In the Name of Art...

By now, I'm sure everybody has heard of the cartoon drawn by one Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist. This cartoon depicted a very very insulting image of Islam's Prophet (SAW), and was published in a Swedish newspaper in mid-August. That makes the controversy a couple of months old, but I still keep seeing it crop up on CNN from time to time, so I decided it merits a bit of introspection.

I'm glad that, on the whole, Muslims have had a much more balanced reaction this time around, although there is still the matter of the fatwah issued by Iraq for the death Lars Vilks, as well as numerous threats by individuals on the life of the artist. I hope, to some extent, that Muslims have realized that violence does not solve anything. Not only does it fail to make a point (why the hell would the offending artist care about a McDonald's being burnt to the ground on the other side of the globe?) it's also plain wrong from an Islamic point of view.

Lars Vilks (and even the artist who drew the Danish cartoon) got this published in his home country. In accordance with Islam, the proper way to counter this would be to ask the Government of the country to take action against the offense, which several countries (including Pakistan) have done. If the Government does something about it, well and good. If it can't or won't, then that's it...this particular round is over. The bell's been rung. It's time to move on and think about what could be done so this doesn't happen again. Educating people about Islam might be a good start. Islam is a peace-loving religion. People still don't believe this - the other day, I saw Bill Maher commenting on how much mention there was of killing the infidel in the Quran. I bet he hasn't even read a page of the Prophet's (SAW) life.

But what you DON'T do is take the law in your own hands and think that murder and violence are going to solve everything. Even a five-year old can see that this will just fuel the fire and perpetuate the stereotype. The same principle would apply even if the controversy had happened in an Islamic country; the offender should be tried justly in a court of law, not slaughtered one fine night in his sleep.

Don't think I'm playing the Devil's advocate here though. Now that I've done with one aspect of the issue, let's tear apart the other one, shall we? In reaction to the publication of the cartoon, Lars Vilks said, "That's a way of expressing things. If you don't like it, don't look at it. And if you look at it, don't take it too seriously. No harm done, really." Of course! How the hell could anyone have been so dumb as to take offense, when the artist himself has provided the perfect solution! Just...don't...look...at...it! Turn the other way! After all, it's all about freedom of art, eh? The world's advanced by leaps and bounds anyway!

So tomorrow, if somebody draws a flagrant cartoon depicting Lars' mother as a seedy whore, I wonder what his reaction will be. After all, if he doesn't like it, he doesn't need to look at it, right? And if he is man enough to look at it, the last thing he should do is take offense, in his own opinion. In the end, there's "no harm done, really." Isn't that right?

But no, I don't think it's right. I don't think he'd turn the other way - he'd better not, if he has even an ounce of self-respect. Hell, I bet he'd drag the artist to court on slander and defamation charges. I bet he'd fume inside at the unnecessary indignity his loved one has been subjected to - indignity that doesn't contain even an ounce of truth. And I bet he'd win the case too.

I think that's exactly what should happen to Lars and all such people who offend huge masses of people in the name of art. Their rear ends should be dragged to court, and these cases should be legally realistic enough to be tried and won. What Lars has done is nothing short of defamation and slander.

Lars has claimed he's an "equal-opportunity" offender and has depicted Jesus as a pedophile before. Others also argue that such satire on Islam is justified because Christianity has been subject to it for ages now. I've never been able to understand this argument. By this train of logic, all the atrocities that African-Americans were subjected to prior to their liberation were "justified" because they'd been going on "for ages." Does that make any sense at all? How does one wrong justify another?

Freedom of art is a great thing - part of me is an artist, and I love our modern times for allowing it. But I guess our times are still not modern enough to recognize the borders of this freedom. After all, there's no clearly demarcated line, nor any checkposts with sentries standing guard. In the bigger picture, Lars Vilks is a nobody - just another artist who happened to get himself caught in crosshairs. The problem is way bigger than him. The problem is being able to identify and respect those borders.

After all, what fricking good is freedom of the artist if it winds up caging its audience?

Hospitality in Foreign Lands

Recently, for a few days, I was in Canada to get my visa stamped. I was staying in Quebec City, which is a few hours north of Toronto. I'm not entirely sure why, but I was bored out of my skull most of the time there. Maybe it was because Quebec City is a tourist attraction mostly for those who've just retired. At the risk of being cheeky, suffice it to say that I felt like a young gun in a cupboard full of vintage muskets. The ones that needed gunpowder to fire and oft blew up right in your face.

By the way, on a complete tangent from my main topic, can somebody please expound on the beauty of Picasso's art? Specifically, where exactly in his works can it be found? On my second last day in Canada, I went to a museum of fine arts, which had a Picasso exhibition, and I gotta say, it seemed that the dude wasn't even trying anymore. You remember those "portraits" you used to draw in kindergarten? Of people with huge smiles and round eyes? Well, expand them to wall size, and I think you'll be able to pass it off for a Picasso painting. I mean, I think I know why people devote so much time to studying Picasso's works in college, because I gotta tell ya, you really do need devoted study time to come up with something worthwhile in his works.

Anyway, back to my main topic. So, one evening before iftaari, I set out to find a halaal restaurant with the help of everybody's online friend, google. I found a nice middle-eastern one that was only a kilometer or so away from my hotel. Well, I'd no sooner reached it that I found out that it had been shut down - the only thing open there was a grocery store (the owner of which was middle-eastern, but that doesn't really help. I actually spent a good five minutes standing in front of the butcher's kiosk inside the store, looking at the raw meat and wondering where exactly it was converted into shawerma, before realizing that there was no shawerma for me here.)

In dismay, with my mouth-watering visions dissolving away, I asked one of the people in the checkout line if there was another halal restaurant nearby. The guy gave me some vague directions which I knew I had no hope of following, so I stepped out of the store, chagrined to the core, and started walking. Well, I realized after a few minutes that the guy I'd asked actually was following me (I always have been good at sleuthing....ahem). He caught up to me, and insisted that I come with him to his house for iftaari, instead of wandering around like a schmuck and eventually eating alone (okay, he didn't say that.) He said he'd just talked to his mother, and she really really wanted me to come.

So I followed my gut (literally) and went with him. My newly-found friend was Moroccan, and his apartment was only a couple of blocks away. What followed was an awesome conversation with him, along with great halal food (beef and lentil soup, burgers, moroccan sweets and this kickass curry made from calf's liver). We prayed maghrib together in jamaat. We talked about him, we talked about me, we talked about Islam in Quebec. All of a sudden, all intimations of boredom had vanished.

My point is this - it has become so rare nowadays for somebody to show such hospitality to a fellow Muslim that I was honestly taken aback. Of course, there are reasons that you don't see it much anymore. People get taken advantage of, they get hurt, and that's enough to make goodwill take a back seat. But it's a shame, honestly it is, because I feel that this is what a large part of Islam was about - taking care of others in your society, and that's exactly what this angel of a man did. He took a total stranger into his home and fed him in the way of Allah.

People often say that it is impractical to show goodwill to strangers. You can't trust anyone these days - that's a motto everyone lives and breathes by these days. But I think the scope of the problem is bigger. If people were good Muslims, they would know their limits. They wouldn't take advantage of those who offer such hospitality. That would ensure that the goodwill of such people would not fade away in bitterness and cynicism.