This week there is a huge furor over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoon images of the prophet Mohammed. The editor of France-Soir has been fired for reprinting these.
The story is all over the place, but I can't find the actual cartoons. They are probably somewhere out there on the web, but there are too many places to look.
I tried a Google image search of the term Mohammed, and got 75,000 hits. Most, not surprisingly, are photographs of men named Mohammed. There's this woman, whose last name is Mohammed and is in somewhat non-Islamic attire, although there's certainly a hint of "Arabian Nights"..
But there are a good number of drawings of the prophet himself.
Does this mean there will be a holy image war? Is this just a case of these particular drawings generating an unusual response because of current tensions in the Muslim world? (Iraq, Hamas, Iran, Afghanistan -- just to name four trouble spots) Will there be pressure on libraries in the west to purge themselves of images?
This is a particularly tough call because there are no images in Islam (which is clear from the average mosque) and western religions make heavy use of images/icons (clear from the average cathedral). So, culturally, we westerners are not even remotely attuned to the issue.
By following enough links, I did finally find the drawings, which are best described as editorial cartoons, including one "St. Peter at the Pearly Gates" type. Suicide bombers arrive in heaven, only to be told "Stop! Stop! We're out of virgins!" By western standards, nothing unusual. But then fundamentalist Muslims don't want to be westernized.
Running through my head as I write this, and oddly appropriate, is:
I don't care if it rains or freezes,
'long as I got my plastic Jesus
Ridin' on the dashboard of my car.
Goin' 90 I ain't scary
'Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assuring me that I ain't goin' ta Hell.
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