The Independent once published a cartoon that gravely offended Muslim readers. It happened in the early 1990s when I was editor. The artist had placed some Arabic calligraphy on to a Saudi Arabian flag. Unfortunately it was read as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. Very quickly our offices were picketed by distressed Muslims. I went out to apologize for inadvertently causing them distress and, very luckily, that was that. No brush fire of angry protests developed. No British embassies were attacked. But I had learned the hard way something about the sensibilities of Muslims I hadn’t known before.
So as I now go through the events that have led to demonstrations of Muslim outrage across the world, looking for where we can learn from the mistakes made, I do so with sympathy for both sides. I feel for the editors of the Danish newspaper who started the conflagration, for I once myself caused a small fire. And I perfectly understand Muslim emotions because when the sacred images of Christianity such as the Last Supper or the Crucifixion are mocked in plays or films or used in advertising, I also feel offended and distressed.
The match was lit by the editors of Jyllands-Posten who had noted that a local comedian said he didn’t dare make fun of the Qur’an. At the same time a Danish author who had written a children’s book about the Prophet Muhammad found that illustrators insisted on working anonymously. The editors saw this as self-censorship and decided to administer an antidote by publishing 12 cartoons that not only actually portrayed the Prophet, itself a taboo for Muslims, but showed him as a man of terror and violence.
Newspapers should indeed expose self-censorship where they find it, though they should remember they are often guilty themselves in relation to the interests of their owners. Newspapers should also, at all times, respect their readers, and this includes not offending them unless the cause is of overwhelming importance.
In its early days, The Independent published a picture of a French businessman gunned down in the streets of Paris, his corpse lying uncovered on the pavement, his blood running down into the gutter. I placed the image on the front page to make a point — that this is what life has come to. But I received extensive criticism from readers, many of them worried that their children would see the gore. I took note.
In the case of the Jyllands-Posten, I believe their editors should have found another means of highlighting self-censorship. However, they did what they did. And what happened next made matters worse. Some angry letters were sent to the editor but then, a few weeks later, two of the artists received death threats. Some 5,000 Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen. And diplomats from Islamic states complained to the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Here is the second turning point. A wise government could have found a way of calming the situation without in any way compromising press freedom or weakening the norms of mutual tolerance. But at the time the prime minister refused to meet the Islamic representatives. Later Rasmussen issued an apology, as did the editor of the Jyllands-Posten.
Too late. What happened next, the third turning point, I still find puzzling. On Jan. 10, a Norwegian publication that proclaims Christian values carried a selection of the cartoons. This seems knuckle-headed.
Surely a Christian magazine should be preaching respect for the sacred rather than caricaturing the founder of a major religion. Nonetheless the Norwegian example was followed by a number of daily newspapers on the continent. They convinced themselves that they were fighting a major battle for press freedom.
I take the words attributed to Roger Koppel, editor of Die Welt, as representative: “The fact that a European — one of us — had caved in was for us the trigger to say that this was a really important story.” Caving in was a reference to the belated Danish apologies. Koppel went on: “It is at the core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire. We also know that moral double standards sometimes guide certain reactions in the Arab world. If we stop using our right to the freedom of expression within our legal boundaries then we start to develop an appeasement mentality.”
Unlike Koppel, I see a difference between subjecting sacred things to criticism, which I accept, and to subjecting them to laughter and satire, which I don’t. For example, when I was president of the British Board of Film Classification, the American film Dogma, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, came in for examination. Its mixture of religion, swearing, drugs and abortion had attracted a lot of criticism from Roman Catholics in the United States. I found the film thoughtful, and had no problem with its wicked satire of institutional stuffiness and abuses. It didn’t sneer at the sacred. It was passed at “15”, uncut, and categorized as “black comedy.” There was no adverse reaction.
Why have no British newspapers followed the continental examples and published the offensive cartoons? Partly because we don’t see our European neighbors as being next door. Ideas and movements of opinion have to jump the Channel. Moreover, we have no tradition of anticlericalism, which is purely a continental phenomenon derived from the revolutions of the 19th century that dismantled the privileges and political power of the Catholic Church.
Nor do we have a far-right political party of substance generating resentment and hatred of ethnic communities as do our neighbors.
I won’t give up an inch of press freedom and I will join whatever protests and take whatever actions are required to defend it. But I don’t think that this is the point so far as the Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons is concerned. Rather I think it should be a principle of civilized society that the sacred in religion is respected. I don’t wish the law to enforce this principle, rather I hope that such respect just becomes a feature of a tolerant society.
The decision by the BBC some months ago to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera was a test. I haven’t seen it, but it apparently depicts Jesus in a very poor light.
In this context, television is in a different situation from theaters and cinemas. For when you go to see a play or a film, you have informed yourself of what kind of production you are going to see and won’t buy a ticket if you think you might find the show distasteful. But free television is different: In showing Jerry Springer: The Opera, the BBC was being just as disrespectful of its Christian viewers as continental newspapers were of their Muslim readers.
In my ideal society, that wouldn’t happen.
