Twice this evening I’ve received text messages telling me to vote “no” in a text vote for BBC Radio 5 Live regarding whether the Danish cartoons should be published here. This vote actually finished at mid-day today, so if you get a copy, don’t honour it or forward it. The BBC now know our position!
Vanessa Feltz, who has a phone-in show on the BBC’s London radio station, has jumped in on the Danish cartoon controversy. The update is that several newspapers in Europe have published the cartoons in “solidarity” with JP, resulting in one of the editors, at France Soir, being sacked, and you can find the details of one of FS’s cartoon there. I turned on in the middle of Feltz grilling Daud Abdullah over his objection to the cartoons and the idea of newspapers publishing them in the UK, which to their credit, none of them has. (More: avari-nameh.)
Feltz continually makes irrelevant comments in support of her position that there is some sort of threat of censorship: for example, she asks if she be forbidden from laughing at the cartoons, which is what nobody has said. In fact, while she claims that the BBC have forbidden her from even describing one of the cartoons, other than that which has been widely published, the law itself hasn’t, at least not explicitly. The “religious hatred” laws aren’t yet law, so they could publish them while they have the time, and most have nothing to lose by doing so. I actually think more of Britain’s Muslims than that they would go on a riot in response to this, and those that would are most likely the less religious of Muslims. We’ve had two sets of riots involving young Muslims, neither of which were over religious issues (and the more recent of which were not started by them).
Anyway, Daud Abdullah made the quite legitimate point that free speech was not absolute, and that several European countries have laws banning Holocaust denial. As you might expect, Feltzie went apoplectic and resorted to the usual no-moral-equivalence rhetoric so beloved of a certain type of debater. And of course, Dr Abdullah wasn’t drawing any moral equivalence other than that they were both examples of free speech being restricted to avoid causing offence rather than because it directly incites violence or unjustly damages someone’s reputation. He also compared the boycotts to an American boycott of France over the Iraq war, which Feltz attempted to rebut by saying that the boycott of France was over a war, not a set of cartoons; but the boycott was “provoked” by France’s refusal to allow the US to involve the UN in a war they were starting, not by French aggression. It was a petty and pointless method of getting back at the French for rebuffing and frustrating them. You can’t compare this to a boycott aimed at people who deliberately cause pointless, gratuitous offence to an entire religious community.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I happen not to agree with this particular boycott, for many reasons, among which that it will hit targets far beyond Denmark: for example, Arla, the main target of the boycott, also owns the second biggest dairy company in the UK, and much of its produce here is British, not Danish. The company in fact originated in Sweden, although it’s now based in Denmark after a merger with the former MD food company. But there are those who think we have no right to be offended at all; that we should just roll over and accept libellous depictions of our religion and, therefore, of ourselves, in major newspapers, “because that’s what free speech means”.
And if anyone was wondering, the cartoons are indeed libellous. Quite apart from the fact that the decision to print a series of caricatures of the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) was done deliberately to cause offence, the content of three of the cartoons involves: a bloke with an unkempt beard, a jambiya (curved dagger), a threatening expression on his face and two bug-eyed veiled women; a man with arms outstretched, standing on a cloud saying to a number of presumable suicide bombers, “Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins”; and a man with a black “turban” with the Kalima on it and a lit fuse coming out of it. The themes are, then, the usual stereotypes of the misogynistic, violent Muslim.
The discussion on the Feltz show more than once made mention of the idea that people are afraid of Muslims’ power, which is why, according to them, the media are shy of reprinting these cartoons here and might have been the reason the cartoons were printed in the first place: to challenge this “Muslim power”, in a country where, as Svend points out, Muslims are increasingly victims of prejudice and racism - as they have been across Europe. It’s a myth that Muslims are particularly powerful even in the UK; we have only a handful of Muslims in Parliament and our community representative bodies are commonly ridiculed in the media. Muslims are in part responsible for this situation, given the difficulty Muslim candidates have in getting elected (in some cases because some Pakistanis would prefer to vote for a non-Muslim than for a Muslim of a different biraderi), but “Muslim power” is a myth all the same.
The other false comparison made on this morning’s show was with other art which poked fun at religions other than Islam, notably the Monty Python film Life of Brian. The comparison with this particular film does not stand up for two reasons, the first being that it did cause offence to a lot of Christians even though the central character was said to be someone who lived around the same time as Jesus (‘alaihi as-salaam). The other reason is that unlike these wretched cartoons, Life of Brian, in between the offensive cheap shots at religion, was actually funny and did make some valid points. These cartoons aren’t funny, and convey nothing except a gratuitous falsehood.
A further observation is made by Osama Saeed, that this attack is (at least from a UK point of view) unusual in that humour about particular groups is best done from within, rather than from without. We’ve all heard of Jackie Mason, the Kahane supporter, and his Jewish jokes, and of Goodness Gracious Me and its Asian Ma jokes. When at college in Wales I bought a book called something like The Best Cardi Jokes, Cardi being a reference to the money-conscious Welshmen of Ceredigion county (the C is hard, as in its English derivative Cardigan), a book I never came across before that trip to Aberaeron. Muslims, of course, would not ridicule Islam itself, but there are some popular humour sites by Muslims about Muslims (Maniac Muslim being the best-known).
The fact is that this newspaper printed these cartoons to cause a reaction, and got one. I actually think that if it was just drawings of a face imagined to be that of the Prophet (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) by people unaware of the taboo or how seriously it is taken by Muslims, it would not have caused the offence that it has done; the issue is their defamatory content and the intention behind them. The Danish government could not be expected to impose legal penalties on the paper, as the cartoons are certainly covered by free speech, but could have expressed public disapproval or insisted that his government would not give interviews or otherwise co-operate with them unless they apologised.
I am not in favour of the boycott because of the innocent ordinary people, in Denmark and elsewhere including the UK, it is likely to affect far more than Arla’s bosses. Consider also the Muslims and other traders who make their living selling goods until this week considered perfectly innocent, who bought large quantities of goods which they now cannot sell. No doubt those trading in Indian spices, some of which may have originated in states ruled by Hindu fascists with blood on their hands, are still doing a roaring trade. (Of course, the gunmen now holding up Europeans in Palestine are to be rejected unconditionally; there’s no question about that.) There are a number of forms of legitimate protest which would have got the message through to the newspaper without affecting third parties. But some protest was in order, although I’m not convinced that this was it. It may be true that other religions take insults lighter than we do; that’s their business. The fact that we take this seriously is something for which some Christians actually admire us Muslims. We can take debate; we will not stand for gratuitous insults of this nature.
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- Debate on the cartoons in Prospect
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All this over ink and paper. No one will even remember those cartoons in 10 years.
Making caricatures of us all
When I began writing several hours ago, having just turned off the Six O’Clock News in my car, I was pretty angry. I was foaming about the way Muslims have to react so stupidly every time a red flag is waved in front of us. Just after I became Muslim seven and a half years ago, another convert told me that the action we had taken was a bit like jumping on board a sinking ship. Days like this remind me of his analogy. But I’ve had dinner now and I’ve surfed a few blogs and suddenly noticed that it’s actually very hard to find Muslims saying anything stupid. All I see are the silent images on the BBC.
The cartoons in question were first published four months ago in Denmark, apparently to test the boundaries of freedom of expression. Perhaps Denmark had already established these boundaries when it’s Supreme Court ruled that a supermarket chain had the right to sack a young Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf to work. Of course, we can’t say this; it’s changing the subject. No, the newspaper in question, Jyllands Posten, consulted the Danish theologian Professor Tim Jensen before publishing the cartoons, according to Zaman Online. He responded with the advice that the cartoons should not be published, pointing out that “It will offend Muslims and only cause pointless provocation.” So the newspaper went ahead and published them anyway.
On 20 October 2005, the BBC reported that ambassadors of ten Muslim countries had complained to the Danish prime minister about the newspaper’s cartoons. Then the story disappeared for three months, only to reappear when Arla Foods announced it would have one hundred redundancies after its sales in the Middle East fell to zero. In this bizarre twist to the usual sanctions regime, Danish companies were pleading for a food-for-oil programme. Thus the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, chipped in to criticise the papers that re-ran the cartoons. Why did they re-run the cartoons? Did they, too, need to establish the boundaries? Were they still in doubt? Of course not. Nothing stirs fame like controversy. So away they wave with the red flag.
All day, the BBC has been stirring the story. The Today programme on Radio 4, then the World at One and PM. On the One O’Clock News on BBC1 TV, Darren Jordan introduced the package in sombre mood, we listened as the reporter told us that another clash of cultures, like that seen with the Satanic Verses, “was developing fast”, then Darren turned to the other camera with a smile and told us how to contribute to the debate online. While the sales of Lurpak continued to plummet, a self-righteous media began to fight back, chanting death to the enemies who have no respect for pointless provocation. Calls to boycott Middle Eastern goods quickly faded, however, when it was realised that the only Middle Eastern goods available were oil and stale baklava.
Apparently there has been a massive wave of protest across the Middle East. One involved a group of men pouring lighter fluid over a Danish flag which appeared to be made of tissue paper before setting it alight. In another scene, men whose convictions were so strong that they had to hide their faces beneath scarves surrounded the EU offices in Gaza and fired bullets into the air, gaining prime time airing on the Six O’Clock News and BBC Online. But rolling into Luton, the BBC filmed men walking out of a mosque looking scarily unperturbed. Even the non-Muslim asked for his opinion on the street seemed oblivious to the media frenzy unveiling around him. Unprepared, he stuttered something about nothing and shrugged his shoulders.
Personally I believe there must be better ways to honour our blessed Prophet, peace be upon him, than to violently demand a non-Muslim newspaper observes Islamic principles of not depicting the Prophets. Islam has always prohibited this because it wanted to prevent its followers from taking them as objects of worship down the line. That’s not unreasonable, if you think of the way Iconography has been used in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions of Christianity. But would we not be better off honouring Muhammed, peace be upon him, by living as he lived, trying to curb our anger and observing patience? But then again, that seems to be what Muslims are saying on the blogs I’ve read. Only time will tell, of course; tomorrow’s Jummah and we’ll see if we have a ritual bonfire of tubs of Lurpak in the car park. We’ll see.
On the other hand, the BBC was making much of the democratic right to cause offence in the civilised countries of Western Europe today. Unlike those ignorant, backward Muslims over there with their quaint ways and failure to appreciate satire, Denmark is a land of enlightened souls doing nothing but exploring their boundaries. Yes indeed, Denmark is such a pleasant civilised land that a radio station in Copenhagen had to have its broadcasting licence taken away in August last year after calling for the extermination of Muslims. Whilst exploring the boundaries of freedom of expression, Kaj Wilhelmsen told listeners to Radio Holger: “There are only two possible reactions if you want to stop this bomb terrorism - either you expel all Muslims from Western Europe so they cannot plant bombs, or you exterminate the fanatical Muslims which would mean killing a substantial part of Muslim immigrants.” As Queen Margrethe of Denmark is quoted as saying in her autobiography, it is time to take the challenge of Islam seriously: “We have let this issue float around for too long, because we are tolerant and rather lazy.” You see: we in the civilized West are much too tolerant to behave like those flag-made-of-tissue-burning, sanction-wielding brutes over there.
Sorry if I speak out of turn, but the whole extravaganza reeks of hypocrisy – on all sides.
Meanwhile East Africa is currently suffering from a severe drought, which is threatening to put up to 2.5 million people in Kenya alone at the risk of famine. It might be time to shift our attention in that direction and come up with a positive outcome instead.
Do most people living in the Muslim world actually realize that the paper is a private company, and that the Danish state has absolutely nothing to do with it?
Perhaps since they come from countries where the press is state run, they think these cartoons are endorsed by the Danish government?
Yes, Ben you’re right on the mark. There appears to have been little understanding (willingly or unwillingly) that the Danish government cannot intervene; and rightfully so — we don’t want a state run press and I would have thought many Muslims labouring under oppressive states would appreciate this!
Assalaamu alaikum,
Some Muslim countries have newspapers controlled by the government, and some have newspapers that are free to criticize the government. (In Kuwait, they criticize it all the time, and strongly.)
But Muslims know that governments and the international community do step in when it’s something that THEY find offensive. I saw the Danish Prime Minister trying to explain to Muslims what a free press means, and I found it pretty patronizing. He was saying, “The newspapers even criticize me!” As if we couldn’t imagine such a thing…
The Prime Minister refused to meet with Muslim leaders, but he’s meeting now, and apologizing now. So obviously the boycott works. I’m sorry that so many people only see the guys with guns, but that’s very much the exception and has nothing to do with all of the people who are simply boycotting Danish goods.
I was reading some of the comments on BBC’s “Have Your Say” page, and although I’m a Westerner myself, I hadn’t realized that “free speech” had been raised to such a divine status. It was like: free speech is the most important thing in the world; it’s the sign of a civilized country that you backwards Muslims wouldn’t understand.
But as Yusuf pointed out, these countries don’t have absolute freedom of the press. There are all kinds of restrictions - whether it’s printing unauthorized pictures of the Princes William and Harry (before they became adults), printing racist or anti-semitic or Nazi writings, printing hardcore pornography, printing the names of rape victims or juveniles charged with crimes, etc.
My husband told me that he had heard that Denmark’s Queen had said something about Islam, and I actually didn’t believe him, because I hadn’t heard it in all these months of hearing about this issue. So thanks for that quote, Neurocentric.
Assalaamu alaikum,
Anyway, it seems that many people have died when their ship sank in the Red Sea last night while crossing from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, so for those of you who don’t like all the BBC coverage of the cartoon issue, they’ve switched to coverage of this disaster (well, BBC World at least).
Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun.
assalmu alaykum
“But as Yusuf pointed out, these countries don’t have absolute freedom of the press.”
The government can’t step in. The Danish Prime Minister could have handled the situation better, but he could not have actually done anything to the newspaper or its editor. The limit on free speech would be interpreted and imposed in the courts (I would assume).
And yes, I should have mentioned that many Muslim countries have a very “free” press. Pakistan is a good example; the press is more critical of government than, say, mainstream American media outlets appear to be.
wasalaam
I got so many texts about the 5 Live poll all day. As you said the poll actually closed at midday.
At that time 58% said no we shouldn’t print the cartoons - out of 3,500 votes. During the course of the rest of the day another 45,000 votes were received, clogging up the 5 Live text system.
The State of the Ummah II
Well, in keeping with GMT (Good Muslim Time) I have finally bothered to get around to this. Over 2 months late(r). Sorry to anyone who was really keen on this concept. (I still am!) My apologies, especially to Umm Yasmin,