Forbidden Drawings and Dowbrigade’s Law

WASHINGTON,
Feb. 3 The Muslim world erupted in anger on Friday over caricatures of
the Prophet Muhammad published in Europe while the Bush
administration offered the protesters support, saying of the
cartoons, "We
find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find
these images offensive."

from the New York Times

We really had to struggle with the decision of whether or not to publish
in this space one or all of the twelve sketches of Muhammad at the center
of this controversy.  They are easy enough to find on
the internet.

Some of us wanted to publish them because the Bush administration finds
them offensive, and petty much anything they are against has a place
in the Dowbrigade News.  Then there is our established identity
as a graphic-centric blog, and a fan of political cartooning. Add to
that our at times tragic attraction to the provocative and there was
a lot going for throwing the images up there asap.

On the other hand, it comes dangerously close to crossing the line around
our pledge not to blog about our workplace, which currently counts many
Muslims among its clients. Even though we try to keep our blogging separate
from our day job, we have learned by bitter experience that if you hope
that a particular person or group of people never, ever see a particular
posting, it is almost certain that they will, sooner or later.  Call
it Dowbrigade’s Law.

And if it blew up in our face, even though we believe very strongly
that in a free society not even religions can claim immunity from satire,
we have to ask ourselves: Is this an issue we are ready and willing to
go to the mat on? To risk our job and career over? Romantic fool that
we are, we were leaning towards a "yes".

Then we thought of some of our Muslim students, past and present, not
as Muslims or as students, but as people. People we knew and liked and
respected.  People we would not want to insult or offend in any
normal personal, social or professional situation. 

So although we are eternally grateful that we could, if we wished, publish
the Heretical Dozen, we will refrain. Anyone who would not be offended
can easily check them out here.

One of the problems we have always had
with religious fundamentalists, of all stripes and sects, is that they
seems to have exorcised their senses of humor….