The Cartoons that Shook the World
By Jytte Klausen (Yale University Press, £20)
Populist parties of the European right have gained prominence in recent years. Much of their message derives from hostility to the supposedly alien influence of Muslim populations. Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who in October 2009 successfully appealed against a home office decision to bar him from Britain, denounces the “Islamification” of Europe. The Danish People’s party calls for the defence of the country’s Christian identity against Muslim immigration. The British National party, with two seats in the European parliament, declares that Islam is a cancer. In November, voters in 22 out of Switzerland’s 26 provinces supported a ban proposed by the Swiss People’s party on the construction of minarets.
These divisions were exemplified in, and amplified by, an extraordinary dispute in 2005. A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. A few months later demonstrations broke out on every continent bar Latin America. Muslims declared outrage at the “blasphemy.” The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus were torched, with the patent connivance of the Syrian authorities. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s puppet-president, hosted a global convocation of Holocaust deniers. Voices of ostensible moderation, such as the Vatican, averred that the right of free speech did not imply the right to offend the sensibilities of religious believers.
For all its newsworthiness, the Danish cartoons affair remains obscure. Jytte Klausen, a Danish academic in the US, has written what must rank as the definitive account. It is a model of investigation and exposition. She demonstrates that the global ructions were not some spontaneous eruption of anger, but a campaign orchestrated for political advantage by a series of actors. These were, successively, Muslim campaigners in Denmark; the government of Egypt seeking to shore up its Islamic credentials; and militants working to undermine governments in Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and other countries with an entrenched Islamist opposition.
The initial internationalisation of the protests was driven by a deliberate lobbying effort by the Egyptian foreign ministry, which invited the protesting Danish imams to Cairo in December 2005. The decision was taken then to intensify diplomatic protest on the absurd ground of a right to be protected against the denigration of religious figures. Klausen traces this history with exemplary clarity. There is no one else who has managed to explain with scholarly disinterestedness but a deep concern for liberal values the convoluted motives of the protesters, and the bemused and defensive response from western governments and media.
It is a particular merit of the book that it manages firmly but unobtrusively to dispose of the myths of nativism: that nationalism must be ethnocentric and opposed to immigration. The “demographic time bomb”—in the metaphor of conservative writers such as Mark Steyn—of Muslim immigration and high birth-rates is nonsense. Muslims are a small proportion of Europe’s population and their median fertility rate is declining. These errors are the premises of such illiberal and inflammatory notions as Geert Wilders’s call for the Koran to be banned as a “fascist book.”
But the cartoons affair was altogether different. Wilders and his emulators seek to constrain liberty—freedom of religion and freedom of movement—in the interests of an imagined national identity. This is analogous to the demands of the protestors against the Danish cartoons. They demanded that free speech and publication be shut down to avoid offence to their deeply held religious beliefs. Chillingly, that campaign went beyond demonstrations and boycotts to violence, intimidation and murderous threats. The response of the great and the good in western societies was, in the main, to feel the pain of the protesters rather than defend the right of a newspaper and of artists to speak and to publish. Simon Jenkins was typical in lamenting, in the Sunday Times: “The traditional balance between free speech and respect for the feelings of others is evidently becoming harder to sustain.”
That is a terribly misguided view. Respect for the feelings of others is a personal virtue but a pernicious principle when translated into public policy. Once governments and institutions set out to respect people’s mental states—what citizens believe and what they feel—then there is no limit to the abridgements of liberty that they can make in the interests of social cohesion. In the background—and often in the foreground too—there will be sophisticates arguing that any act of militant opposition, extending to terrorism and murder, will be attributable ultimately to some avoidable provocation. After a suicide bomber killed six people outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad last year, a Danish journalist, Jakob Illeborg, wrote that the attack “is of course, indefensible, but it raises questions about the wisdom of the much-debated cartoons and Danish reactions to Muslim wrath.”
Klausen’s book is not only a guide to how this has come to pass, but is itself an exhibit in this dismal history. After consulting academic advisers, the publisher, Yale University Press, told Klausen in July that it would not consent to including reproductions of the cartoons in the book. Further, it would not publish any depictions at all of the Prophet, in case there were violent protests. Yale asked Klausen to sign a statement agreeing to this decision and a confidentiality agreement; she declined. The book thus includes separate prefaces by the publisher and the author. Yale’s preface attempts to justify an act of censorship against its own author; Klausen’s declares, with a dignified resignation, that she “never intended the book to become another demonstration for or against the cartoons, and I hope the book can still serve its purpose without illustrations.”
Yale’s decision was a voluntary act to limit intellectual inquiry. If images of the Prophet cannot be published in a scholarly work examining that issue directly, then the life of the mind is becoming corrupted. It is entirely conceivable that in ten or 15 years’ time, it will have become an established principle in the media and in scholarship that what is said and published needs to be balanced against the offence it might cause to the beliefs of others. A culture of science and learning that is founded on criticism will have atrophied under the tyranny of moderation.
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Comments (8):
I have only seen one of the cartoons in question. To depict Mohammed with a bomb in his turban is rather like showing Jesus massacring Muslims in the crusades. The cartoonists were really showing what they thought of Muslims. Had they made that clear I am not sure whether it would have made things better or worse – stirring up racial hatred? – but it could not have been called blasphemy
That article is a terribly prejudiced one. Insulting and humiliating others is not the way of freedom. Tyranny of immorality is not better than the tyranny of moderation. In fact, moderation rejects tyranny. Real Muslims should avoid any kind of violence, and real Europeans should respect the values of other religions. If a cartoon of Jesus or Moses had been published in a newspaper in any Muslim country, what would Europeans have felt then? Please try to develop some empathy…
Having lived through the Caricature crisis in Denmark, contributing in the media debate to explain the position of ordinary people in the Danish Muslim communities about the issue and knowing Professor Jette Klausen personally and professionally (I listened to her lecture on cartoon crisis in UK on 8.Dec 2009), I think that Mr. OLIVER KAMM is not reviewing Klausen’s book objectively or fairly.
The cartoon crisis did not take the hard direction it later took just because of Egyptian government’s help or militant groups getting involved in protests.
It also did not come out of blue.
Anti-Islam rhetoric and Islam bashing has been going on since 80’s in Denmark and became unbearable with the passage of time. Politicians and media used freedom of expression to spread heir nationalistic and xenophobic ideas and created an atmosphere of hate. First of all is the fact that the newspaper itself commissioned the caricature and published these with an editorial telling Muslims in Denmark; You should accept insults, degradations and humiliation.
Publishing of caricatures was the last drop in the bucket. Even then, Muslim communities acted in a calm and collected way. Demonstrations, media debates, and protests were done peacefully while the Prime Minster Rasmussen arrogantly refused to meet 11 ambassadors from Muslim countries and did not have the courage to listen to the grievances of a minority.
After all avenues of protests were explored, 5 Imams went to Middle East to look for diplomatic support.
As every one knows, when an issue as sensitive as disrespect to Prophet spills to the street, it is impossible to control. The caricature should also be seen in light of War on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan Western expeditions and media’s non-stop projections of individual violent acts as Islamic.
It is true that scholars should be able to analyse all issues so that truthfulness is achieved but in this present anti-Islam climate in the West, it is important to cool things down and not pour oil on the fire.
Self restrain for a higher purpose is better than sticking fingers in someone’s eyes. By the way, I can tell the readers of this blog that the same newspaper which so proudly commissioned and published insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in 2005 refused to publish some cartoon of Jesus on the ground of public safety and decency. So much for the feedom of speech.
Kind regards
Bashy Quraishy
Chair-Advisory Council-ENAR – Brussels
Chair-Jewish Muslim Co-operation Platform – Brussels
Senior Advisor – COJEP International- Strasbourg
Mobile; 0045 40 15 47 71
Phone; 0045 38 88 19 77
http://www.bashy.dk
“As every one knows, when an issue as sensitive as disrespect to Prophet spills to the street, it is impossible to control.” Impossible to control perhaps, but easy to manipulate and inflame with a few carefully placed lies and omissions.
Dear Akhenaten
Could you be kind to let me know what lies and manipulation is there in my description of the situation?
People often forget that during caricature crisis, the people who lost their lives were exclusively of Muslim background as were the authorities. If there were no insulting caricatures published, there will not be any demonstrations and the violence to follow. So the West cannot ignore its provocations, which the man in the street reacts – correctly or otherwise.
If we look back at the history of terrorism and violence in many countries, especially in the Muslim majority states, it is very recent and committed by a tiny minority. However it always start with interference and instigations from outside. The way to oppose the oppression should be through peaceful means but unfortunately lack of education results in illegal means and violence.
I have no doubt that if the powerful West extends a hand of a genuine friendship – not mere speeches – and be sincere in its actions, it would be positively reciprocated – even by the militants.
Kind regards
Bashy Quraishy
I so enjoyed the argument and discussion in this article. Thank you, Mr. Kamm.
Dear Bashy Quraishy,
For reasons I can’t quite fathom my comment was truncated by the site moderator (about 90pc was inexplicably removed – a glitch I hope). The “lies and omissions” to which I was referring were not yours but rather those of the two Danish imams who toured Egypt and Syria following the cartoons’ publication. The Akkari-Laban dossier contained materials that were completely unrelated to the Muhammad cartoons and were slyly adduced as corroborating evidence for islamophobia in Denmark. Your assertion, however, that only Muslims died in the madness that ensued is a false one. There were reports of Christians being killed in Nigeria and numerous anti-coptic violence in Egypt. I agree that efforts should be made not to antagonize Muslims but Muslims should understand that freedom of speech is sacrosanct, that governments are not responsible for the views of every citizen and that a cartoon, however offensive, is not worth taking a human life. The responsibility for the violence and animosity that came out of this deplorable affair lies squarely with the cynical individuals (self-proclaimed community leaders and unelected elites) which used it to manipulate the passions of the people whose rationality and common sense they are supposed to nurture.
Dear Akhenaten
I am pleased that you put the record straight concerning the use the use of word “lies and omissions” in connection with my article.
Having said that I again noticed that you have described the visit of 5 Imams including Abu Laban to Egypt and accused them of added extra anti-Islam cartoons in their dossier. This is the story, Danish and Western media have dished out to discredit the delegation. In this respect, it is a well-known fact that a French cartoon depicting the prophet as a pig was also presented. I once asked the late Imam Laban, why was this non-Danish cartoon included. He told me that it was done to show the general anti-Islam picture in the West and not only Denmark. The dossier included much other material showing the true situation before the cartoons too. To me that is very understandable because cartoons of 2005 did not happen in a vacuum but was the result of many years of anti-Islam rhetoric, which has gone from bad to worst in the last 15-20 years.
It is not my place or duty to defend what the delegation said or did and the unfortunate resulting violent consequences there of. But when it comes to the blatant misuse of freedom of expression in the west, the lack of responsibility of the governments to protect minorities and media’s recklessness anti-Islam propaganda, I can safely give you hundreds of examples. I have lived in the west for 43 years and being a part of ethnic minority set up in Denmark and EU, I have a very extensive knowledge of Danish politics and media. With this background, let me explain to you few issues that you may not have knowledge of.
1. It is absolutely baseless to claim that freedom of speech is sacrosanct or that we have total freedom of expression in Denmark or the West. There are laws governing hate speech, blasphemy, anti-Semitism, homophobia, gender discrimination and a host of other discriminatory practices. In the presence of so many legal protections, it seems strange that when it comes to anti-Islam ideology, insults and rhetoric, no one cares. Only few weeks back, a well-known Danish person Lars Hedegaard wrote on his blog that Muslim men rape their daughters and treat their women as whores. Can you imagine a statement like about Jewish people or homosexuals? Why this double standards?
2. There are many examples when governments acted quickly to stop freedom of expression. In Denmark, a painting of a naked Jesus with an erect penis was removed by the traffic minister soon after it was displayed by a provocative Danish artist. When a Danish politician spoke of the so-called Jewish influence in banking and media, he was forced to resign soon after. The Danish newspaper J.Posten that had no problem to commission and publish insulting cartoons of Prophet Mohammed rejected 4 cartoons of Jesus jumping on a trampoline in 2003 with the excuse that such cartoons were against the sensibilities. A chocolate statue of Jesus was removed by the order of Mayor of New York few years back. The Spanish court fined a Spanish artist for making caricatures of the King and Queen having sex. The examples are innumerable.
3. I believe that criticism should be directed towards individuals, groups or even a religion but it should have a purpose – namely to create a debate for a better society and mutual integration. What is happening in the case of Islam is that the whole religion is being demonized on purpose to create a wedge between the Islamic world and the West. That is not a good news or even wise politics.
Kind Regards
Bashy Quraishy