Mohammed cartoons row: basta with intimidation!
Illustration: "Mohammed the Prophet / The Fanatism", a tragedy written by Voltaire in 1741. Edition of the complete works of Voltaire, 1846, Société des publications illustrées (drawing by Moreau).
I love old books, but I didn't know one day I would be obliged to go to my bookcase to argue about press freedom, media responsability and the current Mohammed cartoons row. Last year in November 2005 I was already surprised that some French and Swiss Islamic organisations contested the live performance of Voltaire's play. For them, the tragedy was an insult against the Prophet and they asked - without success - that the play cease to be performed. But police had to protect the actors, the director Hervé Loichemol and the audience*...
What these organisations didn't understand was that the real target of Voltaire in 1741 was the Catholic church: he was obliged to write about Mohammed to avoid condemnation from the Pope and Louis XV! In the XVIIIth century, spectators immediately understood the subterfuge and the play was appreciated because of its denunciation of clerical fanatism!
Re-reading this play in the 1846 edition of the Voltaire complete works, I was surprised to find an illustration from Moreau (see above) and I am sure that in our libraries in Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid and Prague we store hundreds and hundreds of drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. Does it mean now that we must burn all these drawings because they offend the Muslims' faith?
Obviously this would be ridiculous. But what is the difference in status between these "historical drawings" and the Danish cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005 (see our first posting in October 2005)? In fact there is no difference at all. If we consider that the today's cartoon publication is a mistaken decision (because media responsability is more important than press freedom), the next step will be to ask for the destruction of all - past and present - representations of the Prophet. This is unacceptable.
For the World Editors Forum, there is no discussion: press freedom cannot and indeed must not be threatened in our sophisticated, but fragile, democracies. The first denial of it will be followed by another and, from one intimidation campaign to the next, European newspapers will be oblged to self-censor!
And it is clear that self-censorship would be the worst solution: the goal of the press is to pinpoint issues and to tell the truth - its truth -, not to mask or deny major problems. If the debate about Islam and tolerance wasn't enough elaborate - and it seems the case -, let's take time for more articles, more arguments. But intimidation and threats cannot be accepted.
Unfortunately, intimidation was choosen by different Islamic organisations and governments from Muslim countries (examples here and here). But for the European newspaper industry, I see two positive conclusions:
1) Newspaper solidarity worked. When death threats began to spread, immediately European and non European newspapers decided to answer to intimidation by the publication of the cartoons (Die Welt, ABC, Corriere della Sera, France-Soir, Die Presse, La Tribune de Genève...). I discussed this with a lot of editors and they agreed on the fact that their main motivation for publication was SOLIDARITY, not first the defense of press freedom: when one ship is threatened, the whole fleet is threatened...
2) But newspaper solidarity didn't mean newspaper unanimity. And this is even better. Some newspapers decided not to re-print the cartoons and some of the arguments developed in the Sunday Times and in the Independent were relevant (see former posting). They questioned the "press freedom ideology everywhere anywhere" and their call for media responsability has to be heard. The best answer to infuriated religious editorialists was the launching of this debate among European and then non-European newspapers: what is tolerable? how does globalization change our conception of press freedom?
For 15 days now the cartoons clash crisis has been at a climax and frankly, the newspapers' answer was globally good: first solidarity and then debate. A good sign of maturity - we just have behind us 200 years of journalism - and a good omen for the upcoming (difficult) months.
Let me finish with my favourite quote of Voltaire: "I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will fight for your right to say it".
* In 1993, Tariq Ramadan was the first to campaign against Voltaire's "Mahomet".
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Hellow;
I think you should respect the holly things in our life not only as muslims but also for all humanity, i think it is very good to go indepth when you want to express yourself and make a good buisnes in jockes by simulating any political events,any one, but dont insult the holly things in the human being life and history.
An example, i think you should write something about the holocosts or zionest actions against all the world.
you should burn every insulting cartoons and play about the prophets, any one of them.
Best Regards
freedom of speech is what america (and europe) are built on. if the arab world does not like it, then so be it. europe and america are not going to change to accommodate one religious group. if you don't like it, live in a muslim country. oh and "Holy" is not spelled "holly" - holly is a plant
There's no rule against portraying Mohammed
It turns out, though, that all of us may have been led down the primrose path insofar as we accepted the claim that there is an absolute doctrinal ukase against making visual representations of the prophet. As others have pointed out, of course, there is a vast body of images of Mohammed going back hundreds of years. The fact that people -- even the faithful and respectful -- do something, however, doesn't mean it's religiously authorized. The existence of such images, therefore, while interesting, is not conclusive.In a Wall Sreet Journal Opinion article however, Amir Taheri explains that there is, in fact, no doctrinal prohibition against images of Mohammed.
The Muslim Brotherhood's position, put by one of its younger militants, Tariq Ramadan--who is, strangely enough, also an adviser to the British home secretary--can be summed up as follows: It is against Islamic principles to represent by imagery not only Muhammad but all the prophets of Islam; and the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. Both claims, however, are false. There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Muhammad or anyone else. When it spread into the Levant(part of middeleast), Islam came into contact with a version of Christianity that was militantly iconoclastic. As a result some Muslim theologians, at a time when Islam still had an organic theology, issued "fatwas" against any depiction of the Godhead. That position was further buttressed by the fact that Islam acknowledges the Jewish Ten Commandments--which include a ban on depicting God--as part of its heritage. The issue has never been decided one way or another, and the claim that a ban on images is "an absolute principle of Islam" is purely political. Islam has only one absolute principle: the Oneness of God. Trying to invent other absolutes is, from the point of view of Islamic theology, nothing but sherk, i.e., the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One.The claim that the ban on depicting Muhammad and other prophets is an absolute principle of Islam is also refuted by history. Many portraits of Muhammad have been drawn by Muslim artists, often commissioned by Muslim rulers.
Taheri then proceeds to list numerous historic images of Mohammed (and the Wall Street Journal bravely includes in the article a beautiful Persian-looking print of Mohammed). Tahiri also takes apart the "never laugh at the Prophet" meme on the Arab Street:
Now to the second claim, that the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. That is true if we restrict the Muslim world to the Brotherhood and its siblings in the Salafist movement, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda. But these are all political organizations masquerading as religious ones. They are not the sole representatives of Islam, just as the Nazi Party was not the sole representative of German culture. Their attempt at portraying Islam as a sullen culture that lacks a sense of humor is part of the same discourse that claims "suicide martyrdom" as the highest goal for all true believers.The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads as the answer to satirists. Muhammad himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade. Both Arabic and Persian literature, the two great literatures of Islam, are full of examples of "laughing at religion," at times to the point of irreverence. Again, offering an exhaustive list is not possible. But those familiar with Islam's literature know of Ubaid Zakani's "Mush va Gorbeh" (Mouse and Cat), a match for Rabelais when it comes to mocking religion. Sa'adi's eloquent soliloquy on behalf of Satan mocks the "dry pious ones." And Attar portrays a hypocritical sheikh who, having fallen into the Tigris, is choked by his enormous beard. Islamic satire reaches its heights in Rumi, where a shepherd conspires with God to pull a stunt on Moses; all three end up having a good laugh.
So, not only is this riot a manufactured phenomenom aimed at terrifying the West, it's also based upon some fundamental lies about the nature of the Islamic religion -- lies that are easy to promulgate because our MSM lives from one press release to the next, without any knowledge nor any wish to acquire knowledge as to the subjects on which it reports.
alll hu mak fun about alllah nd his prophet.........i telll u loud n clear "v alll muslims might pray for your forgivenesss for what u have done " but u myt not get escaped from his almightys hands,....so please my brothers and sisters lets live in this world as humans wit no violence nd agony ,,...may alllah blesss u alll nd tak us alll
to heaven"inshalllah!!!!