My comment to the fate of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was published in the Wall Street Journal last Friday. Here it is:
Free Speech and Radical Islam
At a lunch last year celebrating his 25th anniversary with Jyllands-Posten, Kurt Westergaard told an anecdote. During World War II Pablo Picasso met a German officer in southern France, and they got into a conversation. When the German officer figured out whom he was talking to he said:
“Oh, you are the one who created Guernica?” referring to the famous painting of the German bombing of a Basque town by that name in 1937.
Picasso paused for a second, and replied, “No, it wasn’t me, it was you.”
For the past three months Mr. Westergaard and his wife have been on the run. Mr. Westergaard did the most famous of the 12 Muhammad cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 — the one depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban. The cartoon was a satirical comment on the fact that some Muslims are committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam and the prophet. Tragically, Mr. Westergaard’s fate has proven the point of his cartoon: In the early hours of Tuesday morning Danish police arrested three men who allegedly had been plotting to kill him.
In the past few days 17 Danish newspapers have published Mr. Westergaard’s cartoon, which is as truthful as Picasso’s painting. My colleagues at Jyllands-Posten and I understand that the cartoon may be offensive to some people, but sometimes the truth can be very offensive. As George Orwell put it in the suppressed preface to “Animal Farm”: “If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
Sadly, the plot to kill Mr. Westergaard is not an isolated story, but part of a broader trend that risks undermining free speech in Europe and around the world. Consider the following recent events: In Oslo a gallery has censored three small watercolor paintings, showing the head of the prophet Muhammad on a dog’s body, by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been under police protection since the fall of 2007. In Holland the municipal museum in The Hague recently refused to show photos by the Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera of gay men wearing the masks of the prophet Muhammad and his son Ali; Ms. Hera has received several death threats and is in hiding. In Belarus an editor has been sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp after republishing some of Jyllands-Posten’s Muhammad cartoons. In Egypt bloggers are in jail after having “insulted Islam.” In Afghanistan the 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been sentenced to death because he distributed “blasphemous” material about the mistreatment of women in Islam. And in India the Bengal writer Taslima Nasreen is in a safe house after having been threatened by people who don’t like her books.
Every one of the above cases speaks to the same problem: a global battle for the right to free speech. The cases are different, and you can’t compare the legal systems in Egypt and Norway, but the justifications for censorship and self-censorship are similar in different parts of the world: Religious feelings and taboos need to be treated with a kind of sensibility and respect that other feelings and ideas cannot command.
This position boils down to a simple rule: If you respect my taboo, I’ll respect yours. That was the rule of the game during the Cold War until people like Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov and other dissenting voices behind the Iron Curtain insisted on another rule: It is not cultures, religions or political systems that enjoy rights. Human beings enjoy rights, and certain principles like the ones embedded in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights are universal.
Unfortunately, misplaced sensitivity is being used by tyrants and fanatics to justify murder and silence criticism. Right now the Organization of Islamic Countries is conducting a successful campaign at the United Nations to rewrite international human-rights standards to curtail the right to free speech. Last year the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution against “defamation of religion,” calling on governments around the world to clamp down on cartoonists, writers, journalists, artists and dissidents who dare to speak up.
In the West there is a lack of clarity on these issues. People suggest that Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen and Kurt Westergaard bear a certain amount of responsibility for their fate. They don’t understand that by doing so they tacitly endorse attacks on dissenting voices in parts of the world where no one can protect them.
We need a global movement to fight blasphemy and other insult laws, and the European Union should lead the way by removing them. Europe should make it clear that democracies will protect their citizens if they say something that triggers threats and intimidation.
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6 Comments
1. Z-Lo:“Every one of the above cases speaks to the same problem: a global battle for the right to free speech.” You are asking the reader to make a leap of logic here that I am not ready to make. That is the leap from the examples you give to your conclusion. Unfortunately, many people were primed with anxiety and suspicion about Islam and have followed your leap into a xenophobic abyss.
Of course those incidents are in no way acceptable, but oversimplifying them into a “battle for the right to free speech” is just irresponsible - it is going too far. “Criticizing Islam” is not an academic exercise in a political vacuum. Essentially, you put the conflict between extremists and the West ahead of the relationship between Muslims and the West. To me, at least, it is clear that the latter is a bigger, more urgent issue. And it is the key to the former.
What is acceptable artistic subject matter is based on societal standards. Basically, you do not sympathize with the people who object to such ‘criticism’ (whether or not I do is not the point at hand). Other material that by your definition would be “censored” includes subjects that have been rejected by greater society. You and I likely agree that it would be distasteful and inappropriate to display ‘art’ portraying Jews or Blacks in a disrespectful light. That public consensus did not come about easily or overnight; each case is a result of a complex history and political context. David Irving claims to examine history critically, but he cannot escape the politics of his subject. Though his choice of subject matter and aim of his criticism is likely no accident - just as is the case here with “criticizing religion.”
Personally, I am fine with people saying all kinds of irresponsible things. All that bothers me is when they gain power and become mainstream. That is dangerous and that is what the legal aspect of the cartoon issue is about - just like that of holocaust denial.
Simplifying the matter into one of free speech is like simplifying all those who were offended as extremists. As in the cartoon debacle, they were offended for religious reasons, but they are also intimidated as they see the governments, media, and citizens of the West rally against them. And then they are asked to choose a side. Should they side with a West that alienates and publicly humiliates them? Or should they side with fellow Muslims who defy the West and defend their dignity? Even if their methods are extreme, the methods of the West are also extreme, many argue (I don’t think I have to list examples). This is the choice with which YOU present them. Then you call them things like “silent moderates,” implying that the nature of Islam is not moderate at all.
Free speech itself is not really at risk here. So such a lofty cause comes off as little more than a thinly veiled attack on Muslims. In the end, it undermines the validity of Western ideals.
Feb 21, 2008 - 5:46 am 2. US:@Z-Lo:
I can’t believe what I’m reading: “Free speech is not really at risk here”???
When people are at the risk of getting killed for the things they say, or draw, or print, then I’d say freedom of speech is in danger. When the UN tries to limit freedom of speech with legislation, then I’d say freedom of speech is in danger.
If you think freedom of speech is compatible with a situation where people risk getting killed for what they say, or jailed or otherwise punished, then I’d say your kind of freedom of speech is different from my own. I might also add that if so, you don’t have any idea what freedom of speech is all about.
You seem to think the Muslims are confronted with a choice where they are forced to either passively accept ridicule or to defy the West. They are not. Muslims in Denmark are allowed to debate the rest of us all they want to, as indeed they have, they are in no way forced to just passively accept whatever is thrown at them. Some Muslims openly stated here in Denmark - in Jyllandsposten as well, the paper gave a lot of room to debate the subject when things were getting out of control - that they were offended, but that Jyllandsposten had every right to print the cartoons just the same.
That’s the way it works here in Denmark. They have the right to tell us that they did not like the cartoons. They are allowed to say that they considered the cartoons bad taste. They have the right to call Rose names for printing the cartoons. They are allowed to stop buying Jyllandsposten and hope that the paper goes broke. And some of them have surely done all these things.
What they are not allowed to do is to demand that the publishers or the cartoonists be punished either by the law or by fellow Muslims. That is not an acceptable position, not for Muslims nor for anyone else, for it is not a position compatible with a free society.
The problem is: Muslims do this too. And they do it all over the world, not just in Denmark. Not all Muslims. But some of them do. And by doing this, they endanger freedom of speech all over the world. As Rose says, the West should rise to this challenge. No-one else will.
Feb 22, 2008 - 4:48 pm 3. TG:The “press” in many Arab/Muslim countries prints vile things about other cultures and religions. Are any of the cartoonists and “journalists” at those papers and web sites under the threat of death for their gross insults to Jews and Americans?
Feb 23, 2008 - 7:21 am 4. Shimaa Gamal:Hello
I just would like to say that I personally respect the freedom of speech. But I also respect the right of free belief. And above all I respect the right to respect the others beliefs regardless how insane they might sound.
I just have few questions to pose
1- How could some Muslims endanger the freedom of speech in the whole world? Isn’t the world too big for few barbarians to endanger it?
2- TG mentioned that the Arabic and Muslim press is full of insult to the Americans and the Jews, which isn’t 100% right. The Arabic and Muslim press is full of anti-Israel material and anti-American material for pure political reason that could be summed up in two words, Iraq and Palestine. Don’t you agree that the Muslims and the Arabs might have nothing against Jews, and sure they have nothing against the Americans and that they just have sore feelings against the way the American and Israeli government do their businesses, not against any beliefs.
3- I wonder if these very same cartoons were considered anti-Semitism, was it going to be a sort of freedom of speech too!!
Feb 23, 2008 - 8:53 pm 5. TG:The reality, Shimaa, is that Jews are often referred to as apes and pigs in the Arabic press, and the hostility towards Jews and America predates the first Iraq war. But even if Iraq is the problem, why are news outlets in, say, Egypt, Jordan and Iran so hostile to Jews and Israel? It’s not their fight, or shouldn’t be. As I’m sure you know, most Arab countries are not very welcoming to the Palestinians. In fact, they are treated as second class citizens in most of them, but the 1 million Palestinians who live in Israel enjoy freedoms that do not exist elsewhere in the Mideast. Your post is typical of others I’ve seen that try to minimize the threat radical Islam poses to democracies and individuals. The plain fact is that the leaders of no other faith routinely call for the death of novelists, cartoonists, and uppity women. And Shimaa, the world is not too big for a few (at least tens of thousands) barbarians to endanger everyone. Over the past few years, we’ve seen attacks in the US, the Philippines, Europe, Africa, India, Pakistan, Argentina, and elsewhere. People in many parts of the globe are in danger because of the religious intolerance and hate that comes from a particular source, and we all know what that source is. It must be named and resisted by free people of all faiths. It’s that simple — like the motto of New Hampshire — “Live Free or Die.”
Feb 24, 2008 - 1:14 am 6. Shimaa Gamal:Hello TG
First I would like to thank you for taking the time to reply my.
Second, I think that the problem is with generalization. I am an Arab and a Muslim. I know that some, Muslims mistakenly call Jews sons of apes which has nothing to do with Islam. The story behind the “apes” thing is something that might or might not be found in the bible, but I am not sure about it. It is about some people who disobeyed God’s order of not fishing in Sabbath. God’s punished them by turning them into apes. And as it can be understood from story the punishment was for only those who disobeyed God. And this has nothing to do with the rest of those who followed Moses.
I assure you that if there is any aggressive tone in describing the Americans and the Israeli’s it is completely for political reasons. Even pre the first Iraqi war, the United States was considered Israel’s biggest ally. And regardless how the Palestinians are being treated in the Arab countries, the Arab public is concerned about the Arabic occupied territories and the Israeli violence against the Palestinians in these occupied territories.
I am not trying to minimize the threat of radical Muslims. I am trying to save Muslims from being labeled as radicals if they felt offended for seeing the head of their prophet on a dog in the name of art. I am a Muslim; I can’t deny that I feel sorry of how the civilized world has gone. I can’t deny that I pity humanity that mixes between free speech and offense. And I can’t deny that I am against the stupid calls of murder. No one can kill anyone for speaking his mind up. Even Prophet Muhammad who suffered more deep insult in his time didn’t fight those who insulted him. Discussion was the answer and Muslims all over the world memorize the story about the prophet’s neighbor who kept throwing garbage at the prophet’s door everyday. The Prophet didn’t fight that neighbor and never blamed him, on the contrary one day the prophet woke up to find that his door is clean so he checked on his neighbor and went visiting him when he found out that he was ill.
The plain fact is that leaders of the Islamic faith don’t call for death of novelist or cartoonists or any artists for expressing their point of view. But leaders of Islamic politics might use Islam as a defense to reason their political decisions.(& might use religion as a weapon to control the public, something common in the third world countries to divert the public attention to something religious so that the government could do whatsoever)
I am not here to defend Islam; I personally believe that Islam is like any belief. It is a type of thought that can be subjected to criticism. And just any type of thought if it wasn’t fit it will fade away. But as far as it managed to stay in this world for almost 1500 years, so there must be something that was worth staying.
I just hope that people in the western community start looking deeper than the few yells of some immigrants. I just hope that people in the western community start seeing other Muslims who speak with words not bombs.
I am sorry for being long.
Best Regards
Feb 24, 2008 - 9:33 pmShimaa Gamal