Taking a stand

In November 2007, Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher in Sudan found herself behind bars in a Sudanese prison sentenced to 15 days after being found guilty under Section 125 of the Sudanese Criminal Act, for “insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs”. She had committed the crime of allowing one of her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed after the first name of one of the popular students in class. Little did she know that she also committed the criminal offense of maligning the Prophet Mohammed. She was spared 40 lashes because she apologized to the shar’iah court and after intervention by British leaders was given a presidential pardon by Omar Bashir after seven days in prison.

Many Muslim leaders in Khartoum agreed with the sentence and held demonstrations of tens of thousands Sudanese to express their anger at a perceived insult to Islam’s Prophet. In the demonstrations they threatened violence against her and against British citizens. Western media was shocked even though this has been going on for decades. Ultimately, a government that imposed medieval Muslim shar’iah laws in order to prevent blasphemy against “their Islam” suppressed the human rights of free expression of this teacher. American media was quick to point out how obviously that incident pointed to the great chasm that existed between enlightened, modernized, principles of religious freedom in the west and the oppressive restriction of free speech (blasphemy laws) exerted by the coercive Islamic state of Sudan. Maybe.

Gillian Gibbons was released, went into hiding and was whisked back to her homeland of the United Kingdom safe from Sudanese shar’iah. Fast forward three years to the United States, in the belly of freedom, the irreverent comedy program South Park found itself censored by the powers that be at Comedy Central for a very similar offense. During the now famous 200^th episode, Matt Parker and Trey Stone decided to depict the Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit. Funny? Perhaps to some. Inappropriate to Muslims—yes. But that’s not what’s at issue here.

Two comedy artists living in the belly of freedom and free speech found themselves in basically the same position as that innocent British schoolteacher. Their 200^th episode had their depiction of “Mohammed” censored. The details of the episode and what was censored has been broadly discussed in the media with valuable commentaries by Nina Shea and Cliff May to name a few.

I am sure that the Sudanese government agrees with the decision by the executives at Comedy Central. But Matt Parker and Trey Stone were not visited by the Sudanese government’s thought police. They were insidiously threatened by a “terror cell wannabe” bunch of thugs out of New York City called Revolution Muslim. Incidentally that same group posted a picture of me on their website after my media appearances in the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre. They declared me a ‘murtad’ or an apostate which is a crime that holds a capital sentence in some Islamist nations run by shar’iah law. Yet, I did not let their veiled threats impact our work at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). Paradoxically, even with a fraction of the resources that Comedy Central has to protect themselves against such threats, we held our ground.

The examples of appeasement to radical Islamists are growing exponentially. Who would have guessed how weak and subservient so many American corporations who pride themselves as the distributors of the uncensored work of the world’s leading artists would be in the face of threats from militant Islamists?

In October 2008, Sony Entertainment delayed the further release of Little Big Planet (LBP) the most awaited Playstation 3 game of the season when it was reported that music in the game briefly used Qur’anic verses. Toumani Diabate, the responsible artist was in fact reported to be a devout practicing Muslim who knew exactly what he was doing. He did not intend offense, but even if he did, this was his art form, which LBP contracted him to do. Fundamentalist Islamists made postings decrying offense of their religious sensibilities. Sony Entertainment issued a global recall and removed the “offensive” verse from all future production of the LBP game. Sony bowed to the pressure and exerted self-censorship over LBP artists. Sony’s decision to respect the hypersensitive sensibilities of Islamists took complete precedence over free speech and an unencumbered creative realm.

The suffocation of free speech on the heels of a growing western corporate phobia of radical Islamists and their barbarism is concerning. From the Danish cartoons to the South Park episode, the response seems to repeatedly be the same—bow to any pressure and suggestion of violence from Islamists. Hard to believe, but basically, “censor the artists, and freedom be damned.” And I say this as a devout Muslim who does in fact question the propriety and artistic value of much of the works in question. But that is not the issue.

At the end of the day, there is little difference between what the medieval Sudanese theocrats did under their shar’iah law to the British teacher on their land and what Comedy Central did to the producers of South Park on American soil.