Fuck the Fanatics!

I was preoccupied for the last two days, so I was unable to post about the horrific assassinations of satirists in Paris, and the subsequent murders of civilians in the course of the manhunt for the fanatical murderers. In my last post, poking fun at the "Sounds of Sodomy" campaign, I wrote:


Religious fanatics don't have a sense of humor, but they provide so much unintentional amusement. Apparently no organization now wants to take the credit for this hilariously backfiring campaign. What's no so funny is the religious right's attempt to interfere with the private lives of everyone, even non-believers. The best weapon against authoritarians is mockery, and mockery they got.


In the case of the murders of the "Charlie Hebdo" staff members, there is no amusement to be found, but the solution to authoritarian Wahabi Islam is to ridicule it- "Charlie Hebdo" will be running off a larger print run to defy the violent fanatic freaks. Seriously, fuck the fanatics.

The problem with the Abrahamic religions is that they have allowed authoritarian fundamentalists to hijack them. In the case of Islam, Saudi Arabian wahabists, the sort of people who demolish Islamic artifacts that they consider "improper", have been exercising all too much influence worldwide, trying to supplant other Islamic traditions. The Sufism endemic to Afghanistan gave way to the wahabism of the Taliban, courtesy of the mujahideen who were supported in the last throes of the Cold War. Malian wahabists vandalized Timbuktu's repository of irreplaceable Islamic legal commentary.

Wahabists are nihilists, theirs is the religion of the Rub al Khali, the sterile rejection of life for the empty promises of a heaven that sounds suspiciously like the Penthouse Club. Fuck that heavenly lie- any religion that countenances murder and glorifies death is bullshit.

I have Muslim friends, and I'm going to say that the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim- at least by Wahabi standards. My Moroccan friends drink wine, which would inflame a Saudi "virtue and vice" policeman. The Indian teller at my bank branch doesn't wear a headscarf (she was sporting some lovely henna designs stenciled on her forearms for the Eid celebration- this sweet-natured middle-aged matron would enrage a Talibani. By the same token, the only good Christian is a bad Christian, by the standards of the humorless authoritarians who take on the mantle of the religion.

Authoritarians cannot stand ridicule. Nihilistic religions which reject the world and its beauty cannot stand up to any criticisms. While law enforcement agencies track down those who plot violence, let the rest of us continue to ridicule the fanatic fundamentalist freaks of all stripes. Fuck the fanatics, Je suis Charlie.