With all the attention that politicians and the media have devoted to the controversy generated by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it's important to understand this controversy in its proper context. Jyllands-Posten decided to publish these cartoons because it wanted to test what editor-in-chief Carsten Juste described as "an article of self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world."
In other words, Juste contended that there is a real fear of being seen as criticizing Islam in large parts of the Western world, and that this fear has bred self-censorship. Juste is right on both counts. An article that I wrote for the Daily Standard back in November documents in some detail the trend toward criticism of Islam being met with threats or actual physical violence. Examples of this include Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa sentencing writer Salman Rushdie to death after publication of The Satanic Verses; the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh after he directed a film dramatizing the mistreatment of women born into Muslim families; the death threats directed against actor and Muslim convert Omar Sharif after he praised his role as St. Peter in an Italian TV film; Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali being driven underground by threats after admitting in a televised debate that she had left the Islamic faith; and Dutch painter Rachid Ben Ali being forced into hiding after one of his shows featured satirical work critical of Islamic militants' violence.
These are but a few examples of a far broader trend toward speech crticizing Islam being met not with counter-speech, but with threats -- and in extreme instances, with death. So Jyllands-Posten's publication of the cartoons of Muhammad is best understood not as an attack on Islam, but as a reaction to this trend, and an attempt to dramatically reassert the primacy of free speech. In the past, when criticism of Islam was met with threats, Westerners haven't always been vigilant about standing behind speech rights. After a bounty was placed on Rushdie's head, for example, British novelist John le Carré offered an excuse for Rusdie's would-be assassins by stating that "there is no law in life or nature that says that great religions may be insulted with impunity." Likewise, Western legal systems -- through such vehicles as religious vilification laws -- frequently send mixed signals by suggesting that the slander of religion can be punished by law.
So it is encouraging to see that the controversy over these cartoons wasn't met with wholehearted Western self-flagellation and apologies, but rather with defiance. When newspapers like France's France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, Italy's La Stampa, the Netherlands' Volkskrant, and Spain's El Periodico republished the cartoons, they did so not out of anti-Islam animus, but rather because they understood the principles that are here at stake.
Of course, Westerners have not unanimously stood in solidarity with freedom of speech in this latest controversy. In an excellent article published in the Weekly Standard, Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, notes the reaction from the UN's high commissioner for human rights after the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) complained to her about the cartoons:
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour, replied to the OIC, "I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others." She launched investigations into "racism" and "disrespect for belief," and asked for "an official explanation" from the Danish government. However, despite being a professed defender of human rights, she showed no alarm at the OIC's disregard for the Danes' belief in and commitment to a free press.
When the U.S. State Department and British foreign secretary Jack Straw condemn the publication of these cartoons, it only demonstrates that they are either unaware of the threat to free speech -- or else would like to pretend that it does not exist.
The fact remains, though, that the threat to free speech is real. Even in the West, people are threatened and sometimes killed for criticizing Islam. The Danish cartoons struck a blow against the resulting self-censorship. How we as a culture are able to weather the current controversy will say much about our understanding of the importance of free speech rights -- and about our prospects of keeping these rights vibrant in the future.
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/the_danish_cart.html
Of the whole clutch of cartoons published, one was a sort of self-portrait of an artist drawing a non-satirical picture of Mohammed, shedding sweat and glancing nervously over his shoulder to see if someone was getting ready to behead him. Neatly encapsulated the point of the whole exercise.