Muslim children love ‘The 99’ comics, but hardliners loathe their creator
As usual, the extremists on both sides agree: Heaven forfend there should be any inter-faith peace and tolerance or positive role models for Muslim kids. Naturally, Daesh also hates it and has called for the murder of its creator.
Added emphasis is mine:
Launched in 2006 - first in Kuwait after the approval of the state’s Ministry of Information, then in America and the rest of the world - The 99 was hailed as an exemplary model of inter-faith peace and tolerance by Barack Obama, and Dr Mutawa was invited to give two TED talks. He has since been featured in Forbes magazine, won prizes in the Gulf region and gained the approval of the Saudi state.
However, for some he is a defender not of peace but of profanity: ironically, he has hardline detractors in both America and the Arab world, though they hate him for opposing reasons. To US conservatives, he is a terrorist and a pawn of hardline Islam; to Islamist Arabs, he is a heretic and a pawn of the liberal West.
Both camps have, in the past decade, warned of the dangers of his creation and called for it to be banned. America’s God-squad even created enough moral panic about “radicalising children” to halt a Hollywood adaptation of The 99 - produced by Endemol and scripted by the teams behind Star Wars, X-Men and Spider-Man - from being shown in US cinemas or on its network television. (This leads Al-Mutawa to joke: “I have a fatwa from Fox News!”)
But now there is a more serious threat from within his home country. While the Kuwaiti government has endorsed his work, not everyone agrees with its message. In the past year, a Twitter campaign has accused him of being a blasphemer who should be brought to trial; and a legal case has been launched against him - not by the state, but by a fellow Kuwaiti suing him for heresy. (If he loses - and he firmly believes he won’t - he could face a prison sentence.) […]
Here’s a clip from several years ago that explains how The 99 got their powers. You can judge for yourselves how horrible it is. //
H/T @Drjohnhorgan:
The all-Islamic super-heroes: Muslim children love ‘The 99’ comics http://t.co/piCPqTE41L
— John Horgan (@Drjohnhorgan) March 12, 2015
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