[DEBATE] : Fisk: Those Danish Cartoons

[n.bullard@focusweb.org]

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

By ROBERT FISK

Counterpunch.org
http://counterpunch.org/fisk02062006.html

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 Ambassadors are withdrawn from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.


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