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Muslims and media frenzy over cartoons

Hasan Suroor

The issue is not whether Muslims are right or wrong to be upset but whether or not they have the right to peaceful protest when they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their religious feelings have been hurt.

ANYBODY READING and watching the British media these days would think that Muslims have unleashed a jihad on Europe and the "hordes" are waiting at the gates following the publication of a series of offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammed in several European newspapers.

Some of the reporting has been quite breathless marked by alarming reports of Muslim "fury" sweeping the world and even more alarming headlines such as "Cartoon Wars and the Clash of Civilisations" in The Times. The fact is that the "fury" has been rather low-key and much of Europe, where the row erupted, has remained largely quiet — at least so far.

It would be naïve to expect that there would be no Muslim reaction to the cartoons. Yes, there have been protests and some hotheads, who see such controversies as a godsend opportunity for them to grab headlines, have even indulged in violence — like storming the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria. But these are isolated incidents. Protests in other countries, including most of the Islamic world, have been mainly peaceful despite attempts by extremist elements to inflame passions. The scale of the "backlash" has been a lot more restrained than the Muslim reaction to such issues in the past.

In Britain, Muslims rather disappointed the media by refusing to play to the script that would have seen them intensify their protests after last Friday's prayers. Journalists who rushed to Bradford, which has a large and traditionally volatile Muslim population and was the scene of some of the most violent demonstrations against Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in 1989, returned disappointed as nothing happened there. One correspondent ruefully reported: "It [a protest] may yet happen but on yesterday's evidence the local Muslim community has grown weary, or perhaps wary, of taking too high-profile a stance on controversial Islamic issues."

In London, a protest march attracted only a handful of people, mostly belonging to known radical groups. Ordinary Muslims publicly distanced themselves from the provocative slogans raised by some demonstrators. Privately, of course, even liberal Muslims say they are upset over the cartoons — even more upset that despite protests newspapers across Europe (with the exception of the British media) chose to reprint them in the name of "solidarity" with the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, which first published them more than four months ago.

Ziauddin Sardar, one of the most progressive British Muslim scholars, said he had spent a "lifetime criticising Islam and Muslims" but was "absolutely infuriated" by these cartoons describing them as a "provocative and premeditated insult to Islam."

"What people must remember is that we are watching the repetition of an argument that took place in Europe during the thirties. Then we were discussing the right to depict Jews in cartoons with racial stereotypes. Now, we are discussing the right to show Muslims," he warned.

The issue, however, is not whether Muslims are right or wrong to be upset but whether or not they have the right to peaceful protest when they feel, rightly or wrongly, that their religious feelings have been hurt. Or is it the case that any hint of dissent by Muslims is to be held unreasonable and against Western values?

Jewish groups routinely protest against the slightest perceived hurt (remember the uproar when Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform at a birthday party, and the campaign against the London Mayor Ken Livingstone for an allegedly anti-semitic comment?), and quite rightly it is regarded as their legitimate right. So, why can Muslims not protest without being dubbed fundamentalists, intolerant, anti-free speech, etc?

Ironically, Muslims have been attacked even by the leader of a right-wing Christian group that itself led a nasty campaign against the BBC, including issuing personal threats to its executives, for screening Jerry Springer: The Opera, which, it said, hurt Christian sensitivities. Muslims alone, it would seem, have forfeited the right to be offended, and to protest.

As The Guardian columnist Gary Younge pointed out: "If newspapers have the right to offend then surely their targets have the right to be offended. Moreover if you are bold enough to knowingly offend a community then you should be bold enough to withstand the consequences, so long as that community expresses displeasure within the law."

Mr. Younge noted that Muslims were being "vilified twice — once through the cartoon, and again for exercising their democratic right to protest."

And that's the crux. By and large, at least so far, the Muslim protest has remained within the law. Newspapers have sought to invest the current row with "echoes" of the Rushdie affair but the contrast between the two could not have been more stark than the events of the past week have shown.

In the Rushdie case, there was a religious fatwa to kill the author; at least one translator was murdered by Muslim zealots; and even mainstream Muslims joined in the macabre act of book-burning. This time, the campaign is led essentially by extremists. The 12 Danish cartoonists, whose works sparked the controversy, are reported to have gone into hiding fearing for their lives but it is not because they have received any threats but because of the climate of fear whipped up by media frenzy.

Unlike in the Rushdie affair, when even non-Muslim countries including India banned the "offending" novel, this time at least one newspaper in the heart of the Muslim world — Jordan's Al-Shihan — reproduced the cartoons telling Muslims: "What brings more prejudice against Islam? These caricatures or pictures of a hostage taker slashing the throat of his victim?" That its editor was sacked is a different matter. What is significant is that he had the courage to stand up and be counted, but the West simply refuses to acknowledge the change in the Muslim mood.

No knee-jerk reaction

It is important to remember that, on this occasion, the Muslim reaction has been anything but knee-jerk. The cartoons first appeared in September last year but nothing happened and the issue was sought to be resolved through diplomatic means with Ambassadors of some Muslim countries complaining to the Danish Government and calling for an apology. The row became public only when the cartoons were reproduced last month, first by a Norwegian newspaper and then other European papers to assert their right to free speech. Saudi Arabia recalled its Ambassador from Denmark, a boycott of Danish goods started and public protests were held.

Much has been made of the boycott of Danish goods in some Arab countries but is a boycott not part of legitimate protest? When Americans can boycott French wine and cheese because of the French Government's refusal to support the invasion of Iraq, why can't people in another part of the world do the same to register their protest?

Coming to the cartoons. I doubt if many Muslims even in Europe, let alone elsewhere, have seen them. I have. Neither as works of creative imagination and nor as political comment do they merit the sort of attention that has been bestowed on them in recent days. They are crude, badly drawn, and simply trite. The difference of opinion is not over the quality of the cartoons, which have been almost unanimously described as "offensive." The debate is whether free speech should be curtailed because it might offend some people.

Indeed, if Muslims were able to get over the mental block that any visual depiction of the Prophet is unacceptable (there are various interpretations on this even among Muslim scholars), they would also dismiss these caricatures for what they are: a needless provocation best ignored. It is precisely because Muslims are known to "take offence" more readily that they have become a soft target for anyone who wants to provoke them in order, then, to portray them as intolerant and worse. Every time Muslims react to provocations they contribute to the perception that they are fundamentally intolerant and that their beliefs and conduct are incompatible with the modern secular world. They can turn blue in the face protesting that this is a stereotype but nobody is likely to listen to them in a climate which, for reasons that are too well known to bear repetition, is not on their side.

Having said this, the row does not reflect too well on Western attitudes either and as historian Andrew Roberts said: "While there is a need for a genuine discussion about the rights of the West to define its own boundaries of free speech, these cartoons are purposely provocative and unnecessary. ... Western civilisation loses out if these insulting images are the best critique [of Islam] that we can make." Clearly, engaging other cultures in a battle of ideas would require more than crude comic strips.

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