Free Press and
the Cartoons
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
Once an American columnist
wrote: “No part of the world is more hopelessly
and systematically and stubbornly misunderstood
by us than that complex of religion, culture and
geography known as Islam”. And to Huston Smith,
a renowned world religions scholar, “Of all
the non-Western religions, Islam stands closest
to the West-closest geographically, and also closest
ideologically; for religiously it stands in the
Abrahamic family of religions…yet despite
this mental and spatial proximity, Islam is the
most difficult religion for the West to understand”.
The publication of the Danish cartoons, lampooning
Prophet Muhammad proves the veracity of both the
statements. The world actually finds itself sitting
on a keg of powder, the eruption of which, as the
developments indicate, is a matter of time.
And the world is in no short supply of people who
are willing to show match to this keg of powder,
and are sweating hard to keep the flames of hatred
burning on both sides of the aisle. The Danish cartoonist
knew the respect and love the Muslims have for their
Prophet and the Holy Qur’an. He knew that
most in India and Pakistan even do not change in
a room that contains a copy of the Qur’an.
A vast majority of Muslims while performing their
Hajj in Makkah, deem it incomplete if they fail
to say 40 prayers in the city of Medina where Prophet
Muhammad is buried. Stuck with the image of Muslims
as terrorists, the Danish cartoonist knew how he
could make them match that image in one stroke,
under the cover of free press. He is vacationing
now and is amusedly watching the world in flames.
Clearly, the Danish cartoonist chose to caricature
the Prophet, not to test the strength of free press,
or the solidarity of those who would stand by him
in the hour of need; he did it to measure the level
Muslims could be provoked to, because, as would
say Gandhi, those who can be provoked, they can
also be controlled. The publication of cartoons
is “a trap of self-destruction” for
the Muslims. Whichever way they react, it is bound
to backfire on them. Mild protests would earn them
the ire of the extremists; violent outbursts would
further tarnish their image in the West. In a short
period of time, the world will forget who played
the original mischief; what it would remember would
be the fanatic infatuation of the Muslims, and their
mad reactions to, “mild cartoons”. Fourteen
deaths, and burning of embassies, banks, cars and
properties are just the beginning. New theories
and themes are getting inducted in the cartoons
controversy every day. The Iranians have found an
opportunity in this controversy to launch an international
competition for Holocaust cartoons; the Pakistan’s
Islamic opposition parties have begun a rolling
campaign of protests ahead of a visit by President
Bush. They are inwardly thankful to the Danish cartoonist
for having supplied them the right material to “get
rid of Musharraf”, an agent of the West, as
they think of him.
This reminds one of the year 850 when the Qazi of
Cordoba begged Pefectus, a Christian fanatic, to
renounce insulting the Prophet Muhammad again and
again. The Qazi knew Perfectus was doing it with
a view to attaining martyrdom, but he did not. The
Qazi hated the blasphemy law, but had his hands
tied. Six other monks from his monastery delivered
yet another venomous attack on Prophet Muhammad,
in solidarity with Perfectus, and to attain martyrdom.
By the end of that summer, some fifty martyrs had
attained “martyrdom” though all of them
were denounced by the Bishop of Cordova, and by
the Mozarabs who themselves were alarmed at this
cult. Then jumped in two fire-brand priests, Eulogio
and Paul in the foray declaring the martyrs as “soldiers
of God”. Diatribes against Prophet Muhammad
uttered by the Cordovan martyrs became an integral
part of the apocalyptic biography, a fear-ridden
fantasy. 250 years later, Europe re-dug the stories
that Muhammad was basically “the great enemy
of the emerging Western identity, standing for everything
that ‘we hoped we were not”. Finally
by 1095 under Pope Urban II, the call came for the
first Crusade, and the rest of the story is known
to all. The matter is reported by Karen Armstrong
in her book, Muhammad.
The 21st century is resonating the story. Cal Thomas,
a syndicated columnist in his article, “culture
wars will be Long”, (Feb.8), and Kathleen
Parker in her column, “We shouldn’t
appease radical disciplines of Islamic faith”,
(Feb.12) mention the differences between the Muslims
and the liberal West re-echoing the theme of the
9th century Cordoba, when they pronounce that these
differences are much deeper than a mere “clash
of two civilizations”, or “two cultures”.
The gap is as wide as between the 21st century and
the Dark Ages of the 7th century, and that Muslims’
God appears to have “commissioned” them
to exact judgment on the world, while our God offers
man grace, along with freedom to choose or reject
it, reserving judgment for Himself. Both predict
in no wavering terms that it is going to be a long,
long war. To them, Muslims are a backwater of civilization.
The biggest fallacy, or the deadliest mischief that
is being espoused and fashionably propagated is
the theory of the clash of civilizations. Prof.
Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate Economist, extolling
the plurality of identities warns those who hold
this, “impoverished vision” of the world,
and who tend to stuff the world into “boxes
of civilizations”. For him recognizing the
plurality of different peoples identities, and according
them due respect is the only sure way to harmony
and peace in the world.
Rene Ciria-Cruz of New America Media is right when
he points out, “Why are some Western commentators
casting the controversy over the Danish cartoons
lampooning the Prophet Muhammad as a challenge to
freedom of expression and of the press?” They
should instead view the controversy as a challenge
to journalists to renew their sense of respect for
different cultures and religious beliefs”.
President Bush also reiterates similar views when
he says: Freedom of press is a great virtue, but
it should not be without a sense of responsibility
or without thoughtfulness to other people’s
sensibilities. A timely discredit of the cartoons
would have ended the matter there and then. Instead,
what the world is reading and witnessing is a charade
of finger-pointings with new labels emerging: Muslims
getting classified as “Islomafascists”,
and the West as “Islamaphobic”.
Are there any solutions that can defuse this stand-off?
Strategic outreach to other groups and communities
and educating each other are indispensable imperatives
now in this mixed-up world of ours. Prof. Akbar
Ahmed aptly points out, “Muslim civilization
will be central to understanding where we will be
moving in the future. 1.3 billion and growing in
55 Muslim States and about 25 million living permanently
in the West and many of them now making an impact
on social, political, and economic life; and a religion
that comes with commitment and passion”, are
facts that are hard to be ignored in the present-day
world. Any one wanting to make sense of living in
the twenty-first century must make efforts to understand
Islam, too. Clichés , and stereo-tying and
label-sticking are not a civilized way of understanding
others.
Free speech, no doubt, is the oxygen of all other
freedoms, but we learn to exercise it, notwithstanding
the presence of anti-Semitic Laws, Hudud/Sharia
Laws and Patriot Acts, to name only a few. Simple
voluntary restraint, a self-imposed discipline,
a journalistic discretion and an adherence to the
written and unwritten laws that govern the journalistic
conduct in the press-rooms, in the larger interest
of harmony, peace, and understanding in the world
are hardly a compromise on free speech.
Dr. Agha Saeed, AMA chairman puts it right when
he says, “Bigotry is fought and defeated through
public consciousness and rational analysis. Public
rebuke is to bigotry what sunshine is to germs.
No one is calling for censorship, nor is it the
freedom of speech which is under discussion. What
is needed is to separate wheat from chaff. The issue
is increasing lack of tolerance against Muslims
and Islam in the West. No one defends similar insults
against any other group in the name of free speech.
Deliberate defamation and willful humiliation of
any culture and people, including Islam by way of
repeated provocations must be discredited by those
who stand for free press. Respect, rather than disregard
of different cultures and religions can alone restore
peace and mutual understanding in the world. Deliberate
destruction and denigration of a faith and culture
can be very detrimental and disturbing; it can produce
and in a way it already has germinated in our modern
day world, a defiant spirit of religiosity as a
means of asserting the beleaguered self, says Karen
Armstrong.
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