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Underground > Switchboard >

Freedom of the Press versus Islamic Blasphemy

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22:14 / 01.02.06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm

So, the recent row involving danish newspaper depictions of the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist has now expanded due to the cartoons in question being published by other papers in europe.

Is this just deliberate provocation? Can a religion impose its will on the press in a country where freedom of the press is accepted? Are the papers of other countries right in publishing the pictures, given the anger these images have already generated? Will this remove the threat to Denmark as an isolated target? Is the muslim response hypocritical, given that (apparently, as I haven't seen a lot of it myself) many instances of anti-jewish, anti-western cartoon that appear in the press of islamic nations? Is the danish press guilty of pervading stereotypes? Is slandering a quarter of the worlds population morally reprehensible? Should people of a country be held accountable to the actions of their press?

So many questions. Discuss.

22:24 / 01.02.06

France-Soir went large with this story - comissioning a cartoon of various deities sitting on a cloud with god telling mohommed that all the gods get the piss ripped out of them occasionally... The paper's owner appears not to have appreciated the sentiment and has sacked the managing editor on the paper...

22:32 / 01.02.06

You'd think that any 'newer' cartoons would at least be sensitive to the fact that its the actual depiction of Muhammad that muslims find offensive, not taking the piss out of the religion...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:27 / 01.02.06

You'd think that any 'newer' cartoons would at least be sensitive to the fact that its the actual depiction of Muhammad that muslims find offensive, not taking the piss out of the religion...

Yes, I think that's key here. As far as I understand (which isn't, in all honesty, very far) the depiction- any depiction- of Mohammed is blasphemy. The cartoons (which I haven't seen, btw) could never therefore have been inoffensive.

I think reprinting them is therefore a) possibly very irresponsible, for the reasons cited above, and b) definitely insensitive, at the very least.

Now, to what degree the media has a responsibility to avoid insensitivity is an enormous can of worms, and one I must think on further.

All Acting Regiment

23:34 / 01.02.06

The sad thing about this situation is that it's going to be whipped up into hysterics, with religious extremists on one side and braying Littlejohn types on the other.

I think we need to establish what we're dealing with here. The fact is that a cartoon depicting Mohammed as a terrorist, when it's already established that any depictions of him are offensive to the majority of muslims, is not a vital, insightful or even helpful critique of the current political situation. It's a childish, neurotic insult that belies it's creator's mental association of "Muslim" with "Terrorist". I don't think it should have been published in the first instance, simply for reasons of quality control.

I wonder if the creators of this cartoon, and the editors who allowed it into the paper, would have been happy with, say, a depiction of the Pope in Hitler youth regalia, saluting a Hitler-esque god, or some other comparable example of blasphemy? Because what people forget is that blasphemy is and has always been allowed in the press and at all levels of society- so long as it was blasphemy against someone else's god.

00:28 / 02.02.06

I wonder if the creators of this cartoon, and the editors who allowed it into the paper, would have been happy with, say, a depiction of the Pope in Hitler youth regalia, saluting a Hitler-esque god, or some other comparable example of blasphemy? Because what people forget is that blasphemy is and has always been allowed in the press and at all levels of society- so long as it was blasphemy against someone else's god.
'
Like christian boycots of 'the last temptation of Christ' or 'Jesus of Montreal' (one of my favourite films) for instance, or the outrage over 'Piss Christ' I think its quite hypocritical to for people in the west to just dismissively say 'its humour, get over it'.

Also I've seen comments on BBC world that say it would not be okay to print a comic satirising the Holocust for instance, which it would not. Though the counter to that is satire on a historical figure is quite different to making fun of the deaths by extermination of millions of people.

I understand that perhaps the reasoning of 'reprinting' the comics was a way to remove Denmark as a singled out target, but making of new ones in such a reactionary, poorly thought out way is surely only antagonistic?

11:29 / 02.02.06

does muhammad belong to muslims, then?

i dont believe his importance to one group of people can make him off limits for others who do not share that belief.
it may be blasphemy to some, but it isnt to me, and i dont know that it is fair to expect me to follow someone else's rules.

i dont believe i will go to heaven for following leviticus either, and i wouldnt expect someone to call me to task for that.

is that fair?
is this where the other man's nose begins?
or is it just in front, in the 'not touching, not touching' zone?

11:58 / 02.02.06

this article may be of interest, concerning as it does the case of a cartoonist whose work was considered to be blasphemous against christianity.

12:22 / 02.02.06

Of even more interest to this topic might be a link to the cartoons themselves...

AsPadraig Reidy, the deputy editor of New Humanist magazine, from where I found the link, puts it "they're not exactly side-splittingly funny" nor particularly effective satire...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:17 / 03.02.06

I'm kind of in agreement with you, toksik, up to a point- that point being the reprinting.

There's clearly a dialogue that needs to take place about offense having been caused, and why and how such offense was caused, and whether it is reasonable to allow it (I'd say probably yes)- I don't think just doing it again is a particularly sensible response until that dialogue's taken place.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:57 / 03.02.06

Watching Newsnight on this last night as the guy from the charmless bigots of Christian Voice was pretty much ignored once he said that it was perfectly fine to ignore Islamic beliefs because they were wrong but Christian rights needed to be respected because they were right.

Some Muslims have pictorially represented Muhammad in the past. What I question is why the original writer who kicked this off felt it necessary to do a children's book and portray Muhammad, I've seen books both adult and children which don't seem to think this necessary. It seems a leap to go from deciding to ignore mainstream Islamic beliefs to going on about the Danish culture of satire.

Where it really gets messy is the whole thing of portraying Muhammad as a terrorist, irreligious as I am, that just sounds unnecessarily crass and the actions of a thoughtless idiot, not someone contributing anything meaningful to the debate.

13:13 / 04.02.06

Today, a crowd of a several hundred Palestinians have demolished the German representation in Gaza, smashed in windows with hammers, and burned the German flag. Thankfully no employees were present in the house. The police couldn´t stop them and had to call in reinforcements.

The crowd said, they did this, because German newspapers have printed the caricatures.

They also threw stones at the house of the European Union, pulled down the flag and burned it. They burned tires in front of the building. When security attempted to stop them, the crowd started attacking them!

It´s one thing to be angry about caricatures. But to attack these buildings and burn the flags is not a civilized way to tell us you´re angry. If you burn my flag, you can wait a looong time until I ever again listen to your reasons for being insulted for drawings on a piece of paper. Who knows, what would have happened if people would have been in these buildings.

And you know what? Even though I´m really angry, and because of this, there will be lots of people here today, who will be just as angry as me, noone of us will go and start to burn palestinian flags or attack their embassies.

They better get their act together. Fast.

13:27 / 04.02.06

If you burn my flag, you can wait a looong time until I ever again listen to your reasons for being insulted for drawings on a piece of paper.

Interesting reaction. Tell me, what's the qualitative difference between symbols on a piece of cloth and drawings on a piece of paper?

13:47 / 04.02.06

FLAGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN CARTOONS!!111!! (trufax)

Whilst I think Mist is coming on a little strong, I can feel the secular atheist in me getting fidgety every time I hear people talking about burning the west and suchlike, but - big, big, big but - that's tempered by the very real fact that some of those cartoons are running dangerously close to religious intolerence of the worst sort. I mean, Mohammed the terrorist? As far as I'm concerned that goes beyond irresponsible. That's not just blasphemous*, that's fuel to a rather nasty representational fire that seems to burning merrily away in the west.

*Actually, I think the blasphemy issue actually works to obscure other, potentially bigger, problems with this kind of imagery

13:57 / 04.02.06

Interesting reaction. Tell me, what's the qualitative difference between symbols on a piece of cloth and drawings on a piece of paper?

That´s just it, Jack. Where is the difference indeed? They expect respect for a symbol of their beliefs, and burn the symbol of my country. So, what I said is, no, if you act like that, I can´t seriously listen to you about this topic anymore.

And not only did they burn the flag but (I really couldn´t tell by newsarticle if it´s the embassy or the consulate) they may have committed their violent acts on German soil. And that´s quite something for Palestinians, whose biggest hurt is fighting to have a country of their own.

14:06 / 04.02.06

...that some of those cartoons are running dangerously close to religious intolerence of the worst sort. I mean, Mohammed the terrorist? As far as I'm concerned that goes beyond irresponsible.

Yes, that (turban bomb cartoon especially) is distasteful and wrong.

But:
They start boycotting danish companies and demand apologies from the Danish government. How is it the fault of the boycotted companies, if the newspaper prints these offensive pictures? How is it the government´s fault?

Of course, in some countries with a (mostly) muslim population, the newspapers can only print what the government allows (for example the "democracy" of Iran). So maybe they have difficulties in understanding that the governments in the European Union can´t just command the newspapers what they can and can´t print.

(I´m going out now, will be back tomorrow, probably less angry.)

14:09 / 04.02.06

Yes, but you live in a rich Western country, in the rich Western world, and the rich Western world is currently shitting all over the poor Islamic world.
Having your flag burnt might be a little insulting, but it's not the same thing as contributing to a anti-islamic discourse or system of representation, because there's a little thing called power involved.

14:13 / 04.02.06

I don't think it is a particularly good idea to boycott Danish companies, but when you have very few ways of making your displeasure known and very few ways of venting your anger, well, a little inarticulacy is to be expected.

14:35 / 04.02.06

Funny—I think boycotting Danish goods is in fact the best way to protest the cartoons. That's how you do things, in a free society.

Commentator Andrew Sullivan is very often wrong, but he made an interesting point yesterday. Pointing to the lack of furore in the American Muslim community, he writes:

European countries would be in a stronger position to defend press freedom if they practised it more often. There's a bill in the British parliament right now to make offending people's religion a legal offense. Germany bans depictions of the swastika and makes Holocaust-denial a crime. .... Once you start censoring people, you have to deal with the problem of double-standards. If you defend free speech in every case, you're on firmer ground.

And there's something to that, I think. The reason that Muslim groups and Christian Voice use pressure tactics on European giovernments is because, frankly, history has shown that pressure tactics work.

Now, here in the States we get out share of censorious jackoffs too—a Christian-Right pressure campaign recently succeeded in getting a TV show about an Episcopal priest cancelled. But the object of the pressure wasn't the US government—it was the TV network and the program's sponsors, and the primary threat was not of violence in the streets, but of economic consequences.

That's one of the things that happens where free speech butts up against a capitalist system. Thee other thing—and this is, to me, the far more interesting alternative—is the commonly-accepted (and very American) idea that the antidote to speech, even hate-speech, isn't silence—it's more speech. Don't fight the media—become the media. Better propaganda. Get your ideas out there and let the marketplace decide.

Wouldn't some of the energy unleashed in these protests be better spent in flooding the world with positive images of Islam?

14:43 / 04.02.06

Of course, but we are dealing with angry people, and angry people don't necessarily work in their own best interests.

15:35 / 04.02.06

Hmmmmmmm.

Like children, really, aren't they?

16:00 / 04.02.06

Oh, come on, don't be absurd, of course I'm not saying that.

16:18 / 04.02.06

Also, I'm not one hundred percent sure what you're saying.
Are you suggesting that Islamists can and should take ownership of their actions and that I'm failing to address that in my reading of the situation. Or, are you accussing me of treating Islamists like children in that I'm suggesting that they have no self-control?

A bit of both, perhaps?

16:21 / 04.02.06

Really? You do seem to have different expectations of Third World Muslims and First World Danes. And you express those expectations in different ways. To wit:

Danes, of course, should suck it up and be calm. Danes should know better. Danes should be held to a higher standard.

For Muslims, "you've got to expect a little inarticulacy." And "These are angry people we're dealing with." These are treated as facts of life.

If a Dane gets angry, that's a bad thing: a Dane should know better. For Muslims though, it's to be expected.

Is this entirely explained by that magic word, "Power"? 'cause I'm not entirely sure I buy that.

16:50 / 04.02.06

Maybe I haven't articulated my thoughts very well.

I'm simply saying that Muslims, in this instance, are understandably very angry, and that their anger is fundamentally linked to how they are treated by the West, and their economic and social status (again heavily influenced by the West). IMO, the anger of marginalised Islamist people (and I do consider Islamists to be marginalised in many instances, not least in Western states) when confronted with material that could well fuel some pretty unpleasant anti-Islamist discourses currently doing the rounds in Western countries like France, Germany and, yes, the UK, is more justifiable than the anger of a few Germans pissed off because they've had their flag burnt*.
As to how that anger is articulated, of course I think that anger can be focused, I'm just not surprised when it isn't, not because all Islamists are a special "third world" case, but because, in this instance, many Muslims are very angry, and angry *people* (note, I didn't write Muslims) tend to lash out, at least at first.

*That isn't to say that all instances of flag burning lack significant consequences, or that flag burning is a good idea, or that it's alright to shit on other peoples' symbols as long as they have power

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:03 / 04.02.06

angry *people* (note, I didn't write Muslims) tend to lash out, at least at first

I think the West has itself shown a couple of good examples of this recently...

17:08 / 04.02.06

Damn right...

Americans could have decided not to support the invasion of Afghanistan, for example.

17:23 / 04.02.06

(and some did, although evidently not enough)

All Acting Regiment

23:03 / 04.02.06

I think it might also be worth pointing out that the people who are taking part in the various boycotts, protests and now embassy/flag burnings are not angry over cartoons in general, as is implied by a statement such as a drawing on paper- there are thousands of cartoons printed every day that mock or otherwise unfavourably present Islam or Muslim persons that do not get this response. What they are angry about is one particular act, that of rendering the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist.

I think it's important to remember this. It's not the "European tradition of satiricial cartoons", whatever this might be, that's caused this reaction. It's one single cartoon in particular.

23:59 / 04.02.06

Yes, but you live in a rich Western country, in the rich Western world, and the rich Western world is currently shitting all over the poor Islamic world.

Oh yes, they are so poor, that they can afford nuclear weapons. They are so poor having no oil reserves at all.

Go on, live in your ivory tower, while the excuse of being offended is used for justification of burning down embassies.

Printing cartoons is not shitting on other countries. Burning down embassies is not a political correct way of reacting to offensive cartoons.

Tryphena Absent

00:48 / 05.02.06

What they are angry about is one particular act, that of rendering the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist.

My first response was should we treat Mohammed differently from Jesus? Then I second guessed myself because this isn't really on the same ground.

Mistofelees I have sympathy for your argument but this differs in one way, it's the reason why we're not simply dealing with religious fundamentalists- my problem with this cartoon is not with the treatment of Mohammed it's with the representation of the prophet as a terrorist. That generalisation of muslims, the ultimate muslim if you wish, as terrorist(s) is politically appalling. It's dangerous because it's placing all people who follow the religion in the position of extremist.

01:10 / 05.02.06

Perhaps it's worth noting here that this was not a free-standing political cartoon—it was in fact an illustration accompanying a piece about the chilling effect that the threat of Islamist violence has had on the arts, specifically about the difficultires that a children's- book author has had in finding an illustrator willing to work on a book about Mohammed.

That's what they call irony, I think.

All Acting Regiment

03:13 / 05.02.06

My first response was should we treat Mohammed differently from Jesus? Then I second guessed myself because this isn't really on the same ground.

The thing is, for someone in the west to criticize Jesus is a different act, in terms of it's meaning, to criticizing Mohammed- someone making a cartoon or a book or any statement is not, in the eyes of the world, working as a free agent; the voice of these cartoons isn't a detatched voice, it's seen as a western voice; and that's something one needs to be aware of whatever one is saying.

Printing cartoons is not shitting on other countries. Burning down embassies is not a political correct way of reacting to offensive cartoons.

Mistoffelees, I know this must be an upsetting situation for you but I sincerely hope we're not going to lose you over it. Surely you can see how offensive the cartoons were?

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:10 / 05.02.06

Oh yes, they are so poor, that they can afford nuclear weapons. They are so poor having no oil reserves at all.

Call me obvious, but the muslims living in Denmark who first got cross about these cartoons have neither vast oil reserves nor nuclear weapons. In fact, I would go so far as to say that very few muslims have both nuclear weapons and vast oil reserves - the number of muslim states (or rather states with majority muslim populations) with nuclear weapons currently stands around one (one without great oil wealth), and the states with vast oil reserves often do not apportion that wealth according to strict principles of social equality.

I'm just sayin'. Admittedly, in part I'm just sayin' because I find the broader situation utterly bewildering.

09:31 / 05.02.06

Comments about whether the cartoons constitute *good* satire seem a little irrelevant. The cartoons do seem in bad taste to me, but the big question is surely whether they constitute incitement to hatred or violence - after all, there are lots of things published which I don't like.

Thinking on these lines, I have some sympathy for Jack Fear's praise of US free speech and letting the market decide...except that the US seems from the outside to have an exceptionally narrow political debate in the media, as a for instance. So that letting the market decide essentially leaves these kinds of decisions to unnaccountable corporations rather than politicians, which doesn't seem like a huge improvement.

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