UPDATE: Few non-Muslims today are more vehemently opposed to EDMD than its creator,
Molly Norris. Not even the
Against EDMD F/B page, of which Ms. Norris is now a member. In fact, Ms. Norris is now recruiting visitors at her website to join the Against EDMD page as well. Unfortunately for Ms. Norris, YouTube user
MrBeydoun4Palestine posted two new
ominous videos that use her earlier
enthusiastic words against her. The messages of the edited video clips and soundtracks are unmistakable. Doesn't
look like joining the opposition helped her
much, though she did dodge
one fatwa. So far. The original EDMD news roundup as follows.
The
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day controversy continues to rage on worldwide, and shows no signs of abating despite its May 21 expiration date. Sweden
closed its embassy in Islamabad for an
indefinite period due to security concerns. That lockdown appears to stem from the
controversy surrounding Swedish cartoonist
Lars Vilks, who has
gone into hiding.
Yesterday the Lahore High Court (LHC), which issued the
injunctions banning Facebook and YouTube in Pakistan, petitioned Pakistan's Foreign Minister to lodge an official sovereign protest to the US over the
blasphemous Facebook page. Today, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States
complied. Pakistan has also
filed a grievance with the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Yet even in Pakistan itself, as the
Economic Times is now reporting, the controversy is causing rifts in Pakistani civil society between the Islamists who want social networks like Facebook banned, and modernists who oppose the bans as self-defeating. The
sweeping social networking ban is even starting to
impact many major Pakistani businesses.
Those same kinds of societal rifts are now surfacing in India. As the
usanewsweek.com website is now reporting, Indian Muslims have been
petitioning the national government to ban Facebook over the row. Though predominantly a secular society, India was the
first nation to ban Salman Rushdie's
Satanic Verses. Many in India who consider that ban a national embarrassment are calling for the government
to repeal it as its 21st anniversary approaches. In related news,
Xinhua reports that the government of Saudi Arabia is also now blocking the controversial EDMD Facebook page. The
Christian Science Monitor is reporting on news that the cartoon controversy is casting a dark shadow over the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Local Muslims were outraged over a
relatively mild sketch drawn by famed South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (aka
Zapiro) syndicated internationally May 20.
South Africa's Muslim Judicial Council
issued a press release on its website this past weekend condemning the Zapiro cartoon. Zapiro himself has received a number of death threats from enraged Islamists, as well as a
defamation lawsuit from South African President Jacob Zuma. South African officials fear heightened security risks for the upcoming World Cup beginning on June 11. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (
AQIM) had already threatened to launch terror attacks against the World Cup venue
last month, and now local Muslim anger is
mounting. Mr. Zapiro's own response to South African Muslims aggrieved by his cartoon? "
Get over it."
Ironically, the creator of the original EDMD cartoon, Molly Norris, has
attempted to distance herself from the controversy by disavowing the campaign and apologizing to Muslims for it. Yet she is still facing
death threats from offended Islamist extremists, while proponents of the EDMD contest are now accusing her of cowardice for disowning the campaign she herself inspired. It is an entirely no-win situation for cartoonist Norris who, like
Martin Luther, only wanted to make a mild statement of protest, but wound up sparking a cultural conflagration far beyond her ability to extinguish. Even her fellow cartoonists are
greatly divided over the issue. Much more on the EDMD controversy at
DigitalJournal.com and Google's
search page.
FUNNY HOW? Some Islamists have come up with their own cartoon contest to counter EDMD, to wit EDHD:
Everybody Draw (the) Holocaust Day. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about EDHD is that no one will likely get killed over it. A real buffet for thought there.
INDIA BLOCKED! According to PC World, India
has blocked the EDMD Facebook page.
NO JOY IN FARMVILLE: Pakistani
Farmville fans
grumble as their farms go
untended.
