, implying “intolerance against religions”.

Which is appropriate, since religious groups, including catholics, traditionally have a large number of things they have zero tolerance for.

It sure is good to know that believers have the right and knowledge to define what kinds of intolerance are acceptable or not.

The purpose with which lars vilks lash out and taunt the muslim fundementalist is obvious: Its to teach people that they cannot have their way by resorting to violence. Many religious groups, including your own, realised this a long time ago by themselves.

But before that, catholics and other christians were just as quick to resort to violence as these muslims are now.

Unfortunatly, with the way things are, its impractical to wait the hundreds of years it could take for muslims to reach the same level of peaceful conduct as the major christian factions.

Lastly, from a western moral perspective, who do you think have the moral high ground? The guy who is making pictures and drawings, or the people who are trying to beat him up, kill him and burn his house down?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 6:56am

I put your comment in moderation Moozorz. If it had been in one of my threads I would have deleted it since you merely regurgitate the “I hate religion” meme and have nothing fresh to offer to the debate. Since it was Christopher’s thread I left the ultimate decision as to what to do with your diatribe up to him when he looked over the thread. He duly approved it since he has much more patience than I do for people who repeat tired cliches as a substitute for substantive argument, and is one of the most fair-minded individuals I have encountered on the internet.

Moozorz
Moozorz
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 12:20pm

@Donald R. McClarey

I dont hate religion, I just oppose it :3

Especially when some people in the various religions are attempting to put belief in god above all else, not just for themselves but for others as well.

@Christopher Blosser

As I was reading through your latest post, I noticed several things.

You took my paragraph about freedom of expression and somehow try to twist it into a pro-choice/pro-life issue.

Undoubtedly because you couldnt, at the time, think of a counter-argument that related to the actual issue that was being discussed, i.e. freedom of expression (other than groundless speculation that having freedom of expression will somehow, in a nondescript fashion, lead to a society where one can freely steal, murder, and put oneself above the law.)

Next, funny you should mention a connection between atheism and national socialism.

Let me quote from the The National Socialist Party program from 1920, proclaimed by Adolf Hitler, point 24:

“We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: The good of the state before the good of the individual.¨”

Restrictive, perhaps, but hardly atheistic.

Your other examples are more accurate at least.

Furthermore, in your previous post, you said “But surely we can progress beyond this kind of intolerance?” when I said that religions are old fairytales.

Yet in your latest post, you say you arent neccesarily opposed to intolerance.

Thanks, I guess, for demonstrating with such perfect detail that what I said previously about your brand of “tolerance” is absolutely true.

You have the exact same mindset as the muslim fundamentalists, that your beliefs must be tolerated above all else while the religions themselves should be free to judge and comdemn and generally be intolerant towards anything they wish.

Be honest: it is because you believe that god is on your side.

Is it not so? What other reason could you have to justify the difference between religious intolerance against people and peoples intolerance against religion?

Anyways, your paragraph about Lars Vilks state that he is making pictures and drawings “with spesific intent of inciting people to violence”.

That something you made up completely on your own.

You are basically saying he is asking for it, even though nothing has ever indicated that Lars Vilks is trying spesifically to create violence.

In fact, saying so is an insult to the islamic people, since it implies that we should expect them to react in a violent and barbaric fashion.

A comparable anology is to say that a woman who wear sexy clothing is asking to be raped, after all, everyone knows that men are primitive and lack the self-control neccesary to stop themselves from assaulting women who arent “properly” dressed.

While in reality, men do in fact have the potential to control their own behaviour, and many choose to do just that.

Similarly, I think todays muslims have the potential to control their anger and violent reactions and instead react in a modern and civilized fashion when faced with such displays.

Unfortunatly, some of them choose not to.

Clay
Clay
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 9:04pm

Religions should be insulted democratically.

Why?

Because if you’re going to insult one, you have to insult them all.

Oh, OK, very reasonable. Now, run by me why we just, don’t tell really unfunny jokes to “insult” religions again.

I feel like I’m in that episode of Seinfeld, where he tells a priest that one of his former congregants starts making a lot of anti-semitic jokes, and he asks him if it offends him as a Jew, but he responds, “No, it offends me as a comedian.” That’s just not funny, and therefore, beyond the realm of cartoonists.
I get that the Jihadists are worse, but come on, are we really going to say, “we’re OK, so long as we’re not terrorists!”?

Clay
Clay
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 9:20pm

By the way, Moorzorz, you sound so smart. I think you sound so convincing, as though you’re not writing generalized emotional ejaculations (funny word right?); you sound as if you’re not just some pasty white atheist teenager to mid twenty year old, “trolling” (as the “kids” say) on a Conservative Catholic blog saying nothing remotely cerebral, desparately seeking attention, even if it’s only from angry papysts over the internet- that’d be like a neglected child turning form his parents to people he’ll never meet for attention.
Oh, and also, if you could get me a copy of Dan Brown’s latest work of history, and a t-shirt depicting our hero Che, that’d be great.

Hipsters 4 Life!

Ivan
Ivan
Tuesday, May 18, AD 2010 10:29pm

Lars Vilks has every right to provocate Muslims if that is his wish under Swedish norms as long as he is prepared to pay the price. By what right do the crazed Muslims given residence, asylum and baksheesh in the West under the same suicidal liberal norms, now claim that their Jim Jones is above caricature? The liberal order is unwinding, some honest men Lars Vilks among them, have taken it upon themselves to bring the whole house of lies down.

Moozorz
Moozorz
Wednesday, May 19, AD 2010 5:14am

@Clay

I am dreadfully sorry to come all the way here to this catholic site when I was searching for news about Lars Vilks, I know that people disagreeing with your views must be terribly frightening.

See? I can use sarcasm to apply attributes to other people too. Thank you for bringing your insight into this discussion.

In all seriousness though, I am a norwegian, I live in norway, and up here in the north there are no “unwritten rules” that its distasteful internet behaviour to display ones views on a site where people have different views.

If there is some kind of american unwritten rule about this, please inform me about it and I`ll stop posting.

Also, if being norwegian somehow invalidates all my views, please inform me and I`ll stop posting.

@Christoffer Blosser

I am not just now “getting the picture”, you have read my previous posts, so it should be pretty obvious that I was, unfortunatly, completely right about your views on tolerance from the start.

I was actually hoping you would disprove my preconceptions on that spesific issue.

You choose not to address several parts of my paragraph, which is fine, you are free to address the parts you feel neccesary, but I still would like you to tell me how you justify the difference between religious intolerance against people and peoples intolerance against religion, like I asked before.

I think its because, as I said, you believe your god gives you the right to do so, but I like to think thats not your only reason.

Furthermore, I have never said religion is evil. Religion is regressive to society, often intolerant and I would even call it irrational.

But I do not think religious people do what they do and say what they say just for the sake of making other people suffer. If they did, they would be evil.

By the way, if there is no need to impute motives here, as you say, then perhaps you shouldnt impute motives onto Lars Vilks either?

Sure, Lars Vilks was hoping to get a reaction. But you said he was spesifically trying to incite a _violent_ reaction.

Was he trying to incite violence by displaying jesus as a pedophile? Did he except christians to physically attack him and issue death threats when he did?

I think not.

Your misconception about Lars Vilks seeking a violent reaction to his displays are only based in your preconcieved judgments against the muslim people.

You expect them to answer with violence, so to you its obvious that everyone else thinks so too.

There are several other things I suppose I could, and should, have addressed, but right now I`m out of time, Ì have to head to work.

I will say this though, Christoffer Blosser, even though we disagree on a great many things, its refreshing to talk with a christian who is willing to argue, rather than the ones who prefer to “answer” only with moderation or bland sarcasm.

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