Those Danish Cartoons : Don't Be Fooled This Isn't an Issue of Islam versus Secularism

The CounterPunch
06 February 2-006


Those Danish Cartoons : Don't Be Fooled This Isn't an Issue of Islam versus Secularism

By ROBERT FISK

So now it's cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped
turban. Ambassadors are withdrawn from Denmark, Gulf nations clear
their shelves of Danish produce, Gaza gunmen threaten the European
Union. In Denmark, Fleming Rose, the "culture" editor of the pip-
squeak newspaper which published these silly cartoons--last
September, for heaven's sake--announces that we are witnessing a
"clash of civilisations" between secular Western democracies and
Islamic societies. This does prove, I suppose, that Danish
journalists follow in the tradition of Hans Christian Anderson. Oh
lordy, lordy. What we're witnessing is the childishness of
civilisations.

So let's start off with the Department of Home Truths. This is not an
issue of secularism versus Islam. For Muslims, the Prophet is the man
who received divine words directly from God. We see our prophets as
faintly historical figures, at odds with our high-tech human rights,
almost cariacatures of themselves. The fact is that Muslims live
their religion. We do not. They have kept their faith through
innumerable historical vicissitudes. We have lost our faith ever
since Matthew Arnold wrote
about the sea's "long, withdrawing roar". That's why we talk about
"the West versus Islam" rather than "Christians versus Islam"--
because there aren't an awful lot of Christians left in Europe. There
is no way we can get round this by setting up all the other world
religions and asking why we are not allowed to make fun of Mohamed.

Besides, we can exercise our own hypocrisy over religious feelings. I
happen to remember how, more than a decade ago, a film called The
Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus making love to a woman. In
Paris, someone set fire to the cinema showing the movie, killing a
young man. I also happen to remember a US university which invited me
to give a lecture three years ago. I did. It was entitled "September
11, 2001: ask who did it but, for God's sake, don't ask why". When I
arrived, I found that the university had deleted the phrase "for
God's sake" because "we didn't want to offend certain sensibilities".
Ah-ha, so we have "sensibilities" too.

In other words, while we claim that Muslims must be good secularists
when it comes to free speech--or cheap cartoons--we can worry about
adherents to our own precious religion just as much. I also enjoyed
the pompous claims of European statesmen that they cannot control
free speech or newspapers. This is also nonsense. Had that cartoon of
the Prophet shown instead a chief rabbi with a bomb-shaped hat, we
would have had "anti-Semitism" screamed into our ears--and rightly
so--just as we often hear the Israelis complain about anti-Semitic
cartoons in Egyptian newspapers.

Furthermore, in some European nations--France is one, Germany and
Austria are among the others--it is forbidden by law to deny acts of
genocide. In France, for example, it is illegal to say that the
Jewish Holocaust or the Armenian Holocaust did not happen. So it is,
in fact, impermissable to make certain statements in European
nations. I'm still uncertain whether these laws attain their
objectives; however much you may prescribe Holocaust denial, anti-
Semites will always try to find a way round. We can hardly exercise
our political restraints to prevent Holocaust deniers and then start
screaming about secularism when we find that Muslims object to our
provocative and insulting image of the Prophet.

For many Muslims, the "Islamic" reaction to this affair is an
embarrassment. There is good reason to believe that Muslims would
like to see some element of reform introduced to their religion. If
this cartoon had advanced the cause of those who want to debate this
issue, no-one would have minded. But it was clearly intended to be
provocative. It was so outrageous that it only caused reaction.

And this is not a great time to heat up the old Samuel Huntingdon
garbage about a "clash of civilisations". Iran now has a clerical
government again. So, to all intents and purposes, does Iraq (which
was not supposed to end up with a democratically elected clerical
administration, but that's what happens when you topple dictators).
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in the
recent parliamentary elections. Now we have Hamas in charge of
"Palestine". There's a message here, isn't there? That America's
policies--"regime change" in the Middle East--are not achieving their
ends. These millions of voters were preferring Islam to the corrupt
regimes which we imposed on them.

For the Danish cartoon to be dumped on top of this fire is dangerous
indeed.

In any event, it's not about whether the Prophet should be pictured.
The Koran does not forbid images of the Prophet even though millions
of Muslims do. The problem is that these cartoons portrayed Mohamed
as a bin Laden-type image of violence. They portrayed Islam as a
violent religion. It is not. Or do we want to make it so?

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the
Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's collection, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk's new book is The Conquest of the
Middle East.