Those Cartoons
I know all of you have been following the furor over those cartoons published a few weeks ago in an obscure Danish newspaper. The nonsense that has ensued is plainly foolish. In practically every country with a majority Moslem population there have been demonstrations and small scale riots. In a few instances sundry Scandinavian embassies or consulates have been burned. The reaction in Europe has been mixed: a few newspapers have re-published the cartoons as a defiantact of freedom of speech, while in other places, notably the U.K. reaction has been muted. This is the twelfth day of demonstrations and there seems to be no end, although I expect that Moslem enthusiasm for continual protests will eventually die down.
What to make of it all?
First: I find it deeply hypoctrical of any Moslem, particularly those who claim to be devout, to pick on this issue and not on the torrent of blasphemy that is suicide bombing, beheading, and other forms of mayhem wrought in the name of Islam by terrorist thugs over these past few years. I am sure that the main instigators of the demonstrations are closely tied to the hardliners who run affairs in Iran and Syria, and are manipulating, once again, for purely cynical purposes the “Moslem man or woman on the street”. Those purposes are revealed by the spewing of anti-American and anti-Jewish verbiage that has accomapnied the demonstrations. Last I saw Denmark wasn’t part of either America or Israel, but I suppose that doesn’t matter. I also detect a cynical hand in the very fact that the cartoons found their way into the public arena in several of the Middle Eastern countries who are notorious for censorship. Odd how some things elude the censors!
Second: I cringe when I hear some commentators here in the West say that we should be more respectful of the feelings of deeply religious people. Why? What is so special about religious icons and myths that they should be excluded from criticism? The idea that there are exclusions from either satirical or serious critique is what has enabled the persistence of many of the regressive aspects that all major religions possess. The role of women in society and the repressive nature of patriarchy are promulgated by all the major religions, and is clearly contradictory to emerging social norms in our more secular Western style democracies. If we cannot critique repression how do we expose it’s odious consequences? It is all too easy for religious people to pretend that because they profess “faith” that somehow that “faith” is above criticism. No it isn’t: for the very reason that “faith” is antithetical to democratic, rational, and tolerant discussion. All religions deserve to be lampooned for their mysticism and their pernicious hold [via brain washing] over the minds of the masses that the patriarchs seek to control.
Third: The schism between the Western and Islamic worlds is brought into even sharper relief by the cartoon furor. I believe that the schism is being made worse by American foreign policy, particularly, but not exclusively, by the policies of the Bush administration. America has been relentlessly one-sided in its Middle Eastern policies for decades. It organized the sanctioning then the destruction of Saddam Hussain’s regime ostensibly because he invaded Kuwait, possessed weapons of mass destruction, and then harbored terrorists. He deserved what he received. But what about the twenty-five year occupation of the West bank and the Gaza strip by Israel, a country that actually does possess weapons of mass destruction? Every time the U.N. has raised the prospect of sanctions or punishment against Israel the U.S. has vetoed it. America has stood out as a supporter of Israeli policy no matter what that policy is. For instance, it has supported Israel’s extra-territorial summary execution of so-called terrorists, affording the victims no chance of a trial and therefore no recourse to a Western style legal process. Yet it says that Israel is a Western style democracy deserving of support. That is hypocritical. To local observers I doubt very much that the Israeli occupation looks or feels very benign or democratic. Now this is not to say I support the atrocious actions of the terrorists. Far from it. My point is simply that there can be no doubt whatever as to the source of the anti-American hatred that seems to run so deeply in Islamic cultures, and it is easy to see why it is so quickly and easily exploited. Until the U.S. forces Israel to pull back within it’s 1967 borders and give Palestinians full and proper independence it will deserve to appear irretrievably biased in Islamic eyes.
Meanwhile every little act, like the publishing of satirical cartoons, will continue to highlight just how much the world is divided, and how much work there is to be done if we are to avoid a catastrophic escalation of the ability of terrorists to exploit that divide.
