"Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled."
It's pretty rare to see a tag like this on a Wikipedia article, but sure enough, you can find one at the top of the site's page for "Muhammad." As reported by Jihadwatch.com and multiple other 'Net-based news sites, controversy surrounding an image that shows the face of the prophet Muhammad has the article "under attack" by (mostly) Muslims who find the face's appearance offensive.
It's common practice to veil the face of the prophet in art, and over 180,000 people have submitted complaint letters to Wikipedia, citing the image in question.
The Wikipicture was removed by protestors and put back up by the open source public so many times, the encyclopedia's editors placed a restriction on editing of the page.
So what's all this about?
Some protesters are claiming the pictures have been posted simply to "bait" and "insult" Muslims and argue the least Wikipedia can do is blur or blank out the faces, says the article at Jihadwatch.
Is Wikipedia baiting Muslims? Is an insult being made? I can't believe these questions are even being raised.
This isn't about freedom of speech or respect for religion, this is a question of intimidation by use of the racism card.
I've had a bone to pick with that premise since Hasaan Shibly accused we editors here at the newspaper of racism in a cartoon he claimed was drawn to represent water-boarding of Muslims. Go back and look for yourself in our Jan. 24, 2007 issue for the editorial "Life in a fishbowl," which is accompanied by a cartoon of a nameless individual looking out through the fourth wall of the public's attention (the fishbowl). You can read in that 2007 Editorial staff opinion that we were chastising Shibly for (among other things) his anti-American remarks (calling our current President "the Devil") and that we observed life in the spotlight means scrutiny. Campus celebrities (even minor ones) are watched and heard, we said. Shibly was, at the time, an elected official - and we held him accountable for the way he chose to represent the student body that voted him into office.
Where was he even getting that from? Were we baiting Shibly, insulting him as a Muslim man? Why would we want to?
Why would Wikipedia want to?
Less than a year later, I was on the scene to report that former Student Association President Viqar Hussein was accusing the current President Peter Grollitsch and pals of discriminatory practices. Hussein and the Muslim SA held a prayer in the SA office past building hours, partially in protest of their club suspension (which was, as I wrote in a Sept. 28, 2007 article, a direct result of their refusal to attend club orientation meetings that they signed up for). When administrators were forced to order them out, citing building rules, Viqar and the Muslim SA cried foul. Later, they were gracious enough to show "forgiveness" to the current SA E-board and the charges went un-pursued.
The Spectrum and the Student Association did not apologize for these "offenses," though the demands for apology were made. In the end, everyone could tell that certain individuals were using the race (or religion, or belief system, or heck, personal-choices-in-life) card to strong-arm others into submission - a practice that, as far as I can tell, goes very much against the tenets of Islam.
Shibly and Hussein failed to understand that free speech isn't a weapon, and over 180,000 people are now making the very same mistake.
The picture of Muhammad's face wasn't put there to provoke anyone - it's a piece of art that became a part of history, and the public has the right to see it on an open forum, or "sandbox"-style encyclopedia.
Wikipedia's editors refuse to take the image down, arguing that users can change their Internet settings to block the display. Furthermore, the picture isn't shown on Arabic versions of the site.
But that argument leaves out the most important part: the Wikipedia article on Muhammad is historical in nature, picture included. Should anyone be threatened into changing historical content for political correctness' sake? The editors say no.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
