The Importance of Action

Civil disobedience is an important part of every healthy society. Civil disobedience is a non-violent act performed with full knowledge that negative consequences may be inflicted by others.

Often, it is the government that is being targeted for exposure as the heavy-handed reactionary: black people sitting in seats designated for white people, Indians making salt despite a British ban on the practice, even drug dealers selling their wares despite the threat of incarceration.

However, in some cases, it is not a government that reacts to an act of defiance. May 20th has been arbitrarily selected as “Draw Mohammad Day.” I for one have been feverishly working on Photoshopping some things together. I may even drag out the pen and paper to actually create something brand new.

But why do it? For one thing, we can. There is nothing morally wrong with lampooning someone’s religion. Islam is not special, it deserves no special respect or reverence. I refuse to even admit Islam is the craziest and most violent faith.

Sure, they took down the two towers and 4,000 3,000 people, but the largely Christian army of America takes out more buildings and people in any given month over there. I’m just not too frightened by a society that still rides camels and builds car bombs out of fireworks.

So let’s pretend some Muslims will try to kill people who draw Mohammad. If a couple people do something, it’s easy to scare them with threats. If thousands of people do it… let’s be honest, they don’t have the time. They’re too busy praying five times a day.

The more people who do it, the more improbable it becomes that violence will follow the depiction of that 7th century child fucker. The more people who draw Mohammad, the safer it will become to do so.

“But Ginx, I can’t draw.” Great! Just take a brown marker and draw an oval. Fill it in and there you have it: Poohammad. “Who over 7 years old still has markers?” Fine, use MS Paint. It’s really not about quality, it’s about quantity.

So warm up your imagination and start sketching those incendiary drawings and cartoons. Islam deserves to be treated the same as any other faith.