Point/Counterpoint Free Expression and the Sacred: Should There Be Limits?

Kingdom of the Blind

With the ongoing worldwide discussions that were triggered by the recent publications of cartoons that ridiculed Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and with IslamOnline.net's continued commitment to dialogue as a stepping stone for understanding, the Muslim Affairs section introduces this heated debate between British journalist Felicity Arbuthnot and American cartoonist Signe Wilkinson over whether there should be limits on freedom of expression when it comes to the sacred in religions.

Anti-Islamic graffiti found on an Islamic Center of Detroit sign

Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is as susceptible to being hypnotised by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And when there is an epidemic, the group-mind takes over.

Arthur Koestler, Bricks to Babel.

"We are the new Jews" is an ironic, repeated phrase in Muslim circles. How did we get to a point where there is open season on Islam and Muslims in mainstream media and the victims are blamed for their hurt, bewilderment, and anger?

The decision to publish the blasphemous, Islamophobic cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten , by its culture editor Flemming Rose, is perhaps a culmination of a latter-day Crusade (imagine announcing another Holocaust), as described and led by possibly the most fundamentalist president that the most powerful nation on earth has ever been inflicted with. The nation, founded by the puritan pilgrim fathers, was arguably built on racism and xenophobia — still dominant, with brave liberal voices now embattled in the "You are either with us or against us" paranoia.

Dissent is near treason even when the state commits crimes and violates international law. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; and in a world largely blind to the realities behind the attacks on Muslim nations (coincidentally with abundant oil), "the group mind" has taken over. Demonizing and dehumanizing Muslims help justify even more attacks on them.

When asked on CBS's "60 Minutes" (May 12, 1996) whether the death of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of sanctions was worth it, Madelaine Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations, replied "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it." Apart from in "leftist" outlets, her remark barely caused a ripple in Western media. If she had made the reference to French, British, German, or Jewish children being "worth" the price, the ensuing uproar could have barely been imagined.

In the following year, another hardly noticed assault on Islam appeared in the form of an article titled "Constant Conflict" in the summer issue of US Army War College Quarterly . It was written by Major Ralph Peters of the Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. "There will be no peace ... The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing," he wrote.

"We will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent. ... He who warns of the 'clash of civilizations' is incontestably right," he added.

He also wrote of the world's "discarded" citizens (which, four years before September 11, included former US "discarded" ally the Taliban): "The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. ... [N]oncompetitive cultures, such as that of Arabo-Persian Islam ... are enraged ... Their cultures are under assault; their cherished values have proven dysfunctional." The "discarded foreigner," bitter in failure, may "turn to terrorism" against "[c]ontemporary American culture ... the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures."

At the end, Peters concludes, "The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag."

While the heart of most of the world went out to America after the assault on the Twin Towers, Peters' rabid predictions of the fate of "discarded foreigners" — all in the predominately Muslim world, of course — came to fruition. The world was told who was responsible for the destruction of the Word Trade Center. No meaningful enquiry was held. Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most battered countries on earth, was mercilessly attacked. A puppet government was installed and the people were subjected not only to bombardment by poisoned weapons and occupation, but also racial and religious insults, persecution, torture, and humiliation — without meaningful investigation even when prisoners in US custody suffocated in metal containers in the boiling sun.

The war on Afghanistan was followed by the Iraq invasion, all compounded by the infamous Abu Ghraib tragedy, humiliation, torture, stripping men naked, forcing men to wear women's underclothes, male and female rape, and the desecration of the Qur'an.

Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., in February 2006, Ann Coulter — speaking on a platform including Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist — said, "I think our motto should be post-9-11, raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences." Her website made a near identical statement changing her racist rant to Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?" Were this language aimed at any other people on earth — imagine it's equivalent being aimed at the Jewish race — perpetrators should and would be arraigned for incitement to racial hatred at the least — and perhaps for encouraging terrorism. In Israel, however, the government is never censored for labeling Palestinians "cockroaches" and "vermin."

Afghanistan was no better. US soldiers burned bodies of dead Afghans; insulted villagers in their local language, accusing them of cowardice, scared to retrieve the bodies. "You are the lady boys we always believed you to be," they taunted the bereaved ( Sydney Morning Herald , October 19, 2005).

Given the destruction of culture, denigration of dignity, invasions, trashings, demolition of and thefts from the sanctity of homes in their countless thousands, appropriation of national assets, Islam has arguably been a proportionate model of restraint. Believers, sustained by faith integral to being, where God and His Prophets know reason for the incomprehensible and the direction life will take, have largely not lashed out with the unforgivable, disproportionate savagery and collective punishment of the United States and the "coalition" of the largely coerced.

Preceding the publication of the cartoons, the Umm Al Qura Mosque, also home to the Association of Muslim Scholars in Baghdad, was raided by US soldiers, offices trashed, and crosses daubed on walls and cupboards (Inter Press and Agencies, January 12). In the United States and across Europe, anti-Islam graffiti has appeared on mosques and buildings, and Muslim cemeteries have been desecrated. But it was only when, in the guise of "freedom of expression," in a climate almost entirely fuelled by US-driven Islampophobia, that the Prophet Mohammed (peace and blessings be upon him) was denigrated, ridiculed, and depicted as a terrorist, that those of the faith across the globe reacted. As numerous publications reprinted the cartoons, fuelling hurt and revulsion, it was, again, Islam which was unreasonable.

When the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri responded, inviting a Holocaust cartoon competition, Jyllands-Posten 's Flemming Rose said he would print those too. He was promptly sent home by his bosses on "indefinite leave" ( Guardian February 10, 2006). In France, a comedian was fined five thousand euros for making a joke about Jews and a Lithuanian newspaper was fined for writing an anti-Jewish article. Holocaust denier David Irving was jailed again. However abhorrent his views, freedom of speech is clearly selective.

Nearly three thousand years ago, the Babylonian "Council of Wisdom" instructed:

To the feeble show kindness,
Do not insult the downtrodden,
Do charitable deeds, render service all your day,
Do not utter libel, speak what is of good report,
Do not say evil things, speak well of people.

Politicians and newspaper editors would do well to place it prominently on their wall and reflect that, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, the Pogroms to the Holocaust, all it has taken was for that lethal "group mind" to "take over."

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited Iraq on numerous occasions since the 1991Gulf War. She has written and broadcast widely on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also Senior Researcher for John Pilger’s award-winning documentary Paying the Price – Killing the Children of Iraq.