Cartoons:
Incitement to Violence?
By Dr.Ghulam M Haniff
St. Cloud, MN
By now it ought to be clear
to everyone interested in exploring the issue
of what it means to be “free” that
the freedom of speech is not an absolute principle.
Related to the exercise of this freedom is the
sense of responsibility that goes with it, pointed
out hastily by no less a figure than President
George Bush. In an age of emerging global society
it has to be understood that no one can afford
to offend the sensibilities of peoples of other
cultures.
The classical “Other” of the Orientalists’
literature, explored by Edward Said in many of
his writings, now lives next door and takes offense
at the way he is demonized. The “white man’s”
natives, “half-savage and half-child”
described by Rudyard Kipling is not going to take
it lying down anymore.
The issue of the freedom of speech has been litigated
in the United States with the Supreme Court concluding
that one cannot exercise this freedom by shouting
“fire” in a crowded theater. Today,
we live on a crowded planet with global cultures
rubbing against one another and the principles
developed generations ago in one national setting
sheltered by relative isolation may not be acceptable
to all.
There is also the long held folk wisdom in the
American society that your freedom ends where
my nose begins.
The notion that the freedom of speech is tempered
by other considerations is fairly well known in
America but not in Europe. There, the ideology
of “secular fundamentalism” has run
amok mostly because freedoms were restricted in
many countries well into the modern times under
totalitarian regimes of Germany and Italy until
the end of the Second World War, and Spain and
Portugal into the sixties and seventies.
At the moment Europe under the aegis of the European
Union is trying to demonstrate to the world what
freedom means even though they themselves have
a checkered history in this regard, with only
minor exceptions. Enjoying prosperity they want
to lord it over to the rest of the world and show
the superiority of the civilization of the West
and its commitment to the value of freedom.
Even as the controversy continues no one reminds
us that no cartoon denigrating communism or Karl
Marx could have been published in the eastern
half of Europe for over fifty years. Their representatives
now parade around the world as champions of freedom,
and as allies, despite the fact that the concept
of freedom is perhaps better understood in countries
like Pakistan or Malaysia. The freedom of speech
is not an old established value indigenous to
the European people as some writers have tried
to argue.
The freedom of speech was selective for the editor
of Jyllands-Posten when he refused to publish
caricatures of Jesus but Prophet Muhammad, representing
the tradition of the “Other,” was
a fair game. As an admirer of Daniel Pipes’
writings the editor must have known what the consequences
would be but chose to proceed anyway.
Could it be that the cartoons were published as
an incitement to violence? After all, Muslims
are not well liked in Denmark and are often depicted
as backward, violent people, who do not belong
in that Northern nation. A number of years ago
Daniel Pipes, writing about the Muslims in Denmak,
highlighted their innate criminality and suggested
that immigration be restricted. The liberal Prime
Minister of that time disagreed, and was later
replaced by a conservative one.
Muslims have lived in Denmark for years though
to this day they do not have even a single proper
mosque, a purpose built facility, and are compelled
to hold prayer services in converted factory buildings.
No attempts have been made to bring them into
the mainstream. They are marginalized, pushed
to the periphery of the society, and regarded
as phlegmatic foreigners living in their midst.
They are also made to bear the brunt of many jokes
and hateful graffiti.
As a former resident of Scandinavia (having lived
in Finland and Norway in the fifties when Muslims
were unknown) with an admiration for their political
system I find the condition of the Danish Muslims
quite shocking. In other Northern countries they
are tolerated a little better.
No doubt the objective of the cartoons was to
incite hatred and violence as has been done by
the West for at least a millennium, sometimes
with pernicious results too numerous to mention
in this limited space. This time all the dead
have been Muslims, most shot by the security forces
of their own countries. The burning of the embassies
and the destruction of property were shortsighted
and cannot be justified regardless of the intensity
of the anger.
Meanwhile, the Danish people remain unrepentant
though some now question the wisdom of publishing
the offensive cartoons. Among these is the former
foreign minister who was articulate on CBS’
60 Minutes in discussing the notion of responsibility
as a check to the concept of absolute freedoms.
Denmark has substantial trade with the Muslim
world. Consumers are exercising the power of boycott
and the country is said to be losing one million
dollars a day. If the cartoons were published
as an incitement to violence the long-term impact
on Denmark, the fantasy land of Europe, could
prove to be costly.
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