Gilbert and George at the White Cube, Hoxton

Originally uploaded by Catfunt.

My wife was in London last week, where she popped in to see Gilbert and George’s latest exhibition at the White Cube Gallery in Hoxton.

In light of the recent cartoon row (my wife is Danish) she brought home a poster of Gilbert and George standing beneath two crosses next to the title of the exhibition “Sonofagod Pictures: Was Jesus Heterosexual?”

There have been some quite vocal critics of the exhibition, not least one Ann Widdecombe MP who described the works as “blasphemous in the extreme, as [they] will find out when finally they stand before the Son of God.”

Now, I know that Gilbert and George is a far cry from cartoons in a Danish newspaper. But the question still remains, how many calls have there been for Gilbert and George to be killed or to have had their hands chopped off? How many bomb threats have been made against the art gallery? How many British flags have been burned and how many embassies and consulates attacked?

I keep returning to the context in which those cartoons were drawn; to the fact that a Danish publisher could not find an illustrator for a children’s book about Muhammad because people were too afraid of the consequences.

And I keep returning to the fact that the cartoons that so offended the Muslim world—the ones equating Islam with violence—provoked exactly the violent reaction that they were seeking to criticize.

One more question. Does anyone know exactly what Islam’s stance on the depiction of Muhammad is? BBC Online’s reporting seems to me to be indicative of the non-Muslim world’s confusion on this matter:

Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits images of Allah, Muhammad and all the major figures of the Christian and Jewish traditions. BBC News, February 3.

There seems to be a confusion between two issues: the Islamic ban on any pictorial representation and respect for the character of Muhammad. BBC News online, February 4.

It is the satirical intent of the cartoonists, and the association of the Prophet with terrorism, that is so offensive to the vast majority of Muslims.

Islam bans pictorial representations of humans or animals to discourage idolatory.

It goes without saying that this ban covers the Prophet, his companions, and major figures of the two other Abrahamite religions considered sacred by Muslims as well.

Any images of the Prophet are banned under Islamic tradition. BBC News, February 5.

So which is it? Is it any depiction of Muhammad? Or of Christian and Jewish figures as well? Or is it the fact that Muhammad was depicted as a terrorist? If so, is it okay to depict Muhammad turning back suicide bombers from heaven because he has run out of virgins? Because that cartoon is more a criticism of Muhammad’s followers than it is of Muhammad. And right now, with all of the violence and the threats, I think that cartoon gets right to the heart of the mess the world finds itself in at the moment.