Criminalising concepts like blasphemy is dangerous for free speech because there can be no common definition of what it is.
It’s strange how a series of coincidences can result in a work of art, (depending what you call art.) This is the story behind my latest collage.
Last week as I was on my way through the dark twisting alleyways ofthe slum area of Istanbul where I live, my eye was caught by something gleaming on top of a pile of rubbish on a street corner. I stopped and picked it up. It was a 2009 calendar produced by an invitation card company, the cover a glossy green, embroidered with a gold embossed design. The coloured pages inside featured Turkish Sultans, verses from the Koran, and scenes from Mecca. I decided to take it.
Stopping for a brief visit with a Turkish friend, Ahmet, we inspected the calendar more closely. He pointed out a poem by the Sufi mystic Mevlana, which we both admired.
In generosity and helping others be like a river.
In compassion and grace be like sun.
In concealing others' faults be like night.
In anger and fury be like dead.
In modesty and humility be like earth.
In tolerance be like a sea.
Either exist as you are or be as you look
I noticed a picture of the black-draped cube-shaped Kaaba on one page, the edifice around which Muslims rotate on the culmination of their pilgrimage to Mecca, and thought I might use it in a collage. I told Ahmet the idea for a story I once thought of writing, about an action of outrageous blasphemy which sparks the Third World War, when a group of American soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia fly a helicopter over Mecca and drop pig shit on the Kaaba. Dropping any shit would have been outrage enough, but that of the animal most reviled by Muslims was the ultimate insult.
When I got home, checking out the latest world news, I noticed a headline that coincided strangely with the story I had just told Ahmet. In England a man had been charged with a public order offense for leaving a pig’s head on the doorstep of a community centre in Leicester, in protest about it being used by a Muslim prayer group. I began to think about my collage. How about a pig on top of the Kaaba? Blasphemy? Depends what you mean by the word. The Kaaba isn’t God. It was a pagan shrine long before Mohammed came along. And besides, I’ve got nothing against God. It’s religious elitism and intolerance that I’m agin.
Sifting through my picture library I failed to come up with a pig, but instead found a piggy-bank, which suddenly seemed even more appropriate, representing the huge wealth of the Saudi Kingdom and the 300 billion dollars they rake in annually from the pilgrim trade. The Kaaba is even depicted on the reverse of the 500 Saudi Riyal. I slapped a cash Exchange sign on the cube.
I saw an American flag waving at me among my cutouts and decided to stick it in the piggy bank, representing the hundreds of billions the oil-rich country has invested in America and the hugely lucrative profits they make in the arms trade. That seemed enough until I glimpsed a crucifix being carried up a mountain in Switzerland. I cut it out and placed it aloft the top of the Stars and Stripes, representing so-called ‘Christianity’, kidnapped by the authorities soon after the death of its meek founder and used to conquer and subdue countries and people, slaughtering in the name of Christ.
So, I had Christianity and Islam in the picture. The only religious symbol missing was that of those who consider themselves to be God’s Specially Chosen People—Judaism – the Big Daddy of them both. I cut out a star of David symbol from an Israeli flag and stuck it to the cornerstone of the Kaaba, representing perhaps the root of the problem of organized religions – the “I am better than thou” mentality.
As I was putting the picture together on a desert background with lightning streaking down from a stormy sky a new item came on the radio that furthered the coincidental theme of blasphemy currently occupying my mind. In a report to the Human Rights Commission, expert of freedom of religion Heiner Bielfeld, talking about countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where blasphemy carries the death penalty, said said criminalising concepts like blasphemy was dangerous for free speech because there could be no common definition of what it was.
“States should repeal any criminal law provisions that penalise apostasy, blasphemy and proselytism, as they may prevent persons belonging to religious or belief minorities from fully enjoying their freedom of religion or belief,” he said.
Personally, I go along with English writer Geoge Eliot when she said: “I hold it a blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning.” Aye, in the beginning, but look at them now.
And so I looked at my finished collage picture and wondered. Was it blasphemy? Not in my eyes. The blasphemy to me is represented in these symbols of religious authority which are supposed to represent justice and truth, but are corrupt and hypocritical, and betray the true goal of God and goodness—universal brotherhood. In fact, my picture is of a pile of rubbish.
http://www.saatchionline.com/art/Assemblage-Collage-Photomontage-OUTRAGE/363/1542693/view
Carry on and shed light on other individuals by exsnepsirg your thoughts about vegetable salads and I’ll be one of the people which will constantly there to cheer you up.