The Danish government last week apologized to Outer Mongolia.
Well, not quite. But since the apology was extended to “all Muslims,” and Outer Mongolia has a substantial number of people who embrace Islam as their faith, it may as well have.
The apology came in the wake of those now infamous cartoons in the country’s newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, depicting the Prophet (peace be upon him) in various offensive postures, which were later reprinted by other European papers, allegedly to make a point about the sanctity of freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression is indeed sacrosanct, and the illustrative effusions of a political cartoonist are as much a function of good journalism as those of his textual counterpart. But the first thing a budding journalist learns in Journalism 101 is that a news story, or a news image, is governed by its newsworthiness. Does it have news value, relevance to the objective world it is reporting or commenting on, or is it motivated by a mean-spirited intent to defame? Does it go beyond satire into the realm of racial stereotyping, contributing to the demonization of a community in the eyes of another, and the hardening of the cultural divide among groups of different ethnic, spiritual and racial backgrounds?
That’s why we have editors looking over our shoulders, not to censor our work but to make sure that freedom of expression is not abused, that it is not license to publish, in this case, tasteless and inflammatory cartoons depicting the Prophet of Islam in a pejorative manner.
The editor of H.L. Mencken let slide the uppity journalist’s observation that “you can’t go wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” but no self-respecting, professional editor would have done the same were an article by, say, David Duke, the southern supremacist, to come his way claiming that blacks are an inferior species of men.
Not only Muslims, but people of other faiths as well have in the past reacted viscerally when they felt that their religious sensibility was debased, cheapened or demeaned in textual, cinematic or artistic depictions. Jews, for example, were offended by Mel Gibson’s “The Passions of the Christ,” a kind of Marquis de Sade version of the Bible, with more blood and gore in it than your local butcher shop, released last year.
In 1988, Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” offended Christians because it showed Christ, at his execution, as being tempted by a lustful image of a life on earth with Mary Magdelene instead of the sacrifice he should make. Catholics were incensed at a showing of “Popetown.” Sikhs recently stormed a theater in England to prevent the presentation of a production they considered sacrilegious.
And in January 1999, David Howard, a top aide to the mayor of Washington was made to resign (read, fired) because he had haplessly said that he would use his budget “in a niggardly manner.” Niggardly, of course, is a perfectly legitimate word, with etymological roots in old Swedish, that simply means to be parsimonious or frugal. Unfortunately for the mayoral aide, who is white, “niggardly” sounded too much like the racial slur associated with the N-word, and thus his fate was sealed. The resulting debate, which became national after the story broke, finding its way to the Op-Ed pages and the talk shows, went beyond the incident and touched on the issue of political correctness.
Was that an improbable case where racial sensitivities were taken to an extreme? Yes, but it shows you how one should not mess with the self-definitions of a minority.
And so on with these tales. But brandishing guns and burning down embassies, assaulting EU buildings and sending bomb threats? I don’t think so.
It is clear that the Danish editors, along with others in Western European papers that reprinted the cartoons, were reflecting not just a penchant for freedom of expression but giving voice to that undercurrent of anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment endemic on the continent today.
But they were playing with fire. Not only were those cartoons distasteful and needlessly antagonistic, deserving of both the contempt of those engaged in civilized discourse and of social opprobrium, but they contributed to the emergence of a scurrilous view of the Other.
We know what happened in Nazi Germany when the mass of Germans were incrementally fed venom about the Jewish community in their midst, and how, over the years, they found it easy to give massive echo to Hitler’s bellowing. Because these Germans became socialized to believe Nazi myths about the inferiority of the Other, they bellowed back these myths out of a million throats, a million smashed-down boots and a million brown shirts.
No one is saying that a holocaust awaits Muslims in Europe, but when you create reservoirs of hatred and moral illiteracy in a society, you are reducing what is of man in man and restoring in him what is of beast.
When the Taleban destroyed those precious 1,600-year old Buddist statues in Bamian in March 2001, the overwhelming majority of Islamic governments, commentators, editorialists, intellectuals and institutions, along with the Azhar University, the oldest extant Muslim seminary in the world, condemned the act. In like manner, we expect Europeans to show similar concern at the affront to Muslims represented in those egregious cartoons.
Being polite toward other people, respectful, as it were, of their sensitivities, is the mark of a civilized society. It is, if you will, civilization writ large. For what is war or conflict among nations, the converse of that, but the breakdown of civilization, as the last two world wars would attest.
Darn it, it’s one planet we inhabit — and it’s not a big one at that. And like it or not, we, men and women of all faiths, have to share it. As simple as that. Sponsoring a cartoon contest to make fun of Muslims! Oh, grow up, will you? Get a grip.
And guys, guys, you out there behind the arson and the guns and the bomb threats, get a grip.
Stop buying Danish products, if you must. Register your peaceful protest at a forum, in an Op-Ed, at a rally, if you’re so inclined. Whatever. And yes, by all means, cancel your subscription to Jyllands-Posten.
No bullies needed here — just a calm dialogue, not a rancorous clash, between our two cultures.
