Why insulting prophet Muhammad?!

A 'dangerous moment' for Europe and Islam


By Alan Cowell The New York Times

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2006


LONDON As Islamic protests grew against the publication in Europe of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, a small Arab movement active in Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark responded with a drawing on its Web site of Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Write this one in your diary, Anne," Hitler was shown as saying. 
The intent of the cartoon, the Arab European League said, was "to use our right to artistic expression" just as the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten did when it published a group of cartoons showing Muhammad last September. "Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not religious sacred cows," said Dyab Abou Jahjah, the founder of the organization, which claims rights for immigrants aggressively but without violence.  
Such contrasts have produced a worrisome sense that the conflict over the cartoons has pushed both sides across an unexpected threshold, where they view each other with miscomprehension and suspicion.  
"This feels to me like a defining moment," said Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor of European history. "It is a crunch time for Europe and Islam," he said, "it is an extremely dangerous moment," one that could lead to "a downward spiral of mutual perceptions, and not just between extremists." 
As often violent protests against the cartoons and attacks on Danish diplomatic missions have spread to the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, some Europeans have come to realize that relatively small Muslim minorities - 3 percent of the population in Britain, 4 percent in Denmark, and around 5 percent in the European Union as a whole - wield a hitherto untapped power from across the Islamic world. 
"No longer is the issue merely that of belittling an immigrant group," wrote Jürgen Gottschlich, a German journalist based in Istanbul. "Just as there are heroes of free speech in Denmark, there are also heroes - from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa to Indonesia - who are ready to take to the barricades to defend their prophet's dignity." 
Ibrahim Magdy, a 39-year-old Egyptian Coptic Christian who runs a florist business in Rome, said, "The problem now is that when you say something or do something you are not just talking to the Egyptians or to the Syrians or to the Saudis, but you are talking to the entire Muslim world." 
For some people in Europe, the cartoons precipitated a profound debate about freedom of expression and the supposed double standards that affect Muslims and Christians at many levels in Europe. For others, the spreading protest against the cartoons signified a hardening of extremes that left little room for moderate voices. "The moderate Muslim has again been effectively silenced," said Tabish Khair, a professor of English at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. 
For decades European nations have wrestled with an influx of immigrants who came for economic and political reasons primarily from lands where Islam is the dominant faith. Many Muslim immigrants feel they have never been fully welcomed. 
But the catalogue of Islamic terror - from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States to the March 2004 bombings in Madrid and the July 2005 London attacks - has challenged governments and societies to distinguish between moderates and such extremists as the four British-born Muslims who killed themselves and 52 other people in the attacks on London's transport system. 
Ostensibly, said Garton Ash, the clash has pitted two sets of values against one another - freedom of expression and multiculturalism - with the latter demanded of societies in which Muslim immigrant populations, initially seen as a temporary labor force in the 1960s, have become permanent and expanding. 
But beyond that, there is a seething resentment among some Muslims that they are treated as second-class citizens and potential terrorists in lands that deny the importance of their faith, even though the number of Muslims in Europe totals 20 million, and possibly many more. 
"If you have black hair it is really difficult to find a job," said Muhammad Elzjahim, 22, a construction worker of Palestinian descent whose parents moved to Denmark when he was 2 and who said he studied dental engineering for three and a half years only to find that "it was for nothing because I couldn't find a job in my field." 
That mistrust is mirrored by a gnawing sense among some Europeans that their plump welfare states have come to host an unwelcome minority that does not share their values and may even represent a fifth column of potential insurgents, who project themselves as the victims of Islamophobia and discrimination in housing, jobs and social status. 
"The radicals don't want an agreement, they don't want the round table," said Rainer Mion, 44, an insurance agent in Berlin. "What they want is to spread their Islamic beliefs all over the world."  
Giulio Cordese, 50, a salesman in an Italian delicatessen in Berlin, added: "We have to make a point here. Personally, I would expel all Muslims in the concerned countries. Because they simply don't accept democratic rules here." 
But that goes to the core of the debate: Which rules apply to which people?  
In London on Tuesday, Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian cleric who is also wanted in the United States on terrorism charges, was sentenced to seven years for incitement to murder in public speeches. Five days earlier, Nick Griffin, head of the hard-right and anti-immigrant British National Party, was acquitted on race hate charges relating to alleged assaults on Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith." 
The different outcomes provoked fresh accusations that British justice - like British society, by this argument - discriminates against Muslims. "We seem to have different standards when we deal with these issues from different communities," said Massoud Shadjareh, head of London's Islamic Human Rights Commission. 
Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons, insisted in an interview last week that his interest in publishing them lay solely in asserting the right to free speech over religious taboos. 
"When Muslims say you are not showing respect, I would say: you are not asking for my respect, you are asking for my submission," he said. 
That apprehension was echoed in an editorial in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad that said: "In America, few people fear that they will have to live according to the norms of Islam. In European countries, with a large or growing Muslim minority, there is a real fear that behind the demand for respect hides another agenda: the threat that everyone must adjust to the rules of Islam." 
In response, some fear that it is European values and freedoms that are under direct threat.  
In 2000, Islamic pressure was held responsible in the Netherlands and Belgium for the cancellation of an opera about Aisha, the youngest wife of Muhammad. In 2005, a Moroccan-Dutch painter, Rachid Ben Ali, went into hiding after death threats related to an exhibit showing "hate-imams" spitting bombs. And in 2004 the filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed for committing what his confessed killer called blasphemy in a film called "Submission" about violence against Muslim women. 
In the Netherlands, where the population of 16 million includes a million Muslims, some people have taken to wondering whether their secular values can guarantee social peace. 
In earlier periods of European history, NRC Handelsblad said,  
"a small religious dispute could lead to large- or small-scale wars. The Muslim immigration has thrown Europe back to the religious conflicts of the past." 
In Britain, some analysts argue that the government of Tony Blair has shown itself ready to promote self-censorship when dealing with Islamic extremism in the interests of averting further terrorist attacks. 
"Islam is protected by an invisible blasphemy law," said Jasper Gerard, a columnist in The Sunday Times of London. "It is called fear." 
In some assessments, the situation rewards those at the extremes. "Islamic fundamentalists and European right-wingers both enjoy a veritable gift that can be used to ignite fire after fire," said Janne Haaland-Matlary, professor of international relations and former deputy foreign minister of Norway.  
In Germany, the memory of Nazism has ensured a degree of caution.  
"We must de-escalate the situation," said Ayyub Axel Koehler, a converted Muslim who heads the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. "It might be easier to do that in Germany than in other countries. This is an experience we've had in Germany before, so we understand the dangers."  
 
 
Reporting was contributed by Marlise Simons in Paris; Mark Landler and Petra Kappl in Frankfurt; Victor Homola and Sarah Plass in Berlin; Renwick McLean in Madrid; Elisabetta Povoledo in Milan; Peter Kiefer in Rome; and Ivar Ekman in Copenhagen. 
 

 
.Will The next battleground be in Europe?

Answered that now in the thread you posted in: link

Well, well have to disagree there then.

If you say something stupid, and I tell you, "that was a stupid thing to say", I am not eroding your "freedom of speech".

Not in any world I can imagine.

In fact, I am exercising mine.

Thats where Hamza Al-Looni-Fundie and FreeDuck or I are different. Al-Looni-Fundi wants the Jylland-Posten shut down, burnt down, wants the government to intervene. Thats an attack against press freedom.

We are saying that newspaper was stupid. Thats merely exercising our own freedom of speech. Media are no more above all criticism than any other institution. Not in war either.


I see that Lash is back into black-and-white-mode: either they are innocent as saints, or they are the ones to blame (and not the fundies). And everyone who says anything in between is capitulating.

Cant argue with that logic. I mean, literally can't; nothing to argue with, no use.

Its a non-sequitur.

They went out of their way to offend - and just to make a point. That was terribly self-serving. All the more so because it was a point about something (a childrens book writer cant find an illustrator) that isnt exactly of the kind of world-shaking urgency that would justify offending lots of people. This is all still wholly aside from the predictable global uproar.

So, two things involved: a matter of principle and decency, and a strategic matter.

1) My affinity is mostly with the first one. I just dont think its nice, kind, social, polite or responsible to go out of your way to offend a sizable group of fellow-citizens - just to make a point. I dont think it should be forbidden, but I do think, personally, that its stupid. I think if we're all gonna live together, we should take the responsibility for not hurting each other when there's no overriding reason to do so.

At the moment, last Autumn, when Jylland-Posten decided to run a Mohammed-with-a-bomb cartoon, there was no such overriding reason wheresoever to be seen. Now is different; now I easily see the point in republishing them in order to defend press freedom against those who now want to shut it down altogether. But the point then was to - what? Show those Danish Muslims that - neena neena - 'you're just too irrational about this, haha, see!'?

Its like - you live next to devout Christians, and they dont sport on Sunday, dont bicycle, dont make music - weve got those still in Holland. To then move around like a mouse in your own house too is letting them determine your life, not good. But I also see no reason to put your ghettoblaster on the fence between the two houses playing Bon Jovi. Thats just anti-social. <shrugs>

2) Oh yeah, the second reason. This is more the one that you would have a point about, but its been put forward often enough as well. Thats the not-so-principled-but-merely-strategic-one. Its about picking your fights.

Weve got so much **** to solve in the West and the Middle East, in the way the two affect each other. Iraq. Iran. Democracy. Fundamentalists winning every election they are allowed in. Nukes. Israel. Al-Qaeda. Terrorist attacks all over the place. So much high-tension, high-risk, high-voltage contentions, and now some Danish editor decided to throw a firebomb in the middle in order to trigger a debate about satire and the Prophet?!

Well, thats very high-minded and principled, but also kinda reckless. Again, this is a realpolitik consideration and wholly separate from the one above, and this is the one you do have a point against when arguing principles. But it does have a core of common sense in it; dont even think Rice and Bush are at all happy with this unwelcome 'support' for the Western cause. It potentially sets all the other, far more important, contentions back for miles again.

My God I actually agree with something here. And I'm sure we can agree that while we do not want insults forbidden, thats exactly what the Muslims want .

I don't think so. They are not even close to the same thing. Nobody here is saying that a woman who is raped who also dressed provocatively deserves it, though one might say that it is stupid to dress provocatively in an environment that is known to be hostile. That's not the same as saying she "deserved" it.

I'm saying that their intent was to offend and provoke. And that intent is worthy of censure, especially when and where the cartoons were published.

The rest of your post was more or less answered by nimh, and better than I could answer, so I'll just ride on his coattails.

It was not their intention to provoke. It was their intention to demostrate they would not self-censor because of threats, real or imagined. And even if it was their intention to offend and provoke, as a newspaper, they had every legal professional and moral right to do so.

You're talking out of your rear orifice again, Brandon.

Maybe that's being a bit unkind. I tell you what I'll do.....I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

Go back and read my FIRST post (the one you are referring to in the above quote box....you'll find that FIRST post on page 23, as I have already told you)......and then come back here and tell me how that ONLY criticised the Danes, eh?

Show everyone how bright you can be if you try.

Oh, just in case you can't find page 23, Brandon....here's a little link for you.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=68375&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=220

That might be. But it really is funny that the right-wing press, like here Jyllands Posten, or some other of the extreme left, exercise this right mostly exclusively in some 'delicate' situations.

You see, the conservative 'Welt' printed those cartoons here as well.
But they don't even report about some modern plays, because the think it's blashemia. Towards Christianity that is.

It's certainly their right to do so.

I've already said more than once that they had every right to publish them. But their intent was pretty clearly to offend and provoke, and I personally think that was stupid, among other things. If you're speaking of those papers that republished them after all the hubbub, then I agree with your characterisation of their intent and I have no problem with them.

Worthy of censure yes but not censor… and even that not officially. I find the intent or stupidity aspect rather beside the point since someone will always push the proverbial envelope. Regardless of how stupid or inappropriately dressed a rape victim may be; does that really provide any degree of defense for the rapist? I think not. The ACLU has a rich history of defending envelope pushers, with good reason. Protection of repugnant, censure-worthy speech is absolutely essential if you value the freedom at all. These cartoons are only the tip of the iceberg of unpopular speech. They could be a hell of a lot worse and the cartoonist and publisher would still be eminently worthy of a steadfast defense.

Make that "what the more radical Muslims who are now protesting", and yeah sure, I agree with you.

Been plenty of Muslims who are not calling for such prohibitions too: see here and here for anothr four examples just randomly plucked from whats already been posted here or there on these threads. But it just doesnt seem to get registered.

Yeah, if you read back a bit you'll see that I don't disagree. The subject has been brought back up while the original discussion is several pages back so it's easy to get the impression that I'm advocating censor and not censure, but I'm not. And I agree that it's not the point if we are talking about defending rioters, which not one single person here has done to my knowledge. But if we're talking about understanding the situation (as the subject line of the topic implies), then it matters.



That's about the extent of my thoughts.

Make that "what the more radical Muslims who are now protesting, a load more who coulkdn't get to the demos on time, and a fair few more who agree with what they are doing, but like to appear as moderate" and yeah sure, I agree with both of you.

Nobody here is defending the equivalent of the "rapist" here - nobody is defending the zealots and rabble-rousers burning embassies in Beirut or strapping fake bombs on them in London!

Nobody!



They're wrong! Bad, bad guys! Boo!

All-right?! Jeesus ...

Now, does that by definition mean that Jyllands-Posten was not, in its turn, stupid, purposefully rude, or recklessly irresponsible?

I appreciate and sympathize with the points Nimh made, but do not believe that the published cartoons in question were - in terms of the message they conveyed - in any way justification for the Moslem outrage - and violent actions - that followed.

The cartoon associated Islam with the bombings and the violence that Islamist fanatics have inflicted on the West in the name of fundamentalist Islam. This association is not only real, it is obvious and well known. It is fair game for political and social commentary and the expressions of this in newspapers.

The social and economic difficulties faced by Moslem immigrants in Europe are real enough and to some degree they are undoubtedly the fault of the European host countries - government and people. However, it is also true that these challenges are generally faced, also to some degree, by immigrants of all kinds everywhere. Ultimately assimilation must be the end state for both host and immigrant - and both must adapt. However it is plain for all to see that, in spite of the evident failures, the European states are more welcoming and accepting of Moslem immigrants and their culture than are the Moslem states they left behind to European and Western culture. The word for this is hypocrisy. In this case I believe the hypocrisy is mostly Islamic.

Yup, mine too, pretty much.

And I'd like to add that that goes, in fact, less far than the "compromise" Steve came to in the end, in the other thread, after all this harangueing of apologetism:


I myself wouldnt even have said "duty", but yeah, that was pretty much (more than) all that folks like FD and I argued from the start ....

I am aware there are "moderate" muslims (a term I find difficult, either you are a muslim or not, surely) but for want of a better term...who deplore the violence of a few and who are deeply hurt that their religion's good name is being dragged into disrepute. I actually feel sorry for them. (And although I might think them stupid for believing such a load of nonsense, I wouldnt say so directly). The trouble is these people are not in control. They are not making the running. The militants have hijacked muslim airways and ordinary muslim passengers are going to get hurt.

Me either. I think the American view of free speech is pretty broad and one that I agree with. We wouldn't agree with laws that make it illegal to deny the holocaust. The KKK is allowed to assemble in public. The more offensive, the more protected, IMO. We're allowed to say stupid, cruel, provocative and offensive things. But with that right comes accountability. Others are allowed to call us stupid, cruel and offensive. I wish the protest had taken a different form and was targeted solely at the offending paper. Sadly that's not the case.