My column titled Respecting both free speech and Muslims’ faith can bring peace is in the CSM today. As so often, they didn’t choose exactly the title I would have chosen. But what the heck.
The only thing I would have changed in the text of the column is to have clarified that for many of the Muslim governments involved it was primarily Rasmussen’s refusal even to meet with their ambassadors to discuss the cartoon issue that really riled them.
I was thinking of writing a little post here that would ask why does the Bush administration feel it has to inject itself into this very hot-tempered debate, at all? This completely mystifies me, since until now the issue has overwhelmingly been one between a (large) number of Muslim nations and a number of European nations.
So why have W and Condi felt they had to adopt a high public posture on this issue at all? And why has it become so much more hardline over recent days? I am honestly mystified.
I started being mystified when I saw them make a harshly accusatory statement over the weekend, accusing Syria of having instigated the violent protests in Damascus that resulted in the burning of the Danish and Norwegian Embassies there.
This is based on an assumption that “every single popular protest in Syria is totally controlled by the Syrian government.” This has most definitely NOT been the case in recent years… including back at the beginning of the present US-Iraq war, when there were street protests in Damascus against the US that truly terrified the regime.
(I guess the Bushies would have preferred for the Syrian regime to have shot some of the protesters dead, as the US-puppet forces in Afghanistan did earlier this week?)
But then I figured that the “temptation” of taking a hostile potshot at the Syrian regime whenever and however it can is just too overwhleming for the Bushies to be able to restrain themselves…
Anyway, I am also interested to see the effects of the synchronicity of the cartoon controversy with the commemorations in Shiite communities of the events of Ashura.
In Lebanon, Hizbullah organized a huge Ashura-related procession/demonstration at which Hasan Nasrallah “urged Muslims worldwide to keep demonstrating until there is an apology over the drawings and Europe passes laws forbidding insults to the prophet.”
The size of that crowd– in a country whose population totals 3.5 million, was, “estimated by organizers at about 700,000. Police had no final estimates but said the figure was likely to be even higher.”
In Iran more than a million Shiites marched in Karbala for Ashura. (No mention in that story of the cartoons.)
In Lebanon, we are of course coming up to the first anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s killing. So no doubt there will be huge marches and counter-marches around that, too…
Altogether, not a great time for GWB to inject himself into a worldwide debate that started off not fundamentally involving Americans…
Gotta run. Time to go demonstrate for peace. As every Thursday till– when?
32 thoughts on “CSM column today on cartoons, the sacred, and sacrilege”
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Is it true that the cartoons were originally published back in September but that imbroglio didn’t begin until the offended Danish Muslim leaders proceeded to the Middle East with a portfolio of the offending published cartoons…but they also slipped in highly offensive drawings that they knew were never published in any newspaper?
“why does the Bush administration feel it has to inject itself into this very hot-tempered debate, at all?”
perhaps, to paraphrase the empathetic position of America’s European friends on 9/11/01…
“We are all Danes!”
Who-should-do-what aside, I completely agree with Helena.
Does anyone agree with my recollection that Karbala is about 50 km south of Baghdad?
2006-02-09 How Mr.Panyushkin sees the cartoongate
Given Bush’s inability to articulate himself, and the fact that much of the Muslim world hates him, I cringe at the thought of him saying anything. I’m tempted to advise him to engage in a policy of “benign neglect” as Daniel Patrick Moynihan advised Nixon.
Nevertheless, if Helena is calling for a two way conversation, the POTUS is a somewhat relevant figure. Despite this recent brouhaha, it is America that suffered the largest attack from the extremist elements in the Muslim world. So I’m surprised Helena can’t figure out why Bush might say something.
Then there’s that thing called the media. Do you think they are NOT going to ask Bush “what do you think of…” type questions? Should he say: “Not my business, really.”?
Ultimately though, I think the most dangerous thing I have seen here is Helena’s indication that things like this are justification for the suppression of free expression. But it is a pretty bedrock principal here that the fact speech is merely offensive, even greatly so, is not grounds for its suppression. Perhaps in some European countries they ban “hate speech” though even then it tends to be limited to what would constitute incitement, not mere offense.
That, I think, is the most important principle at stake here.
As noted French commentator Bernard-Henri Levy has pointed out, L’Affaire Cartoons is a microcosm of just about everything wrong with Jihadist excess…from the deliberate circulation of months-old cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper…to the addition of fake (never published) drawings to arouse the ire of the mullahs in the Middle East…to the priest shot dead in Turkey…to the Scandinavian embassy burnings in Damascus by a crowd of demonstrators in the normally very tightly controlled Syrian capital…to the cynical exploitation of the aroused emotions to further Sadr’s ambitions…to the seizing of a Westerner in soon to be Hamas-ruled Hebron…a veritable GLOBAL INTIFADA in Levy’s apt phrase.
The most offensive cartoons were added by the Danish Imams. That is the cartoons depicting Muhammad as a pig, sexuality, and bestiality. Nice religious leaders these Imams, but beyond that, in creating these depictions weren’t they themselves violating the precept they are claiming to defend?
The added cartoons should be part of Juan Cole’s chronology, and are an integral part of analyzing who was trying to fuel the flames of the Cartoon Intifada.
VmPeele and Joshua in their comments are completely biased toward their own agenda, aka presenting all Muslims as evil and propagating anti-arab and anti-muslims feelings. I advise all of you to read Juan Cole’s chronology in order to understand how things really started. But to sum up the facts :
1) The political climate in Danemark is poisoned by the presence of a powerfull xenophobic and right wing party the “People’s Party”. This party doesn’t take part in the government, but without their voice the actual governement couldn’t stay at power, hence the ambiguous reactions of its Primer Minister Rasmussen who made excuses, but at the same time justified the position of the newspaper.
2) The Jylland’s Post, the newspaper who published the 12 infamous caricatures isn’t just some unkown little papers. It’s a wide read popular tabloid. I heard interviews of the chief redactor and his defense of free-speech smells of hypocrisy, even to my Western ears. He pretended to make excuses, to Muslims, without never really excusing himself for the published caricatures which were a pure provocation (in order to go fishing for more readers).
3) The last attack imagined by anti-arab is to accuse the Danish Imam of manipulation. But this calls for two remarks. First they went to the other Muslim governments and to the Arab Ligue only after the Danish Prime Minister refused to receive them and hear their doleances.
Secondly “Le Temps” (The equivalent of Le Monde in Swizterland) interviewed Imam Abu Laban who prepared the dossier for the Arab Ligue and Arab governments and here is what they learned : it is true that there were not only the Jylland’s Post caricatures in the dossier, but the dossier contained three clearly distinct parties : a) The caricatures published in the Jylland’s Post; b) The letters exchanged with the Danish government on this issue; c) Examples of hate mails the immans were receiving personnally in their mailboxes. The pig caricature was in the third dossier. It may well have been designed in France for other purposes. However, this is not the point, the real issue is that it was sent by some xenophobic troubled mind to the imam with the intent to insult. So it was there for a reason and it is part of the problem, like the other caricatures.
4) I’ve read Juan Cole’s article at Salon.com
He makes many good points on the issue. However I think that he puts too much emphasis on the role of Arab governments in the wide mobilization of Arab and Muslim crowds. The movement is so widespread and so huge that it doesn’t only reflect manipulation of a westernized elite trying to cope with mounting islamist feelings of the Arab masses. For me it is a much wider social movement, a reaction :
a) To the new agressive US imperialism at work since Bush took power and invaded Iraq
b) To the contempt which Western cultures shows toward Arab and Muslim cultures and to the humiliations and discriminations they suffer due to the US declared “global war on terrorism” (the false pretense that Islamism=terrorism);
c) To the continuing xenophobic discriminations of which Muslims and Arab immigrants are victimes in many EU countries.
5) Last and not least, I can’t help remembering the riots which inflammed the French suburbs some months ago. Here I tried to explain that they had nothing to do with civilization clash, but were part of a social movement fighting against the social exclusion of Arab and African immigrants. The pro-Bush crowds in the US pretended it was a civilization clash between East and West. Well if it was true, can someone tell me why the French suburbs aren’t burning again over this eminently religious and civilization issue ?
I suppose we all view issues through our own perspectives. I have no idea where Christiane thinks that I want to paint “all Muslims as evil.” Perhaps it has to do with Helena intentionally misquoting one of my prior postings.
My perspective is at this point largely concerned with protecting the freedom of expression in a liberal and tolerant. Christiane’s perspective is largely that of apologizing for unacceptable and dangerous behavior because of her patronizing attitude toward Arabs and Muslims.
Helena – you have closed off the comments for the Juan Cole thread above. So I am commenting her.
Just a suggestion but try clicking Refresh if a blog that should be updated each date still shows an old page. Sometimes a browser will go to its internal cache for a page rather than freshly loading the page you have requested, I think.
Joshua,
Your defense of free speach is just as hypocrite as that of the xenophobe Danes. The caricatures issue isn’t one of free speach at all. It’s an issue of respecting other humans and cultures.
After the caricatures of Mohammed, there is now another caricature spread by the xenophobes and likudniks and which is implicit in your comment : it’s the stigmatizing of Muslims and Arabs as people who don’t understand humor and are opposed to free speach and violent.
The right to free speach has never been a right to insult, especially not to insult anyone because of their faith. Beside the right to free speach, we have the right to practice the religion of our choice and this also means that others don’t have the right to denigrate our choice.
Since when is a tolerant behaviour a dangerous one ? What would be the right non dangerous behavior in your opinion ? Invading Iraq on false pretext ? Bombing Afghanistan ?
It is sheer rubbish that I have an agenda “presenting all Muslims as evil”…I have the highest regard, for example, for the sagacious Ayatollah Sistani, whose position on this brouhaha (which respected French commentator Bernard-Henri Levy terms the “Global Intifada”) largely parallels mine.
My position on this issue has been complex. I fully understand the significance these images hold for many Muslims. That is why I was the first here to defend Helena’s postulation that Freedom of Speech must be weighed somehow against her felicitious notion of “sacredness”.
What Levy and many others object to is the devious way the Danish clerics went about inflaming opinion, particularly in the highly charged Mideast and the way others, like Bashir Assad, Sadr and the Iranian mullahs have cynically used this tempest to further their own political agendas.
Christiane:
As someone who represents both minorities discriminated against, and individuals seeking to vindicate first amendment rights, I can assure you that my concern with free speech is quite serious.
Despite what you say, at least in America the right to free speech most definitely includes the right to insult and offend. It happens all the time. In Europe, there is somewhat less priority on such liberties, with bans on hate speech. But even that has generally been understood to prevent incitement. Merely offending ones sensibilities, however deeply held, is not grounds for censorship.
The most popular book in the United States, now being made into a feature length movie, was deeply offensive to many Christians. Indeed, to some it was blasphemous, and represents a direct insult and descration of a religious figure that it holds dear. Last year, Mel Gibson recreated a violent, gory version of “The Passion” which echoed centuries of a story that has led to unimagineable hatred. On this very forum, the Jewish people’s verifiable and proven historical tie to the land of Israel was mocked by one commenter as a “myth” and a “delusion” of racists.
To be fair, with the exception of the last instance, each of the above examples of speech had more artistic or literary merit than the cartoons. Nevertheless, in each case, you had speech which could cause great offense to individuals of a certain faith or background.
As I said at the outset of this debate, when I initially saw the cartoon controversy, I thought they were a bunch of unfunny, classless and offensive cartoons.
This only became a question of free speech when, in response to these cartoons (some of which were not even published in the original instance), we saw widespread calls for boycotts and sanctions of entire nations followed by dangerous and in some cases lethal violence. At that point, the issue of free expression in a liberal society stepped to the forefront.
There is a tolerance question here, but you’re directing it at the wrong people. The tolerance that is needed is tolerance for views that you may find offensive, even grievously so. Tolerance to the extent that your objection is expressed through the proper channels of outrage.
The calls for “tolerance” from the Muslim world are also remarkably hypocritical, given that news outlets in those country often publish the most vile racist images as cartoons or circulate racist lies as “news.”
This isn’t a question of “freedom” on one side and “tolerance” on the other. We could use more tolerance in all parts of the world. At this point, the pressing and urging issue is the reaction in many parts of the Muslim world which demonstrates an absolute lack of respect for freedom of expression.
I understand how difficult this must be for you. For some time now, you have regularly sided with and defended the Muslim and Arab world, claiming that they were nothing but innocent victims of a nefarious American and Israeli foreign policy. In the last few weeks, you’ve seen a group of reactionary bigots elected in Palestine, and now a spate of riots breaking out in the Muslim world from people who think they have a G-d given right to dish out offensive imagery but not take it.
I can understand that rather than admitting that you’ve had the wrong take on this, you will try turn this into one of your typical screeds against every political position you don’t like. You somehow insist that this has something to do with the war in Iraq. And then there is your tired attempt to label “Likudniks” as somehow playing a role in the affair.
Frankly, I’m offended at your personal attacks and repeated insults toward me. Can I burn your house down now?
Re the lethality of the violence that is so much on some people’s minds these days, I’d just note that of the cartoon-issue-related deaths reported so far, one (in lebanon) was apparently of a demonstrator/?arsonist most likely asphyxiated by his own fire, and four were of Afghan protesters shot at by the US-backed Afghan security forces.
People in the west who’ve gotten so riled up about the violence might do well to remember very little actual violence has been directed at western persons. Some has been directed against western property. The casualties so far have all been Muslims involved in the demonstrations.
Once again we hear dainty voices in the west saying “Eewwww! Look how violent those people of color are!” But have I heard GW Bush or anyone else expressing sorrow or condolence for the actual people who have suffered from the cartoon-related violence?
Joshua in his post at 01:49 pm wrote it better than I could.
The whole situation changed once the violence started. That means death threats, threats of kidnappings and beheadings and embassy burnings.
This is not acceptable.
Uhh, and by the way, Christiane.
You wrote “…the xenophobe Danes.”
Might I suggest that if you use such terms, you might also be in a bad position to criticize people/media which use terms like “violent Muslims or Arabs”? A term you probably would disagree with, I believe.
Stupid generalizations aren´t a one-way street, you know.
” Once again we hear dainty voices in the west saying “Eewwww! Look how violent those people of color are!” ”
As opposed to referring to someone as “a gentle, lovely, almost coal black…”
The right to free speach has never been a right to insult, especially not to insult anyone because of their faith.
No offense, Christiane, but this seems to me a very strange point of view. The right to insult is the essence of the right to free speech.
Is Andres Serrano’s (US government funded artwork) Piss Christ insulting enough to Christians to be banned? What about the heresies of Salman Rushdie?
Well, poor old Joshua, still harping on about that. I am truly sorry for you, Joshua, if your religion/worldview does not value the qualities of gentleness and loveliness. Mine happens to. I guess we should agree to disagree on this.
I find most amusing the position contortions of some posters here straining to fit the cartoon controversy into their overarching worldviews…
e.g., “people of color”, limited right to insult, boundless freedom of expression, the fake pig drawing designed in France “for other purposes”, the “unlethality” of the violence (presumably we should take note that the offending Danish cartoonist is under 24 hour protection but still alive, same with British novelist Rushdie, to date only Dutch film director Van Gogh has been assasinated…but was not beheaded.)
Once again we hear dainty voices in the west saying “Eewwww! Look how violent those people of color are!” But have I heard GW Bush or anyone else expressing sorrow or condolence for the actual people who have suffered from the cartoon-related violence?
When the picture of GB senior was put on the ground of in the entrance of Baghdad Sheraton Hotel were all the visitors stepped upon, GWB went to slaughter a nation, destroying their state “ ! Look how violent those people of white skin are!”
“I am truly sorry for you, Joshua, if your religion/worldview does not value the qualities of gentleness and loveliness.”
It most definitely does Helena. It does not value patronizing others, particularly on the color of their skin.
stepped on his dad’s image?…and here I thought it was all about WMD.
It’s important — and sometimes difficult — in this case to distinguish between what is legally permissible in a free society, what is wise in a given context, and what is right. I don’t know anything about Denmark’s laws and customs on freedom of the press, but in the United States at least the right to express offensive or insulting views has been repeatedly held up by the Supreme Court, for example in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. In addition to the examples Vadim cites, it’s worth considering the popular American cartoon South Park, which takes perverse and explicit pleasure in offending everyone it can think of. As Justice Robert H. Jackson once said, “The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.” So much for the law (and again, I apologize for my Americanocentric examples, although I trust that most European countries hold roughly similar positions): it seems clear that the newspapers were within their legal rights to publish these cartoons. (It could be argued that publishing these cartoons was equivalent to “yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre”, but I don’t think that a legal case could be built to support that position.)
It is also clear that the publication — especially the republication by European (and now American) newspapers — was deliberately provocative and done with the knowledge that it would cause great offence to Muslims. To me, this seems not only unwise, given tensions between Muslims and the Christian/secular West both internationally and within many Western countries, but also morally wrong.
However, the distinction that I have drawn is not one that is easy to convey in the context of a society which does not have a long tradition of free speech, and in which the line between the expressions of the press and expressions of government is blurry. Is it patronizing of me to say that there can be one rule for the West and another for the Islamic world? And how can that be communicated in a way that isn’t offensive?
Helena is right to say that the West needs to pay more attention to, and have more respect for, the sacred. I think that Daniel Schorr’s CSM column about the line between freedom and responsibility is wise. I also take the comments by Malaysia’s prime minister as a positive sign; he notes that both the West and representatives of Islam have tended to demonize each other, and calls for this demonization on both sides to end. The question is whether governments have a role to play in encouraging this goal, and whether they can do so without compromising important values.
Vadim
Your story meaningless and it’s wrong, this story keep coming from many in the west and keep be repeated for fails accusations and untruthful.
It’s very obvious who did that art work is YOU The West Not The Muslims, so it’s YOU Insulting Yourself By Yourself.
Don’t use this fails accusation with this very insulting case to Muslims. As you dislike any insulting to yourself as a Jew /Zionists if I am right most the West Nations had regulations and acts will charges any individual, media, or institutes from doing so.
“…I have the highest regard, for example, for the sagacious Ayatollah Sistani,
Hahahahaah, Is he a Muslim?? Read Frank at February 9, 2006 10:09pm post about Karblah is this in any Sura in Quran or in the Hadeth? Or our Prophets (ص) telling those savage and crazy things happened their?, Those act just fake created by Alsistani and his followers the Iranian, the Quran its clear and plan about what Islamic law.
If you have a chance to Read the translation of Quraan you will find what I mean.
BTW, Frank, I had one question in my mind why those Mullah in Karbalh Lebanon, Pakistan and other places where Shia’a minorities their why Iran it’s free of those acts? And why the Iranians push for it in other places not inside Iran?
Josiah, nice contribution to the discussion– thanks. The only part where I think you’re factually a little awry is in your supposition that European free-speech laws are as robust as those in the US. They are not. Many have, for example, specific laws against publishing expressions of Holocaust denial.
Then, there is the whole area of laws on pornography which generally — someone correct me if I’m wrong– make some explicit or implicit reference to “community standards” in terms of publicly viewable materials, at least. But you could bet that “community standards” in downtown Amsterdam on this might be very, very different from those in downtown Salt Lake City.
(I also think there’s a significant difference in general public receptivity to and understanding of the concept of the sacred, between the US and Europe.)
I guess what I’m saying here is that there is no one way to be even a “liberal democratic” nation. And incidentally, norms on all these issues vary among different Muslim communities, too.
If we have a commitment to trying to build a united global polity that serves the interests of all humankind, and does so on the basis of accountability and mutual respect, then we need to think deeply and compassionately about all these issues and give up any idea that “our” way is the only way or even necessarily the best way. There is lots that Americans can learn from the Muslim world, and vice versa. How exciting if we can create a space in which that will happen and we all go forward together.
YOU The West Not The Muslims
Many Christians (and Muslims) will be happy to tell you that Christianity no more belongs to “the West” than Islam to “the East.” You seem to be implying that cultural rivalry is a more significant issue here than than religion.
And Serrano has (socioeconomically) very little in common with most of his critics. Rushdies novel is also far more provocative than any of these cartoons. Leaving aside Serrano’s work, do you agree with critics (both within and outside of Islam)who claim The Satanic Verses should never have been published?
most the West Nations had regulations and acts will charges any individual, media, or institutes from doing so
In fact, the ACLU argued for and won the right of Holocaust denying neo-nazis to march through the heavily Jewish illinois city of Skokie in the late 70’s. And the lawyers arguing on their behalf were themselves Jewish.
“Many Christians (and Muslims) will be happy to tell you that Christianity no more belongs to “the West” than Islam to “the East.””
You still did not take me point. Your example it’s WRONG, the Muslims not INVOLVED or PRODUCED That Art Act… OK. So why you keep arguing here?
Moreover Muslims/Islam instructed the followers to have all the respects to all Prophets from Adam (عليه السلام) to the Last one Mohammad (ص) if you are a Torah/Judaism or Bible/Christian believer you know this fact no one can denied this fact of Islam… don’t put fails accusations here be truthful when you talking about the Holly books and Religions.
Don’t generalised things here if you hear one or two telling lies about Islam, read the translations of Quran its there all we don’t need to tell you its all in plan words.
BTW, why you keep defending Salman Rushdie? Whatever reasons in you heart about him this case also fails and Wrong, the cartoon touched the Prophets not just Islam, the accusation this man but in his book, he believed in Mullah not Islam Holy book.
It’s up to you to believe in or leave it go away no one enforce you or put the sward on your neck to be Muslim ok you need to understand this.
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