Furor over cartoons has some asking, `Can't Muslims take a joke?'

Religions > Atheism > Furor over cartoons has some asking, `Can't Muslims take a joke?'

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Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	"stoney"
Date:	09 Feb 2006 07:08:05 PM
Object:	Furor over cartoons has some asking, `Can't Muslims take a joke?'

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13832670.htm
Posted on Thu, Feb. 09, 2006
Furor over cartoons has some asking, `Can't Muslims take a joke?'
By Hannah Allam
Knight Ridder Newspapers
CAIRO, Egypt - As part of the "Allah Made Me Funny" comedy tour, Azhar
Usman tests his Western audience's tolerance with skits about suicide
bombings, airport security, bad beard days and other aspects of Muslim
life.
He even jokes that an Arabic greeting translates into "I'm going to kill
you."
But as much as Usman pokes fun at his faith's stereotypes, there are
limits. That's why he didn't find anything funny about the now-notorious
Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which have triggered Muslim
riots around the world.
While mobs rally to defend the prophet, a debate is unfolding on Islamic
Web logs and in youth groups: Can't Muslims take a joke?
"There have to be some boundaries. The butt of the joke cannot be God or
the prophet or the religion itself," Usman, a 30-year-old comedian of
Indian descent, said in a telephone interview from Chicago, his
hometown. "I'm very careful about sacrilegious humor. I'm not a shock
comic who's going to do something that will inflame Muslims."
Broadcast images of Muslims torching Danish flags and vowing revenge
over the newspaper cartoons only reinforce the futility implied in the
title of Albert Brooks' new movie, "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim
World."
The furor over the prophet's caricature is cast as East vs. West or free
speech vs. religious tolerance, but to many Muslims it also tests the
boundaries of humor in the Islamic world. Even the most liberal-minded
Muslims don't dare laugh at their prophet.
"The best comedians in the world are Muslims, and the funniest jokes I
ever heard come from Muslims, but freedom of speech stops when it hurts
others," said Sami al Bawardi, a Saudi businessman who owns an amusement
park in Riyadh, the capital. "We joke about everything except our
prophets and our God. That's just the rules."
A new generation of Muslims is testing those rules with dark, post-Sept.
11 humor that plays on the stereotype of Islam as a religion for
gun-toting terrorists and oppressed veiled women.
The Pakistani-British comedian Shazia Mirza cultivated a devoted fan
base with her searing jokes about virginity and arranged marriages. And
the Palestinian director of the Oscar-nominated film "Paradise Now"
earned laughs for a scene in which a nervous suicide bomber somberly
tapes his final message to the world, only to be told that he has to do
it again because the camera wasn't working.
Nowhere are the limits stretched more than they are on the Internet,
where young Muslims share political and religious jokes. One Web site
that compiles Islamic jokes warns readers not to enter if "such musings
are hazardous to your spiritual health."
One popular T-shirt for sale online shows a bearded mullah striking a
disco pose with the slogan "FUNdamentalist."
Dalia Ghanem, a 29-year-old Egyptian-American who founded the Web site
www.t-shirtat.com, said other Muslims sometimes criticized her for
selling a tight women's shirt emblazoned with the word "halal," which
means "permissible," but is usually associated with meat that's prepared
in accordance with Islamic law.
"Some people said, `Don't you think that's pushing it a little?' And I
said, `No, I'm a halal kind of girl,'" Ghanem said. "It's what you read
into it."
But even young Muslims who find humor in the modern Muslim experience
seldom cross the red line: lampooning the religion or its prophets. Any
representation of Muhammad or other messengers is forbidden as idolatry.
In some Muslim countries, drawing the Prophet Muhammad or other
messengers is considered blasphemy and is punishable by death.
Husam Chadat, a Syrian filmmaker based in Munich, Germany, said the ban
on images was so ingrained in him as a boy that he still felt guilty for
his childhood visions of God as an old man with a long, white beard.
Chadat, a secular Muslim whose latest screenplay is a comedy about
terrorism, said he wasn't offended by the Danish cartoons but that he
found no humor in them.
"We are funny people; we enjoy laughing. We enjoy self-deprecating;
we're actually like the Jews in that respect," Chadat said with a
chuckle. "But this matter is different. There is a buildup of several
years of Arabs feeling alienated and isolated by the West. This
accumulation of many feelings is what we're seeing in the exaggerated
reaction to the caricature."
On the Internet, almost all Muslim bloggers condemn the cartoons but
they squabble over where to draw the line between humor and sacrilege.
Many postings note that the Prophet Muhammad was recorded in history as
laughing so that "his front teeth were exposed." Others counter with a
quote from the prophet telling Muslims that "if you knew what I know,
you would weep much and laugh little."
Sunni Sister, a widely read Muslim blogger, posted inspirational
messages this week as an antidote to what she called "the stupid
cartoons and the equally stupid reaction of some Muslims."
Similarly, the Angry Arab, also known as As'ad Abu Khalil, a political
science professor in California, posted a recent musing about the
cartoons that summed up many Muslims' views.
"Should mocking religion be considered part of free speech? For me, the
answer is a categorical yes," Abu Khalil wrote. "To mock religions is
free thinking, but to selectively mock one religion, while showing
complete respect for others, is often prejudice."
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
.

User: "Liz"
Title: Re: Furor over cartoons has some asking, `Can't Muslims take a joke?'	09 Feb 2006 08:00:04 PM