About a year ago I was interviewed by one of Denmark’s veteran broadcasters and was surprised at just how upbeat and buoyant he was about Arabs and Muslims in general. A while after the program had been aired I happened to meet a lovely couple from the Danish Embassy who spoke very highly of the documentary and how it served to portray Saudi Arabia in a positive light. They described how thrilled they were to be living in this fascinating country and how much they had learned from being here.
When news broke about those outrageous cartoons appearing in Jyllands-Posten, I was appalled beyond belief. It conjured up memories of when “The Satanic Verses” had first been published and the violent reactions that had been inspired as a result of this unwarranted attack. I was working with a journalist from The Times during my year off and, quite ironically, had met Salman Rushdie in a bookshop a few days before the riots.
I had read some books by him before, but was embarrassed to admit to him that I hadn’t even heard of his No. 1 bestseller and was mortified when he asked me to purchase a copy crippled in the knowledge that I only had a few pound coins jingling around in my bag that would be just about enough to get me back home.
“You must read it,” he insisted boring holes through me with the weight of his gaze. “I would like to know what you think of it, so tell me. OK?”
I nodded stupidly hoping that he would not ascribe my reluctance to my thinly veiled penury and resolved to buy the book the very next day. By then it was too late as there had been a run on the bookshops and it was sold out.
What followed was a massive polarization of opinion and I clearly remember just how terribly Islam had been depicted even then, prior to the era of Bin Laden and the concomitant indiscriminate Muslim-bashing that followed. We would watch impotently as images of men with long beards donning ethnic dress would be burning copies of the book and effigies of the author. Seasoned reporters would ask, “Have you read the book?” and all that would be chanted in heavily accented reply would be, “Kill Rushdie! Burn the book!”
Of course they hadn’t read it. Even though I had enjoyed reading “Midnight’s Children,” I struggled through the first couple of chapters of the new novel, which I found to be bland, confusing and really not worth the paper they were written on. However, the author had capitalized on a great deal of sensationalism in order to sell his work and had injured and inflamed a sizable amount of the world’s population in the bargain. Several lives were lost in the aftermath while the author remained alive and well watching his coffers swell with the proceeds of his incitement.
He banked on the elusive concept of “freedom of speech” and cashed in on how Islam and its practitioners were supposedly against this right. I remember seeing full-page ads in The Times and other broadsheets with almost a hundred writers backing Rushdie after the Ayatollah’s fatwa had been announced.
If there was to be a silver lining to this cloud then it came in the form of reasonable minded individuals like Roald Dahl who wrote about how there was an inextricable link between exercising the liberty to express oneself without infringing upon the civil rights of others.
Recently I was requested to provide my opinion on the cartoons for an international publication. I gave the journalist a comprehensive history of Islam and its traditions and asked her why it was that certain sectors of society were immune from the whole issue of “freedom of the press”.
“Personally,” I told her, “I would think that the same thing applied to any religion would be distasteful, hurtful and inappropriate. What, hypothetically would happen, if such cartoons had been used to depict the Holocaust? I have many Jewish friends and would be equally vociferous in condemning this.”
“Yes. I agree with you,” she said. “But I mean I really want to know why you think it is so offensive?” she asked.
“I wonder whether it is conceivable for anyone who’s not a Muslim to begin to understand the extreme love, affection and admiration that we have for the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)? Imagine the love you have for your parents or your children. Try to combine that love altogether and multiply it by a huge factor,” I explained.
“Oh,” she replied sounding a little more convinced. “I think I’ve got it now.”
“So I’d assume you’d feel insulted if someone drew such disgusting caricatures of your family in the newspaper, right? And this man, Muhammad (peace be upon him) unilaterally embodies our faith. I don’t know whether you would give up your life to defend someone very dear to you, but that’s how Muslims feel toward their Prophet. I think I am a fairly open-minded person. I don’t think that you could describe me as an extremist in any shape or form, but when this whole thing started I was livid. I would guard the honor of my Prophet with my life. I don’t think violence is a solution, but I do think that it is important that we have the right to be protected from this kind of filth and degradation.” Minutes after the piece was published on the website, it was pulled. A new interpretation of what the Americans perceive to be “Freedom of Speech” perhaps?
It wasn’t until I received an e-mail yesterday from my Danish colleague expressing horror at the irresponsible provocation of this “right-wing” newspaper that I remembered the wonderful Danes I had come across.
As Muslims, I am glad that for once we have made a concerted united effort to display our contempt and agony over such a flagrant disregard of our right to respect. I think that exerting our economic clout is more effective and acceptable than applying brute force. However, I hope that we can also bear in mind that we have suffered enough from being tarred by the same brush as that used to depict the hijackers of 9/11 and the terrorists and zealots among us who have used the ruse of religion to further their own dark ends. Yes, there are elements in Denmark that have wounded our sensibilities, but there are also many Danes who are as appalled as we are by what has gone on. Punishing an entire society for the callous actions of a few is no different to what we have been subjected to in recent times.
— Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.
