"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"

In response to, of course, this (and this), as well as more recently this, this, and this, today was "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day".

 

Ironically, though, the person who, it seems, came up with the idea has come down with, well, cold feet: 

An American cartoonist whose work inspired the controversial "Everybody Draw Mohammed Page" on Facebook has condemned the effort and issued an apology to Muslims.

"I did NOT 'declare' May 20 to be "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," [Molly Norris] said, adding that her idea was satire but "was taken seriously, hijacked and made viral."

(...)
"I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this 'day' be called off," she said.

The "Draw Mohammed" page has led to Facebook being blocked in Pakistan and sparked angry protests and condemnation from the foreign ministry, which denounced the "publication of blasphemous caricatures of our holy prophet."

Well, Molly has a right to her opinions - I wonder how much of her recanting was prompted by fearrather than principal. That's not to say there aren't Islam-haters who are taking advantage of the event.

 

 

None of that, however, takes away from the fundamental principle involved here. Once someone - the state, angry radical Muslims, or politically-correct censors - say we cannot draw a picture of a man who lived 1400 years ago, then it is incumbent that we demonstrate that indeed we can.

 

Reason Magazine went ahead with their own "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" contest - here's - in part - their explain as to why: 

...Which is to say that Draw Mohammed day is a sign of pushback, not by the groups you would expect to be at the forefront - the organized press and the elected guardians of the Constitution - but by a sea of individuals who will not stand by silently while forces of both hostility and accomodation collude in narrowing the space for acceptable speech. We are proud to be participants in a project that defends the core of our very slogan: Free Minds and Free Markets. Can free societies engage in speech that some may find greivously insulting, and in doing so can they advance both the debate and the ongoing liberal project? It's not just that they can, but that they must.

The accompanying image with this blog post is the winning entry in Reason's contest. Here's why it won: 

...each of the images forces the viewer to actively participate not simply in the creation of meaning but of actually constructing the image itself. This is clearest in our grand prize winner, the image below, which pushes iman and infidel alike to do the work that would condemn them to death under the most extreme reading of injunctions against representing Mohammed.

There is a deeper lesson here: Connect the dots and discover that we all must be Spartacus on Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. And that in a free society, every day is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

More here and here.