Cartoons: Freedom to Abuse

[Baashi]

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Cartoons: Freedom to Abuse

2/4/2006 - Political - Article Ref: IV0602-2897

Number of comments: 64

Opinion Summary: Agree:37 Disagree:12 Neutral:13 Ignored:2

By: Haroon Siddiqui

Iviews* -

 

The protracted, still-raging controversy over a Danish newspaper's caricature of the Prophet Muhammad is a case study of the West's troubled relations with Muslims.

 

It features the easy cliches of the age - freedom of speech vs. Islamic intolerance, and open democratic debate vs. politically correct cravenness.

 

But what it has actually exposed is the European media's tendency to exploit anti-immigrant, particularly anti-Muslim, bigotry, as well as the Danes' readiness to bow to the gods of commerce.

 

The story begins last fall when an author complained he could not get an artist to illustrate a children's book about Muhammad's life, given Islam's prohibition against depicting the Prophet, lest it lead to idolatry.

 

Jyllands-Posten, the conservative mass circulation daily, asked 40 illustrators to defy the ban. On Sept. 30, it published a dozen of their drawings.

 

One depicted the Prophet as a bearded terrorist, with bulging eyes and a bomb-shaped turban with a burning fuse. Another had him wielding a sword. Another showed him as a crazed, knife-wielding Bedouin. Another placed him at the gates of Heaven telling suicide bombers: "Stop. Stop. We have run out of virgins!''

 

The first to complain were Danish Muslims. They were ignored. Muslim ambassadors to Denmark asked to meet the prime minister. Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused.

 

Flemming Rose, the paper's cultural editor, said he had commissioned the cartoons to break the self-censorship he felt had descended on Europe since the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim (since convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment). Editor Carsten Juste said he saw no reason to apologize.

 

Prime Minister Rasmussen walked a fine line, denouncing "any expression that attempts to demonize groups on the basis of religion or ethnic background," but adding that "freedom of speech is not negotiable.''

 

As protests spread worldwide, Editor Juste struck a disingenuous note. "We are sorry if Muslims have been offended."

 

On Jan. 10, the cartoons were reprinted in Norway in an evangelical Christian newspaper.

 

Protests continued. The Arab League and the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference issued formal condemnations. Last week, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark. Libya closed its embassy.

 

A grassroots consumer boycott of Danish and Norwegian products spread from Saudi Arabia across the Arabian Gulf.

 

Arla Foods - the Danish dairy, which sells about $421 million (U.S.) a year in that region - said sales had come to a "standstill." Other Danish firms also reported lost sales and cancelled business meetings.

 

In Copenhagen, the Confederation of Danish Industries accused Jyllands-Posten of jeopardizing $1 billion of annual sales to the Middle East.

 

Editor Juste went back to being defiant. The paper "cannot and will not" apologize. "If we were to, we'd be letting down generations who have fought for freedom of speech. Do we have to give up this right to protect Danish export interests?"

 

Meanwhile, in Iraq (where Denmark has 530 troops), thousands protested. In the West Bank, Danish flags were burnt. A militant Fatah group demanded that all Danes and Swedes leave the region, apparently confusing Sweden for Norway.

 

Sweden, Norway and Denmark urged their citizens to avoid travel to the Middle East.

 

By Monday evening, Jyllands-Posten had caved. "The drawings are not against the Danish law but have indisputably offended many Muslims, for which we shall apologize."

 

Yesterday, a newspaper in France and another in Germany published the cartoons, citing freedom of the press.

 

But the issue goes well beyond the old debate over whether freedom of expression has limits. It does in countries like Canada, which have anti-hate laws. But regardless of the presence or absence of legislated limits, every society has its own notions of what is acceptable and what is not.

 

We can be certain that the editors publishing the Muhammad caricatures would not smear their pages with anti-Semitic graffiti. Or commission drawings maligning the Pope, by depicting him, say, in compromising sexual positions.

 

And had the editors opted to be that offensive, we can be equally certain that not too many people would have been rushing to their defense.

 

It is this double standard that's at the heart of the repeated conflicts between the West and the world of Islam over how far anti-Islamic provocateurs can go in baiting Muslims, repeatedly, knowing full well the depth of Muslim feelings about their most cherished beliefs.

 

Invoking freedom of speech or the need to puncture political correctness are no more than smokescreens to hide that larger, and uglier, truth.

 

The Danes have neither defended freedom of speech well nor upheld another sacred secular principle, mutual respect between peoples of all faiths.

 

In balancing these two competing rights in this troubled world at this time, thinking people and responsible public institutions should err on the side of advancing mutual understanding, not fanning more conflicts.

 

Haroon Siddiqui is the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus. hsiddiq@thestar.ca

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Source

[xiinfaniin]

This is good read. Thanks Baashi for sharing it. It is a story of double standards indeed.

 

But interestingly enough the man who refused to even meet with his own Danish Muslims is repeatedly apologizing, as NPR reported this morning, to the Muslim world. But this time his apologies are too late, and of course to no avail. He appealed to European allies to help open dialogue with the Muslim world. His people, NPR reported, are holding peace rallies after they felt the burden of boycotts.

 

I was surprised that the American media handled this with extra caution, and did not run reprints of these cartoons.

[Khayr]

Hate behind right-wing blogburst

No need to publish offensive cartoons

 

ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

 

Well that didn't take long.

 

While Muslim religious extremists are rioting in the streets of Beirut, Gaza City and Kabul, Scandinavian embassies are being torched and Jordanians are deprived of their Danish feta over cartoons that were never actually published in any legitimate newspaper, the right-wing blogosphere has been staging its own "blogburst": the act of reproducing the offending depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

 

It's a "simultaneous, co-ordinated posting by a large group of webmasters and bloggers on a given topic," says Israpundit who, along with

Michelle Malkin, who is like Ann Coulter but not as funny and not so skinny, are leading the cartoon crusade.

 

Follow their politics and you'll understand why they're on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims.

In fact, if they were to write about Jews the way they sometimes do about followers of the Prophet Muhammad, they'd be denounced as anti-Semites or Holocaust deniers.

 

So it isn't surprising that some of their more eager acolytes have gone far beyond denigrating the fanatical rioting, which has, at deadline, claimed six lives and left hundreds of wounded.

 

No doubt, the Kartoon Karnage Kapers are inexcusable, and threaten to escalate into even more senseless death and destruction. That's why the absolute glee with which this has been received by the online cons strikes me as so puzzling. Do they enjoy the blood sport of watching out-of-control Muslim mobs in the streets?

 

It's also bemusing to see how they have suddenly declared solidarity with the heretofore "appeasers" of Europe for republishing the cartoons.

 

(Interestingly, one explanation for the sudden resurgence of these offending drawings after their initial appearance last September was that a so-called Christian magazine in Norway republished them. Why it chose to do so is unclear.)

 

In issuing their fatwa on the Muslims who are calling for the heads of people whose mightiest weapon is the pen,

the North American pyjamahadeen

have gone too far

, using the incident as another reason to bash Muslims and sow further divisions between what are already "clashing civilizations."

 

It's like they have been waiting for just this opportunity.....

 

Source

The internet is a HAVEN for people that love to feed of their EGO's, their OPINIONATIONS and the Blogger phenonmena has fed this on this.

 

Anyways,

 

the term pyjamahadeen is an amusing term.

[Baashi]

There is no such thing as an absolute freedom of anything. As one famous lawyer once put it, and I’m paraphrasing him, my right to swing my arm at your face stops right at your nose. He was equating physical violence to incitement to hatred implying that speech can sometimes be a form of action. And this is the heart of the issue: is speech a form of action? The problem here is not so much as to whether freedom of expression is a necessary right for a healthy debate and unfettered expression of ideas. NO this debate is not about that!

 

At issue is whether degrading and demonizing the religion of identifiable groups adds any value to the healthy debate of ideas. Should stability and security of the polity take precedence over free press? Another issue is the standard in which the law itself should conform to in its making. Should justice be dependent on the strength of the community and its lobbying power or should the interest of all groups be taken into account in the legislative deliberations?

 

Demanding respect and an understanding of religious issues is not tantamount to shooting our selves in the foot. The idea that if we are successful in bringing down the Danish provocateurs on their knees we will somehow have to live with diminished freedom for it will effect us in our dealings in the Masajids is misleading argument. First this type of argument assumes that violence is inherent theme in Islam. Secondly it ignores the right to worship clause in the constitution.

 

Finally as Muslims living in alien lands we have to exploit all the laws in the books that protect our interest and values as community. If need be we oughtta be lobbying to enact more laws that protect our interest and values. The goal is to pave the way for our kids to live in harmony with the rest of society without compromising their religion. Depicting kheyru qalqiLah this way is not something we can watch and standby. We shouldn't sit back and hold our breath. We can discuss ways and means to prevent them publishing such demonizing and degrading depictions in the future but we should never defend the rights of provocateurs to do so.

[-Lily-]

'Can't you take a joke' is the biggest type of bullying mentality. This issue has been talked to death, lets not make those ignorant cartoonist any more famous.

[Khayr]

Originally posted by Baashi:

There is no such thing as an absolute freedom of anything. As one famous lawyer once put it, and I’m paraphrasing him, my right to swing my arm at your face stops right at your nose. He was equating physical violence to incitement to hatred implying that speech can sometimes be a form of action. And this is the heart of the issue: is speech a form of action? The problem here is not so much as to whether freedom of expression is a necessary right for a healthy debate and unfettered expression of ideas. NO this debate is not about that!

 

At issue is whether degrading and demonizing the religion of identifiable groups adds any value to the healthy debate of ideas. Should stability and security of the polity take precedence over free press? Another issue is the standard in which the law itself should conform to in its making. Should justice be dependent on the strength of the community and its lobbying power or should the interest of all groups be taken into account in the legislative deliberations?

 

Demanding respect and an understanding of religious issues is not tantamount to shooting our selves in the foot. The idea that if we are successful in bringing down the Danish provocateurs on their knees we will somehow have to live with diminished freedom for it will effect us in our dealings in the Masajids is misleading argument. First this type of argument assumes that violence is inherent theme in Islam. Secondly it ignores the right to worship clause in the constitution.

 

Finally as Muslims living in alien lands we have to exploit all the laws in the books that protect our interest and values as community. If need be we oughtta be lobbying to enact more laws that protect our interest and values.

The goal is to pave the way for our kids to live in harmony with the rest of society without compromising their religion. Depicting kheyru qalqiLah this way is not something we can watch and standby. We shouldn't sit back and hold our breath.

We can discuss ways and means to prevent them publishing such demonizing and degrading depictions in the future but we should never defend the rights of provocateurs to do so.

^^^^

 

Salamz,

 

Baashi,

 

I agree with you saxib and this is what I have been saying all along but some nomads prefer CONFUSION over CERTAINTY.

 

Complaincency is what is being Advocated by some nomads and some are being scornful at a muslim thinking to protect themselves using state laws. :rolleyes:

 

 

In anycase, maybe you should move this the other thread titled 'Religious hatred bill' by Ngonge.

[NGONGE]

Here, check the following article. He insists on his right to offend.

 

 

So they have thin skins. That shouldn’t stop us poking fun at themMATTHEW PARRIS

 

 

WRITING yesterday of the decision by this newspaper and others not to publish those now-infamous cartoons poking fun at Islam, my colleague Ben Macintyre suggested that “this is not a matter of kowtowing to pressureâ€. With respect, I think it is. Publishing the cartoons a few weeks ago, before the drawings had achieved notoriety, would have been defensible, he argues, but to do so now in the midst of all the fuss, would not. With respect, I disagree. In fact giving publicity to a few offensive but rather weak cartoons showed doubtful judgment while they were unknown; but publishing them now they are the centre of a huge storm is more defensible.

 

 

Many readers will be curious to see the cause of the storm. How else can we judge?

A little candour is called for here. Those protesting against publication are not really doing so because they themselves do not wish to see these pictures. They do not want you or me to see them either. They do not want anyone to see them. They do not want them to exist.

Devising a means by which access to the images will be granted only to those who positively seek it is unlikely to satisfy the objectors, and nor should it: their religion has instructed them to keep God’s world unpolluted by such pictures and the sentiment and opinion that accompany them. This they believe to be their God’s demand.

I’m afraid we really do have to decide whether the demand is reasonable.

I do not think it is. I am not a Muslim. Nor am I a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu.

Now it’s very easy to murmur “I am not a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Hindu†as though not being something was terribly inoffensive — a sin, at worst, of omission; a way of avoiding an argument — the suggestion, perhaps, that “your†religion may be “true for you†but, as for me, I’ll sit this one out. But let us not duck what that “I do not believe†really means. It means I do not believe that there is one God, Allah, or that Muhammad is His Prophet. It means I do not believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, or that no man cometh to the Father except by Him. I do not believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen People, or subject to any duties different from the rest of us. It means I do not believe any living creature will be reincarnated in another life.

In my opinion these views are profoundly mistaken, and those who subscribe to them are under a serious misapprehension on a most important matter. Not only are their views not true for me: they are not true for them. They are not true for anyone. They are wrong.

Cutting through the babble of well-meaning souls who like to speak of the “community†of belief among “people of faithâ€, this must also be what the Muslim is saying to the Christian, Jew or Hindu; or what the Christian must be saying to the Jew, Hindu or Muslim. These faiths make demands and assert truths that are not compatible with the demands and truths of other faiths. To assert one must be to deny the others. Nor is it possible to reply, as some nice Anglicans try to, that “my faith does not exclude yoursâ€. But if other faiths do exclude their Anglicanism, then those Anglicans must exclude those faiths because they must regard it as wrong of them exclude them. There is no faith-based equivalent to the “different strokes for different folks†maxim, unless other folks subscribe to it too. They do not.

I have dealt with the logic of the position. People of faith and people of none cannot escape attaching themselves to claims that are inherently offensive — and at the deepest level — to other people.

But offence implicitly offered, and offence actually taken, are two different matters. On the whole Christians, for example, take offence less readily than Muslims. The case for treating them, in consequence, differently is obvious, but we should be wary of it. It means groups are allowed to be as thin-skinned as they wish: to dictate for themselves how delicately we must tread with them — to create, as it were, their own definition of respect and require us to observe it. Those who do this may not always realise that that they create serious buried resentments among those of fellow-citizens who are more broad-shouldered about the trading of insult.

Muslims are not alone in this. I really hate the way some Israelis and their apologists become angry and rude whenever the state of Israel is criticised; the interviewees who jump down their interviewer’s throat the moment they dislike a line of questioning about Palestine; the readers who write — themselves offensively — to allege anti-Semitism when none was felt or intended, or bark at you if you talk about their “wall†rather than “fenceâ€.

There is no doubting the result of this habit: we journalists are forever deleting a line here or a thought there because of the barrage of complaint we know would otherwise come from the Israel lobby. But does that lobby realise how much unvoiced hostility towards their cause this fans?

Many Turks react with similar aggression when the massacre of Armenians is mentioned. One takes care not to say “genocide†not because it wasn’t a genocide but because one cannot bear the prospect of all the furious letters from Turkish sympathisers. The Greek Cypriot lobby are equally explosive in their sensitivities. Having shot at, murdered and bombed the British when we were on the island, then oppressed the Turkish Cypriots, they begin the most almighty wail if anyone shows the least sympathy for the Turkish Cypriot cause, let alone says “Turkish coffee†instead of “Greek coffeeâ€. I nearly threw my moussaka at a restaurateur the other day as he lectured me on how Britain had “abandoned†his island. I was quietly recalling the 1950s, as my mother worried every day my late father walked into work in Nicosia, fearful he would be shot by Eoka terrorists.

 

 

I am not happy that we should allow any group to define the terms on which we deal with their issues, however genuinely or deeply felt. They for their part should not suppose that the self-censorship they induce in the rest of Britain does them any favours in the end. It does not make us sympathetic, only wary of complaint.

Nevertheless, a conclusion some draw is that for the sake of a quiet life we might as well refrain from voicing criticisms we may feel towards any supersensitive group or cause, because our private thoughts, our private arguments, and those of our readers, remain our own, and uncensored. Others draw the conclusion that we should at least avoid gratuitous insults — the “damn your God†as opposed to the “I doubt His existence †expressions — because they hurt real, decent people. I think this latter form of polite restraint is what Ben Macintyre was proposing.

The approach is tempting. It avoids hurt. But it overlooks, in the evolution of belief, the key role played by mockery. Many faiths and ideologies achieve and maintain their predominance partly through fear. They, of course, would call it “respectâ€. But whatever you call it, it intimidates. The reverence, the awe — even the dread — that their gods, their KGB or their priesthoods demand and inspire among the laity are vital to the authority they wield.

Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic, but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield to derision. When people see that a priest, rabbi, imam or uniformed official may be giggled at without lightning striking the impertinent, arguments may be won on a deeper level than logic.

We should never, therefore, relinquish, nor lightly value, our right not to argue in the face of other people’s gods — but to fart.

Source

[Baashi]

Here is a quick response. I’m not impressed nor persuaded by Matt’s rather radical view of what constitutes free speech.

 

Yes. Matt seems to believe that “courtesy†and “respect†for other belief systems are but a meaningless buzzwords used only by those who espouse faith-based world view (thin-skinned, supersensitive groups). Very interesting! But that’s Matt’s opinion.

 

Muslims, and I’m using the word loosely , see things very differently. Matt seems to think that mockery and offensive slurs needlessly thrown around is a healthy (and therefore effective) way to engage with those who reject his atheistic ideology. Others on the other hand think that there is a limit on how far Matt can go in his offensive barrage when it comes to religion. Matt can of course refute the validity of a particular religion (all religion beliefs) all he wants. There is a room after all for an intellectual discourse on the subject. And if he got what it takes he will get his match. However, I suspect that Matt is not interested in that and he rather counts more on his position and the tested truth about the power of media to shape public opinion than to engage any meaningful discussion, devoid of childish low blows of course, on Islam and what it stands for.

 

This reminds me the plight of blacks in the face of determined racist whites. Deep South racist whites and their KKK gangs once fought, with all their resources, for the right to denigrate and offend blacks right after when federal government granted blacks limited freedoms. Courts looked the other way. The end result of that effort was the infamous Jim Crow policy. All this happened under purview of democratic polity. By the way Jim Crow started, in part, as a caricature that depicted blacks as subhuman, intelligently inferior, dirty, and shabbily dressed rural people. Matt knows quiet well that the offensive exchange he has in mind works in his favor. Depicting Prophet Mohamed the way Danes did is not the true picture of the Mohamed we know. They deliberately made that up the same way Jim Crow caricature was made up. It is a complete lie - the Occidental way. The old adage ‘if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough people will believe it’ always works.

 

Now Matt and many other like-minded folks think that they have a license to libel! Muslims (again I'm using it very loosely) in Europe and elsewhere apparently don’t think they do and they are not too docile to put up with their deliberate offences. There! you have a conflict. The law moderates these types of societal differences. The law, however, doesn’t accommodate the sensibilities of all groups. New arrivals have to do some work before the laws of the land reflect their interest and values. As often is the case those who find themselves at the receiving end of these racists, fascists, and anti-immigrant put downs respond with protests. Sometimes these protests take the form of well thought and organized civil disobedience like MLK Jr. civil rights movement. Still there will be agitators and reactionaries like Malcolm X who had demanded the impossible - quick change of the status quo.

 

The bottom line is the protests and demonstrations serve as an agent for change. What’s wrong if “we†challenge Matt’s interpretation of the intent of the freedom of expression? He will shout at the top of his lungs that we are thin-skinned sissies that don’t understand the value of free speech. He is damn right for I find little value of what Danes published. But we do understand the real value of the freedom of speech very well and we do appreciate it and testimony to that is our presence in the West in large numbers. However, we draw the line somewhere…

[STOIC]

Muneer is a close freind of mine.He is responding to an editorial piece that has appeared in my school newspaper.He is not adding anything new to the current debate of freedom of speech/limitation,but he is tryinng to impert some wisdom about the importance of prophet Muhammad(SAW) on the down south Georgia boys! In the minds of most westerners for whom the religion of Islam picture has been shaped by western media's vague notion, i think Muneer was on the right dot on responding to the newspaper editorial staff and the school at large.

 

 

Opinions

Prophet cartoons insult all Muslims

Published , February 09, 2006, 06:00:01 AM EDT

 

 

Last September, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed a series of cartoons that claimed to be a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. More recently, numerous newspaper editors throughout Europe have republished the same cartoons. These cartoons mocked the Prophet and used symbols relating the Prophet to terrorism.

 

Since then, I haven’t stoned anyone, I haven’t attacked policemen, I haven’t set fire to media outlets, nor have I searched for the Danish embassy. But make no mistake — as a Muslim, I was offended beyond words. The media circus surrounding the reaction from the Muslim world has offered us a battle between freedom of speech and Islamic beliefs. And the American public has, to an extent, accepted this picture.

 

However, I believe we haven’t been exposed to enough in order to understand that this debate is deeper when considering the context.

 

The first issue with respect to religion is that Islam prohibits these images to protect the worship of the Oneness of God from idolatry, but another aspect that may shed light on this situation is the love that Muslims hold for their faith and Prophet. Through the Quran and teachings of Muhammad, Muslims are asked to love the Prophet more than their families and more than themselves.

 

Thus it would have been less offensive to personally insult every Muslim alive today than to insult the religion’s Prophet.

 

So is it wrong for certain issues held sacred by many to be respected by others?

 

It is important to remember that these published cartoons were not simple pictures, but they actually ridiculed the Prophet and Islam as a religion. The cartoons make the point that the Prophet was a terrorist, and thus so would all of those who follow his example. In this case, freedom of speech was used in a racist manner poking fun at a religion and inspiring doubt on the intentions of Muslims as good citizens by their fellow countrymen.

 

Muslims are not (at least should not be) intending to impose their beliefs to restrict freedom of speech, nor are they attempting to convince non-Muslims into believing what we believe.

 

The Quran covers this point numerous times with verses that encourage us, Muslims, to avoid abusing those who don’t follow Islam (ch6. v.108) and also advising Muslims that it is okay for the people of other faiths to keep their religions (ch.109). I think the underlying theme we understand from this is respect for one another.

 

With that said, I believe this conflict has resulted from the simple abuse of freedom of speech; using it as an outlet to insult, incite hatred and ridicule on the basis of racism.

 

Considering the Danish prime minister’s refusal to meet an Arab delegation protesting the newspaper’s printing back in September, and the fact that numerous European newspapers republished the offensive material later, I beg the question “why was this comic strip so popular in Europe?â€

 

We should consider that Denmark’s government is currently strongly supported by an anti-immigration party, which stands strongly behind prohibiting Muslim immigrants from entering and integrating into Denmark. We also know there is a huge gap in social status between Muslim immigrants and natives throughout Western Europe, a region whose history with diversity has been more tumultuous than our own country’s.

 

And what about the hypocrisy behind the usage of this freedom? In 2003 the same Dutch newspaper refused to print cartoons depicting Jesus (peace be upon Him) because the editor, Jens Kaiser, declared, “I don’t think Jyllands-Posten’s readers will enjoy the drawings.â€

 

Freedom of speech is great, is needed in society and is a sign of liberty, but we would be wrong to assume that freedom of speech in the West is, or should be, absolute. There are limitations that consider libel, hate and other factors.

 

I believe freedom of speech must be defended, and it must withstand the objections of an insulted audience, but the people who have access to the public must show good judgment and responsibility with respect to this freedom.

 

What the Dutch newspaper did, and the European newspapers that copied it, was purely a disrespectful and insensitive attack on the Muslim world. Their motives, I assure you, go beyond exercising their freedom of speech.

 

— Muneer Awad is a senior from Marietta majoring in geography.

 

 

 

 

 

Source

[NGONGE]

Here is another article:

 

A Call for Respect, Calm Reflection

 

By Recep Tayyip Erdogan & Jose L. Rodriguez Zapatero

 

Arab News, February 9, 2006

 

With growing concern, we are witnessing the escalation in disturbing tensions provoked by the publication, in European newspapers, of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that Muslims consider deeply offensive. We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides in its wake. Therefore, it is necessary to make an appeal for respect and calm, and let the voice of reason be heard.

 

Last year, when the heads of government of Turkey and Spain presided over the launching of work on the Alliance of Civilizations Project, we did so based en a firm belief: That we needed initiatives and instruments to stop the spiral of haired and obfuscation that, in itself, constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

 

The unfortunate events that we are seeing now only reaffirm our diagnosis and our commitment to seek even more support for this cause.

 

Historically, Spain and Turkey have been at crossroads between East and West. Therefore, we are very aware that the way in which close contact between different cultures is handled can be enormously enriching, but it can also set off destructive contentions.

 

In a globalized world, in which the relationships and exchanges among different civilizations continue to multiply, and in which a local incident may have worldwide repercussions, it is vital that we cultivate the values of respect, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

 

Freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones of our democratic systems and we shall never relinquish it. But there are no rights without responsibility and respect for different sensibilities. The publication of these caricatures may be perfectly legal, but it is not indifferent and thus ought to be rejected from a moral and political standpoint.

 

In the end, all of this lends itself to misunderstandings and misrepresentations of cultural differences that are perfectly in harmony with our commonly shared values. Ignoring this fact usually paves the way for mistrust, alienation and anger, all of which may result in undesirable consequences that we all have to work hard to avoid.

 

The only way for us to build a more just international system is through maximum respect for the beliefs of both sides. We are fully committed to observing the norms of international law and to the defense of the international organizations that embody it. But neither laws nor institutions are enough to ensure peace in the world.

 

We need to cultivate peaceful coexistence, which is only possible when there is interest in understanding the other side’s point of view, and respect for that which it holds most sacred.

 

These are the basic premises and main goals of the Alliance of Civilizations promoted by Spain and Turkey.

 

— Recep Tayyip Erdogan is prime minister of the Republic of Turkey and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is prime minister of Spain.

Source

[Khayr]

 

Editor 'sorry' for Muslim cartoons

 

Feb. 10, 2006

 

DOUG MELLGREN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

 

OSLO — The editor of a small Christian newspaper in

Norway apologized Friday for offending Muslims by reprinting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in January.

 

At a news conference,

Magazinet editor Vebjoern Selbekk

said he regretted publishing the cartoons on Jan. 10 because he had not foreseen the pain and anger they would cause among Muslims.

 

"I reach out personally to the Muslim community to say that I am sorry that their religious feelings were violated by what we did," Selbekk said. "It is also only right for me to admit that I, as the editor, did not understand how offensive it was to publish the copies."

 

The Evangelical Christian newspaper was among the first newspapers to reprint the drawings that were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, saying it was defending free speech.

 

The drawings, now widely reprinted in Europe and elsewhere, have caused often violent protests in the Muslim world, including the burning of the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Syria.

 

Selbekk made his apology at a hastily called news conference, where he appeared with the leader of the Islamic Council in Norway, Mohammed Hamdan, and Norwegian Labour Minister Bjarne Haakon Hanssen.

 

The newspaper editor praised the Norwegian Islamic community for insisting on dialogue rather than violence in its response to the cartoons.

 

"The Muslim community has handled this in a worthy and reserved manner. They deserve honour and respect for that," Selbekk said.

 

Hamdan stressed that Islam values forgiveness and that Selbekk, who has received scores of death threats, was now under his protection.

 

"Selbekk has children the same age as my own. I want my children and his children to grow up together, and live in peace and friendship," Hamdan said.

Source

 

Why did it take sooooooo long to APOLOGIZE?

 

Is that all there is to INSULTING MUSLIMS; an APOLOGY should be GOOD ENOUGH for INSULTING our RASUL (sallahu caliyhe wasilm) and helping others to RE-PRINT the garbaggge?

 

Is this a Detterent(something that will prevent this from happening in the future)to others who would like to RE-PRINT this garbage?

 

If someone said 'F...You' in PUBLIC infront of the world and your family, wife, kids, parents etc. were put to shame, were harassed as a result of this and even people like their 'neighbors' started saying 'F...You' to them becuase of that first incident, would an APOLOGY be sufficent for you???

 

Its like if someone stabs you and takes out the knife and says-sorry, half hour later. Would that make THINGS ALRIGHT AGAIN?

[Baashi]

On Chris Hitchens' case for mocking

 

Christopher Hitchens, a right wing and neocon journalist, as you may know is a wacko nutcase. I know this because I’ve watched him making rounds through cable news outlets as a pundit talking head making the case for the invasion of Iraq on “preemptive†grounds. He was very simplistic in his analysis. One can sum up Mr. Hitchens support for the Iraq war to one sentence: Islamic “fascism†must be stopped on its tracks NOW or else “we†will find it very difficult to contain it later. He is blunt and to the point. He pretty much believes that Islam is an evil and backward ideology which he says is a threat to Western values. Although his anti-Islamic bias is unmistakable, the man has a way with words. He is eloquent and even persuasive at times.

 

Here he tries very hard to make the case for mocking religion. He found yet another opportunity to bash Islam. This time is about cartoons. Just to be credible he pretends that he has a problem with religion in general. As you will notice in his piece, however, he reserves his best punches for Muslims. There is no much substance in this write up even though some folks may find him to be right on the money. But upon close scrutiny he fails to explain why being polite, civil, courteous, and respectful of other believe systems should be threat to the freedom of expression. He got good punch lines al right but substance wise I don’t see the case for mockery.

 

Aight let’s cut to the chase and dissect the case for mocking other belief systems. For instance, he says that it is okay with him if Muslims abstain from eating pork and what not but he has a problem when “they†try to require him to abstain from eating pork. The analogy is that he can understand that if Muslims don’t do certain things such as producing sacred figures in a human form but he feels threatened when they force their belief system onto him and expect him to do the same. On the surface this assertion looks very reasonable to any reader. Mr. Hitchens has a case there if what he is saying is true. But is it true? Is this what this controversy is all about? Are Muslims “requiring†others, forcefully, to adopt their belief system or are they merely asking the right-inclined editors to stop trashing their dearly held religious figures?

 

No. All Muslims asked Danes is to not denigrate, degrade, and demonize the prophet of Islam. How this request or demand if you will is submitted is another case. Let’s first deal with how asking the editors to be respectful and courteous is a threat to the much hyped freedom of expression. The premise that Mr. Hitchens is advancing is that if Danes oblige to this request they will let the genie out of the bottle. Once that happens, he says, it will be hard to get it back in. In other words, be courteous to the group sensibilities for the sake of the common good and peaceful coexistence and you forsake much more important right: the right to mock, degrade, and insult group of citizens in a public way!! I don’t know about you but this doesn’t make much sense to me.

 

It seems to me that the proponents of the right to mock and offend campaign lump the freedom of press to comment, investigate, reveal, and inform the public about what their government is doing as well as the freedom to express thought and ideas with the right to libel. What is missing in Mr. Hitchens tirade is what happens when oppressed minorities who don’t have a platform to explain and defend their values and interests are mocked and degraded in very public way. What happens when you corner a cat into little box huh? Is it not a human nature to protest against ill treatments and discrimination?

 

How one protest is a matter of how strong one feels about the grievance. Protest is also a function of strength and matter of options one has under the circumstance. Americans dumped tea at Boston harbour in protest against British taxation. And later opted violence and went to a bloody war over the issue. Recently Chinese protested very strongly about Japanese decision to revise their History curriculum. Last I checked Japan was a sovereign state! Let’s not be naïve here. Muslims had it enough and they don’t expect things to change soon nor they feel that their governments are doing enough to assert their place in the world affairs. So they just vent their anger through protest and demonstrations and sometimes violent reactions such as embassy burning. Human nature through and through to me.

 

Of course Mr. Hitchens has no interest in objective journalism. He has already made up his mind. Islam is an evil ideology to him. Every new event will be looked through these lenses. The right of mocking religion he is now so eager to defend is one reserved for Islam.

 

Below (next post) is the Hitchens article which appeared on the online magazine Slate.

[Baashi]

The case for mocking religion.

By Christopher Hitchens

Posted Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006, at 4:31 PM ET

 

 

As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.

 

"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

 

Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people. However, the illiterate McCormack is right in unintentionally comparing racist libels to religious faith. Many people have pointed out that the Arab and Muslim press is replete with anti-Jewish caricature, often of the most lurid and hateful kind. In one way the comparison is hopelessly inexact. These foul items mostly appear in countries where the state decides what is published or broadcast. However, when Muslims republish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or perpetuate the story of Jewish blood-sacrifice at Passover, they are recycling the fantasies of the Russian Orthodox Christian secret police (in the first instance) and of centuries of Roman Catholic and Lutheran propaganda (in the second). And, when an Israeli politician refers to Palestinians as snakes or pigs or monkeys, it is near to a certainty that he will be a rabbi (most usually Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the disgraceful Shas party) and will cite Talmudic authority for his racism. For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows.

 

Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more. You can be sure that the relevant European newspapers have also printed their share of cartoons making fun of nuns and popes and messianic Israeli settlers, and taunting child-raping priests. There was a time when this would not have been possible. But those taboos have been broken.

 

Which is what taboos are for. Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

 

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." ( By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?) The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.

 

As it happens, the cartoons themselves are not very brilliant, or very mordant, either. But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. … In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege. Of course there are many millions of Muslims who do worry about this, and another reason for condemning the ****** at Foggy Bottom is their assumption, dangerous in many ways, that the first lynch mob on the scene is actually the genuine voice of the people. There's an insult to Islam, if you like.

 

The question of "offensiveness" is easy to decide. First: Suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves in order to avoid offending the believers? How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it "pixilated" the very cartoons that its viewers needed to see. And this ignoble fear in Atlanta, Ga., arose because of an illustration in a small Scandinavian newspaper of which nobody had ever heard before! Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

 

Second (and important enough to be insisted upon): Can the discussion be carried on without the threat of violence, or the automatic resort to it? When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he did so in the hope of forwarding a discussion that was already opening in the Muslim world, between extreme Quranic literalists and those who hoped that the text could be interpreted. We know what his own reward was, and we sometimes forget that the fatwa was directed not just against him but against "all those involved in its publication," which led to the murder of the book's Japanese translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher. I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.) The same point holds for international relations: There can be no negotiation under duress or under the threat of blackmail and assassination. And civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight.

 

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War.

 

Source

[xiinfaniin]

The Right to Be Offended by by GARY YOUNGE

 

In April 2003 Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons offering a lighthearted take on the resurrection of Christ to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Zieler received an e-mail from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, saying: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think they will provoke an outcry. Therefore I will not use them." Two years later the same paper published twelve cartoons of Muhammad, including one with him wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse. Predictably enough, it created an outcry. How we got from there to talk of "the Muslim threat" to the immutable European traditions of secularism and freedom of speech, while Scandinavian embassies burn in the Arab world, is illuminating.

 

Four months after the cartoons were published, Jyllands-Posten's editor apologized. In the intervening time Muslims engaged in mostly peaceful protests. Several Arab and Muslim nations withdrew their ambassadors from Denmark while demonstrators picketed embassies. According to Denmark's consul in Dubai, a boycott of Danish products in the Gulf would cost the country $27 million in sales.

 

All of this went largely unnoticed in the West, apart from critics who characterized the protests as evidence of a "clash of civilizations." In their attempt to limit free speech, went the argument, the demonstrators proved that Islam and Western democracy were incompatible.

 

Even on its own terms this logic is disingenuous. The right to offend must come with at least one consequent right and one subsequent responsibility. People must have the right to be offended, and those bold enough to knowingly cause offense should be bold enough to weather the consequences, so long as the aggrieved respond within the law. Muslims were in effect being vilified twice--once through the original cartoons and then again for having the gall to protest them. Such logic recalls the words of the late South African black nationalist Steve Biko: "Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked."

 

Nonetheless, the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric framed the discussion for the almost inevitable violence to come. For as criticism mounted, other European newspapers decided to reprint the cartoons in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten. This was clearly inflammatory. Now the flames have reached all the way to the Middle East, where Danish and Norwegian embassies have been burned down. And the violence has been characterized as evidence that Muslims are plain uncivilized.

 

There seems to be almost universal agreement that these cartoons are offensive. There should also be universal agreement that the paper has a right to publish them without fear of violent reprisal. When it comes to freedom of speech, the liberal/left should not sacrifice its values one inch to those who seek censorship on religious grounds. But the right to freedom of speech equates to neither an obligation to offend nor a duty to be insensitive. If our commitment to free speech is important, our belief in antiracism should be no less so. Neither the cartoons nor the violence has emerged from a vacuum. They are steeped in and have contributed to an increasingly recriminatory atmosphere shaped by, among other things, war, intolerance and historic injustices. According to the Danish Institute for Human Rights, racially motivated crimes doubled in Denmark between 2004 and '05. These cartoons only served to compound Muslims' sense of alienation and vulnerability. The Jerusalem Post has now published the cartoons. Iranian newspaper Hamshari is calling for illustrators to ridicule the Holocaust. The race to the gutter is on.

 

The acts of violence, including death threats to Jyllands-Posten's editor, should be condemned. The fact remains, however, that the overwhelming swath of protests, particularly in Europe, where crass banners and suicide-bomber attire were the worst offenses, have so far been peaceful. But those who see this episode as freighted with weightier cultural meanings have another agenda. "This is a far bigger story than just the question of twelve cartoons in a small Danish newspaper," Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten's culture editor, told the New York Times. Too right, but it is not the story Rose thinks it is. Rose claims that "this is about the question of integration and how compatible is the religion of Islam with a modern secular society." In the mistaken belief that Europe is a monoethnic continent to which nonwhite people have just arrived, Rose is not alone in refracting every protest by a minority through a racial, ethnic or religious lens.

 

In so doing he displays his ignorance of both modern secular society and the role of all religions within it. Without anything as explicit as a First Amendment, Europe's freedom of speech laws are far more piecemeal than those of the United States. Many were adopted as a result of the Holocaust--the most potent reminder of just how fragile and recent this liberal secular tradition truly is in Europe. Last year the French daily Le Monde was found guilty of "racist defamation" against Israel and the Jewish people. Madonna's book Sex was only unbanned in Ireland in 2004. Even as this debate rages, David Irving sits in jail in Austria charged with Holocaust denial over a speech he made seventeen years ago, Islamist cleric Abu Hamza has been convicted in London for incitement to murder and racial hatred and Louis Farrakhan remains banned from Britain because his arrival "would not be conducive to the public good." Even here in America school boards routinely ban the works of authors like Alice Walker and J.K. Rowling. Such actions should be opposed; but no one claims Protestant, Catholic or Jewish values are incompatible with democracy.

 

Which brings us back to Zieler. We will never know what the response to his Christ cartoons would have been because they were never published. (The paper's announced plan to reprint some cartoons about Christ fails to mitigate its double standard.) That fact alone shows that the question has never been whether you draw a line under what is or isn't acceptable to publish, but where you draw it. There is nothing courageous about using your freedom of speech to ridicule the beliefs of one of the weakest sections of your society. But Rose and others like him clearly believe Muslims, by virtue of their religion, exist on the wrong side of the line. That exclusion finds its reflection in the Islamist rejection of all things Western. And so the secularists and antiracists in both the West and the Middle East find their space for maneuver limited, while dogma masquerades as principle, and Islamists and Islamophobes are confirmed in their own vile prejudices.

 

The Nation

[-Serenity-]

Sorry, haven't read the rest of the articles but it looks like we're posting choice articles on this topic...

 

..............................

 

Cartoons put a great religion to the test

 

To Muslims, Islam is the religion of peace and reason. The holy Qur'an is said to be the greatest miracle given to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. Other prophets were given visual and tangible miracles. Jesus Christ's miracle was to raise the dead, restore the vision for the blind and heal the leper. Moses had his staff turned into an obvious serpent that dazzled the Pharaoh magicians; he also struck the sea with his rod to split it asunder, allowing him and his followers to escape the persecution of the Pharaoh. For David God made the Iron supple for him and taught him the language of the birds, while the wind was subjugated for Solomon and he also could understand the language of animals and use birds as messengers.

 

As for Muhammad, Muslims believe that his greatest miracle was the word, Al Qur'an, as can be seen in the first Qur’anic verses ever revealed to him:

 

“Read in the name of your Lord, who created, created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is most bountiful. (He who taught) the use of the pen taught man which he knew not.†(96: 1- 5)

 

From the outset one can see that Islam gave precedence to the brain over brawn, to mental challenge over brute physical engagement, to the pen (qalam) over the sword (sayf). The Qur'an is replete with verses ending in the words calling human beings to think, contemplate and resort to reason (aqal, fikr, tadabbur).

 

When the non-believing Arabs of Mecca asked Muhammad to show them miracles like previous prophets used to do; the prophet knew he was not but a mere human being. They asked him: “They say: We shall not believe in thee, until thou cause a spring to gush forth for us from the earth; Or (until) thou have a garden of date trees and vines, and cause rivers to gush forth in their midst, carrying abundant water; Or thou cause the sky to fall in pieces, as thou sayest (will happen), against us; or thou bring Allah and the angels before (us) face to face; Or thou have a house adorned with gold, or thou mount a ladder right into the skies. No, we shall not even believe in thy mounting until thou send down to us a book that we could read." (17: 90-93)

 

But knowing that his message was not about myths and physical miracles but to appeal to the human intellect until eternity, Muhammad’s answer as revealed to him by Allah came as simple and clear: “Say: “Glory to my Lord! Am I aught but a man,- a messenger?".

 

In a moment of defiance, however, the Qur’an, challenged the Quraishites, Muhammad's tribe, who were people known to have been given the gift of garb to come up with only one chapter like the Qur’an: "And if you are in doubt as to what We have revealed to our servant, Then produce a Chapter like thereunto; And call your witnesses or helpers besides Allah, If you are true. But if you cannot, and surely you cannot, Then fear the fire Whose fuel is men and stones, Which is prepared for those who reject faith." (2: 23-24)

 

When the Meccan non-believers gave chase to Muhammad’s earlier followers who sought refuge with the king of Abyssinia at the time, it was again the power of the eloquence of the Qur’an that appealed to the intellect of the Christian king and saved Muslims from being returned with their erstwhile enemies to Mecca, a step that would not have only killed the early Muslims but might have dealt a death blow as well to the religion of Islam as a whole.

 

However, it seems Muslims today have lost their intellectual fortitude. The Muslim nation is the nation that dazzled the world with its free and powerful theological and philosophical discourse in the Middle Ages. The nation that had translated Greek and Roman knowledge, studied it with voracity and opened new vistas in the fields of alchemy, astronomy, geography, history, medicine, philosophy and great theological rhetoric. The nation that boasted of carrying the touch of knowledge in the hands of great men of learning such as Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina or Avicenna, Abu Nasr Al-Farabi or Alpharabius, Jabir Ibn Hayyan or Geber, Ibn Al Haitham and great sufists like Al Hallaj, Hassan Al Basri, Al-Ghazali, Abdul Qadir Al Jilani, Jalaluddin Rumi and Ibn Al Arabi. To say that such a nation is defeated by amateur catoons penned down by an an adventurous artist in a little known European newspaper is an insult to the core message and mammoth history of Islam.

 

If one takes history as a guide, these infamous cartoons will seem amateurish compared to the insults and ridicule that Prophet Muhammad suffered in the hands of his kin and kith, the non-Muslims of Mecca. They described him as crazy, liar, magician, possessed, demented, that the Qur’an was the word of an evil spirit and many other ignoble attributes to which Muhammad refuted in the words of God: "And (O people!) your companion is not one possessed; And without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon; Neither doth he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the Unseen; Nor is it the word of an evil spirit accursed; When whither go ye? Verily this is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds; (With profit) to whoever among you wills to go straight". (81: 22-28).

 

These indecent attributes of Meccan non-believers to Muhammad are in our holy Qur’an. We read them everyday and we teach them to our children, but we don’t get angry and they don't prompt us to extricate these insulting words from the holy book and declare them as an apocrypha. Simply because we read them in their historical perspective and they teach us a valuable lesson that finally it was the word and indeed free speech that won the battle against the emotional outbursts of Muhammad’s adversaries, the sword of later days was but incidental.

 

May be if we had read the Danish cartoons in the same historical and geographical perspective, we would have understood that Denmark is a non-Muslim country with its own values, its own culture and that the Danish people have the right to behave the way they want to behave on their own turf.

 

My Muslim brothers and sisters, if we are really so adamant to defend the reputation of Islam it is in our house that we have to begin. It is unfortunate that we are so hell bent on burning diplomatic premises and Danish and western flags when Islam is everyday insulted, ridiculed and slandered in the house of Islam.

 

A painful reality check for Muslims

 

My brothers and sisters, the daily hostage taking and slitting the throats of innocent humanitarian workers and journalists before world television cameras is an insult to Islam; the brainwashed young men flying civilian airplanes into towers and taking with them thousands of innocent lives on their promised journey to heaven is an insult to Islam; the suicide bombers murdering tens of innocent commuters in the subways of London and Madrid and Embassies in Nairobi, Darus Salam and other foreign capitals is an insult to Islam. The warlords that hijacked the Muslim people of Somalia and turned the once proud pastoral people into beggars are an insult to Isam. The Taliban regime that kept the Afghan people hostage for years, ridiculed its female population and destroyed the historical heritage of the Afghan civilization and religious sculpturers of Buddha without any regard to the religious feelings of millions of Buddhists around the world was an insult to Islam. The Somali Islamists who dug up hundreds of skeletons from an Italian colonial-era cemetery and dumped them into the trash was an insult to Islam. The kidnapping of tourists coming to our countries to enjoy the cultural legacies of Muslim civilizations and demanding outrageous ransom for their lives in Yemen and elsewhere is an insult to Islam. The ugly bearded, turbaned and shabby looking firebrand clerics like Abu Hamza Al Masri who seek fame in this world and heaven in the world after by preaching hatred and inciting young Muslims to kill and maim the people on whose tax they live and learn is an insult to Islam. The ubiquitous images of Bin Laden and his lieutenants and their messages of hate beamed by Al Jazeera satellite television and other Arab televisions in the name of freedom of press is an insult to Islam.

 

Dear Muslims, in the face of the current furor over the infamous cartoons, one Danish editor has proposed that Danish authorities should build a Mosque for the Muslim community as an apology. One may ask how many Muslims would even see it as fair to raise the issue let alone propose reparations for civilian Christian people slaughtered by Muslims in Muslim lands as a result of the messages aired by these outcast militants.

 

As Muslims we may claim to posses all the good virtues in the world but we definitely lack one very important virtue – that of self-criticism, while the West is at least blessed with this good viture. We witnessed some of the biggest demonstrations against the war in Iraq in Western capitals. We daily see the Western media chastising their governments for their involvement in foreign adventures, we see women, students, professors, actors and other ordinary masses expressing their anger against their leaders and sometimes voting them out of office as a punishment for them on those issues as we have seen in Spain.

 

One may ask, how many demonstrations the Muslims had organized to express their anger against the innocent Russian children slaughtered in the name of Islam in Beslan, how much anger the Islamic world has shown to protest the crimes committed in the name of their religion in Algeria, Iraq, Chechnya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Why the world doesn’t see the large mobs thronging to the streets and chanting God’s name when Muslims commit some of the heinous crimes in the name of Islam. In fact many of our Muslims enjoy moments of shadenfraude and dance in the streets when such misfortunes befall to our brothers in the Abrahamic faith.

 

It was painful to hear the lament of a Lebanese Sheikh after he helplessly watched a mob torching the premises of Danish and Norwegian embassies in Beirut that such violent demonstrations had insulted Prophet Muhammad more than they defended him.

 

A little dose of self-criticism will show us that Muslims every day insult and make mockery of other people. Our Imams curse the Christians and pray God to destroy their houses, to shatter their unity, to wipe them out of the face of the earth; and all the faithful respond with a hearty Amen. I will not even mention the Jews whose ridicule is a daily bread for our clerics although I find it beyond my understanding why Muslims always drag Jews and the holocaust into the agenda whenever they have a debate with the Christian world. These are the beliefs with which every Muslim child grows up, my brothers and sisters, and no one in our self-righteous world has ever questioned how much disservice we are doing to our future by preaching such hate to the young minds.

 

My dear brothers, even today, at the dawn of the 21st century, some of us dream of the day when Islam will again conquer Europe and a turbaned Muslim will occupy the American White House. I am not saying this, these are the words of Ayman Al Zawaheri, Al Qaeda's second man, and Abu Hamza Al Misri. The first uttered these words in one of his broadcasts in Al Jazeera and the latter preached them in his Finsbury Park mosque in London. It would have been understandable if this kind of fantasy thinking was confined to these unbalanced and misguided men, but it is very worrying and indeed scary when one discovers some of the learned men of Islam taking pride in such utterances and defending them in Arab televisions; not even feeling any shame to add the title of Sheikh to the name of these men. It is not also uncommon to read reports in newspapers from the Arab and Islamic world on Islam spreading in the West like a fire on a windy day. They talk with glee about European women converting to Islam in their hordes. In fact most of such reports come from Muslims living in the West. With such vitriol rhetoric and with the stereotype of the few Europeans converted to Islam turning their back on the norms and values of their home countries, changing their attire and adopting an alien look and attitude, it is just natural for the Western people to feel their values and their free speech were under threat.

 

Muslims historical grievances and their flipside

 

Despite our bravado about Muslim brotherhood, we all know that there is neither brotherhood, nor fraternity among Muslim people. Not a day passes without the satellite television stations beaming to our homes the ugly reality of Muslims killing fellow Muslims in Mosques and in shrines, at religious festivals and at homes with mothers and children sleeping peacefully slaughtered like animals. My brothers and sisters, truth hurts and I am hell bound today than any time before to tell the truth.

 

My fellow Muslims, let me now say few words about our chronic complaints against the West. They colonized our lands, yes they did. They divided our peoples and territories, yes they did. They helped the Jews to usurp the Arab territories in Palestine, yes they did. They invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and killed thousands of innocent Muslims, yes they did. They humiliated Muslims in Guantanamo and Abu Ghuraib and other tens of clandestine incarceration camps around the world, yes they did. All this is true and painful facts of history. It is, however, a misery that we share with millions of people around the globe, both in the distant and near history, who suffered the same fate or sometimes worst in the hands of foreign oppressors. To cite but a few the annihilation of the Red Indians in the Americas, the inhuman act of the slave trade of which Arabs had a big hand, the Jewish holocaust and the apartheid system in South Africa were the worst crimes that ever committed by a human being against his fellow human being.

 

Looking at the other side of the coin, however, we have to admit that Western countries gave money and ammunition to the people of Afghanistan to help them liberate their country from Soviet occupation, they saved the Muslim people of Bosnia and Albania from annihilation, they went to the rescue of the Muslim people of Somalia to break the grip of warlords on the people's life, to feed the poor and treat the sick. Despite their follies they still extend the largest financial aid to the Palestinian people. They generously and compassionately opened their pockets to help the millions of Muslim people whose lives and homes were devastated by Tsunami in Indonesia and other places. Even now as I am writing these words, Western nations are dispatching thousands of tons of food and medications to the drought affected people of East Africa, the majority of whom are Somali speaking people in the Horn of Africa, while western humanitarian organizations are feeding, sheltering and treating thousands of Muslim refugees of Darfur . Finally, I would like to hear if anyone could tell me what the life of the Arab people in the petro-dollar Gulf countries would have been today without the West exploring and bringing out oil and gas for them.

 

I may also mention that despite our acerbic rhetoric and collective bashing of the Western world, thousands of Muslim youth who are running away from harsh political realities and grinding economic conditions make their way to the West every year. Although they don't all find milk and honey in the promised land and many of them live in squalid ghettos, the hard working ones who are ready to integrate and embrace the values of their host countries make a decent and dignified living. It is worth mentioning that hundreds of militant clerics, who are known to be sworn enemies of the Western norms, sought refuge in the west to escape imminent beheadings in their own Muslim homelands. They were not only given free food, shelter, free education and nationality but they had also been allowed to build their own mosques and carry on their own religious missions, which they have unfortunately misused to produce armies of suicide bombers, instead of disseminating God's word of peace, love and brotherhood.

 

Falling into the trap

 

Turning to the Jyllands-Posten's cartoons, which the New York Times has correctly described as juvenile, Muslims should know that these cartoons were published in the background of what I have tried to explain thus far and under the pretext of free speech. The aim may have been as admitted by the newspaper itself to test the tolerance of Muslims or even to see how much Denmark has changed since the arrival of other cultures to its shores. However as happens always when writers and artists try to lampoon anything Islamic, the Muslims have just readily and without any thought fallen into the the trap. The Muslim nation that possesses the miracle book of the Qur’an, the mother of all eloquence and wisdom, has proven that it has long forgotten to use its intellectual prowess and has resorted as they are stereotyped in the West to mob mentality and savagery. By turning away from the teaching of the Qur’an which enjoins them "...And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, "Peace!" (25: 63), and by resorting to violence the Muslims have inflicted more damage to the image of their great religion than any Western masterpiece let alone the amateurish, ****** and crass cartoons of Jyllands-Posten would have ever done. If Muslims dismissed the cartoons for what they are, as the guileless work of people ignorant of Muslims and their great culture and ignored them, they would have ended up in the dumpster of history. But the Muslim mobs destroying and burning the diplomatic premises in Damscus, Beirut and elsewhere have lifted them from imminent oblivion, like they did earlier for Salman Rushdie and had given him unprecedented fame and wealth.

 

There is no doubt that the extremist groups that have hijacked Islam long ago have also hijacked the cartoon crisis; diverting it from being an issue of cultural ignorance and instead waved it like Caliph Othman's blood soaked shirt to incite hatred and vengeful feelings among the illiterate Muslim masses. If only someone had told these mobs that Prophet Muhammad and the great religion of Islam were more noble and more entrenched in the hearts of millions than to be desecrated by cartoons. If only someone had reminded them that neither the marching brute force of Jengis Khan, nor the crusade armies of King Richard the Lion Heart could tarnish the Muslims' love for their Prophet. A little cool contemplation on the history of Islam would have shown them that it was Prophet Muhammad who fought for freedom of speech when he was pleading to the Meccan non-Muslims to just listen to him and they were instead threatening him with sticks and stones. Muhammad was telling them there was no compulsion in Islam, proclaiming in God's words "Unto You Your Religion and Unto Me My Religion." This is how Islam taught us how a civilized debate and freedom of choice was more powerful than brute force. Hence, it is pathetic to see in the cartoon saga that Muslims have taken the position of the Quraishites and instead of resorting to dialogue and judicial law suits, have instead turned to sticks and stones and economic boycotts for which definitely the Muslims would be the losers given the amount of aid extended by the west to the Muslim world.

 

One may be forced to draw an analogue, despite the difference in time and context, between Prophet Muhammad's struggle for freedom of worship in the early days of his call to Islam, and the West’s torturous and bloody journey to earn the freedom of speech they enjoy today. It is sacred to them as Islam is sacred to us. Indeed it is freedom of speech and liberalism that allowed Islam and other cultures to flourish in Europe. The Norwegian editor of the online afrol News, Rainer Chr. Hennig , has eloquently put this in his recent editorial "Without criticism of religion and religious leaders, Europe would still be burning witches and killing Jews and Muslims. Demanding respect for Islam has been considered a blasphemy in Europe! European liberalists were called unfaithful by Church leaders when campaigning to stop slavery."

 

To sum up, I would say that living in a global village where millions of unfortunate human beings survive under the scourge of poverty, diseases and natural disasters; where millions of mothers watch their children turn into a pile of skeleton due to famine before they gasp their last breath, it is an insult to humanity and almost a blasphemous act by the erstwhile defenders of both camps to waste their energy and resources on such imbecilic endeavors.

 

I may take consolation here in remembering the prayers of Prophet Muhammad when he was wounded in the Battle of Uhud. Some of his followers asked him to invoke God’s anger and revenge on the enemy, however, Muhammad took the moral high ground and prayed for them instead saying: "O God, forgive my people and guide them to truth, because they do not know."

 

Bashir Goth

 

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