In response to Comedy Central’s refusal to run an episode of “South Park” that featured and image of the prophet Muhammad, in April 2010 American cartoonist Molly Norris suggested that everyone draw images of the prophet in a show of solidarity.
A Facebook group was formed and news of it quickly spread, triggering rage and angry protests throughout the Muslim world. In Pakistan, the government went so far as to ban Facebook, Youtube, and Wikipedia in an effort to stop people from seeing the page encouraging people to draw Muhammad.
The stunt had a number of outspoken critics in the West who said the day was not part of a constructive discourse. “The problem with the ‘in-your-face message’ of ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ is not just that it is inconsiderate of the sensibilities of others, but that it defines those others – Muslims – as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders,” wrote James Taranto in an oped in the Wall Street Journal.
