Meeting The Mohammed Cartoonists, Pt. 1 of 4 - 2010 documentary

"The imam and the drawers of the prophet" And this is how it all started. Denmark's biggest newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. Embassies all around the world are on fire. Over 100 people get killed in demonstrations. A cartoonist from Oulu, Finland - called Ville Ranta - comments the fuzz on the web page of the culture magazine "Kaltio" with a Mohammed cartoon. The executive editor of "Kaltio" is fired and the web site is closed down. A local newspaper in Sweden publishes Lars Vilks' Mohammed cartoon which portrays the prophet Mohammed as a dog. Al-Qaeda offers 100 000 USD for the head of Vilks. This summer (2010) it's five years since the fuzz about the Danish cartoons first started. We'll go and see how are the Mohammed cartoonists today. But first we'll visit an imam in Oulu, Finland. We meet cultural differences right from the beginning. Imam Abdul Mannan gives me three questions to be asked from the cartoonists which I am about to meet. - Hi. - Hi. Long time, no see. - So we visited this imam in Oulu. - Yeah... - They comdemned these drawings of yours, and well, directed this question at you. And they are hoping for a reply. - Mmm...yes... - And you should now draw some kind of response, and we will then take it back to the imam. - Yes...right...oh well...I will try to give a reply. With my own logic. - Do you have some of your drawings around here...which you could show us? - I'm now drawing weekly to the "Kirkko ja kaupunki" ("Church and the City") magazine. So I have huge piles of these. - Are the readers offended by your drawings? - Yes, they are offended. - I can imagine that. So what do they say? - Well, I get an awful lot of complaints. - Okay... - But...It doesn't matter as the magazine is... - Supporting you? - Yes, they are a bunch of great people and they have a clear vision of what they are doing. - What kind of a picture offends them the most? - Everything offends them. Showing the sexuality and the weakness and silliness of people. - What did you want to say with your Mohammed drawing? - In a naive way that...I'm afraid...do not scare me. They are just cartoons and an expression of feeling helpless. - How does drawing the prophet in a mask help your message getting trough? - Well, it's a statement. It's sarcastic agreeing that the prophet's face must not be portrayed. - But you did understand that it would offend many muslims? - Yes, sure. In principle yes. But I thought that it wouldn't reach that many muslims and probably didn't. My cartoons only offended Finnish people or let's say non-muslims. - In westerns countries this has turned into a discussion about freedom of speech. But isn't this kind of media war? Does it make sense to offend people in the name of freedom of speech and in this way give extremists reasons for hostility? - One thing is that these extremists - islamic extremists - they will take anything as a reason and there are countless things in the western lifestyle that religious fundamentalists comdemn... - ...In that kind of a situation - discussing about the cartoons - stopping drawing and expressing our opinions by drawings would have been a wrong reaction. After getting the reply from Mr. Ranta we head towards Sweden to meet his colleaque.