Happy International Blasphemy Day!!

Today is September 30^th. It is International Blasphemy Day. In a moment I will blaspheme God. But before that I want to give you a series of events that led up to this moment.

This is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She doesn't have a clitoris. It was surgically removed from her at the age of 5 ... at the behest of her grandmother.

You see Ms. Hirsi Ali grew up in Moslem-dominated Somalia. Female genital cutting is a custom there. It is not approved by everyone of course. Ms. Hirsi Ali's father opposed it. Unfortunately for Ms. Ali her father was a political activist, and political activists in Somalia are subject to arrest. Ms. Hirsi Ali's grandmother took advantage of his imprisonment to have the operation performed.

Later her father, albeit liberal by Somali standards, arranged a marriage for her to a distant cousin. She did not approve of the idea and in 1992 she sought political asylum in the Netherlands. If you are a perceptive reader you may think that avoiding an unwanted marriage hardly qualifies granting political asylum. Ms Hirsi Ali probably knew that too. So she lied on her application. She lied about having to flee the capital, Mogadishu (she had been living in Kenya at the time). She lied about the reason she spent time in refugee camps (she was there not as a refugee, but to help relatives who were). But in any case, her request for political asylum was granted.

In the Netherlands, she flourished. She obtain a Master's degree in Political Science. Her view of the world became more cosmopolitan. Her faith in Islam, however, lagged. In 2001, after 9/11 she was appalled at Osama Bin Laden's use of Islam to justify his actions. So she read the Qur'an and the Hadiths. Sure enough the scriptures Bin Laden quoted for justification was there. In 2002, after reading a book on atheism, Ms. Hirsi Ali renounced Islam and became an atheist.

She also became politically active. She ran for and was elected to Parliment. There she became quite controversial with several public statements she made concerning Islam ... such as saying that by Western standards the prophet Mohammed would be considered a pedophile. She wrote and provided the voice over for a film that was shown on Dutch television in 2004, called Submission, that decried the Muslim treatment of women.

That film was directed by this man:

This is Theo Van Gogh. He was the Great-grand-nephew of the Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh. He was a film director/producer, author and actor in his own right. He too was an atheist who had been critical of Islam in the past.

On November 2, 2004, a little over 2 months after his and Ms. Hirsi Ali's film was shown, Mr. Van Gogh was bicycling to work. Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26 year old Dutch citizen and member of a growing Islamic immigrant society in the Netherlands, shot Mr. Van Gogh eight times. After killing him, Mr. Bouyeri walked over to his body and cut his throat. He then stabbed Mr. Van Gogh's body several times before finally leaving the scene. He left two knives in Mr. Van Gogh's body, one of which held a five page note threatening Western societies and Ms. Hirsi Ali's life ... causing her to go into hiding. It seems as though Mr. Bouyeri had been inspired to do what he did by a sermon by a leading Islamic Imam who called Mr. Van Gogh a "criminal bastard" and called for Allah to inflict him with a deadly disease.

This caused an Islamic backlash. Much of it wasn't good. There were some arson attempts against Muslim mosques. There were 106 incidents of violence directed at Muslims in the rest of November. But some of the backlash was appropriate (in my opinion). On September 30, 2005 a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published these cartoons of the prophet Mohammed:

They depicted the prophet Mohammed in blasphemous ways. Most pictured him as a terrorist. One in particular showed Mohammed with his turban as bomb. This showed in a non-violent way the contempt the Dutch people had for the murderous violence that was being done in the name of Islam.

Many Muslims didn't take their religious leader being likened to a violent terrorist. Their reaction was to perform many acts of violent terrorism.

Dutch embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were set on fire. Many European buildings were attacked. Fatwas were issued as death warrants against several people. All in all over 100 people died in the ensuing protests.

The end result has been self-censorship by many in the West. For example,Yale University Press is publishing a book entitled Cartoons That Shook the World, by a Brandeis professor of Dutch descent. While they have no problem publishing the book, they refused to publish the Muslim cartoons that are prominent to the book.

The censorship of religion has widened. In the staunchly Western society of Ireland, a law against blasphemy ("matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relations to matters held sacred by ANY religion; [emphasis mine]). The fine is 100,000 Irish pounds.

Also, because Ms. Hirsi Ali lied on her application for political asylum and in view of the violence the controversy has instilled, she is in danger of losing her Dutch citizenship. This would mean that the official protection of the Dutch government would be listed making the fulfillment of the many fatwas against her easier.

Furthermore, a resolution supported by 57 countries was introduced in the United Nations to make blasphemy an international crime (fortunately that proposition was eventually voted down). All of this led someone by the name of Lance Bush to proclaim September 30^th as International Blasphemy Day ... in honor of the day the Muslim cartoons were published.

OK ... that is how I have come to the precipice of my act of blasphemy. Here it is:

God sucks. You may think that other gods suck, but yours doesn't. But for every God there is someone who thinks as you do about yours. How do you know that yours isn't the sucky one? I think they all are useless contrivances that we would be better off without.

Cheers,

DB