It is ‘Everybody Draw Muhammed Day’ today.  In the wake of South Park creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, receiving threats on their lives because of their bear-suited Muhammed, quite a few people have taken it upon themselves to all start drawing. Granted, most people draw stick-figures. However, I wanted to make something more of it this time since I already drew a stick-figure on blasphemy day. Now, if it is not obvious by my actions, I fully support the drawing of Muhammed. I support it for a very simple reason; a reason so eloquently explained by Ayaan Hirsi Ali when they interviewed her about the threats against Parker and Stone.

I have protection but there comes a time when if – not just Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone – but if the entertainment business were to take this on and just show how ridiculous this is that there’ll be too many people to threaten. And then I think, at that time, I won’t need protection and the gentlemen who made South Park will also not need protection.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

For me the key-issue here – on so many levels -  is participation. I wanted to make a cartoon that reflected that. The relationship between the hand-less Muhammed and me as a drawer is mutually participatory. I need to draw him in order to make a point, even though he might kill me for it once I’m done, and he needs me to keep drawing in order to stop me. Likewise the relationship between the Muslim extremists and all of us is mutually participatory. If we do not draw Muhammed en masse – if we let people like Parker, Stone, Hirsi Ali, Westergaard, Van Gogh, Rushdie et al. take all the heat – then we participate in the effectiveness of the threats.

However, the participation runs deeper than that. It always amazes me that Muslim extremists would be angry over a drawing. It amazes me because it shows that they must have no idea what just happened when they saw the cartoon. I’m going to do what magicians must not do – but cartoonists are free to – and reveal the hoax perpetrated upon you. A cartoon – any cartoon – is merely a completely meaningless ink-blot. Yes, like in the Rorschach test, only where Rorschach’s inkblots were designed purposely to really be meaningless, cartoons are designed to hack your brain.

This will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent time pondering Magritte’s “The Treachary of Images.” Underneath the “pipe” Magritte informs us that it is not a pipe. He is quite right. It really isn’t. It is a painting of a pipe. This one is a digital representation of a painting of a pipe. Yet that is a treachery too. Like a good magician Magritte only revealed the little trick in order to pull an even bigger one.

Any image requires the viewer’s unconditional participation. Magritte’s painting was not of a pipe simply because Magritte intended it to be. Magritte’s painting is only of a pipe as long as there is a cooperation between his intentions and our willingness to accommodate them by suspending our disbelief. If we are caught up in the illusion it is because we let ourselves be.

To return then to cartoons. In his magnificent book Understanding Comics Scott McCloud elucidates on the unique ability of a cartoon to be recognisable even when it becomes ridiculously abstract.

In light of our new-found understanding of cartoons and images, a good question – the right question – to ask is did I really draw Muhammed? Well, could I have intended to draw Muhammed given that I have no idea what the man looked like? To what degree did I manage to hack the brain-triggers conducive to making you fool yourself that a few black squiggles are Muhammed? I have heard people make the argument that when drawing Muhammed we should only draw stick-figures and under no circumstances should we include the dreaded bomb.

I disagree. The bomb is now crucial iconography. It ties what would otherwise have just been a cute, little bearded cartoon into our shared cultural background triggering the viewer to recognise my intention. “Ah! There is a bomb! Like Westergaard’s drawing. This drawing was obviously intended to be Muhammed.”

However, given that Westegaard knew as little as I about the real appearances of Muhammed one must wonder what is really being drawn here. I think the answer is that none of us are drawing Muhammed at all. We are all drawing an intricate metaphor. Muhammed in cartoon-form detaches himself ever more from his historical personhood. What he becomes is a graphic personification of collective Islam. When he has a bomb on his head it reflects the volatile temper of the extremists – it says nothing of his historical persona. When he urges me to draw his hands so he can use them to stop me from drawing him, it reflects the irony – an irony lost on the extremists – that their violent reaction toward criticism is precisely what makes us criticise them.

If these extremists had any good sense whatsoever they would rejoice at every drawing of their prophet. They would know that every iconic representation inflates our collective conscious with conventions of ‘Muhammed’ cartoonery until those conventions will make us unable to attempt a drawing of the historical prophet even if we wanted to. Moreover, they would know that their anger only proves that they accepted the drawing as Muhammed and therefore, in their participation, are just as guilty as the artist of blasphemy.

♦

Post-edit 22/05/2010:

My drawing was featured on Friendly Atheist and on the Faroese web-magazine Mess.

I think this is quite awesome.

I am vegetarian! Honest! I eat only the finest vegetarian bacon paninis. I love the healthy lifestyle but I wish these pigsprouts would stop sticking to my teeth.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, You gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I’ll give it to someone special

Tra-la-la special, special. Wait…hold on. Seriously? Look, Mr. Michael I appreciate the sentiment and I can sort of see what you were aiming for in this song, but you need to put that tormented metaphor out of its sordid misery!

I know what giving someone your heart means, you know what it means. Hell, everyone does. But who among us can honestly claim to get a grip on what it means to give Person C the heart you got from Person A? Does this mean that George Michael fell in love with Person A, but that Person A then somehow made George Michael fall in love with Person C instead – possibly with some sort of mystical love-transference ritual? It just doesn’t work as a metaphor.

So what the Hell, George? Did you actually hand someone your physical honest-to-goodness literal heart? Because if that’s the case, you know, I’m sure you can’t possibly blame the person for giving it away the very next day – say, for instance, giving it to a paramedic or a coroner would surely be the right thing to do!

What the fuck?

Cowabunga, dude! I’m so badass that I don’t even have to touch the ground.

Seriously though, I can accept that Donatello might have found a footstool to pose with for the groupshot or something but what the Hell were the animators thinking when they positioned Leonardo? Invisible Buffalos?

I suppose hovering a few inches above streetlevel for extended periods of time is a very handy ninja-technique though. Shredder won’t see that one coming.

Let me explain.

Loose change is a constant curse in this country. My trousers are sagging around my ankles with the weight of copper in my pockets – baring my arse for the world to see. Yes, I am that rich. Why would I ever need to buy anything with 1p coins? The Queen must have some sinister ulterior motives for turning us all into walking and talking lightning rods. Making use of the resulting conductivity for evil mind-control rays or some su – God Save the Queen!

Ah, where was I? Oh, yes. Loose change. As horrifically annoying it is to have too much of the bleeding stuff, you never even have the right stuff. When I do laundry the washers will only accept 1-pound coins. Three of the buggers per wash. Yes, three. I usually fill up two machines at a time. There is no need to waste any more time doing laundry than you absolutely have to, now is there? Except for the fact that you never, ever have 6 bloody 1-pound coins in your wallet by sheer accident.

No, big deal. I’ll just go down to the store and have them exchange my people-money into the native currency of the Laundrian Republic, won’t I? No, sir. That won’t do! What were you thinking, sir? Tricks may be for kids but convenience sure as Hell isn’t for Brits. Boldly I blasted open the store-doors just before closing time! Armed with a single 1-pound coin, an additional 2-pound coin, and a 5-pound note I prowled in on my prey; the lady at the register. With weary eyes she acknowledged my presence, ‘yes?’

‘Yes, hello,’ I said with thick Scandinavian accent that probably makes people think I’m thick. ‘Could you exchange these,’ I held up the 2-pound coin and the 5-pound note ‘for 1-pound coins.’ Panicked at the sight of a crazy Scandinavian with an apparent loose change fetish she started to glance to her sides for backup.

‘Uh, I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I can only give you two pounds.’

‘Yes, fine,’ I said in the bitter knowledge that I would need 3 more pounds to satiate the Angry Sock-Eater. But, aha! In my mind I hatched an ingenious scheme. Nervously I reached for the coins she was handing me back. Could she tell that my intentions were less than pure? Had she noticed? Would she have looked more sophisticated with a beard? No, she wasn’t on to me. I successfully obtained the two washer-snacks. Success! And now for the tricky part.

‘How much is this disgusting Lilt pineapple & grapefruit soda?’

‘Uh, 99p,’ she responded with bewilderment on her face.

‘Great! I’ll have two.’ With an evil grin I reintroduced her to my neglected friend Mr. 5-pounder.

Oh, no! Don't eat me! No!

It was bothering me for an eternity. Where had I seen that stupid fish before?

I am not at all delicious! Really!

It looks so strangely familiar. Where could it be?

Leave Britney alone!!!

Oh, yes. That is right. Now I remember.

]]> http://sketchsepahi.com/blog/archives/43/feed 2 http://sketchsepahi.com/blog/archives/34 http://sketchsepahi.com/blog/archives/34#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:06:51 +0000 Sketch Sepahi http://sketchsepahi.com/blog/?p=34

In crossing a beach, suppose I pitched my foot against a watch, and were asked how it came to be there. I might possibly answer, that it had lain there since the beginning of time when God created it and placed it there.

But suppose I had found a grain of sand upon the beach, and it should be inquired how the grain happened to be in that place. I should hardly concede the same legitimacy to this question as to the one I had been previously asked – that this particular grain of sand somehow stood out in contrast with its peers in demand of a special explanation for its whereabouts. After all, it is all good and proper to lend oneself to the ponderance of anomalies, but an anomaly repeated a billion times over quickly becomes an expected regularity with no means to cause undue perplexity. I should therefore rightly think the question daft.

Yet why should not this objection serve for the grain of sand as well as for the watch? For this reason, that, when we come to inspect the grain of sand, we find that – unlike the watch – it has no parts put together for a purpose. We do not think that the grain attests to a creator in the same way as the watch. We presume not that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, a vast range of artificers with little grain-shops wherein they toil to assemble the best quality sand-grains for capital gain, and who designed the grain’s beachy function.

If indeed it is so, that for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, the same might be said to exist in nature. What then – which unearthly and inexplicable lapse in judgement – would ever compel you to pick up the watch in contemplation of its anomalous placement instead of doing the exact same to every single grain of sand in the immediate vicinity?

Were there indeed an artificer of natural phenomena an accurate depiction of the situation would not be that of walking on a beach of grains containing a single watch. Rather it could be likened to walking on a heap of tiny little watches with cawing watches flying around in the watch-coloured sky occasionally to swoop down into the waves of liquid watches to catch a swimming watch to eat. In the distance you might hear the joyful laughter of playing watches and the sound of their warden-watch telling them that there is watch for dinner and they should come into the watch to sit down at the watch to eat. Remember to wash your watches before you dig in!

In a world of magic watch-making governed in its entirety by the whims of a magical watch-maker, and where nothing exists that is not a watch, why would you ever ponder the explanation of anything? It should be no more surprising to find an intricately designed laptop at the surface of one of Jupiter’s moons than it is to find a drop of water in the ocean. A living and breathing dragon or a fairy in your cup-board should hold no greater degree of strangeness to you than a lion or a zebra in Africa.

By all means the universe should be entirely devoid of wonder because anything, no matter how bizarre, could pop into existence by decree of the watch-maker at any moment. Nothing ought to merit any sort of explanatory research because a world run on say-so should have no need of causal contingency. A lamp need not be shining because it is hooked up to an electrical outlet. It might just be obeying orders. A perceived sound does not necessarily stem from anything causing it. It might as well have just spontaneously formed in your inner ear because the watch-maker designed it so.

Why did you pick up the watch? There is nothing to distinguish it from anything else. There is nothing special about a watch among a world of watches, right?

Faroese politicians Torbjørn Jacobsen, Páll á Reynatúgvu, Bill Justinussen, and Jenis av Rana have placed before Faroese parliament, The Law Thing, a proposal, that the age of voting be reduced from 18 to 16. The education, they say, is so good in today’s society that young people become adults faster and therefore susceptibility is no valid counter-argument. This is backed up by recent Programme for International Student Assessment survey issued in 2006 where the only country scoring lower than the Faroes was Mexico out of 35 countries participating. (…)

Torbjørn Jacobsen and Páll á Reynatúgvu are members of The Republican Party, which would like to see a Faroe Islands free from Denmark and governed by the Faroese people.

Bill Justinussen and Jenis av Rana are respectively a member and the chairman of The Centre Party, which would like to see a Faroe Islands free from reason and governed by a vengeful metaphysical entity obeying their every whim and prejudice.

Jenis av Rana, who recently published an open letter about the lack of tolerance for Christians and the suffering they have to endure because of prejudiced atheists, is best known for consequently referring to homosexuals as Satan’s Ill Weeds and ‘sex-confused’, a term that has become an epithet in the Faroese language equalling that of calling black persons the N-word. (How dare the people we are prejudiced against prejudice against us!) Other notable achievements of The Centre Party include, but are not limited to, failing to ban The Vagina Monologues because of obscenity, failing to ban stores from being open on Sundays because it’s sacred, and trying to keep homosexuals from gaining basic human rights. (Why is Amnesty so prejudiced and intolerant to our faith?!)

Additional laws proposed by The Centre Party include, that the legal drinking age be increased to 21, that bars, pubs and similar be prohibited from selling alcohol before seven pm and that Rúsan – the only store allowed to carry hard liquor – be prohibited from being open for business before noon.

In other words because of non-existent adolescent public awareness young people today become rational and responsible so fast – just take Jenis & Bill as an indication – that they are mature enough to decide what is best for Society at large at age sixteen, but not mature enough to decide what is best for their own body before aged twenty-one and will never be mature enough to be trusted to decide for themselves which plays their sinful psyches can bear to watch. Thank goodness for The Centre Party safely leading The Faroes out of moral decline!

Since Jenis av Rana is a general physician, I’d like to propose a law that allows him to perform open brain-surgery but prohibits him from prescribing cough syrup. Because that is how it is done in The Centre Party, where we prepare for the second coming by alienating ourselves from the first.

Thanks guys, you put the ‘fun’ in fundamentalist.

Ceterum Censeo Centre Partynem Esse Delendam.

Source: portal.fo

First of all let me congratulate you on a beautiful country and very nice people. But then let me get to my issue of complaint. I was on visit there recently; more specifically I was on Sicily. It was a very good vacation, until the day when I went to Etna. Etna is, as all know, a volcano, which is known throughout the world. Particularly for its kangaroos, so of course I had taken mine with me. In accordance with what my tourists brochure told me, it is very healthy to walk your kangaroos on Etna. And of course I, as any law-abiding man, was going to hold it on leash at all times, so it doesnt bite or kick anyone. Even though this is not strictly necessary. My Khaki would never do something like that. She is very well behaved. But what do I see? A sign! Oh shame! A sign I tell you! A sign strictly forbidding me to take a walk with Khaki, even though I had the leash and everything. This is an outrage! Here I had gone to Sicily specifically to do something nice for Khaki and then I find out that I cant. I accuse you of false advertising.

You are scoundrels the bunch of you. Luring kangaroo-lovers from their home-countries with the promise of utilization of what is known as the best kangaroo-resort in the world, Etna. And then when they get there, you say theyre not allowed to anyway. No doubt just to rip us off even more. Now far be it from me to whine. I could have done without. But can you even imagine the disappointment a young female kangaroo can feel? Now she had been locked up in a crummy hotel-room for days. All looking forward to her promised jump on Etna. I tried to explain it to her. But theres only so much such a kangaroo child can really understand. Shes barely a teenager. And you good sirs made her cry. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

My kangaroo is now on anti-depressants! A kangaroo on anti-depressants I tell you! Let it be known right now, that Im filing an official complaint to the consumers office, and that I am never taking Khaki or any kangaroo to your country again. Furthermore Ill be warning all of my friends against you, theyre all kangaroo-owners and lovers, and not a few of them are very respected too. I demand an official apology, if not to me, then at least to poor Khaki. She does not deserve this treatment. She has been through a lot already. Can you believe, that her father just left the pouch-hold one day?

Next time I will take my kangaroo to Ethiopia.

Yours truly,

Kangaroo-Heini