The
political repercussions
of the cartoons of
Prophet Muhammad
By
Farhang
Jahanpour*
March 16, 2006
Five months after the Danish daily
Jyllands-Posten published 12 caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad, controversy over those cartoons is still raging
in many Islamic countries. Already dozens of people have
been killed in half a dozen countries and demonstrations
have taken place in nearly all Islamic countries, from
Morocco to Indonesia. The US secretary of state's
statement accusing Iran and Syria of having incited the
demonstrations was a cheap and inaccurate shot at two
countries which the United States and Israel are
targeting at the moment for political reasons.
In fact, Iran lagged behind many
other countries in reacting to the cartoons, so much so
that many newspapers accused the government of
indifference. Demonstrations in Iran against the cartoons
took place only during the Ashura mourning ceremonies
marking the martyrdom of Imam Husayn towards the middle
of February.
The most violent demonstrations
took place in Afghanistan, which is still under US
occupation, and in Pakistan, which is America's ally in
the 'war against terror'. Even in secular Turkey tens of
thousands of demonstrator marched against the insult to
Islam and called for cutting off relations with Denmark.
Protestors in the streets of London vented their fury by
dressing as suicide bombers or carrying placards calling
for massacres and beheadings of those responsible for the
cartoons.
The
cartoons hurt people but the reaction was
disproportionate
While there is no doubt about the
sincere and genuine hurt that many Muslims feel about the
insult to their prophet, there is equally no doubt that
the reaction was disproportionate and counter-productive,
and that the demonstrations have now taken a political
turn. The cartoons have provided a rallying call for many
Muslims who are protesting against Western and
particularly US policies in the Middle East and beyond,
and they have largely turned into anti-government
protests.
The protests in places such as
Afghanistan and Pakistan may get out of hand and may
destabilise the pro-Western governments in those
countries. Despite the fact that there have been many
calls by some leading Muslim scholars and leaders to
bring an end to the demonstrations, they are still
continuing in a number of countries as the result of
incitement by anti-government agitators.
Freedom
of expression - yes, but...
While insisting on the importance
of freedom of expression, one has to condemn gratuitous
insults to the beliefs of other people. There is no such
thing as a fundamental right to total freedom of
expression when it adversely affects others. Even in the
secular West there are a number of issues that we hold
very dear, and freedom of expression is not absolute. We
often engage in self-censorship and refrain from anything
that might involve defamation or libel. We have laws
outlawing incitement to violence or to racial hatred.
Early in February, just at the time
when we were condemning Muslims for undermining freedom
of expression a Muslim cleric, Abu-Hamza al-Masri, was
found guilty of incitement to murder and racial violence,
and was jailed for seven years for what he regards as his
right to free speech. A short time later, the
controversial British historian, David Irving, was given
a three-year sentence in Austria for comments he had made
in 1989 denying the existence of gas chambers at
Auschwitz.
In ten European countries
questioning the Holocaust is regarded a crime punishable
by jail terms. In 1988, when the film 'The Last
Temptation of Christ' was shown in Paris, someone set
fire to the cinema killing a young man. Even
Jyllands-Posten refused to publish a few even more
insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and a few
years earlier it had refused to publish insulting
cartoons of Christ. Therefore, it too realised that there
must be some limits on freedom of expression.
It is often argued that many Arab
and Muslim countries show disrespect to Israel and the
Jews and portray insulting images of Ariel Sharon, and
that those images are similar to what the cartoons have
done in regard to Islam. While the frequent anti-Israeli
and anti-Jewish propaganda by Muslim radicals has to be
deplored, nevertheless, Arabs believe that the attacks on
Israel and its politicians are similar to derogatory
references in the West and Israel to 'Muslim terrorists',
to the 'mad mullahs', to the 'rogue states', to the 'Axis
of Evil', to 'Islamo-fascism', etc.
That form of political point
scoring is different from insulting the religious
sanctities of Jews and Christians and lampooning Moses or
Jesus, in the way that the cartoons have lampooned the
Prophet Muhammad. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad's
outrageous remarks about Israel and the holocaust have
been universally condemned in the West, but when it comes
to anti-Islamic sentiments in the West we rush to defend
freedom of expression. Some of the basic principles of
any civilised society are courtesy, respect, civility and
tolerance.
Political
motives lurking behind: remember the Satanic
Verses?
Having said all that, it is clear
that neither the intent of the cartoons nor the violent
reactions to them have had anything to do either with the
merits or demerits of freedom of expression or with
defending religious sanctities. In both cases, one can
see political motives lurking behind two noble causes,
freedom of expression on the one hand and safeguarding
religious sanctities on the other.
The reaction to the cartoons brings
back to mind the Salman Rushdie affair. For many months
after The Satanic Verses was published, there was no
hostile reaction by Muslims to it. However, some militant
Muslims that wished to make political capital out of the
book seized on it to incite the feelings of Muslim
masses.
The late Kalim Siddiqui, the
founder of the so-called 'Muslim Parliament' in Britain,
flew to Tehran armed with a copy of the book. He had a
few pages of the book that were insulting to the Prophet
Muhammad's wives translated into Persian and took them to
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran had just emerged from a
deadly eight-year war with Iraq in which hundreds of
thousands of Iranians had been killed or wounded, without
achieving what Ayatollah Khomeini had promised to the
people. Ayatollah Khomeini could have ended the war on
very favourable terms after Iran had kicked Saddam
Hussein's forces out of the country, but he continued the
war for six more years, despite the pleadings of some of
his closest aides, by pledging 'war, war until victory'.
The war that had resulted in the
devastation of the country ended in a stalemate, with
both countries going back to the original borders, before
Saddam Hussein had torn the Algiers Accord that he had
signed with the late shah. This was a terrible blow to
Ayatollah Khomeini who described his enforced acceptance
of the ceasefire with Iraq as similar to 'drinking a cup
of poison'.
The Satanic Verses arrived just in
time to provide some ammunition to the declining
Ayatollah to distract the attention of the nation and to
place himself again at the head of a world-wide Islamic
uprising. The head of Ayatollah Khomeini's office was
asked on Iranian television if Ayatollah Khomeini had
read the book before issuing his infamous fatwa, as he
should have done, because otherwise he would be issuing a
judgement about something that he did not fully
understand. He replied: "God forbid that he should read
such filth, but the relevant passages had been translated
for him", whatever the 'relevant passages' of a work of
fiction means.
Of course, while Ayatollah
Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie received wide
publicity and universal condemnation in the West, the
decision of more than fifty countries taking part a short
time later in a meeting of the Islamic Conference
Organisation to condemn the fatwa hardly got a mention in
Western media.
We are witnessing the repetition of
the same phenomenon at the moment. The role that was
played by Kalim Siddiqui in the run-up to the Satanic
Verses controversy, has been played by some Danish imams
taking both the published and unpublished cartoons of the
Prophet to the summit meeting of the Islamic Conference
Organisation in Saudi Arabia in December. It was only
after that event that the cartoons received wide
publicity and resulted in angry demonstrations. Danish
Muslims may have some problems with their government and
were clearly offended by those cartoons, which up to that
point had not produced any response in other Islamic
countries. It was the projection of those cartoons on the
world stage that produced such a universal
reaction.
Islamic
grievances: the Middle East a tinderbox
The Islamic world has many
justified grievances. The illegal invasion of Iraq and
the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis,
constant outrageous threats by Israel and the United
States to attack Iran and Syria, the continued occupation
of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the media campaigns
portraying all Muslims as radicals and terrorists have
caused a great deal of anger and resentment among
Muslims.
Early in February, amidst a phoney
climate of impending disaster, the IAEA board of
governors was pressured by America and Europe to report
Iran to the Security Council for its nuclear programme,
despite the fact that she is a member of the NPT and
under constant surveillance. At the same time, the United
States moved heaven and earth to remove a clause proposed
by Egypt in the resolution of the IAEA board of governors
referring to the establishment of a nuclear free zone in
the Middle East, which would have drawn attention to
Israel's arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The entire Middle East is like a
tinderbox waiting for a spark to ignite it. No wonder
that the recent elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon
and Palestine have revealed manifestations of
anti-American sentiments by either bringing radical
Islamists to power or increasing their votes despite all
odds. Under such circumstances, to pour fuel on the fire
was very unwise, and it shows a profound ignorance of the
depth of anger felt in the Middle East at Western double
standards.
What
the cartoon story is not about - and what it
is about
Therefore, the controversy over the
cartoons is not really about free speech or Islamic
sensibilities, but is the tip of a political iceberg
that needs to be dealt with if similar clashes are not to
be repeated in the future.
The irony is that the prohibition
of the representations of the Prophet Muhammad in Islam
was meant as a way of preventing idolatry and hero
worship. The Prophet who had smashed all the pagan idols
in Mecca wanted to direct all attention towards God and
portray himself merely as 'God's slave'. In fact, he was
repeating what Christ had meant when he reprimanded
someone who called him 'good master' by saying: "Why do
you call me good? There is only one good, and that is the
Father."
The greatest sin in Islam is
'shirk' or associating partners with God. Islam is
strictly monotheistic and rejects anything or anyone to
be associated with God, who is "the One, the Everlasting.
He is not begotten, nor does he beget, nor is there
anything like unto Him." Some Muslim mystics have even
objected to the assertion in Islamic prayer, "I testify
that there is no god but God." They argue that even the
very mention of 'I' witnessing that there is no god but
God denotes 'shirk' because we have put ourselves outside
God, as a separate entity or as a being who can testify
to God's existence. This is why they prefer to change the
prayer to "God testifies that there is no god but
Him".
It is ironic that such a strong
denunciation of the personality cult and hero worship has
ended up by making an idol of the Prophet, in whose name
innocent blood is being shed. Muslims seem to have
forgotten the Koran's injunction, "[Blessed are]
those who suppress their anger and are forgiving towards
the people."
The Koran also states: "Goodness
and evil cannot be equal. Repel (evil) with something
that is better. Then you will see that he with whom you
had enmity will become your close friend. And no one will
be granted such goodness except those who exercise
patience and self-restraint." (41:34-35)
In the final analysis, when it
comes to a choice between defending supposed 'religious
sanctity' and freedom of expression, one has to opt for
freedom of expression. Many crimes have been committed
throughout history in the name of fighting against
blasphemy. Had it not been for the breaking of religious
taboos and questioning strongly-held dogmas, religion and
society would not have moved forward. Nearly all prophets
were denounced as heretics at their time and many of them
were put to death for transgressing the bounds of
accepted dogma. The whole history of science is a
testimony to replacing one set of beliefs and hypotheses
with new ones. Human civilisation would be much poorer if
we allow certain ideas to be regarded as so sacrosanct
that no one can utter a word against them.
After all, practically all of us
are atheists and heretics in the eyes of others. The gods
that we believe in are different from the deities of
others. We do not believe in Greek or Roman or Hindu
gods, nor do they believe in our idea of God. Each of us
has his own narrow interpretation of the Absolute that is
surely beyond human imagination. If the denunciation of
any concept of a deity were to be regarded as a crime,
then all of us would be heretics and blasphemers, worthy
of severest punishment.
If we are not going to move
towards a 'clash of civilisations', all of us must learn
tolerance and forbearance. We live in a pluralistic world
with ever increasing ease of communication. If we want to
avoid constant war and bloodshed in this 'global village'
we must learn to accept that others have views different
from ours, and are free to express them. Many
atheists would find any belief in a deity as offensive,
yet they too have to learn to accept that other people
are entitled to their views. Humanity is more important
and more sacred than abstract notions of faith and dogma,
of right and wrong. After all, God and the prophets can
take care of themselves and can accommodate childish
insults.
*
Farhang Jahanpour, a British
national of Iranian origins, is a former professor and
dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of
Isfahan, and a part-time tutor in the Department of
Continuing Education at the University of
Oxford.
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2006
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