Ask Lemmy

Murdering humans over a drawing is a sensitive topic for me. Please do not expect civility when discussing ancient barbaric pre-scientific belief systems.

Satire is a necessary way to call out impropriety in Democratic society. The humor softens the blow of the reality of horrible acts and makes less horrible but still bad acts easier to understand. As long as it's not saying things that are just totally without merit or using it purely to spread hate, it should be staunchly defended regardless of who is offended by it.

Example of bad satire is something like a cartoon of an LGBTQ+ person going to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist saying it's a mental illness and their head explodes. This is pushing the narrative that being gay is something to be cured and that gay people just can't accept it. This can be considered satire, but like any type of speech it's stating something designed to harm others. Satire is meant to over-exaggerate a problem, not make up a problem that doesn't actually exist for the express purpose of hate.

I think most people would agree with the following: even if you feel the cartoon was in poor taste or was “punching down,” the shooting was a terrorist act that just served to reinforce the worst stereotypes about Muslims and—ironically—the offending cartoon itself.

Opinions can vary about the cartoon, but that’s the point of defending satire and free speech; what’s completely indefensible is violence that clearly isn't in the service of self-defense. People who quibble about the definition of self-defense and even skirt the idea that the terrorists in this incident had a right to do what they did, in my opinion, are likely either sophomoric contrarians or bad faith actors intentionally trying to muddy the waters, akin to some far-right militia members on conservative subreddits.

It says a lot that there's only one religion that I'm scared to criticize.

12 people were killed for publishing a cartoon of Muhammad.

A teacher was beheaded for showing a drawing of Muhammad.

Cartoonist drew Muhammad, leading to Danish embassies being attacked and riots broke out and people died. Later, people broke into his house to try to kill him.

Cartoonist had to live under police protection because of threats.

Creators of South Park were threatened for including Muhammad in an episode of the show.

These were just a few from the FIRST PAGE of a search engine, AND outside of Muslim majority countries.

This is before even considering every other 'provocation', leading to incidences like:

Salman Rushdie being stabbed on stage

A teacher forced into hiding for showing a picture of mahammad

Reality keeps sliding into absurdity rendering satire mute.