Cartoons and Taboos

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How come I can't eat pork? 

Ok, I've done it.  Here's a copy of the cartoon that was deemed the most blasphemous of the Mohammed drawings.  Don't blow up my website provider, please.  I would humbly request you not blow up a school bus full of someone else's kids to protest my action, either.

Normally, I subscribe to the "don't insult people unnecessarily" school of interpersonal relations.  I actually am not all that happy with the original act of soliciting and publishing these cartoons by the Danish newspaper, although certainly their rationale carries a lot of weight. If you didn't delve into it, the Cliff's Notes version is that the whole thing was triggered by numerous incidents of public censorship in the West which have resulted in the blocking of honest discussion of Islam-related matters.  That's not good, and should be addressed. But perhaps they could have picked a better way to go about it. Whatever.

Here's my personal problem with all this.  While I am not religious myself, I accept the religions of others.  What I don't accept is the way some believers feel they have the absolute & no debate accepted right to have their personal beliefs and taboos imposed upon others.  And I'm not singling out any particular group here.

While most of the world is rightfully aghast at the on-going behavior of Islamic hard-liners, right here in America Christian hard-liners exhibit exactly the same type of behavior, although fortunately mostly in a somewhat more tepid fashion.

Here's an example:  Recently (this is written in February of 2006), the Internet giant AOL started an ad campaign which featured the catchphrase "I Am Instant Messaging", promoting their IM operation.  The Christian right has started a "blast AOL" campaign because....get this...the words "I Am" are the English translation of the Hebrew word for God.  Therefore, AOL is blaspheming God.  Well OK, you say, these guys are just whacko.  But how about the next paragraph?

Everyone knows a major hoo-ha in America today is the debate over abortion.  The most fervent opposition to abortion comes overwhelmingly from the rightmost side of Christianity.  They feel it is a given that all citizens must be required to bow to their personal religious beliefs, to the exclusion of all other beliefs and considerations.  Collectively, they pursue this using all the tools at their command, which have from time to time included arson, bombs, murder, etc.  Fortunately these particular tools have not on been used on an "Islamic" scale, so far.  But this is a very serious matter.  In the name of God, they are demanding control over the bodies of their fellow human beings.  I'm sorry folks, I don't agree your religious beliefs give you that right.

But let us return to the Islam-centric matter of pictorial representations of Mohammed.  As has been reported, this is a taboo that one strain of believers created and imposed at some point since Mohammed's time.  That's fine, for as I say, as far as I am concerned you can believe whatever you want.  All religions have taboos. But should you and I not be able to work in the yard on Sunday because it is one of someone else's taboos? Should you and I have to give up eating pork because it is one of someone else's taboos?  Should you and I not be able to pictorially represent Mohammed because it is one of someone else's taboos? I don't think so (but they do).