PDA

View Full Version : It’s an Ugly Story, and There Are No Heroes



thedrifter
02-16-06, 12:24 PM
Feb. 10, 2006 - 4:47 PM
Those Explosive Cartoons
It’s an Ugly Story, and There Are No Heroes
Paul McLeary

The American press has been wringing its hands all week over the violent controversy surrounding the publication, in September, of cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ridiculing the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. Throughout the Middle East riots have erupted, European consulates have been burned, and several people have died, while the yawning gap between the cultural mores of the Western world and those of the Middle East have again been exposed like a raw nerve.


The cartoons, which for the most part are little more than simplistic, crude and uninspired scribblings, seem to have been published for little other reason than to stir up controversy. Other than one that depicts Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like bomb, the rest are silly - but to most Western eyes, are offensive only in their lack of finesse.


While many newspapers in Europe have expressed solidarity with their Danish brethren by publishing the cartoons in question, only a handful of American publishers have done the same. Those who have abstained have cited everything from safety concerns to a desire not to needlessly offend a portion of their readership.


But the two mainstream U.S. newspapers that ran one or more of the cartoons -- the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Austin American-Statesman -- have encountered neither the violence nor the virulent response that some others feared. In Philadelphia, other than a few peaceful protests, there has been no backlash to speak of. Amanda Bennett, editor of the paper, told the AP, "This is the kind of work that newspapers are in business to do...We're running this in order to give people a perspective of what the controversy's about, not to titillate, and we have done that with a whole wide range of images throughout our history."


Rich Oppel, editor of the Austin American-Statesman also decided to publish one of the cartoons last Friday, and he told Editor & Publisher, "It is one thing to respect other people's faiths and religion, but it goes beyond where I would go to accept their taboos in the context of our freedoms and our society."


In a more extreme case, the editorial staff of the New York Press, an alternative newsweekly, resigned this week after the paper's publishers refused to allow them to reprint the cartoons in the most recent issue.


On the other side of the coin we have the Boston Phoenix, which listed three reasons for not publishing the pictures. Their number one reason for not running them was, "Out of fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do."


If that truly is the paper's primary reason, then the "bloodthirsty Islamists" have indeed already imposed their will. Furthermore, admitting fear of reprisal as your primary motivation would appear to encourage this kind of brutish behavior in the future.


But the battle, as many have pointed out, is more about the disconnect between Western and Middle Eastern concepts of what is permissible.


As Christopher Hitchens wrote last Saturday on Slate, "civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient." Granted, it is more than just "inconvenient" for Muslims to have Muhammad's likeness not only depicted but ridiculed. But without sounding too cold about it - too bad. Religious zealots of any sect tend to be unhappy with free expression, and it is the duty of those who believe in the values of the Enlightenment to fight against this kind of mindset -- even if it means making a few people angry.


What's more, there's the matter of law. And the law we are speaking of is the law of the country in which the cartoons are published -- not Islamic law. Watching protesters across the Middle East burn the Danish flag and rail against Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, it became clear that protesters, who have been stirred up by publicity-hungry and opportunistic leaders, seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that the Dutch government controls its media, and has a say in what is published.


It's not only European publications who have run the cartoons, however. The Jordanian publication Shihan published them alongside an editorial that called on Muslims to "be reasonable." In the editorial, Jihad Momeni wrote, "Who offends Islam more? A foreigner who endeavors to draw the prophet as described by his followers in the world, or a Muslim with an explosive belt who commits suicide in a wedding party in Amman or elsewhere."


Momeni's reward for offering his opinion? He was fired.


But as Jason Zengerle of the New Republic pointed out this week, the Arab media is hardly in a position to cry foul over the cartoons. For years, they have printed blatantly anti-Semitic cartoons, many equating Jews with Nazis, or depicting them as bearded, skullcap wearing murderers. In refuting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad contention that "If your newspapers are free why do not they publish anything about the innocence of the Palestinians and protest against the crimes committed by the Zionists?", Zengerle also points to several examples of American and British papers that have run anti-Semitic cartoons in recent years.


Stepping back, Juan Cole, writing in Salon, makes the point -- too often ignored by our media -- that the controversy is very much informed by local politics in Muslim countries. But while offering a look at the local politics behind the violence, he can't resist some West-bashing himself. "Western attempts to cast the issue as one of freedom of expression," he writes, "display an ignorance of the local context of these conflicts..."


While Cole chastises the West for not seeing the violence as a local issue, and calls for us to look at it though the eyes of the Muslim world, he forgets that for the West, this fight is about freedom of expression. Just as Muslims see their customs being insulted, the West sees it's cherished freedom of speech and, by extension, of press being threatened by a group of fascist thugs.


The Economist expressed it most eloquently, writing on Thursday that "freedom of expression, remember, is not just a pillar of western democracy, as sacred in its own way as Muhammad is to pious Muslims. It is also a freedom that millions of Muslims have come to enjoy or to aspire to themselves. Ultimately, spreading and strengthening it may be one of the best hopes for avoiding the incomprehension that can lead civilisations into conflict."


So, after considerable hemming and hawing -- oh, you noticed? - we come down with Bennett and with Oppel and with Hitchens and with Zengerle and with that anonymous writer for The Economist and, most of all, with Momeni in Jordan. And we're thankful that we live in a society where we can debate these issues - and vehemently disagree with one another -- without bloodshed. And that, in the end, might be the greatest difference of all.

Ellie