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Danish Cartoon Related Editorials
Bodman on Freedom of Respect
Whitney Bodman, Ass't Professor of Comparative Religion Austin at Presbyterian Theological Seminary
February 8, 2006
"Freedom of respect"
Whatever else the furor about the Danish cartoons is about, it is not about freedom of speech. Of course, Danish newspapers are free to publish political cartoons that caricature the prophet Muhammad. Of course, Arabic newspapers are free to publish anti-Semitic cartoons. Of course, Israeli newspapers are free to publish anti-Arab cartoons. And American newspapers are, of course, free to publish any of the above. But unless we take legality as the measure of morality, there are further considerations, most importantly, whether it serves the larger community of discourse.
Fleming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, claims that his target was self-censorship, the unwillingness of artists to provide illustrations of Muhammad, as if self-censorship is a bad thing. It could be called “judgment.” But there are plenty of pictures of Muhammad in the Muslim world. The issue here is the derision of Muhammad - misrepresentation, not representation. It should be noted that Rose has refused cartoons of Jesus.
The whole affair of the Danish cartoons exists in a larger polemical context. One has only to surf the blogosphere to see that much of the anger being expressed on both sides derives from 9/11, suicide bombers, Abu Ghraib, the occupation of Palestine, the threat to Israel and the larger tensions between the West and the Muslim world. In Europe, they are also a surrogate for the issue of Muslim immigration. The cartoons are another occasion to assert a clash of civilizations, a confrontation of values and irreconcilable differences. It is clear that many urging wider publication of the cartoons do so out of the desire to punish the Muslim world. It is equally clear that many of the riots in the Muslim world, some of them far from spontaneous, are efforts to punish the West for far more than a few cartoons.
Each side is guilty of vast generalization. Far, far more Muslims went about their daily business with a pain in their hearts than burned European Consulates. More protests were peaceful than violent. One might compare this to the reaction to the brutal murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004. Then it was the Dutch that protested and vandalized mosques and schools. Except it wasn't "the Dutch," it was a few people. Most Dutch went about their business with the deep pain in their hearts. Though the blogosphere shows a fair number of people with a truly vindictive spirit, what will never make the headlines is the many in the West who understand the degree of offense that Muslims feel.
But it is also arguable that there is much here that most of us cannot understand. The West, insofar as one can generalize, is characterized by a Protestant ethos, which does not sacralize things or people. We used that term "saint" quite loosely, such that the concept of one person revered so deeply that criticism is powerfully offensive is unfamiliar. In the Protestant tradition, what is holy is transcendent and abstract, and hence difficult to cartoon. This does not stop many from being offended when Jesus is caricatured, but in our society this has, perhaps unfortunately, become a cultural commonplace,. There is not much that is holy in the West. We generally do not cartoon and mock Jews and blacks, but this is a consideration of politics, not of holiness.
This is not true in much of the rest of the world, and specifically in the Muslim world where concepts of reverence and holiness have far more purchase in the social arena. Not only is Muhammad not caricatured, but Jesus and Moses are also off limits. The question then becomes to what degree should those in Western society respect the cultural sensitivities of those in other societies, choosing, rather than be required, not to offend. If one wants to offend the Muslim world, it is not hard to do. Clearly there are many who wish to do so, but their real targets ought to be not all Muslims everywhere, but some Muslims who are clearly guilty of egregious and horrific acts of brutality. So the question becomes for us, how can we aim our clever and incisive criticism at its proper targets? Usama bin Laden, Ahmadinejad and other contemporaries are fair game. To aim the barb at Muhammad misses the mark quite substantially.
The Muslim world clearly has an image problem. So does the West. Hurling insults at one another does nothing to resolve it.
Haaretz on Dueling Racisms
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 18:21 06/02/2006
The New Anti-Semitism, cartoon division
By Bradley Burston
Monday, 6 February (50 days to election day)
One thing that all journalists know is how to hurt people.
The good ones know how to avoid it, and do, refraining from racism, steering clear of character assassinations of private individuals.
The bad ones hurt people inadvertently, through breaches of professional ethics.
The worst, a group which can include some of the best known, do it on purpose. And of these, no one can hurt so many people all at once, as a cartoonist.
In sheer destructive potential, few elements of journalism can hold a candle to the hateful cartoon. The fact that the virulently anti-Semitic caricatures of the Nazi Der Sturmer weekly still circulate on neo-Nazi Websites more than 70 years after they were drawn, testifies to their power and longevity.
Of late, a new breed of anti-Semitic caricature has begun to circulate through Europe, an indication, perhaps, of a new breed of anti-Semitism. But the Semites, in this case, are not Jews.
The message of a number of the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a variety of derogatory caricatures is roughly this: Most Muslims are Arabs, and most Arabs are potential suicide bombers.
The message is obscene. It is racist. It dishonors the bedrock spiritual beliefs of one of every six people on the entire planet. In that sense, it also profanes the right of freedom of speech, distorting it into the freedom to foster hatred.
Correctly, many rabbis have expressed their disgust at the cartoons. "I share the anger of Muslims following this publication," French Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk said. "I understand the hostility in the Arab world. One does not achieve anything by humiliating religion. It's a dishonest lack of respect."
Said the chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sachs, "The only way to have freedom of speech and freedom from religious hatred is to exercise restraint. The question is: can we learn to respect what others hold holy?"
Still, when it came time to discuss a double standard in press freedoms, there were more than a few Muslim commentators who could not resist the opportunity to stick it to the Jews.
"In the West, one discovers there are different moral ceilings, and all moral parameters and measures are not equal," the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat wrote.
"If the Danish cartoon had been about a Jewish rabbi, it would never have been published."
As the case spiraled from outrage to arson this week, a surreal test case presented itself. The Arab European League, a Dutch-Belgian Islamic political group, posted a cartoon on its Website portraying Anne Frank, the best-known Dutch victim of the Nazi Holocaust, in bed with Adolf Hitler. A second cartoon questioned whether the Holocaust had actually taken place.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, the party's founder and best-known figure, defended the action on Dutch television, again arguing on the basis of a double standard.
"Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not religious sacred cows," he said.
This might well be the time to point out that a double standard can cut two ways.
Everyone who lives in the Middle East knows that one reason for the longevity of the hideous Jew-baiting cartoons of Der Sturmer, is the popularity of hideous Jew-baiting cartoons in popular publications in places like Cairo, Damascus, and Gaza City. Some of the same places, that is, where outrage over the Danish cartoons boiled over into violence, torching embassies, and death threats.
True, everyone here teaches hatred. We do. Our Muslim cousins do. But there's a serious lesson for all of us to learn in the cartoon affair. You don't fight fire with arson. You don't redress one newspaper's insult to an entire religion by burning the flag, profaning the symbol, of an entire people. You do not restore honor to Islam and its prophet by demonstrating in Knightsbridge, London, dressed as a suicide bomber, or carrying a banner reading "Butcher those who mock Islam."
It is right and proper to blame the people who are to blame. There is another name for blaming all members of a group for the actions of a few. It is racism. Surely the fact that you are the victim of racism, does not mean that you are immune from practicing it.
I believe that Berlin's Die Welt was wrong and hurtful in re-printing one of the Danish cartoons. But I cannot but agree with the comment that accompanied it.
"We'd take Muslim protests more seriously if they weren't so hypocritical," Die Welt wrote.
"The imams were quiet when Syrian television showed Jewish rabbis as cannibals in a prime-time series."
(I would like to comment that the article in some ways argues against itself when it quotes Die Welt and the example of the Syrian tv show. The author was just making a point about there are people who do this sort of thing on purpose. They are not the entirety of the Jewish People, they are not the entirety of the Muslim umma, etc. And yet, he ends on a line that implicates the entirety of the Muslim umma with those who should be criticised. Just goes to show how hard it is to be scrupulously ethical in this for all of us).
Edward Miller of the Jewish Weekly on Mutual Respect
Jewish Weekly (02/10/2006) The Respect Of A Cousin Edward Miller
After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad were republished in European newspapers, riots erupted in Damascus, Gaza, Beirut and elsewhere throughout the Muslim world. The violence is an extreme manifestation of the deep hurt felt by virtually all Muslims.
As we condemn the violence on the streets, perhaps we should take a moment to understand the hurt in the hearts of the great majority of Muslims who did not engage in violence.
For Muslims, the mere rendering of an image of Muhammad is sacrilege. The portrayal of Muhammad in a pejorative fashion is to them an inconceivably offensive desecration, on the level of what would be for us the defilement of a Torah scroll. Because it was done in newspapers across Europe, it was a slap in the face repeated thousands of times.
Perhaps it's a question of respect, not freedom. Freedom of expression theoretically protects the right of a non-Jew to desecrate a Torah scroll. Yet we would all view freedom of expression as a hollow defense to such a vile act.
Some say Muslims can't take criticism and simply don't understand freedom of the press. In my own limited experience, that has not been the case. For the past year I've written a column in a Muslim newspaper, Muslims Weekly, in which I've criticized suicide bombing, the treatment of Jews under Islamic rule, the anti-Jewish rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and even Muslims Weekly's own reporting about Israel. But it was all done with respect, an informed appreciation of the wonderful benefits that Islam conferred upon the Jewish people, along with a willingness to look at our own imperfections together with those of the other.
Regardless of whether or not the European press was constitutionally free to publish the offensive images, the act was a blatant and vulgar act of disrespect to Islam. Such insults no doubt contribute to the frightening specter of a clash of civilizations.
What can we do as Jews to lessen the hostilities? Perhaps, just perhaps, a little respect would help. Rather than ripping the wounds wider with editorial musings extolling freedom of speech and condemning violent protests, is it not time for a bit of healing?
The pages of this Jewish newspaper present a place for a small start by showing Muslims right here that though we too have the freedom to say anything we like, we choose to convey respect to our Muslim cousins. Printing something positive about Muhammad best does this.
There is a space between romanticizing the past and vilifying it. There is a time to focus on the dark side of history and a time to view the other in the best light. There is a time to cull from our rabbinic writings the good our sages saw in Islam and there is quite a bit of such sentiment recorded. We Jews need to learn to be more flexible, pursuing the claims of Jews expelled from Arab countries and criticizing anti-Jewish TV programs and cartoons in the Muslim media, while at the same time displaying gratitude for all the good Islam did for us. There is a time to jump over our pain and see the humanity of the other. That time is now. Let us start:
There is a Hadith (oral tradition concerning the words and works of Muhammad) recorded by Bukhari in the name of Amer Bin Rabiha that reads as follows:
"A funeral procession passed us and the Prophet stood up for it. We said, `but Prophet of God, this is a funeral of a Jew.' The Prophet responded, `rise.' "
One can search the writings of the ancient non-Jewish world for a more powerful example of a public display of respect for the humanity of the Jew. There simply is no more powerful statement than the single word uttered by Muhammad nearly 14 centuries ago.
Some readers will bombard this newspaper with reams of material showing a darker side to Islam, as if it were just too much for them to hear one good thing. But it is there, it is a sacred part of their tradition, it is good and we should hear it and respect it.
When you give respect you get it. When you take criticism, you earn the right to give it. Perhaps this article will be republished in Muslim newspapers, compete with its critical comments about the pain we feel in the face of anti-Jewish cartoons and worse in Muslim media. Muslim readers may come to understand that an article by a Jew, in a Jewish newspaper, was one of respect, telling its audience: "We know that the one mocked in newspapers in Europe is the one who had the humanity to tell his companions to rise for the funeral procession of a Jew."
Edward Miller, a local attorney, is active in efforts to reconcile Jews and Muslims.
