Saturday, February 04, 2006

No Pictures Please

We're quakin' in our boots here. Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph, there's drawings of the Prophet Muhammad on display and they'll be after us next. You'd think that the Moslems would be okay with it, seeing as it was one of their own who illustrated the manuscript in the first place.

The way I understand it, an Iranian Moslem painted an image of "himself" and his daughter's partner Ali, holy flaming haloes all around their heads. Given that he did the deed in 1595, I'd guess that it was acceptable to create images of you-know-who. Not that I understand everything about the different sects, but I have a suspicion that the artist was Shia, and it's the Sunni element that is hard-core against the pictures. Funny that, because it's the Shia who come across as die-hard fundamentalists.

In our society, the illustrated manuscript is a piece of history and a piece of art. We aren't offended by images of the human form, although Renoir's later nudes were not exactly attractive. However, because one group doesn't do something that we do, we are supposed to stop doing it. Excuse me?

Riots sprung up in Australia because the Moslem lads took offense at the scantily clad bathing beauties, causing the local boys to explain Australian norms in a very violent way. We don't want fights on every street corner, but we don't want to be told to alter our way of life or risk beheading. George Bush might have it right. The war against Islamo-Nazis is indeed global.

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