# Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was an event held on May 20, 2010 in support of free speech and freedom of artistic expression of those threatened with violence for drawing representations of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It began as a protest against censorship of an American television show, South Park, "201" by its distributor, Comedy Central, in response to death threats against some of those responsible for two segments broadcast in April 2010. Observance of the day began with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, accompanied by text suggesting that "everybody" create a drawing representing Muhammad, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech.

## Quotes
### Creator of original cartoon

* In light of the recent veiled (ha!) threats aimed at the creators of the television show South Park … by bloggers on Revolution Muslim's website, we hereby deem May 20, 2010 as the first 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' Do your part to both water down the pool of targets and, oh yeah, defend a little something our country is famous for (but maybe not for long? Comedy Central cooperated with terrorists and pulled the episode) the first amendment.
** Molly Norris, April 20, 2010, MollyNorris.com — cited in: Orr, Jimmy (April 26, 2010). "Creators of 'Everybody Draw Muhammad Day' drop gag after everybody gets angry". Los Angeles Times.
* Yeah, I want to water down the targets... as a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central's message they sent about feeling afraid.
** Molly Norris, April 23, 2010, interview with Dave Ross of KIRO — on being aksed if she was sure and stating it is her way of countering fear exhibited by Comedy Central, cited in: Perkins, Mary (April 27, 2010). "Seattle Cartoonist’s "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" Goes Viral". Seattlest (Seattle, Washington: Gothamist). and "Seattle cartoonist: May 20 is ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’" by Stephen C. Webster, RawStory (24 April 2010) "America's disappointing reaction to South Park censorship" by Alex Spillius, The Telegraph (1 May 2010).
* I make cartoons about current, cultural events. I made a cartoon of a 'poster' entitled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" with a nonexistent group's name -- Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor -- drawn on the cartoon also. I did not intend for my cartoon to go viral. I did not intend to be the focus of any 'group'.
** Molly Norris, April 25, 2010, — cited in: Associated Press (April 27, 2010). Cartoonist overwhelmed by response to "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day". MyNorthwest.com.
* I practice the first amendment by drawing what I wish.
** Molly Norris, April 25, 2010, — cited in: Associated Press (April 27, 2010). Cartoonist overwhelmed by response to "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day". MyNorthwest.com.
* This particular cartoon of a 'poster' seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for. I am going back to the drawing table now!
** Molly Norris, April 25, 2010, — cited in: Associated Press (April 27, 2010). Cartoonist overwhelmed by response to "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day". MyNorthwest.com.
* I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid.
** Molly Norris, April 26, 2010, — cited in: "The PM wrestles with greatest non-core moral issue of the election after next". The Australian. April 27, 2010. and "Cartoonist Molly Norris Erases 'Draw Muhammad' Gag". Fox 9. April 26, 2010.
* It's turned into something completely different, nothing I could've imagined it morphing into. I'm happy some people are talking, because obviously this needs to be addressed.
** Molly Norris, May 19, 2010 — cited in: Miller, Joshua Rhett (May 19, 2010). "'Everybody Draw Mohammed' Day Unleashes Facebook Fracas". Fox News.

### About

    Alphabetized by author
* As a cartoon, it was mildly amusing. As a campaign, it's crass and gratuitously offensive.
** Janet Albrechtsen (May 5, 2010). "South Park gag makes a mockery of freedom of expression". The Australian.
* Depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats.
** Ann Althouse (April 24, 2010). "'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' is not a good idea". "Althouse" blog.
* Forget the South Park dust up; forget Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. If you want to see truly shocking anti-religious cartoons, you have to go back to the sixteenth century. Near the end of Luther’s life, his propaganda campaign against Rome grew increasingly vitriolic and his language grotesquely pungent.
** Austin Dacey, Austin (May 12, 2010). "Satire is Religion – The debate over cartoons and prophets is not just about free of speech; it’s about freedom of religion.". Religion Dispatches.
* The debate over cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad is often framed as a clash between free speech and religious attitudes. But it is just as much a clash between conflicting religious attitudes, and the freedom at stake is not only freedom of expression but freedom of religion. For while Luther was surely engaging in offensive speech, he was also exercising a right of freedom of conscience, which included the right to dissent from Catholic orthodoxy.
** Austin Dacey, Austin (May 12, 2010). "Satire is Religion – The debate over cartoons and prophets is not just about free of speech; it’s about freedom of religion.". Religion Dispatches.
* There is power in numbers, and if you're an artist, creator, cartoonist, or basically anyone who would like to exercise your right to free speech in a way that it is actively threatened, that would be the day to do it.
** Laura Hudson (April 27, 2010). "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day Invites Artists to Defend Their Freedom of Speech". ComicsAlliance (AOL Inc).
* No one has a right to an audience or even to a sympathetic hearing, much less an engaged audience. But no one should be beaten or killed or imprisoned simply for speaking their mind or praying to one god as opposed to the other or none at all or getting on with the small business of living their life in peaceful fashion. If we cannot or will not defend that principle with a full throat, then we deserve to choke on whatever jihadists of all stripes can force down our throats.
** Nick Gillespie (May 18, 2010). "Why We're Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest on Thursday May 20". Reason magazine.
* Our Draw Mohammed contest is not a frivolous exercise of hip, ironic, hoolarious sacrilege toward a minority religion in the United States (though even that deserves all the protection that the most serioso political commentary commands). It's a defense of what is at the core of a society that is painfully incompetent at delivering on its promise of freedom, tolerance, and equal rights.
** Nick Gillespie (May 18, 2010). "Why We're Having an Everybody Draw Mohammed Contest on Thursday May 20". Reason magazine.
* The single most important element–and the thing that ties these selections together–is that each image forces the viewer to do two things. First, they consciously call into question the nature of representation, no small matter in fights over whether it is allowed under Islamic law to depict Mohammed … Second, each of the images forces the viewer to actively participate not simply in the creation of meaning but of actually constructing the image itself.
** Nick Gillespie (May 20, 2010). "And The Winner of The Everybody Draw Mohammad Contest is...". Reason.com.
* There is a deeper lesson here: Connect the dots and discover that we all must be Spartacus on Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. And that in a free society, every day is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.
** Nick Gillespie (May 20, 2010). "And The Winner of The Everybody Draw Mohammad Contest is...". Reason.com.
* Theo van Gogh was murdered for making a movie critical of Islam. 'South Park' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are threatened with the same fate. They deserve our solidarity, and I will stand with them by hosting images of Muhammad on my own website. Please stand with us.
** Jason Greaves (May 13, 2010). "Stand up for free speech May 20". The Washington Times, LLC.
* It is clear that some feel great satisfaction at what they see as 'sticking it to the Muslims'.
** Franz Kruger (May 28, 2010). "Why draw the Prophet?". Mail & Guardian.
* Molly Norris proposed a 'let’s everyone draw Mohammed day' – then, apparently appalled by her own audacity, backed quickly away.
** John Lloyd (May 8, 2010). "Hard men and high drama: life imitating art?". Financial Times.
* While the suits at Comedy Central and Yale University Press have been cowed, people across the country have decided to speak up and thereby magnify the offense a thousandfold.
** Jeremy Lott (April 27, 2010). "The Nation's Pulse – The Humorless Veto". The American Spectator.
* Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a chance to reinstate offense and sincerity to their proper place, freed from terror or silence.
** Jordan Manalastas (May 17, 2010). "Cartoonist criticized for creating ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ should have defended her right to First Amendment". Daily Bruin, University of California, Los Angeles.
* The proper (and, at the risk of looking jingoistic, American) way to combat bad speech is with better speech. To silence and be silenced are the refuge of cowards.
** Jordan Manalastas (May 17, 2010). "Cartoonist criticized for creating ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ should have defended her right to First Amendment". Daily Bruin, University of California, Los Angeles.
* I realize that in a free society, someone is always going to be doing or saying something that will offend somebody somewhere. I also realize that more free speech, not censorship, is the answer.
** Pam Meister (April 27, 2010). "Exclusive: ‘Draw Mohammed Day’ – A Gratuitous Offense or a Legitimate Stand on Freedom of Speech?". Family Security Matters.
* The bottom line is that the First Amendment guarantees free speech including criticism of all peoples. We are an equal-opportunity offense country. To censor ourselves to avoid upsetting a certain group (in a cartoon no less) is un-American.
** Andrew Mellon (April 25, 2010). "Coming May 20: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day". Big Journalism.
* In the South Park episode that started all this, Buddha does lines of coke and there was an episode where Cartman started a Christian rock band that sang very homo-erotic songs. Yet there is one religious figure we can't make fun of. The point of the episode that started the controversy is that celebrities wanted Muhammad's power not to be ridiculed. How come non-Muslims aren't allowed to make jokes?
** Michael C. Moynihan of Reason, — cited in: Moye, Dan (April 27, 2010). "Creators Out, But Muhammad Drawing Protest Is On". AOL News.
* These two camps – the Muhammad-knockers and the Muslim offence-takers – are locked in a deadly embrace. Islamic extremists need Western depictions of Muhammad as evidence that there is a new crusade against Islam, while the Muhammad-knockers need the flag-burning, street-stomping antics of the extremists as evidence that their defence of the Enlightenment is a risky, important business.
** Brendan O'Neill (May 19, 2010). "Mocking Muhammad: a shallow Enlightenment". Spiked magazine.
* Americans love their free speech and have had enough of those who think they can dictate the limits of that fundamental right. [...] Draw to any heart's discontent. It's a free country. For now.
** Kathleen Parker (April 27, 2010). "Freedom of sketch". The Washington Post Company.
* There’s something here that makes me twitch. I think it’s the 'everybody'. It’s the 'everybody' of a man at the back of a mob, trying to persuade other people to get lynching.
** Hugo Rifkind (May 25, 2010). "This is a poor way to draw attention to intolerance". The Times (London).
* If a cartoonist wants to satirise Islam by drawing Mohammed, I’m on his side all the way. But among the 13,000 pictures on the EDMD Facebook page, you have Mohammed as a dog in a veil, Mohammed as a pig and Mohammed as a monkey. That’s not resistance, but picking a fight.
** Hugo Rifkind (May 25, 2010). "This is a poor way to draw attention to intolerance". The Times (London).
* Issuing a death threat against somebody who drew a picture isn’t my thing, but this isn’t either.
** Hugo Rifkind (May 25, 2010). "This is a poor way to draw attention to intolerance". The Times (London).
* It is likely that institutions will apply more and more self-censorship. Fearing a possible threat, nothing is worse than the fear of fear.
** Mario Roy (April 27, 2010). "La nouvelle censure" (in French). La Presse.
* In a democratic society where free speech is vigilantly protected, it is perfectly reasonable to call out censorship, particularly when it springs from some form of tyrannical religious extremism.
** Liliana Segura (April 26, 2010). "Right-Wing Attacks on South Park Censorship Ignore America's Wars in Muslim Countries". AlterNet.
* Whether this succeeds or not, and I have no personal interest in drawing Muhammad, I support the concept. We must join together to stop injustice.
** Herb Silverman, founder and president of the Secular Coalition for America (May 3, 2010). "In support of Draw Muhammad Day". The Washington Post blog (The Washington Post Company).
* It defines those others—Muslims—as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders.
** James Taranto (April 26, 2010). "Everybody Burn the Flag/If we don't act like inconsiderate jerks, the terrorists will have won!". The Wall Street Journal.
* It attempts to battle religious zealotry with rudeness and sacrilege, and we can only wait to see what happens, but I fear it won’t be good.
** Bill Walsh (April 28, 2010). "Respect for Religions". Bedford Minuteman (GateHouse Media).
* [A] blasphemous faux holiday … [which would] only serve to reinforce broader American misunderstandings of Islam and Muslims.
** Jeremy F. Walton (April 28, 2010). "Who’s Afraid of the Free Speech Fundamentalists?: Reflections on the South Park Cartoon Controversy". The Revealer (New York University's Center for Religion and Media).

## See also

* Censorship
* Comedy
* Dissent
* First Amendment to the United States Constitution
* Flying Spaghetti Monster
* Freedom of speech
* Satire
* South Park
* Muhammad

## External links

* Allahpundit. It’s on: “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” set for May 20, HotAir.com, April 23, 2010.
* May 20th ‘Everybody draw Mohammed Day’, Jason, The American MAXIM, April 23, 2010.
* Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, analysis at Know Your Meme
* And The Winner of The Everybody Draw Mohammad Contest is..., at Reason.com