Posted on 02/06/2006 11:02:06 AM PST by neverdem
The Danish cartoon controversy is a breath of fresh air for Muslims and non-Muslims alike
If freedom of expression isn't dangerous, it isn't worth defending. One of the pernicious elements of big free-speech conflicts—and the controversy over 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten has in the past few days blown up into a conflict of vast proportions—is an argument usually made by free speechers themselves: that there's no harm (and thus presumably no reasonable grounds for offense) in a simple picture or movie or book.
Have these people never heard of Das Kapital? Of the Bible or the Quran? A book can cause plenty of harm. So can a cartoon. It's precisely the volatility of free speech that has made artists themselves among the most hysterical alarmists on the topic of forbidden language.
Free expression advocates have made an effort to frame the Jyllands-Posten cartoons as a responsible attempt to broaden the conversation on religious freedom, when in fact (as several of the cartoonists themselves acknowledged) the stunt is unambiguously provocative, juvenile, offensive, and irresponsible. That's why it needs to be defended.
And the last few days have suggested an interesting development for advocates of free expression: We're winning.
This may not be immediately obvious. As of this writing, gunmen in Gaza are checking hotel rooms for Danish nationals; a newspaper editor in Jordan has been fired for defending the cartoons and the president of Afghanistan has denounced them; demonstrators outside the French embassy in the U.K. are agitating to "Behead those who insult Islam;" flags of European countries are being burned around the world; and Christian and Jewish leaders are, not unpredictably, joining their Muslim counterparts in denouncing the cartoons. This afternoon, buttinskis at the U.S. State Department issued a craven condemnation of an affair that is none of their business.
But a closer look at those "Anger growing over cartoons" headlines reveals something more encouraging than just another story of the perpetually hurt feelings of Muslim community leaders. The actions of inflamed Muslims have been producing consistent reactions from their targets. The Jyllands-Posten cartoons have been reprinted by newspapers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary and Jordan, and on countless blogs. The longer the protests continue the more widely the cartoons get distributed. The issue will almost certainly lead to a revisiting of the lamentable laws against "hate speech" in Europe, and with any luck to a debate on whether these laws are more likely to destroy public harmony than encourage it. Muslim activists are finding out why getting into a negative-publicity fight is as inadvisable as wrestling with a pig: You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
A sign that the worldwide protest is at least a tactical error surfaced in this interesting passage from the weekly Al Ahram:
"Muslims might have miscalculated the manner in which they handled the crisis," noted prominent Islamic scholar Abdel-Sabour Shahine, who suggested that instead of pursuing a boycott of Danish products, the Islamic world should have shown more tolerance, by focusing on promoting dialogue with the west, and educating them more about Islam. "The Qur'an ordains Muslims to engage in peaceful dialogue and use a more logical approach with those of different creeds." The prophet himself, Shahine argued, was constantly subject to offence during the first years of his prophecy in Mecca, and his reactions were so tolerant that those who initially opposed him ended up becoming Muslim.
"After all," said Shahine, "we'd rather have the Danes apologizing out of conviction, rather than because they feel threatened."
The situation this week is almost the opposite of the case of Salman Rushdie and his Satanic Verses, not least because we don't (so far) have the most prominent Islamic leader in the world issuing a death threat and ordering a hit on a man who wrote a book nobody read. Anybody who can recall the atmosphere in 1989—when religious rage seemed unstoppable and there was always some crank or contrarian around to point out that Rushdie really brought the trouble on himself—will notice the difference. European opinion polls and the mood of the media today indicate a different attitude, more confident and determined, more ready to admit the obvious point that civilized people don't go to the gun over an insulting picture. About the only similarity to 1989 is that government officials in the United States and Europe remain lukewarm in their support for free speech.
This is not an exhortation for "Euro-weenies" to stand up to the enemy within. The cartoon controversy can not be removed from its context of European dysfunction in dealing with its Muslim populations. It's not particularly noble or admirable for the folks at Jyllands-Posten to set out to provoke their own country's second class citizens. And the protestors are right to question why free expression has to take a back seat when it's a question of girls wearing hijabs in public schools but becomes precious on the matter of publishing insulting cartoons.
But the important thing is that the issue is out in the open, and neither side is standing down.
Like all the most absurd controversies, the Jyllands-Posten issue has taken a while to blow up. The paper commissioned a group of cartoonists in mid-September to draw pictures of the first Muslim's face and published the whole collection at the end of that month. (Islam prohibits depiction of the prophet, and as the late filmmaker Moustapha Akkad found out, even a false rumor of prophet imagery in a reverential pro-Islam film can incite violence.) The controversy simmered for months, with a group of Danish imams and ambassadors from majority Muslim countries pressuring the Danish government, without success, to censure the paper. When Reason first mentioned the story in November, there was barely any coverage of it online. That has obviously changed in the past few days.
But the Islamic explosion over the cartoons has been interesting. While you can't call the reaction good, it has been less bad than we might have expected, ranging from the legitimate (open criticism, demonstrations, boycotts of the offending newspapers) to the outrageous (violence, rioting, murder attempts), to something that resides between these two poles. A boycott of Danish products is unfortunate because it carries the assumption that the government of Denmark should be actively suppressing Jyllands-Posten and its works. The same goes for embassy closures, diplomatic sanctions, and so on, as well as the mendacious efforts by a group of Danish imams to incite locals during a tour of the Middle East. But all these actions are more or less within the bounds of acceptable discourse. Hizbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah's grotesque invocation of the Rushdie case stands out not just for its outrageousness but because this kind of talk has been rare among prominent Islamic leaders.
That's all to the good. I'm going to go out on a very short limb here and say it's the Muslim community, not the West, that needs to learn a thing or two from this experience. There have been objections that this controversy undermines our own efforts to enlist potentially friendly Muslims in the struggle against tyranny. This is no doubt the motivation of the U.S. State Department in its decision to side with the rioters. But this view is not only unprincipled (free speech is to be defended even if it inconveniences the war on terror); it condescends to the perceived close-mindedness of Muslims and misreads the nature of the tyrannies in question. There isn't a single dictatorship in the Muslim world that isn't solicitous of the religious beliefs of its own population, that doesn't dish out harsh punishments for offenses against Islamic, and sometimes even Christian and Jewish, religious sensibilities. Religious respect, in other words, becomes another form of oppression. If that's the kind of respect freedom-minded Muslims can expect from the West, they're better off getting insulted.
The Jyllands-Posten controversy is disturbing, but ultimately it is a step in the right direction for both Muslims and secularists. In an ideal, or at least a slightly better, world, nobody would be drawing goofy pictures of Muhammad because there wouldn't be any pressing need to provoke Muslims. We don't live in that world, so the best thing we can do is let controversy rage. It's the only way to clear the air.
Tim Cavanaugh is Reason's web editor.
The interesting part....this has nothing really to do with cartoons. It has to do with the Islamic agenda to take control and to become a force for Allah. The cartoons are just another excuse. The cartoons are equal to the U.S and Israel being Allies, or any incident in any other country created to give the Muslims an excuse to start a Jihad. This is the actual, non-biased reason for all of this. It's a fact.....more to come.
The mountain will soon land on Mohammed..
To be the slave of Allah was the best Mohammad could hope for.
To be the slave of Mohammad was the best a Mulism could hope for...
To be the slave of a Muslim is the best a Dhimmi (infidel)
can hope for...
Freedom from the will of Allah aka the will of Allah aka the will of Islam is slavery to evil...
Only slavery to the will of Allah,the will of Mohammade,and the will of Islam is true freedom...
Out of controversy comes fresh dialogue. Having a mullah, iman or mufti controlling people whereby the people are kept in the 9th century mode of thinking is just downright wrong. Unfortunately, these idiotic islamic ruffians with their dictatorial leadership doesn't see.
Eventually the whole world has to come to the conclusion that free speech is necessary if there is to be civilization.
To be kicked out of Reason magazine's forum is a small price to pay if it will bring enlightment to those Libertarian potheads at Reason.
This part is interesting from the Islamic Scholar:
"Muslims might have miscalculated the manner in which they handled the crisis," noted prominent Islamic scholar Abdel-Sabour Shahine, who suggested that instead of pursuing a boycott of Danish products, the Islamic world should have shown more tolerance, by focusing on promoting dialogue with the west, and educating them more about Islam. "The Qur'an ordains Muslims to engage in peaceful dialogue and use a more logical approach with those of different creeds." The prophet himself, Shahine argued, was constantly subject to offence during the first years of his prophecy in Mecca, and his reactions were so tolerant that those who initially opposed him ended up becoming Muslim.
"After all," said Shahine, "we'd rather have the Danes apologizing out of conviction, rather than because they feel threatened."
Exactly thats the whole point isnt it. Islam will have to compete in the marketplace of ideas like everyone else. At this point I am not sure of the true level of Islamic Indigation over this. At one level I understand the frustration. THe proper response whould have been to boycott products advertized in that paper not the whole country. Its becoming more apparent to me that this whole thing was started by the Saudi Govt to get the fact ,that their mismangement of the piligramge to mecca again resulted in hundreds of deaths people out of the media limelight . The State dept should have stepped in then with a quiet call once this stuff starting appearing in Saudi newspapers.
To be perfectly fair, both the Old and New Testament consistently refer to believers as slaves of God.
"After all," said Shahine, "we'd rather have the Danes apologizing out of conviction, rather than because they feel threatened."
_____________________________________
But "threatened" is good enough......
This whole business with the "good" moderate muslims and the radical islamofascists is just another game of good cop bad cop on a worldwide scale....
I have never in my life heard one scripture that refers to believers as "slaves of God". Perhaps you can quote book, chapter, and verse.
Muslims wrestling with pigs? How culturally insensitive.
Behead him! Infidel!
funny... I'd rather have the Danes reiterate the "insults" out of conviction than apologize for any reason
Romans 6:22 (NIV) "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life."
yas sir, very soon.......
That's an interesting testimony....:) This political correctness crap is kicking our butts here.....Never heard of the forum. But you are right, when you plant the seed and go.....
Bull. The Bible says we are to serve others but it is a willing service that comes from our hearts....there is a huge difference between slavery and willingly serving others.
The noun for "slave" occurs elsewhere--St Paul begins the epistle to the Romans by calling himself "Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus..." using the noun doulos, the regular word for "slave." (The King James version has "servant," which is ambiguous.) Similarly, the epistle to the Philippians begins "Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus..."
There are other examples in the epistles, including some not by Paul (such as James and Second Peter).
Paul even says that he is speaking to us in human terms to get his point across in verse 19.
Romans 6:19 "I speak to you in human terms because of the weakness of the flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness."
Sort of changes the meaning when taken context does it not?!?
I don't know Hebrew, but I have a Langenscheidt's Pocket Hebrew Dictionary to the Old Testament (Hebrew/English) which transliterates Obadiah's name as 'obadyahu. The root word is transliterated as 'ebed (spelled with the letters ayin, beth, daleth), with the meanings "labourer," "servant," "slave," "bondsman," "subject"; "worshipper." (The dictionary also uses long and short marks and accents that I can't insert.)
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