WSJ: Blame It on Voltaire: Muslims Ask French To Cancel 1741 Play

[question everything]

Blame It on Voltaire: Muslims Ask French To Cancel 1741 Play

Alpine Village Riles Activists By Letting Show Go On; Calling on the Riot Police
By ANDREW HIGGINS
March 6, 2006; Page A1

SAINT-GENIS-POUILLY, France -- Late last year, as an international crisis was brewing over Danish cartoons of Muhammad, Muslims raised a furor in this little alpine town over a much older provocateur: Voltaire, the French champion of the 18th-century Enlightenment. A municipal cultural center here on France's border with Switzerland organized a reading of a 265-year-old play by Voltaire, whose writings helped lay the foundations of modern Europe's commitment to secularism. The play, "Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet," uses the founder of Islam to lampoon all forms of religious frenzy and intolerance.

(snip)

The dispute rumbles on, playing into a wider debate over faith and free-speech. Supporters of Europe's secular values have rushed to embrace Voltaire as their standard-bearer. France's national library last week opened an exhibition dedicated to the writer and other Enlightenment thinkers. It features a police file started in 1748 on Voltaire, highlighting efforts by authorities to muzzle him. "Spirit of the Enlightenment, are you there?" asked a headline Saturday in Le Figaro, a French daily newspaper.

(snip)

Meanwhile, the name Voltaire -- and the Enlightenment tradition he embodies -- has frequently been cited by pundits across Europe commenting on the Danish cartoon furor. That controversy has triggered violent clashes in Pakistan, Nigeria, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, leaving scores dead. It has led to the arrest of nearly a dozen Muslim journalists who re-published some of the drawings and has driven the original artists into hiding.

(snip)

For Voltaire's Muslim critics, the play reveals a centuries-old Western distortion of Islam. For his fans, it represents a manifesto for liberty and reason and should be read not so much as an attack on Islam but as a coded assault on the religious dogmas that have stained European history with bloody conflict. When Voltaire wrote the play in 1741, Roman Catholic clergymen denounced it as a thinly veiled anti-Christian tract. Their protests forced the cancellation of a staging in Paris after three performances -- and hardened Voltaire's distaste for religion. Asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce Satan, he quipped: "This is not the time to be making enemies..." Voltaire, the pen-name of François-Marie Arouet, peppered his writing with irreverent barbs that riled the Church. He described God as "a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh," and wrote that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Mr. Goldzink, the scholar, says Voltaire mocked all religions but had some sympathy for Islam, which Voltaire described as "less impure and more reasonable" than Christianity and Judaism.

(snip)

Some devout Muslims are trying to revive taboos against blasphemy, and there are signs of growing self-censorship on matters even tangentially related to Islam. In January, the Belgian town of Middelkerke cancelled a planned art display that featured a fiberglass model of Saddam Hussein submerged in a fish tank in his underwear. The Czech artist, David Cerny, describes his work "Shark" as "a reflection on dictatorship." Officials say they worried it might upset local Muslims.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114161327867090087.html (subscription)

[Ignacio Upton]

1. Fuck religious extremists of all stripes!

I'm surprised that Jerry Falwell and James Dobson aren't calling for censorship against any Enlightment-era thinker, because anything that is liberal is subversive in their view. Are we going to be burning books written by John Locke next? I can't wait to give up my political dignity for Christofascists and Islamofascists.

[The Magistrate]

2. The People Seeking To Stop This Production, Ma'am

Are not one whit different from the likes of "Focus on the Family" or the "Catholic League for Civil Rights'. The fact is that religious zealots cannot expect anyone who does not share their beliefs to abide by their strictures, and any attempt by such reactionary cretins, of whatever stripe, must be resisted, rejected, and overcome.

[question everything]

4. Last week, on the History channel there was a program about the history

of Islam and the evolving of the term Jihad (it means struggle and originally referred to struggle within oneself, to be a better Muslim).

But what bothered me is the strong desire to, first, revive the glory days of Islam, from 1200 - 1500 (more or less) and to institute Islamic laws in the whole world.

And, yes, as with Evangelical Christians: if you want to follow the strict teaching of your faith, fine. But leave the rest of us alone. You don't have to terminate a pregnancy and you don't have to marry someone the same gender that you are. But leave the rest of us alone.

[Chovexani]

3. As long as people keep proving him right

There will be a need for his work.

[fujiyama]

5. .

[genie_weenie]

6. Stupid. The best thing about Mahomet is

it was used by Voltaire more as an indictment or the Church and to castigate religious intolerance.

And I remember this issue happening last December...
http://washingtontimes.com/upi/20051212-062513-7587r.htm