Southpark: Die kollektive Bestrafung

Wie bereits hier berichtet, folgt PI-News einer Kampagne aus den USA, die einen Muhammad Karrikaturen-Wettbewerb ausgeschrieben haben. Am 20. Mai sollen die besten 'Werke' auf ihren Webseiten veroeffentlich werden.

Der Ausloeser fuer die Kampagne war die Absage einer Folge der Serie Southpark, wo Muhammad in einem Baerenkostuem dargestellt werden sollte. Eine unbedeutende Gruppe von Islam-Konvertiten hatte Drohungen gegen die Macher von Southpark ausgesprochen, und der Sender geriet in Panik und setzte die Folge ab.

Hierzu erschien ein sehr lesenswerter Kommentar im Huffington Post mit dem Titel Draw Muhammad Day: Collectively Punishing Muslim Americans:

In the wake of the self-censorship controversy surrounding South Park's portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad, artists intent on defending freedom of speech have responded by organizing an event they call Draw Muhammad Day, to take place on May 20. The goal, according to the website hosting the endeavor, is to defend free speech by showing Muslims that artists "don't back down" when threatened.

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But the fact is that millions of Muslim-Americans -- many of whom have known about South Park caricatures of Muhammad for years -- behaved exactly the way free speech advocates wanted them to: by remaining silent or expressing their feelings peacefully. The handful of thugs at a New York-based site called Revolution Muslim -- who, by the way, are unwelcome in every New York mosque for their extremist rantings -- were the only exceptions. And now these Muslim-Americans are being subject to mass insult as thanks for their respect of South Park's free speech rights.

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Maybe it is to show all Muslims that attacks on free speech won't be tolerated. But the fact is that over the course of 10 years, millions of Muslims respected the free speech of South Park and didn't even lodge a polite complaint with Comedy Central. What exactly are we being punished for? Our inability to enforce a zero-tolerance policy and prevent a blogger from hitting the Enter key?

If free speech advocates want to target someone, why not target Comedy Central, who exhibited self-censorship in the face of a mere web post? Or better yet, why not target the Revolution Muslim group, who issued the warnings that brought this whole crisis to bear? (I know plenty of Muslims who would join in this effort.)

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Imagine for a moment if an African-American blogger complained about an unfair stereotype in a cartoon in the same crass manner as the Revolution Islam folks. Would free speech advocates respond by hosting a contest to draw as many vile stereotypes of blacks as they could? I can't imagine that anyone would even propose such an idea. So why, then, are millions of Muslim-Americans who said nothing about South Park in the past decade being subject to this mass insult? To prove a point? What point would that be?

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