Cartoons that are shaking the world

OPINION Tacoma, WA - 12 cartoons that are shaking the world THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: February 3rd, 2006 02:30 AM
In Western nations, freedom of religion, speech and the press are different aspects of the same liberty. In America, this is fundamental: The First Amendment knits these freedoms together into a bedrock right of individuals to believe, worship, think and speak according to their own convictions. As the escalating international furor over 12 Danish cartoons demonstrates, many Muslims in the Islamic world just don’t see freedom the same way. Four months ago, a Danish newspaper published cartoons that depict Muhammad with varying degrees of irreverence, including one in which he is wearing on his head a turban-shaped bomb with a burning fuse. Such a cartoon is understandably offensive to devout Muslims. The Quran discourages artistic images in general, and Islamic tradition forbids depictions of Muhammad and others regarded as prophets. The bomb-turban cartoon conveys an additional insult: the implication that Islam in its essence is violent and terroristic. If only the offended Muslims could have protested to the newspaper – and left it at that. Instead, many people through much of the Islamic world have been furiously venting against the entire nation of Denmark, boycotting its products and – in a few places – threatening its citizens. That fury has now been extended to Norway, France, Germany, Italy, the Nethlands, Spain and Switzerland, where other newspapers have printed the same cartoons out of solidarity with the Danish publication. In the Palestinian territories, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade warned Swedes and Danes to get out of Gaza and the West Bank – “or else.” Gunmen in Gaza have threatened to kidnap French, Norwegians, Danes and Germans unless their governments apologize for the cartoon. Do they miss the irony? In some Arab countries, Jews are routinely depicted in print as subhuman or diabolic creatures. The concern over offended sensibilities can be remarkably one-sided in this world. The cartoon dispute highlights profound differences between the West and traditional Islamic societies. The protesting Muslims hold entire nations responsible for the actions of newspapers. In much of the Middle East that might make sense, because Middle Eastern governments often control the press. In places like Denmark and France, however, it just ain’t so. More fundamentally, freedom of the press in the West trumps religious taboos on expression. In Western Europe, as in America, citizens enjoy a high degree of religious freedom. But that doesn’t include a right never to be offended or have one’s beliefs challenged. It emphatically doesn’t include having a single religion privileged at the expense of others. In a free country, even blasphemous speech is protected – and subject to rebuttal by believers. Islamic societies tend to reject such unbounded freedom of expression. That’s their business. But demanding that Western nations reject it, too, is a step across a dangerous new threshold. http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/5501716p-4959178c.html
http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2006/02/344774.shtml

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