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Cartoons of the Prophet: A Pitfall Trap
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By Dal
Nun Strong**
Freelance writer - UK
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Feb.
5, 2006
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Were Danish Muslims correct in drawing international attention to the issue?
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The
“Muhammad Cartoons” issue sometimes reminds me of a pitfall
trap. The principle of a pitfall trap is that a hunter digs a deep
hole in the ground, then covers it with a thin layer insufficient to
support much weight. He then attracts his prey to walk onto the
cover, and of course to fall into the hole. So it has been with the
cartoons. The press dug a hole, filled with sharp sticks like press
freedom and human rights, into which they knew self-righteous
Muslims would inevitably still want to jump. Now, four months into
this saga, Muslims really need to be reminded that once you are in a
hole, you should stop digging.
The pictures were produced in full knowledge of the offense they would cause. |
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For
those who have been watching other channels or not reading right the
way through to the center pages of their newspapers, a quick resume
of this story. On September 17, 2005, a Danish newspaper (Politiken)
reported that a writer had trouble in finding an illustrator for
a children's book on the Qur’an and the life of the Prophet. A
rival newspaper (Jyllands-Posten) then decided to demonstrate
that it could find several, where its competitor found none. In
order to provide cover for this petty piece of journalistic
bickering, Jyllands-Posten concocted a story about freedom of
the press and the rights of journalists to print what they want. Its
twelve clunky and crude caricatures were published on September 30,
none of them showing any particular artistic merit, nor originality.
Inevitably, cartoonists decided to wheel out old stereotypes about
dodgy bearded Muslims, donkeys, headscarves, scimitars and
crescents. Profound knowledge of Islam, Islamic culture or history
was not particularly evident.
Inevitably,
the article and cartoons offended many people. It was bone-headed
– to say no more – to depict the founder of a
billion-person-strong religion as a man with a bomb in his turban.
Nor was it clever to include a poem like: “Prophet, daft and dumb,
keeping woman under thumb.” More than that, the pictures were
produced in full knowledge of the offense they would cause. The
editors knew full well of the Islamic tradition of aniconism, which
proscribes figure paintings as leading to idolatry. The most
important idolatry of all, for most Muslims, would be images of the
Prophet himself, mixing the message fatally with the messenger.
How
Blasphemy Could Have Been Opposed
In
no democratic country is freedom of the press an absolute
right. |
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If
readers and editors were able to remain calm-headed, it is highly
likely that the issue would not have exploded into an international
crisis. In no democratic country is freedom of the press (i.e. the
issue on which the newspaper launched its misguided campaign) an
absolute right. Press freedom is always subject to a variety of
conditions, such as truth, accuracy, privacy, public interest and a
reasonable assumption of the likely consequences for public order.
Those who feel that journalists have infringed these conditions
always have a means of redress – through complaints mechanisms,
ombudsmen, and ultimately through the civil courts.
And
modern democracies also have plenty of experience in dealing with
blasphemy and religious hatred cases in the media. To take the case
simply of the UK, over the last two years there have been the highly
effective protests by Christian groups against Jerry Springer:
the Opera, television stations demanded that far-Right parties
re-edit offensive election broadcasts, and indeed the Government
intends to extend the protection given to Christianity in the
blasphemy laws to all religions, in the new Racial and Religious
Hatred Bill.
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The
Jerry Springer: the Opera campaign could have been an excellent model for concerned Muslims about how to proceed.
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The
Jerry Springer: the Opera campaign could have been an
excellent model for concerned Muslims about how to proceed. This is
a play with an undoubtedly blasphemous premise – that Satan and
Jesus publicly row and argue on an American television talk show.
When it was broadcast in January 2005, a record 63,000 people
contacted the BBC to complain, BBC management spent around 5 months
being investigated by regulatory authorities, and the Arts Council
refused funding for a nationwide theater tour planned by the
organizers. Furthermore, due to consumer protests, several major
shops have refused to stock the DVD.
What
should be pointed out here is that Christian groups
maintained
their protests against those responsible for the offensive
production, rather than holding the government responsible. They
conspicuously protested against individual editorial judgements,
rather than calling for blanket bans against “blasphemy”. And
they kept their protest entirely within the UK, without calling on
co-religionists in other countries to mount “sympathy protests”.
Muslims
Fatally Undermining Their Own Cause
Muslims have alienated the public rather than winning sympathy against the racism they were protesting against. |
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In
the case of the Jyllands-Posten’s “Muhammad cartoons,”
Muslims have failed to learn these lessons – and have once again
succeeded in alienating the wider public, rather than winning
sympathy against the crude racism that they were protesting against.
We can see this, because the results have been the precise opposite
to what Muslims wanted. Instead of blasphemous paintings being seen
by 150,000 readers of a Danish newspaper, they have now been
reprinted in Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Iceland, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Netherlands, USA, and UK – millions at the lowest
reckoning.
There
have been major failures in the pan-European Muslim campaign against
the cartoons. The first has been the immediate assumption on the
part of Muslims in Denmark that the government has a responsibility
for editorial decisions in a newspaper. This is a basic, basic
error. A free and critical press, entirely independent of State
control, is intrinsic to the European concept of democracy.
I’m
sure European Muslim representative organizations do understand full
well – but before they could clarify this, the Islamic Society in
Denmark had muddied its case. During a tour of the Arab world, to
promote awareness of the blasphemous cartoons – which in itself is
a curious decision in the nervy times we live in – a large amount
of misinformation was spread in the Middle East. Firstly, the
Islamic Society in Denmark put out that it represented all of
Denmark’s 180,000 Muslims, although it has a membership of only
around 15,000. Contrary to some reports, Jyllands-Posten is
not owned by the government, nor by the ruling party. Furthermore,
the Danish leaders condemned three new cartoons that were never
published in the Danish media – and refused to reveal where they
had originated from.
The decision to internationalize the issue was particularly misguided. |
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This
decision to internationalize the issue was particularly misguided.
It is just about possible to understand why Danish Muslim leaders
did this – because the 1 billion Muslims outside Denmark are a
fair bit more impressive than the 180,000 inside it. But this makes
a mockery of democracy and law. It is like losing a fight in the
playground, and pretending that bringing your big brother to sort it
out is a just solution. The decision to internationalize the
cartoons issue meant that Danish Muslims ignored possibilities to
resolve their grievances within the Denmark they are supposed to be
integrating into. If the representatives of Danish Muslims are the
ambassadors and foreign ministers of foreign governments, what
message does this send? Where is the space for democracy, if the
Danish government has to choose between breaking its constitution
(i.e. infringing press freedom) and seeing boycotts put up to 10,000
Danish jobs at risk?
What
is most tragic about this case, is that Muslims across the world
have reinforced so many of the negative stereotypes we have tried
for years to break down. The original newspaper article suggested
that western media cannot report freely without fear of retaliatory
violence – and it appears to have proved entirely correct. More
than that, reaction has been entirely non-discriminatory between a
few journalists and the entire Danish nation. If Muslims object to
being tarnished by the actions of a few extreme individuals, why
should they believe that Danes do not? Where is the justice, when
Muslim groups burn the Danish flag, demand that all Danish citizens
leave Gaza and boycott all Danish products?
Conclusions
It should be demonstrated that editors often have poor judgement as to truth, accuracy and public interest. |
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European
Muslims made all of these same mistakes in the 1980s, with the
Salman Rushdie Satanic Verses affair. There also, European
assumptions of freedom of expression were met with incomprehension
by local Muslims, burnings of flags and books, and threats of
violence by foreign Muslim powers (in that case, Iran). What was the
outcome? A public relations disaster, that failed in all its aims
and created a host of negative stereotypes against Muslims that
still exists. More recently, the Netherlands saw the Submission
affair, a television program created by Ayaan Hirsi and Theo Van
Gogh. While Europeans thought it tasteless, they were taken aback by
an international outcry by Muslims, culminating in a brutal murder
of Van Gogh in broad daylight. What was the outcome? Again, a public
relations disaster that failed in all its aims and created more
negative stereotypes against Muslims.
Encouragingly,
some lessons seem to have been learned now in 2006. Many European
Muslim organizations, with experience of the Iraq protests, have
learned a little about influencing democratic politics. They know
that they have to show targeted, mass local support, through the
correct channels. The 63,000 complaints to the BBC over Jerry
Springer: the Opera would seem an excellent target to emulate.
It’s about using the pluralism of western media to debate
editorial judgements in detail. It’s about cutting through the
veneer of “the right to press freedom,” to demonstrate that
editors often have poor judgement as to truth, accuracy and public
interest.
But
Muslims in Europe also have a new task for the twenty-first century
– which is to convince their brothers in the developing world not
to interfere. My contention is that European Muslims could have done
without Palestinian organizations raiding the EU offices. They could
have done without Arab dictatorships allowing their oppressed people
to let off steam by burning foreign flags and attacking embassies.
And,
as I am sure khatibs (imams giving Friday sermons) across the
world have stressed, Muslims everywhere could help by channeling
their energy to defend the Messenger’s name, in order to practice
the message he brought in their own lives.
Read
also Is
There Nothing Sacred?
by Bashy Quraishy
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Dal Nun Strong holds a BA in Modern History from Hertford College in Oxford and a postgraduate Diplôme in International Trade from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. He currently works for the British Department of Transport.
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