an artilce on Cartoons by Niaz Salimi

Dear Munir and all,

I was following all these honest and heated debates, from both sides, eagerly and silently. The reason for my silence was to understand how I really feel about the happenings. As the time goes I am more and more convinced about my first impression being the right one, at least for myself. And of course as a member of an active organization that has time restriction in order to issue press releases that expresses its official position I am part and parcel of the voice of majority. However, I am at a point that I need to share my position with you.

I also need to clarify once again that I am an Iranian artist with a leftist background, both in the past, and no religious tendency. I only acknowledged Islam as my cultural background after 9/11 when lots of Muslims started abandoning the burning ship under the pressure of the western world. To me that was a matter of principal and manifestation of the fact that I always wanted to side with the oppressed in my little capacity.

Now we have another case scenario at hand. When I looked at those cartoons first, specially the two that stroked me hard were the ones depicting prophet Mohammad with the explosive turban and the one about the heaven running out of virgins, I did not feel for a second that these cartoons had anything to do with religion and after almost a month and reading over hundreds of articles and postings from every point of view I still think the same.

While ago when I was watching one of Bill Maher’s show I heard him making fun of the promise of 72 virgins. It was so funny when he suggested that knowing the culture of Middle East and the bargaining habits of those nations it must have been like, 50 offered by god verses 100 demanded by Muslims and than both sides agreed at 72. To me this is a religious joke, satisfies the right to offend, pisses off some Muslims yet there is no real insult or harm.

In the case of the cartoon about suicide bombers at the heaven’s gate, if we degrade and diminish the pain and suffering of those who have no choice but to blow themselves up in order to participate in an unfair and unequal war that has no pattern, no rule and no prospective and is forced on them, to the silly notion of the attempt to get virtual virgins as reward, that is not a joke and it is not about religion. If they did blow themselves up as part of a religious ritual that would have applied but not when they are trying to free their homeland from the grips of the most vicious powers in the history. This is why the existence of Hamas or Iraqi resistance etc. has nothing to do with religion and it is all political. In my simple mind in our side of the world most of the social and political issues just happen under the umbrella of the religion because this is an institution that exists, functions, has huge membership that can be accessed easily and regularly and has all kind of potentials. (At the beginning of the Revolution in Iran, most leftists would attend the mosque meetings in order to approach people and distribute their papers. It was impossible for them or anybody else to organize such gatherings under any other name or mandate. This is how we empowered the mosques and eventually lost to them).

The same goes about the other cartoon. If the reference was to something directly from the religious laws, text or believes that could have fallen under (defamatory and offensive to religion). Bt if I am classified as a potential terrorist because some people, none of them from my background, blowup some place, that is not in my original country or my country of choice, and as a result not only my status but the status of my children change I don’t find that reference anything but political.

Lets try to understand that when such accusation, defamatory and offensive to religion, is being used by an oppressive power, like IRI, to silence and punish those who oppose its inhuman ways the right should be defended but when it is practiced by an entity of a so called democratic and free society in order to defame, endanger and marginalize its already vulnerable minorities it should be opposed.

In no case we can afford to be more catholic than pop. The people of Afghanistan are paying such a heavy price for the sins of a man or idea that was originally created by the US and its allies when it served their purpose. The man is not even afghan. The people of Iraq are suffering for so long because of a tyrant that was supported by Imperialism and when the boss decided to remove him the people paid and still do dearly. Very soon the Iranians will pay the price of a regime change or as I call it “correction of an experiment gone wrong”. And amidst all these we can’t even stop eating Danish cheese because it is unethical and barbaric? And how many Muslims do eat Danish cheese anyway?

When we asked not to be grouped with and punished for the wrong doings of a few extremists after 9/11 we went over the board to offer our sympathy and sided with those who were affected. We came up with thousands of creative ways to prove that we are made of different material and started working voluntarily to build all kind of bridges. Yet there are thousands and thousands of Muslims still in jails with no clear charge and we have witnessed the birth and built of “racial profiling” and “no fly list” and lots of other invisible walls around us. Let’s not pretend that we demanded clarification and it was handed to us in a silver tray. Let someone come forward and offer us something, anything, and we will consider that.

I find it offensive that we have to witness it all but in the absence of a true and practical freedom of expression we even don’t allow ourselves to be angry. Like any other new and high tech gadget this freedom is not equally available to both sides. I am angry and I can claim with a clear conscious that I have always been against violence and do not support non-democratic solutions. But the least we can do is walk from behind the precious support of all kind of freedoms and acknowledge the reason for frustration. That freedom should be exercised only when the two sides have equal power balance otherwise it is unjust in its nature. How could I take a fight against a 5 year old and claim victory. We tried everything from conspiracy of mosques to non-informed illiterate Muslims causing havoc. Lets acknowledge the bottled up frustration of a Middle Eastern that is shooed from the doorways of the west but his oil and dignity is at the dispose of the West forever.
This is why the incident of flushing Qur’an at Guantanamo did not create the same heat. That was religious this is political.

Do we really believe if these people who are sleepwalking in those ghettos at the edge of the western countries, with no organic ties to the main societies, would have been in this situation if their rights and freedoms along with their national wealth and resources were not raided and robbed by the same powers?

I refer my literate brother ..... to the famous debate between .... and ...... in which Cameo says: we are living in a time when you can prove two opposite points with the same logic.

It is possible, but we should stand at the side that is closer to our conscious.

Cheers
Niaz