“I may not agree with what a man has to say, but I will fight to death for his right to say it.” The quote can be attributed to Voltaire except for a tiny fact. It cannot be found in any of his texts or writings. Perhaps that is mankind’s greatest travesty. Not realizing that argument. in essence may be a good thing, but sometimes it may lead to public outcry, civil disobedience or even destruction of public property. What many writers term as the very essence of democracy, freedom of speech is not only over-rated but a tool that can be effectively used to cause panic and havoc in the general public.
Throughout time, writers have used different means to blemish Islam by giving out fallacious information in the form of distorted facts and cartoons of revered Islamic figures and sentiments. They have mocked the Quran by printing a book called Satanic Verses, drawn cartoons of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), made movies showing Islam to be a religion where men are terrorists and women are oppressed and published writings like “Among the Cicadas” vilifying Islam. It seems they are not done with this yet. A cartoon program called South Park shows the voice of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and him hidden behind a bear costume. The thing is they have not shown any image or any body part of the Prophet, so why the voice over? Apparently the entire episode of the cartoon is devoted to finding out the reaction of Muslims to the notion of showing the voice of the Prophet (PBUH).
What I find disturbing is that why does their freedom of speech have to lash out against the sentiments of a number of people. Imagine a person standing in the middle street shouting obscenities. The police will undoubtedly use force to stop him. What about someone who exposes himself in a public place. Does that fall under the freedom of speech or expression? If there are laws against these ideas why do they question laws that target any kind of attack on religious figures? Muslims find them offensive, which makes a good enough reason not to show them in public but apparently freedom of speech must dominate the feelings of a large number of people.
When the Pope Benedict XVI says something offensive Islam there is a public outcry and the pope is forced to stop being ignorant and do the right thing by apologizing for hurting a number of people. It is nice to see a German opera house cancelling a Mozart concert just because the concert showed (Nauzubillah) the head of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). But for how long will the west do these things? For how long will the banner of the self-righteous “freedom of speech” be used to insult human beings? For how long will these “free-thinkers” be subject to the law? Times change and so do people. Showing the voice over of the Prophet (PBUH) is just a test to see how will the muslim world react. The show did show the cartoon of Hazrat Muhammad in an earlier episode, but apparently it fell on deaf ears. But this new episode is designed to measure how strong our belief in Islam is. No public outcry or anything shows nothing more than the fact that most of us have lost faith. It is just a matter of time before things get worse. We all know there are monsters under our beds. The really frightening thing is not realizing how real they actually are.
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