I feel a sad day has passed in the world of television. Without wanting to sound for a BNP-voting bigot or a Daily Mail columnist, it is sad because Comedy Central caved in to extremist Muslim pressure, and heavily censored the 201st episode of South Park to rid it of all visual and audible traces of the prophet Muhammad. Now, you might be inclined to think, that due to the old furore over the Danish cartoonist depicting Islam’s favourite son which sparked worldwide outcry from angry Muslims the world over, as well as the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who made a film (rightly) about the oppression of women in Islamic states, Comedy Central were right to censor the episode - it’s a tricky decision indeed, no one wants to hounded by a gang of angry Muslims; they tend to be pretty unpredictable. Paraphrasing from a General Studies exam guide, I guess you’ve got to look at all the factors involved to come to a reasoned decision.

It’s not the first time South Park have taken the prickly subject of Muhammad on and been censored - in April 2006 Comedy Central censored the episodes Cartoon Wars Parts I and II, which were a satire on the Danish cartoon scandal and were going to feature The Muslim Jesus, replacing his image with a big black box saying CENSORED. Four years on, and South Park air their celebratory 200th episode in typical fashion. It features all the celebrities they’ve ever pissed off; including Kanye West, Paris Hilton, The Pope, Oprah, Bono and most importantly Tom Cruise, who tried to sue creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker over claims about his sexuality as well as ridiculing his religion, Scientology, in the episode Trapped In The Closet. Cruise decides he is sick of being the butt of jokes in South Park after Stan calls him a “fudge packer” upon seeing him working in a fudge packing factory, and along with his celeb friends, aims to extract the ‘goo’ inside Muhammad that makes him seemingly immune to ridicule. O, satire.

I’m keen to point out that episode 200 featured a coke-snorting Buddha, a porn-watching Jesus, as well as Muhammad in a bear suit. Now, I may have already given away the answer to this, but can you guess who took offense? Did it cheese the Dalai Lama right off? Did it cause the Pope to shake his fist angrily? No, no it did not (though I imagine he’s got enough on his plate at the moment without having to watch futile cartoons - unless it’s being used for Altar Boy bait, of course). Now, I’m not going to claim some high Ayatollah has got the hump over this because that would be a lie, however New York-based Islamopedants “Revolution Muslim” have. Personally, I think they probably need to work out the basics of syntax and make their name a bit snappier before they start offering Fatwas left right and centre. Alas, this is what they did, and posting on their internet message board (which I can’t imagine to be a barrel of laughs for some reason. Do you think they have a ‘For The Lads’ section?), they issued a threat to South Park’s creators suggesting they will suffer the same fate of Van Gogh, and not in the half an ear way. It didn’t particularly phase Stone & Parker, and last week they delivered the sequel to 200 to the offices of Comedy Central, ready for airing the next day, featuring the subject of the Proph’ once more. Sadly, Comedy Central took it upon themselves to self censor, and bleeped out every mention of the M word, as well as Kyle’s customary moral speech at the end of the episode, which, ironically, was apparently about standing up to intimidation.

In a cartoon room full of celebrities and religious figureheads of all races, all satirised to the point of insult on many occasions, it was the least maligned Muhammad who was exempt from criticism, from anything. And why? Because a minuscule portion representing a religion many people fear spoke up about it. I’m not looking to directly offend anyone (not least those Krazy Islamic X-Tremists), but sometimes I feel people need to lighten up. Yes, there is the undeniable fact of sacrilege and blasphemy, but it’s not just towards Islam. Jesus presented a chat show on previous episode of South Park, in one episode the Pope Benedict said the words “a chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.” Admittedly, the Catholics weren’t too pleased with that bit, but an apology was enough for them,which is nice and civilised. Perhaps if there was nicely coloured stainglass windows of the hallowed Prophet in their places of holy worship, they might be inclinded to chill out a bit more. The mere fact that these people (Revolution Muslim) see a blight of the sacrilegious faith of Islam as a crime punishable by death suggests they’re living in the fucking dark ages, let alone their attitudes to women and homosexuality.

It is sad that Comedy Central are sending out a message saying in essence, “Yes, we are scared of getting bombed, so we won’t challenge that and we’ll just carry on with kneeling to your demands.” I fail to see how succumbing to pressure is the best way to deal with a problem - if anything, in making a big deal of it by censoring it only elevates the status of the problem and in doing so heightens the fear. It’s a shame, because it really wasn’t done in a malicious way - it was an episode that was funny as well as being a really very astute criticism of the hypocrisy of it all. But what can you do, eh? Unfortunately, so it would seem, very little. Something to think about though…