Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was an event held on 20 May 2010 in support of free speech and freedom of artistic expression of those threatened by violence for drawing representations of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It began as a protest against censorship of an American television show, South Park, "201" by its distributor, Comedy Central, in response to death threats against some of those responsible for the segment. If only they know why Muslims protested. Maybe their faiths, whatever they are, allows them to make fun of their religious guides, Islam doesn’t. And no Muslim will allow anyone else to do that. Observance of the day began with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, accompanied by text suggesting that "everybody" create a drawing representing Muhammad, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech. You call that freedom of speech or an ultimate act of cowardice?
U.S. cartoonist Molly Norris of Seattle, Washington, created the artwork in reaction to Internet death threats that had been made against cartoonists Trey Parker and Matt Stone for depicting Muhammad in an episode of South Park. Depictions of Muhammad are explicitly forbidden by a few hadiths (sayings of and about Muhammad), though not by the Qur'an. If it isn’t written in the Holy Book, does that mean we can go about doing as we think? This is a level at which no non-believer can reach; shallow as they are, so let’s not hold anything against them. Postings on RevolutionMuslim.com (under the pen name Abu Talha al-Amrikee; later identified as Zachary Adam Chesser) had said that Parker and Stone could wind up like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was shot to death by a Muslim extremist, who afterwards pinned a letter to his body with a knife. The individuals running the website later denied that the postings were threats, although they were widely perceived as such.
Norris said that if people draw pictures of Muhammad, Islamic terrorists would not be able to murder them all, and threats to do so would become unrealistic. I’m sorry, is Norris a four year old? With an undeveloped brain? Unrealistic you say? Within a week, Norris' idea became popular on Facebook, was supported by numerous bloggers, and generated coverage on the blog websites of major U.S. newspapers. As the publicity mounted, Norris and the man who created the first Facebook page promoting the May 20 event disassociated themselves from it. Well played! Nonetheless, planning for the protest continued with others "taking up the cause".[2] Facebook had an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" page, which grew to over 100,000 participants (101,870 members by May 20). A protest page on Facebook against the initiative, named "Against ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'", attracted slightly more supporters (106,000 by May 20).[3] Oh, I see how ‘unrealistic’ they have managed to make it! Beat at their own game.
Subsequently, Facebook was temporarily blocked by Pakistan; the ban was lifted after Facebook agreed to block the page for users in India and Pakistan. Like it mattered! Some so-called Muslims continued using it even during the ban.
In the media, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day attracted both support from commentators who felt that the campaign represented important issues of freedom of speech, and the need to stand up for this freedom, as well as criticism from other commentators who found the initiative crass, juvenile, and needlessly offensive. Crass, juvenile and needlessly offensive it was!
It’s more than a year now since this happened and there wasn’t a single occasion when my outrage at this thing got milder. I was a Facebook freak, used it almost religiously, regularly, but I deactivated my account on the first day of the ban and never went back. 99% people returned to that damned social networking after the ban was lifted, a big percentage of these people were using Facebook even during the ban. I’m proud to say I didn’t nor ever felt the urge to go back there. I will always…always inwardly dislike the people who are still on Facebook. People kill for the love of religion, bear mortal pain and give away their lives but this was only a tiny test of faith, a very tiny test of faith. And very few Muslims managed to take it.
I’m not the judge of what’s wrong and what’s right in the eyes of Allah, maybe this wasn’t a big deal at all, but personally, such Muslims are no-good in my eye. These Muslims also include my friends and relatives but it doesn’t make them any less disliked in my eyes. Saying, ‘oh, but we only use it once in a while, almost never’, is a pathetic excuse. What do we use Facebook for? Like we cannot survive if we don’t have a social circle in the virtual world. Weren’t we talking and breathing and happy while there were no Facebook yet? For females, it is just to find guys who find their pictures cute, tell them they love their activities, showoff their activities to their friends, to find a random guy trying to make friends with them. For guys, it is just finding more and more girls, to look at their pictures, flirt and to see more n more girls in their friends’ list to show off to other guys. And if there is any other reason, it more or less comes to the same point mentioned above. To stay informed of others’ activities is same as poking their noses in the lives of people who have allowed it. Something is fun up to the point it doesn't start getting offensive at someone else's expense. Deactivating Facebook doesn’t make me a better Muslim, but it gives me a certain kind of joy that I could show support to our Holy Prophet Muhammad SAW.
P.S. These are just my views, not necessarily be anyone else's. I cannot do much if anyone finds it offensive, because if they have it, i have a 'freedom of speech' too!
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