Roses of the Prophet Mohammed
Has the Republican party infiltrated Tehran? And I thought the concept of freedom fries was ridiculous.
posted by mochi at 8:24 PM
Thursday, February 16, 2006
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3 Comments:
When we first decided to unconstitutionally invade Iraq, my conservative step father stopped buying French wine (and he's a big wine drinker). "Who is your boycott directed at," I asked him. "It's only having an adverse affect on you because now you don't get to drink delicious French wine."
Then came the freedom fries. Then the CHUDs came at me. What is this world coming to? If people made even the slightest effort to channel their energy toward useful ends, we could probably attain world wide utopia.
This whole cartoon thing reminds me of I guy I worked with at a liquor store a while back. He would get deeply offended if strangers made disparaging about his mother.
One day, some random miscreant came into our store and started causing trouble. My coworker wouldn't give him booze or some such thing because he was clearly already drunk. The guy, of course, gets indignant and starts spouting profanity. My coworker and I eventually shuffle him out the door and lock it until he goes away. But before the guys leaves, as you've probably guessed, he tells my coworker his "mother's a whore," or something to that effect. WELL! My coworker was SOOOO offended it was absolutely ridiculous. "I can't believe he talked about my mother," he said, almost in tears. There's no back story about this guy's mother either - she was a healthy upper middle class white woman living in the suburbs.
When I was trying to calm him down I kept saying, "but this guy doesn't have the slightest idea who your mother is. Surely he doesn't have any evidence to back up his claim," but he was inconsolable. I couldn't help wanting to smack the guy (my coworker). Why in god's name was he getting so worked up about the mother thing?? The hooligan said it strictly in a last ditch effort to wound him, which he obviously did, so my coworker let him win. Stupid. Just stupid.
The point is, my coworker's passion and anger were totally misguided. If he used this energy to affect some positive end, such as reaching out to drunken vagrants through charity work, he would feel better AND a tiny difference would be made. What does it achieve for offended Muslims to apply violence against Western businesses? Are they actually defending Mohammad? Does Mohammad actually need defending at all? If he's Allah's prophet I bet he can take care of himself!
If one has true faith in something, then (s)he can let it stand on its own merits. My coworker's distress over a drunken stranger's comments got me thinking, "maybe his mother is a whore," which I'm sure is not what he wanted. Muslims are making a terrible name for themselves because so many of them put their faith in the religion aside, ironically, in the name of faith. These types of moronic "attacks"--like calling someone's mother a whore or printing an offensive cartoon--can be dealt with the way you deal with a schoolyard bully. The bully may push you around, but if you let him take your dignity, he has truly defeated you. And dignity, it should be noted, can only be taken away if we let it.
Actually, this could be a big marketing idea... religious-themed food! I'll bet food corporations are brainstorming as we speak. Like, 3-pack Trinity Twinkies, Holy Ho-Hos, Abraham-and-cheese... oh, the possibilities!
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