We Must Do As We Are Told, Or Else

Pity little Denmark. There it was minding its own business and generally being ignored by the rest of the world when kerblam! It is the target of street demonstrations and flag-burning in the Middle East and a boycott of Danish goods across the Muslim world. And for what? A cartoon.

Now let’s get one thing straight. There are times when a cartoon can cause offence. Indeed, racist, xenophobic cartoons are published all the time around the world. Cartoons of Ariel Sharon drinking Palestinian children’s blood or of President Bush wearing a swastika are not hard to find in Arab and European newspapers. Hell, you can probably find them in the USA.

And if you want examples of other religions exploding with spiritual indignation then look no further than Martin Scorsese’s movie adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ that led to the firebombing of a movie theater in Paris.

Yet none of these creations, neither the cartoons nor the movie, caused ambassadors to be recalled and a nation to be vilified.

Thousands of Palestinians marched through Gaza City this week chanting: “War on Denmark, Death to Denmark.” Over a cartoon.

Some might say that the 12 drawings, published in Denmark’s largest daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, vilified a religion—and with some cause. Most of the drawings are innocuous enough but a cartoon of Muhammad wearing a bomb for a turban does more than touch a nerve.

But consider also the circumstances in which these drawings were made.

For some time there has been a growing resentment in Denmark that a small proportion of its 200,000 Muslim immigrants (about 3 per cent of the 5.5 million population) are not integrating. Rather than embracing Danish values second-generation youngsters are adopting extreme interpretations of the Koran preached by fiery imams.

Fiercely liberal Danes want to know why their taxes (almost half the population pays 63 percent income tax) are subsidizing forced marriages and Muslim women having to live behind a veil—in Denmark. In a biography last year, Queen Margrethe of Denmark called for opposition to radical Islam, saying: “We have to run the risk of being labeled in an unflattering way, because there are some things for which we should display no tolerance.”

Fast forward a few months and a Danish writer complains that nobody dares illustrate his book about Muhammad because pictorial depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam. Forbidden in Islam. But what about in Denmark?

Jyllands-Posten tested the limits of freedom of speech in its own country by asking Danish cartoonists to draw Muhammad as they imagined him. With a seemingly relentless wave of suicide bombings around the world in the name of Islam, is it any wonder that about half of the drawings depicted the prophet in relation to extremism? In one cartoon he is pictured at the entrance to heaven telling suicide bombers to stop because he has run out of virgins. That is not a slur on the Muslim faith. It’s satire with a powerful political point.

And now we arrive at the crux of the matter. Because if everything we read is true then it is an offence to make any drawing of the prophet. Never mind that there must be countless images of Muhammad in existence around the world. Never mind that this is a belief that is being imposed on everyone by a minority of zealots within a religion. And never mind that the current protests emanate from countries in which freedom of expression is still a distant dream.

We must do as we are told, they say. Or else.

Related links:
Tom Gross highlights offensive Arab cartoons (via Clive Davis)
Following reports that some of the cartoons doing the rounds of the Middle East were NOT printed in Jyllands-Posten, Sunny at Pickled Politics says Danish Muslims made up quite a lot “convince” their brothers that Muslims were being persecuted. Twelve cartoons were printed in Jyllands-Posten but 15 have been handed out in Muslim countries:

The first of the three additional pictures shows Muhammad as a pedophile demon, the second shows the prophet with a pigsnout and the third depicts a praying Muslim being raped by a dog.

See the excellent Brussels Journal for the whole saga (and the drawings).
Jyllands-Posten statement on its stance over the cartoons.

Maybe because of culturally based misunderstandings, the initiative to publish the 12 drawings has been interpreted as a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world.

I must categorically dismiss such an interpretation. Because of the very fact that we are strong proponents of the freedom of religion and because we respect the right of any human being to practise his or her religion, offending anybody on the grounds of their religious beliefs is unthinkable to us.