Muslims all over the world were angered with the publication of 12 caricatures of Prophet Muhammad two years ago in a newspaper, Jyllands-Posten in Denmark. Recently several Danish media reprinted the cartoons.

As we know, there are all sorts of rules in Islam, including that it prohibits strongly the depiction of Prophet Muhammad -- his face or body.

Now, we must face a similar situation on the Wikipedia site where there are now some images depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Through Google or Yahoo "images of Prophet Muhammad" can be found or by following these links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maome.jpg, readers will find this example.

Let us try to see this problem from an artistic point of view. As an artist with the educational background in fine art and with a specialization in contemporary art, I can discuss this. But I am also on the other hand a Muslim, so I hope I am able to discuss this issue in the context of contemporary visual parlance and then go on beyond to explore how we should react to it.

Artwork today moves forward freely and tries to find a place in global mobility. Contemporary art can stand for any media chosen in order to transmit ideas or notions.

Paul Greenhalgh in his book on postmodernism, said Karl Marx was a modern philosopher who described religion as the "opium of the people".

This means religion at first seduces us, peacefully and calmly, but in the end it will kill us without having time to be aware that we have "become nothing and blank".

Indeed, we can say his thoughts are completely wrong because religion for people believing in it, is an absolute truth and provides guidance to find the truth and real life in the world and isn't an opium on our live.

We apply our religion as a form of obeying totally our God and we spread kindness and peace among human beings. So in this sense, religion has positioned itself as one of the grand oppositions to the history of human beings and indeed to contemporary art.

The concept of contemporary art itself functions as a media of artistic expression. Generally, we can say artists produce artwork in this stands without walls or barriers.

They are free to express anything and everything in order to fulfill their willingness.

People are around them -- as viewers -- but this is not important. The most important thing is expression itself.

The result of this is that some works do not account for some standard rules like ethics, morals, customs and religions in society.

When some artworks go beyond religion by picking up some attributes or symbols in the religion -- this is when problems arise, because the followers of the religion protest the works and can not receive these ideas in the context of their religious view.

Relating to two cases above "12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad" and the latest depiction of Prophet Muhammad on Wikipedia, we need to think wisely about trying to see two sides embedding as artwork and as religion.

We can not just condemn the artists who work on the context of freedom, where art is a form of expression.

But on the other hand we must also understand if some people do protest because they want to stop the spread of the caricatures. These people have created a petition for Wikipedia to remove those pictures of prophet Muhammad.

The petition is on the internet at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia and I think it deserves to be analyzed.

By making and signing the petition on the internet with 10,000 signatures to get the pictures of Prophet Muhammad to be removed from Wikipedia -- this is a form of fighting-expression to expose their objection to the cases.

I presume this is a wise and soft way, as we can also establish more understanding between artists and people outside them.

In art, there is still a wide opportunity to employ our aesthetic interests without annoying religious followers or other groups in the society. At the same time we also need to act wisely to appreciate all kinds of art work around us and treat the works in propositional ways.

The writer is a fellow of International Fellowship Program (IFP) Ford Foundation, cohort V and is an international student of MA Fine Art at Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), Faculty of Visual Arts and Design.

Popular

Leaving Indonesia, loving Indonesia: A path for diaspora

Press unions demand apology from Prabowo for denigrating comments

Indonesia seeks better US tariff terms after 10% forced-labor duty