He added: ‘The point is that for a Muslim, a depiction, particularly a comic or demeaning depiction, of the Prophet Mohammed might have the emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography.
‘One of the mistakes secularists make is not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief.’
I think he miss a point here. Blasphemy used to have « emotional force of a piece of grotesque child pornography » to Christians. It stopped because after watching a few, most of them realized it wasn't so bad, after all.
How do you expect people not to consider their religion above criticism/satire/mockery when you refuse to criticize, satire or mock it ? Things don't change by themselves, it takes courageous people to change them.
In an interview, he said Islam was ‘almost entirely’ practised by people who already may feel in other ways ‘isolated’, ‘prejudiced against’ and who may regard an attack on their religion as ‘racism by other means’.
Well, if they fell prejudiced when they are treated the same way as others, and don't get
more respect for them, I'd say the problem is on
their side.
Not meaning we shouldn't help them overcome this problem, but hiding it and encouraging them to continue this way does not seem the right thing to do.
So I encourage caricature of Muhammad. Actually, that was one of my old avatar :
(Text reads : I'm a caricature of Muhammad).
I even made a cool animated version where Muhammad became Jesus, then Chuck Norris, then Sarkozy, and a few others, bug sadly gif does not support transparency as well as png.
Why don't they can introduce an Islam-hating Pakistani ex-Muslim character in Eastenders called Sharif?
Because that would be think off just as much an attack on Muslims than it would if the Islam-hating character is Benedict or Samuel. Or maybe even worse. And the actor playing the character would be just as much a target for any radical than Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Taslima Nasreen, and I don't think any actor wants that.