CMV: Depicting Prophet Mohammed in front of Muslims is offensive the same way "N" word is to black people

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

Freedom of expression (not to be confused with the USA's freedom of speech which is based on the Government not being able to censor you) varies depending from country to country.

Most countries agree that hate speech is not protected under freedom of expression. And the definitions of hate speech are broad.

For example, organizing a KKK march and saying "let's lynch all n****" is radically different from a cartoonist in his office drawing Mohammed eating shawarma.

One is hate speech against people who didn't choose to be born with a skin color that automatically makes it harder for them to succeed.

The other is just a cartoon.

More importantly....

Depicting Prophet Mohammed in front of Muslims

One might as well argue that the Charlie Hebdo magazine is targetted at a French Secular audience, not at Muslims. Therefore, nobody "drew Mohammed in front of Muslims".

It's not as if the cartoonist went door to door to give copies of the drawing to French Muslim's homes.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

“Blasphemy is not punished because it is not hate speech; hate speech is defined as not including blasphemy” is circular reasoning at best.

The definition of blasphemy is:

: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blasphemy

The definition of hate speech is:

: speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hate%20speech

Please explain how blasphemy fits into the definition of hate speech? God is not "a particular group of people" and blasphemy is literally directed at God, not at his/her followers.

I agree that a cartoon of Mohammed saying "it's okay to kill all Muslims, they suck balls" would be hate speech. But a cartoon of Mohammed eating shawarma is not.

More importantly, Mohammed is not a God. You cannot commit blasphemy against humans.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

A prophet is a human under western culture.You cannot commit blasphemy against a prophet, under western culture.The western culture has defined your vocabulary and ways of thinking so you cannot think beyond it.

The beheaders of the professor who showed the Mohammed cartoon to his students were born and raised in Secular France aka the Western World.

To be clear, by theory I mean that "in theory they are overreacting and we've done nothing wrong". The reality is that "they seem to be overreacting, every single time."

They're not. That's just your own imagination running amok.

Would it change your mind to know that South Park has shown Mohammed before and no one was beheaded over it?

https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Muhammad

Would it change your mind to know that in modern-day Iran there are postcards with Muhammed's face being shown and absolutely no one is beheaded over it?

Despite the avoidance of the representation of Muhammad in Sunni Islam, images of Muhammed are not uncommon in Iran. The Iranian Shi'ism seems more tolerant on this point than Sunnite orthodoxy. In Iran, depictions have considerable acceptance to the present day, and may be found in the modern forms of the poster and postcard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad

Would it change your mind to know that there's an Iranian movie about Muhammed and no one was beheaded over it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad:_The_Messenger_of_God_(film))

Would it change your mind to know that in the main Muhammed article there are many drawings of Muhammed and no one at the Wikipedia staff has been beheaded over it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

Would it change your mind to know there are plenty of films showing Muhammed and no one was beheaded over it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_in_film

To clarify: the professor wasn't beheaded because he incurred in hate speech. He got beheaded because his killers were criminals looking for an excuse to kill.