Flemming Rose’s Inexcusable Excuses only Epitomize Hypocrisy
by Dr. Habib Siddiqui
I thought we had seen enough of Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the sensation seeking right-wing newspaper Jyllands-Posten. I was wrong. He appeared in the CBS Sunday (February 19, 2006) program - 60 Minutes. Even the prestigious Washington Post published his article in its Sunday issue: “Why I published those cartoons.”
As usual, Rose has been anything but sincere or honest. Unlike his TV interview in which he misleadingly claims that his paper makes funs of all religions, in the Post article, he confesses that he is not a ‘fundamentalist’ supporter of freedom of expression, and as such, won’t publish materials that are unethical, offensive to some readers. However, he audaciously claims that the ‘cartoon story is different.’ He argues, “I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam.” To bolster his argument, he says, “At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.”
Once again Rose exposes his sickening demented and depraved self by not understanding that what is acceptable within an ethnic or religious group does not necessarily make it okay for other groups. So, e.g., when an Afro-American comedian like Chris Rock curses Blacks and makes profane, racial jokes about his own people, these are perceived simply as harmless jokes. But if the same words are used by a white American comedian to talk about Black Americans, they become offensive and insensitive. People often get fired from their jobs for sounding racist or insensitive. The bottom line is what is acceptable inside home does not necessarily make it right outside in the public. Unfortunately, rogue, uncivilized, arrogant, racists and bigots would only think differently. They try to dictate that they are on a higher plane to decide what is acceptable and what is not for the rest of humanity. Offensive as it is, they also insist that if we disagree with their biased litmus test, we cease to be treated as rational and normal human beings, as if we are from a distant planet or belong to a primitive human group.
Fortunately, our experience has taught us that racists and bigots have low IQs, and are intellectually weak and unconvincing. No matter how hard they try, they cannot hide their despicable stupidity and lamentable hypocrisy. It was, therefore, all too expected that Rose would try to find some lame excuses for intellectual terrorism that has resulted in deaths of dozens of civilians from Pakistan to Nigeria. He does not disappoint us there. In his evasive way, Rose tries to delude us with an alleged interview of a stand-up comedian. He does not tell us that in spite of less religiosity of the Danes in particular, or Europeans in general, his own paper never published the image of that demented comedian urinating on the Bible. So much for his wild, imaginative claims!
Most Europeans are less religious than Americans. But such lack of religiosity still made Rose to ‘self-censor’ offensive cartoons about Jesus (and the Jewish Holocaust). So why satirize Muhammad (S)? There is a name for such a behavior: Hypocrisy. Pure and simple!
As if those offensive cartoons of the Prophet of Islam are equivalent to cartoons about himself, Rose argues that his paper portrays its cultural editors as a bunch of ‘reactionary provocateurs.’ Should we, therefore, feel euphoric? Such silly arguments only unearth his own inanity and cannot fool anyone but his kind.
About the most offensive cartoon, portraying Muhammad (S) as a terrorist, Rose says, “I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name.” If he were genuinely concerned (not a chance!) about the image of Islam, he would have better served the cause with a cartoon of Zarqawi. But his paper did not do that. Instead of the obvious, it went for the most revered figure in Islam! He continues, “The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.” I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for this pathetic liar. He is either grossly disadvantaged intellectually or a very disingenuous person who appears running short of his ‘bright’ ideas. I believe that he is the latter.
If these were not enough to understand the mind of an intellectual terrorist, Rose goes on to impudently claim that with the publication of the offensive cartoons, the message to the Muslim community was: “We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.” What arrogance! It is like Hitler telling his victim: ‘I love you so much that I have to put you in Auschwitz concentration camps so that you could truly become part of the Third Reich.’ How insane and obtuse argument! Rose is similarly saying that “if you (Muslims) want to be part of Europe, be prepared to be treated as sub-humans the same way Jews were treated by Nazi Germany. Don’t complain. That is how we (Christian Europe) treat the ‘other’ people. It is in our European blood, tradition and culture to humiliate others.” No, thanks, Mr. Rose, we will let that happen.
We should not be oblivious of the fact that Rose is an admirer of one of the most anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant neocon ideologues of our time who has been depicting the Muslim world as inherently terroristic. In recent days, Rose, much like a foot soldier for the neocon warmongers, has been propagating neocon’s brainchild - ‘clash of civilizations.’ At the same time, nor can we forget that Muslim rage did not start until the republication of these insulting cartoons in February in several European countries.
If these republished cartoons and statements (not just from Rose but European leaders also) are the signs of what are to be expected from ‘New’ Europe in coming years, the concerned citizens of this world, who are already fed up with untamed prejudice and intolerance, must be concerned about the rebirth of fascism and Nazism by its modern-day practitioners. They must ask: is Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten any different than Julius Streicher of Der Stumer?[1] Are Prime Minister Andres Fogh Rasmussen and Queen Margrethe of Denmark the 21st century reincarnations of Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler? [2] If the Nazi experiment was such a ‘great’ experiment to integrate Jews of Europe, why is ‘Holocaust’ a dirty word today? Why its mere denial is a criminal offence today in its birthplace?
Interestingly, as I write this, David Irving, a British historian who questions the number of Jewish victims (six million or not) during the World War II, has just been found guilty in a Vienna court as a Holocaust-denier and issued a 3-year prison sentence. Lest we forget, his argument since 1989 has been that there were many victims (approx. 40 million) outside the Jews of Europe.[3] Nonetheless his views were deemed controversial, anti-Semitic and offensive to world Jewry. Per Austrian law, he was tried and found guilty of denying the Holocaust.
What Flemming Rose has done is no worse. Through those cartoons (republished later by many European papers) he has accused all Muslims as terrorists. This is no small matter, esp. in the post-9/11 era of prejudice and bigotry against Muslims. It is a hate crime designed to mold mass attitudes and whip up entire non-Muslim populations into a state of hysteria against Muslims. Those cartoons are, therefore, the very symbols of intellectual terrorism crafted skillfully to prepare the European ground for the third Muslim Holocaust in Europe in just over a decade.
It is, therefore, important that this messenger of hate be treated no differently than his predecessors for encouraging mass murder. My fear is that the right-wing government of Denmark is not about to prosecute Jyllands-Posten, nor will the EU – although they could do so, given the existence of "hate speech" legislation signed into law in both cases. By failing to incriminate this modern-day Streicher, Europe will once again solidify her long disturbing image as a continent that epitomizes double-standard. Shame on Europe for refusing to learn from history!
February 20, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm. One caption on Loyalty in Der Sturmer read:
“The sword will not be sheathed.
The Stürmer stands as ever
In battle for the people and the fatherland.
It fights the Jews because it loves the people.”
The remarks of the Danish Queen and other European leaders, let alone the European media, are not much different today except that the word “Jews” has been replaced by “Muslims.”]
[2] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4445579.stm. Heinrich Himmler was born in 1900 and died in 1945. He was to become one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany and Europe once World War Two broke out. As head of the SS, he had ultimate responsibility of internal security in Nazi Germany and was associated with helping to organize the Final Solution though Reinhard Heydrich had a major input into the organization of the Holocaust.]
[3] [BBC TV, February 20, 2006 (as heard at 7 p.m., Philadelphia time).]
Dr. Habib Siddiqui (saeva@aol.com) is an anti-war activist. His essays appear in a number of websites and newspapers. He has written six books.
His book on "Islamic Wisdom" is now available in the United States and Cananda.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499_pf.html
Why I Published Those Cartoons
By Flemming Rose
Sunday, February 19, 2006; B01
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.
We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose? Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
flemming.rose@jp.dk
Flemming Rose is the culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Dr. Habib Siddiqui
I thought we had seen enough of Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the sensation seeking right-wing newspaper Jyllands-Posten. I was wrong. He appeared in the CBS Sunday (February 19, 2006) program - 60 Minutes. Even the prestigious Washington Post published his article in its Sunday issue: “Why I published those cartoons.”
As usual, Rose has been anything but sincere or honest. Unlike his TV interview in which he misleadingly claims that his paper makes funs of all religions, in the Post article, he confesses that he is not a ‘fundamentalist’ supporter of freedom of expression, and as such, won’t publish materials that are unethical, offensive to some readers. However, he audaciously claims that the ‘cartoon story is different.’ He argues, “I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam.” To bolster his argument, he says, “At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.”
Once again Rose exposes his sickening demented and depraved self by not understanding that what is acceptable within an ethnic or religious group does not necessarily make it okay for other groups. So, e.g., when an Afro-American comedian like Chris Rock curses Blacks and makes profane, racial jokes about his own people, these are perceived simply as harmless jokes. But if the same words are used by a white American comedian to talk about Black Americans, they become offensive and insensitive. People often get fired from their jobs for sounding racist or insensitive. The bottom line is what is acceptable inside home does not necessarily make it right outside in the public. Unfortunately, rogue, uncivilized, arrogant, racists and bigots would only think differently. They try to dictate that they are on a higher plane to decide what is acceptable and what is not for the rest of humanity. Offensive as it is, they also insist that if we disagree with their biased litmus test, we cease to be treated as rational and normal human beings, as if we are from a distant planet or belong to a primitive human group.
Fortunately, our experience has taught us that racists and bigots have low IQs, and are intellectually weak and unconvincing. No matter how hard they try, they cannot hide their despicable stupidity and lamentable hypocrisy. It was, therefore, all too expected that Rose would try to find some lame excuses for intellectual terrorism that has resulted in deaths of dozens of civilians from Pakistan to Nigeria. He does not disappoint us there. In his evasive way, Rose tries to delude us with an alleged interview of a stand-up comedian. He does not tell us that in spite of less religiosity of the Danes in particular, or Europeans in general, his own paper never published the image of that demented comedian urinating on the Bible. So much for his wild, imaginative claims!
Most Europeans are less religious than Americans. But such lack of religiosity still made Rose to ‘self-censor’ offensive cartoons about Jesus (and the Jewish Holocaust). So why satirize Muhammad (S)? There is a name for such a behavior: Hypocrisy. Pure and simple!
As if those offensive cartoons of the Prophet of Islam are equivalent to cartoons about himself, Rose argues that his paper portrays its cultural editors as a bunch of ‘reactionary provocateurs.’ Should we, therefore, feel euphoric? Such silly arguments only unearth his own inanity and cannot fool anyone but his kind.
About the most offensive cartoon, portraying Muhammad (S) as a terrorist, Rose says, “I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name.” If he were genuinely concerned (not a chance!) about the image of Islam, he would have better served the cause with a cartoon of Zarqawi. But his paper did not do that. Instead of the obvious, it went for the most revered figure in Islam! He continues, “The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.” I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for this pathetic liar. He is either grossly disadvantaged intellectually or a very disingenuous person who appears running short of his ‘bright’ ideas. I believe that he is the latter.
If these were not enough to understand the mind of an intellectual terrorist, Rose goes on to impudently claim that with the publication of the offensive cartoons, the message to the Muslim community was: “We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.” What arrogance! It is like Hitler telling his victim: ‘I love you so much that I have to put you in Auschwitz concentration camps so that you could truly become part of the Third Reich.’ How insane and obtuse argument! Rose is similarly saying that “if you (Muslims) want to be part of Europe, be prepared to be treated as sub-humans the same way Jews were treated by Nazi Germany. Don’t complain. That is how we (Christian Europe) treat the ‘other’ people. It is in our European blood, tradition and culture to humiliate others.” No, thanks, Mr. Rose, we will let that happen.
We should not be oblivious of the fact that Rose is an admirer of one of the most anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant neocon ideologues of our time who has been depicting the Muslim world as inherently terroristic. In recent days, Rose, much like a foot soldier for the neocon warmongers, has been propagating neocon’s brainchild - ‘clash of civilizations.’ At the same time, nor can we forget that Muslim rage did not start until the republication of these insulting cartoons in February in several European countries.
If these republished cartoons and statements (not just from Rose but European leaders also) are the signs of what are to be expected from ‘New’ Europe in coming years, the concerned citizens of this world, who are already fed up with untamed prejudice and intolerance, must be concerned about the rebirth of fascism and Nazism by its modern-day practitioners. They must ask: is Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten any different than Julius Streicher of Der Stumer?[1] Are Prime Minister Andres Fogh Rasmussen and Queen Margrethe of Denmark the 21st century reincarnations of Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler? [2] If the Nazi experiment was such a ‘great’ experiment to integrate Jews of Europe, why is ‘Holocaust’ a dirty word today? Why its mere denial is a criminal offence today in its birthplace?
Interestingly, as I write this, David Irving, a British historian who questions the number of Jewish victims (six million or not) during the World War II, has just been found guilty in a Vienna court as a Holocaust-denier and issued a 3-year prison sentence. Lest we forget, his argument since 1989 has been that there were many victims (approx. 40 million) outside the Jews of Europe.[3] Nonetheless his views were deemed controversial, anti-Semitic and offensive to world Jewry. Per Austrian law, he was tried and found guilty of denying the Holocaust.
What Flemming Rose has done is no worse. Through those cartoons (republished later by many European papers) he has accused all Muslims as terrorists. This is no small matter, esp. in the post-9/11 era of prejudice and bigotry against Muslims. It is a hate crime designed to mold mass attitudes and whip up entire non-Muslim populations into a state of hysteria against Muslims. Those cartoons are, therefore, the very symbols of intellectual terrorism crafted skillfully to prepare the European ground for the third Muslim Holocaust in Europe in just over a decade.
It is, therefore, important that this messenger of hate be treated no differently than his predecessors for encouraging mass murder. My fear is that the right-wing government of Denmark is not about to prosecute Jyllands-Posten, nor will the EU – although they could do so, given the existence of "hate speech" legislation signed into law in both cases. By failing to incriminate this modern-day Streicher, Europe will once again solidify her long disturbing image as a continent that epitomizes double-standard. Shame on Europe for refusing to learn from history!
February 20, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm. One caption on Loyalty in Der Sturmer read:
“The sword will not be sheathed.
The Stürmer stands as ever
In battle for the people and the fatherland.
It fights the Jews because it loves the people.”
The remarks of the Danish Queen and other European leaders, let alone the European media, are not much different today except that the word “Jews” has been replaced by “Muslims.”]
[2] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4445579.stm. Heinrich Himmler was born in 1900 and died in 1945. He was to become one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany and Europe once World War Two broke out. As head of the SS, he had ultimate responsibility of internal security in Nazi Germany and was associated with helping to organize the Final Solution though Reinhard Heydrich had a major input into the organization of the Holocaust.]
[3] [BBC TV, February 20, 2006 (as heard at 7 p.m., Philadelphia time).]
Dr. Habib Siddiqui (saeva@aol.com) is an anti-war activist. His essays appear in a number of websites and newspapers. He has written six books.
His book on "Islamic Wisdom" is now available in the United States and Cananda.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499_pf.html
Why I Published Those Cartoons
By Flemming Rose
Sunday, February 19, 2006; B01
Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.
I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.
But the cartoon story is different.
Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.
At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.
We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.
The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.
One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.
On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.
I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.
I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.
As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.
The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.
Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.
In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.
This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose? Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.
Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.
flemming.rose@jp.dk
Flemming Rose is the culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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posted by Abu Adam at
11:20 AM
