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| Why Muslims Don’t Laugh at Insults to their Religion |
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The stated intentions of the cartoons’ publishers have a bearing upon these questions. The Danish publishers explained that their motive was to test the boundaries of freedom of speech and they did not challenge Muslims to debate any substantive issues about Islam. They did not explain what intellectual criticisms they were bringing through the medium of cartoons; rather they sought to see how far they could go to provoke Muslims in order to make a statement about freedom of speech. They claimed that freedom of speech was under threat in Denmark and published the insulting cartoons as a means to bring attention to their issue. Insulting Muslims may not have been their objective, but it was a means of publicising their concerns through the debate that followed. Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor, made this clear:
‘The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule … we are on the way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him.’
Thus Rose made it clear that Muslims should be ready to accept insult, mockery and ridicule. Debating Islam is not the issue, and so Muslim perceptions of being insulted were accurate. The question then is not why Muslims cannot accept to listen to criticism and respond with reasoned argument, but why Muslims cannot accept ‘insults, mockery and ridicule’ of Islam. As Rose explained in the Washington Post, on February 19th 2006, his paper was not singling out Islam for attack, but was drawing Muslims into the secular fold, so that they be treated as equals to Christians and those of other religions:
.‘The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.’
Jyllands-Posten were thus making a principled stand for secularism in general and more specifically for freedom of speech in Denmark, which was enshrined in the constitution of 1849 and reaffirmed, after the suspension of freedoms during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, in section 77 of the Constitutional Act of Denmark (1953). The feeling amongst some Danish thinkers, that freedom was under threat in Denmark, was expressed two weeks before the publishing of the cartoons. On September 17th 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken printed an article titled: ‘Dyb angst for kritik af Islam’ (‘Profound fear of criticism of Islam’ , which discussed the difficulty the writer Kåre Bluitgen was facing in finding an illustrator for his children’s book about Islam. Three illustrators refused and a fourth agreed to assist anonymously - apparently for fear of repercussions. Carsten Juste, Editor-in-Chief of Jyllands-Posten, wrote in a letter of clarification dated 8th February 2006, that the cartoons were published: ‘as part of an ongoing debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.’
Freedom is an abstract concept; you cannot see or hear freedom, you certainly cannot eat it, but it does have a reality nonetheless, to those who cherish it. The editors of Jyllaands-Posten cherished freedom and they made sacrifices for it that were borne by many Danish companies and individuals. The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, described the cartoons affair as, “Denmark's worst international crisis since World War II”. Such an abstract concept cannot have a priced assigned to it, and the initial publishers of the cartoons were arguing that it was worth paying a high price in order to preserve freedom. Many Muslims viewed the cartoons as a base attack upon Islam, but the publishers of the cartoons claimed they were making a principled stand for a core western belief in the primacy of freedom.
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