Not about free speech?
One of our regular commenters, AJ, has an extended post on the cartoon riots available just one click away. Here is an excerpt to whet your appetites:
I think we need to be careful not to lump together all Muslims in all countries who respond to the controversy because the political and social contexts may vary. Nevertheless, I think there may be one common thread in all this – namely, that the cartoons seem to be viewed as some kind of rallying cry, a way for Muslims everywhere to shout something like “We ain’t going to take it anymore!” And in that respect, it really does not matter to them who wins or loses the debate we imagine on the proper bounds of freedom of speech or what we think of their reasoning. It only matters that Muslims find themselves united around the Danish cartoons, which they may see as a potent symbol of the double standard they believe the West applies to them.
Click to read the rest.
The cartoon controversy has clearly escalated to the point of madness. There is so much hatred and twisted logic enmeshed in the political, cultural, and religious conflicts centered in the Middle East, that it seems almost beside the point to focus on this one piece of a much larger, unholy, broken mess.
Nevertheless, maybe it is worth looking a little deeper into this latest incident to begin to grasp what may be really going on, indefensible though it may be. Jim, you asked, “Are they really arguing that making fun of Mohammed is morally equivalent to making fun of the murder of 6 million Jews? And why draw Jewish people into this? It wasn't a Jewish newspaper that printed the objectionable cartoons.”
The premise of these questions, and the title of this thread, “A False Equation,” seems to be that the controversy is really about free speech and that when looking at the response of the Iranian newspaper, one should consider whether its logic or argument is reasonable and moral. I do not think that is what it really is about at all – religious sensibilities and freedom of expression. Or rather, as was discussed in the earlier thread about the cartoons, the religious issue is so inextricably intertwined with history and politics that one cannot look at that alone to have any idea what may be going on in the either the minds of the people who are stirring up the controversy of those whose passions they intend to inflame.
This means different things in different national and cultural contexts. In the context of Iran, where government officials have previously denounced the Holocaust as fiction, the action of the newspaper may be applauded by many, so the notion that they are trying to hurt Jews or Israelis or making a false analogy would be nonsense to them. That does not make it right – if anything it makes it far worse than being grossly insensitive – but it does make it different from a protest designed to make a point about how far freedom of the press should go without regard to offending people.
I think we need to be careful not to lump together all Muslims in all countries who respond to the controversy because the political and social contexts may vary. Nevertheless, I think there may be one common thread in all this – namely, that the cartoons seem to be viewed as some kind of rallying cry, a way for Muslims everywhere to shout something like “We ain’t going to take it anymore!” And in that respect, it really does not matter to them who wins or loses the debate we imagine on the proper bounds of freedom of speech or what we think of their reasoning. It only matters that Muslims find themselves united around the Danish cartoons, which they may see as a potent symbol of the double standard they believe the West applies to them.
Even from the point of view of the Iranian newspaper, which may well suffer from virulent and irrational hatred of Jews and Israel, the point is not the particular subject of the cartoons but rather the context in which the Danish cartoons were published. That context was not, as some uninformed people in the West might suppose, the free expression of an individual cartoonist but rather was part of a project at the newspaper intended to publish material that might well offend Muslims. As a result of this project, the newspaper commissioned a series of 12 drawings of Mohammed to publish to prove that it was free to do so. Reportedly, three years earlier, the same newspaper rejected for publication a cartoon depicting Jesus satirically on the grounds that it might offend some of the readers.
So, while we, who can hardly help but view the Danish cartoons as “just a cartoon folks” (like we said Book of Daniel was “just a t.v. show”), are shocked and horrified that anyone would consider mocking the Holocaust to be in any way equivalent, some Muslims may see it quite differently, focusing on the fact that the Danish newspaper deliberately embarked upon a project that was intended to offend them because they believed that there were not enough militant Arabs in Denmark to make a fuss about it – and then other newspapers seemed to follow suit.
Place all this in the larger context of the very long memory that many Muslims, especially in the Middle East, have with regard to every past wrong, real and imagined, that Western Europe and the U.S. have inflicted upon them. While the Danish may have triggered the latest controversy, everything all reverts back to Palestine, with the ghosts of the Balfour Declaration, the betrayal of Emir Faisal, the creation of Israel, and all that has happened since. Add to the mix of historical grievances the awful, twisted view of Jews in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is still widely circulated and taught in the Arab world.
So, as crazy and terrible as it looks to us – as indeed it is – what the Iranian newspaper is doing may make more sense to some Muslims than we can possibly imagine.
Understanding that perspective more fully does not mean that we have to accept the lies and the distortions or have any empathy for the hatred and resentment. But if we don’t dig deeper we do not begin to see the situation clearly enough to begin to deal with it. I’m no expert on Islam, Middle Eastern politics or history, but from what I do know suggests that this whole cartoon controversy is not something we can begin to get a grasp of without looking at it from an angle different from the way we might view controversy over The Last Temptation of Christ or whatever we might view as the equivalent in our own culture. The core issues are not religion per se, free speech, or offending sensibilities, but rather the raw emotions that stem from deeper, darker political and cultural conflicts.
I have to take issue with one statement which I quote out of context; “…the Danish newspaper deliberately embarked upon a project that was intended to offend them because they believed that there were not enough militant Arabs in Denmark to make a fuss about it…”
One, as I understood the project, it was a series of cartoons illustrating how western culture viewed Islam. It is possible, given the long standing animosity between the Danish press and the Muslim minority there, that the paper intended offense and anticipated the reaction it would provoke, bit I’m not convinced the project was intended to offend Muslims, although the paper certainly knew it would.
And, two, it doesn’t take very many militants to cause the chaos we’re seeing now. The Muslim world can ramp up the response we’re seeing today pretty quickly, both in Denmark and around the world.
Time has an article titled Your Taboo, Not Mine at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1156609,00.html
Here is part of it regarding the relationship between the Muslims in Denmark and the Danish press;
"Since Ayatullah Khomeini declared a death sentence against Salman Rushdie for how he depicted Muhammad in his book The Satanic Verses, Islamic radicals have been essentially threatening the free discussion of their religion and politics in the West. Rushdie escaped with his life. But Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician who stood up against Muslim immigrant hostility to equality for women and gays, was murdered on the street. Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who offended strict Muslims, was killed thereafter. Several other Dutch politicians who have dared to criticize the intolerance of many Muslims live with police protection".
So it would seem clear to me that the Danish press and this paper would be well aware the there are enough militant Arabs in Denmark to make a fuss about the cartoons.
You are right about the need to look at the issue from the perspective of Muslim world when trying to understand the reaction. Not that we have to accept everything from their perspective, but it helps to understand their perspective. Islam, like Christianity, is a complex religion, the Quran is filled with stories of peace and love, as well as war and aggression.
It may be hard for Christians to understand the concept of such a militant religion, but the ultimate purpose of Jihadist Islam is the establishment by force of a worldwide Islamic state where Sharia law is enforced on all. Not all Muslims, or Muslim leaders, espouse the concepts of conquest but they are there in the Quran and the Hadith.
Most Christians are very familiar with the response of Jesus when asked what the most important commandment was.
When Mohammed was asked a similar question his response was a little different.
"Allah's apostle was asked, 'What is the best deed?' He replied, 'To believe in Allah and his Apostle.' The questioner then asked, 'What is the next (in goodness)?' He replied, 'To participate in Jihad (religious fighting) in Allah's cause.'" – The Hadith, Al Bukhari, Vol. 1 no 25.
The Quran states;
Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day. . . . Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! ( Surah 2:29, 41)
And;
Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who reject the faith do battle for the cause of evil. So fight ye against the friends of Satan. (Surah 4:76)
These are passages out of context and do not necessarily represent the Quran fairly, but are examples of the passages that Jihadists use to justify their actions and to convince other to support their cause. I have admonished others about taking passages out of context and only do so now to illustrate the idealogy of the Jihadists.
So, we cannot try to deal with the Muslim world solely from a perspective of our Judeo-Christian ethic and western cultural norms and expect to get anywhere. It will always help facilitate understanding and communication to try and understand the other side’s perspective.
Posted by Daniel | February 8, 2006 2:08 PM
Just a quick clarification: what I meant by "deliberately" was that the newspaper, knowing that publishers were having difficulty getting illustrators to draw pictures of Mohammed (for a children's book, as many have reported), deliberately chose to both commission and then publish the cartoons knowing that they were likely to offend some people. The purpose, however, was not simply to give offense, but rather to prove that they were willing and free to publish them regardless of how Muslims might feel about them. I'm sure they thought there were some risks involved, but, despite the murder of the Dutch filmmaker, I think they thought the risks were not as great as they might be elsewhere, for various reasons.
What I wanted to try to point out was that looking at it from a Muslim perspective, the paper did not offend innocently or inadvertently but rather knowing that Muslims would find it both offensive and blasphemous.
To me this suggests that all sorts of Muslims might be upset about the incident. Yes, the militants and fundamentalists are incensed because of their rigid, intolerant views. But there may be some who, while they generally may not support the extremists, nevertheless may look at the incident as something like, yea, they're treating us with disrespect yet again. There are so-called moderate Muslims in many countries who do not want a repressive theocracy but also still want to be treated with greater respect and dignity than what they perceive the West has for them. To see a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his head may be very insulting to them -- the insult made all the worse in the sense that it seemed to them to be "deliberate."
Posted by AJ | February 8, 2006 3:21 PM
Yes, I agree, the paper had to know that the cartoons would be very offensive to Muslims. They may have underestimated the reaction, but they had to know they would get a reaction. There has been an on-going battle between the Danish press and Danish Muslims for a while now.
Just saying that they're in the west now and need to accept western cultural mores like freedom of speech and equal rights for women will never suffice. Understanding and dialogue is necessary if clashes are to be avoided.
Posted by Daniel | February 8, 2006 4:04 PM
Here are the ten largest Muslim national populations, according to adherents.com:
Indonesia 170,310,000
Pakistan 136,000,000
Bangladesh 106,050,000
India 103,000,000
Turkey 62,410,000
Iran 60,790,000
Egypt 53,730,000
Nigeria 47,720,000
China 37,108,000
While the Mideast is clearly significant to Islam (both politically and religiously), the Islamic world is much broader and more complex than even the myriad of factions battling for supremacy in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Arabian peninsula. I think it is naive to think that Mideast Islam speaks for all of Islam. According to Reuters, leaders and imams in Indonesia are calling for calm and restraint. That's exactly the opposite of what's happening in Iran and Syria.
I think there are many in the Mideast who would very much like an epic battle between "the west" and Islam. They will frame the confict in whatever terms work best: religious (Islam vs. Jews), cultural (Islamism vs. the west), political (sharia vs. democracy). There are many groups (even entire governments, e.g. Iran) that are working very hard to create the psychological and political conditions necessary to fight and, they beleive, win such a battle with the west (or whatever countries they deem as proxies of all things western).
But an interesting thing has occured with the rapid spread of Islam throughout the world: it's no longer a predominatly Middle Eastern religion. And given that Islam is organizationally (and somewhat theologically) decentralized, Indonesia, South Asia and Africa (even China!) are developing their own versions of Islam and Islamic life. That doesn't mean that Muslims in those countries do not share many viewpoints and reactions with their Mideast brethren. I'm sure they do, but they most certainly are not controlled or led by the Mideast.
Which brings me to my main point, which is that I think much of the extremism we see in Islam today is a function of Mideast Muslims trying very hard to hold on to their historical place in the Islamic world. They are quickly becoming a minority of Muslims, and I think they recognize what that means. This is as much a battle of who "owns" Islam as it is a battle between Islam and the west. Why isn't Indonesia picking a fight with the west? The Muslims in India seem to be more concerned with defending themselves from Hindu extremism than waging any anti-West jihads or issuing fatwas on English writers or Dutch moviemakers.
I don't know for fact, but I would guess that most of the Muslims in Europe are of Mideast and North African origin, given European colonial history and recent immigration trends. That they are rioting alongside Syrians and Iranians, and Muslims in Indonesia and other countries outside the Mideast are not (at least not as violently), should not be surprising.
While this situation requires our care and attention, I'm going to keep looking beyond the Mideast for answers to the future of Islam and relations with the west. Right now, I'm hopeful we can find common ground there, but it will take time. In the meantime, I hope Mideast Islam doesn't put on a collective suicide vest and blow up the hopes for peace in the world.
Posted by Brian Gaerity | February 8, 2006 7:40 PM
Interesting observations from an Egyptian:
"To frame the issue as a battle between free secular democracies and an Islamic world defined by narrow religious orthodoxies and a crisscross of indelible "red lines" limiting the freedom of expression, is to be trapped within a claustrophobic vision of humanity. Such a vision infuses Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory with the renewed vigor of a self-fulfilling prophesy. The debate raging across Europe, blinded by its discourse of a humorless Islam versus a playful Freedom, is unwilling and unable to see the cartoons for what they are: hateful and racist."
from Prophetic Misreading
by Anjali Kamat. See full text posted at http://www.ww4report.com/node/1571
Posted by AJ | February 14, 2006 12:50 PM