So is everyone up to speed on the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy? Yesterday I meant to post the most offensive image with a headline of “standing up for free speech” or something equally sophomoric. News that the State Department denounced the cartoons gave me pause, as did this excellent, thought-provoking article from the Times of London:
It is clearly hard for westerners to comprehend the dismay these gestures cause Muslims. The question is not whether Muslims should or should not “grow up” or respect freedom of speech. It is whether we truly want to share a world in peace with those who have values and religious beliefs different from our own. The demand by foreign journalists that British newspapers compound their offence shows that moral arrogance is as alive in the editing rooms of northern Europe as in the streets of Falluja. That causing religious offence should be regarded a sign of western machismo is obscene.
One of the hardest things to do in any debate is to simply look at the issue from the other side’s point of view. I was struck by this cartoon I found on Wikipedia that appeared in an Arab newspaper:
The text reads, “This one is anti-Semitic”, “this one is racist”, “those fall under free speech.”
Of course, the difference is that generally Westerners don’t yell “kill the Muslims” at mass protests and bomb Muslim cutural centers when Arab newspapers serialize the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Still…
As I turn this one over in my head, I keep coming back to the Salman Rushdie affair. If the Muslim world thinks their religious sensibilities trump our right to self-expression … how do you negotiate with that? They can practice whatever religion they want — but if they’re want to impose their values on me, by way of death threats and violence, then is any compromise possible?
It all goes back, I think, to how you regard Islam. Is it a religion of peace, on par with Christianity and Judaism, or some malvolent force that exorts its followers to violence, oppresses its women and has little respect for civil society? Should our approach be an outstretched hand, or a something a little less accomodating? This is a religion, that, after all, has 1.3 billion adherents…
UPDATE 2/5/06: I was at a (peaceful) Muslim protest today against these cartoons, held across the street from the United Nations. It is easier to be belligerent and talk about “standing up” to Islam when you’re not meeting the downtrodden people who are offended … ultimately, we all do have to share the same planet, even if we don’t always understand each other.
Here are a couple photos from the event:
UPDATE 2: Here’s my story on the protest. I’m also struck by the civility of this protest compared to photos I’ve seen of the ones in London.
I’m sorry, but that article is apologia for the bratty practicioners of a hyper-sensitive religion. He lists three or four standard Western behaviors that Muslims find abhorrent, and says we should be sensitive to that in the name of harmony. But what do Muslims do that most Christians would find equally abhorrent? (Suicide bombing doesn’t count, since that’s against Islam as well.) I don’t know that any such practices exist– Muslims do lots that I find rather strange, but it’s none of my business. The converse, apparently, does not exist.
The bottom line is that tolerance seems to be much more ingrained in Western culture, and in Islam it’s frowned upon.
Well, that is true enough. The Muslims I spoke with yesterday made the point that they’d also protest insults to the prophets of Judaism and Christianity, who of course are also their prophets. But sure, I can’t imagine Christians or Jews rioting over some nastiness in an Arab paper.
As a friend of mine says, though (in a completely different context), sometimes you just have to be the bigger person.
Mainstream newspapers generally don’t show images or use words that’d cause gratuitous offense, and I think that’s wise. (That’s what the alternative press is for).
But when people are threatening to kill other people for their free speech, it’s completely understandable to want to give them a one-fingered salute and publish these images just out of solidarity. And there’s definitely a part of me that would take joy in doing so. But I’m not entirely convinced that’d be the wisest course of action. Like I said, we all have to share the same planet.
Well..rather silly I must say, good idea to publish and make a little fun out of the Holocaust and the troublesome Jews, bloody people source of all kind of troubles.
While I respect the religious practices of Muslims throughout the world, I detest being told to practice Islam as if I were a Muslim. When I’m in Islamic Countries or even among Muslims in their communities in the West or work with a Muslim in the West who dismisses himself or herself to pray several times a day, I am sensitive and give respect to their religious values and practices. I can’t appreciate the fact that Islamic values are being shoved down my throat and my life threatened because of free-speech here in the West which is why I live here and not in an Islamic dominated country. All of my life I have had much contempt for those (whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews or whatever) who try to persuade me of their religious superiority and tell me how to live. I believe in God and believe their is only one God who loves us all.
Well I am a Muslim, if I asked you to tell ten things about my religion then I am afraid that you cant. Because if you would have ever explored Islam you would be a Muslim like me. We at the eastern side of the world are mostly un educated people… and will follow another Muslim very easily without even knowing the consequences. This was the case with Osama bin laden making a team of Muslim fighters and going on Russia( backed by US ) and when US saw Osama is of no use they come to Afghanistan… same was the case with Saddam senior bush used him to attack Iran and when he is of no use junior bush comes to take all the oil…. what comes out to be my point is…. because of some corrupt Islamic leaders we have make freedom fighters who are fighting in the name of Islam in there minds but for real they r terrorists. Islam did not ask them to be like that they are those leaders. If you live around a Muslim community u will see how they live… they are most peaceful… If you read Islam history our Prophet could have lived n palace or in the most expensive boundaries of his time but no! Prophet worked with the Muslims with knotting a rock with his stomach at times just to control his hunger. In another instance when Prophet was migrating from Makah to Madina, the Non-Muslims of Madina attacked him with throwing stones on him… but even then he prayed to God to forgive them as they didn’t know what they were doing. In Islamic history we have never began a war all the wars were fought in self defense. If you have to say something to Muslims first learn what Islam say what Quran say read the history of Muslims see what Prophet said on occasions(ahadice) then predict anything or the consequences are in front of u.
Adeel, I’ll admit there’s a lot I don’t know about Islam. And sure, the Muslim people I’ve met here in the U.S. seem like good, peaceful people.
But when you read on the news about Muslims rioting, burning down embassies and issuing death threats over a cartoon … I don’t need to be an expert on your religion to say “what the hell.”
Muslims talk about Islam being a religion of peace — but actions speak louder than words…
Adeel, I can relate to what you’re saying! I think a lot of us here in the West are quick to make often rather uninformed and snap judgements about the East, and specifically Islam, when we really don’t know anything at all about it or what real Muslim people are like. It IS alarming to see the newspaper headlines full of death tolls from bombings and riots in the street, but to group these one-sided images into a catagory such as “ISLAM” seems nonsensical. Living in New York every day, you see all of the horrible and blind things as well as the loving and courageous things that people do every day–people from every background, every country, every religion. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we all just people?? Shouldn’t we try to see that no matter what our real or perceived differences, we have to live together? No matter what our political ideas or religious ideas or whatever, we are united in our humanity, in the mere (or not so mere!) fact that we share the world? When it comes down to it, WHAT separates us, really??
Yeah, I know, this is idealistic. There will always be conflict, and, damn, i’m not always a model of compassion myself. But I find this kind of viewpoint much more productive in my everyday life than picking a side and fighting tooth and nail for something I don’t even know anything about, and probably creating more suffering for myself and everyone else in the process.
[…] So remember those cameraphone pictures I took of that Muslim cartoon protest that I posted on Flickr? Someone found them and (with my permission) used ‘em in a video for Current.tv. You can watch it here, it’s not bad. […]
[…] My earlier take on the controversy can be found here. […]