APRIL 2006

THE DANISH CARTOONS, AN INTERESTING COMMUNICATION

From Tarik Hussein, Copenhagen

Dear Shamir.(Israel Shamir, author)

Your article “Satanic Pictures”,(Handstand issue February/March),overwhelms me with frustration. You make it all so black and white. But is it not possible to dislike the drawings and the people behind them, yet still be appalled about world-wide Muslim reactions to them?

As every schoolboy knows, when you are mocked, getting angry only invites more mockery. This is basic psychology. Unless, of course, you can beat the shit out of the mocker, then you will finally get the mocker to shut up. But then you will also look like a brute idiot!!! At best, you will make people fearful enough to mock you behind your back instead.

Both things have happened in this case, inviting more mockery and making Muslims look like brutes at the same time. Muslims have proved themselves unable to shrug off offence from people we do not even  need to take seriously at all. This is very unfortunate for us Muslims living in Denmark who - unlike you intellectual folks on the net - have to deal with the consequences.

I have lived for 25 years in Denmark. Its debating style is straightforward, very tough but everyone can get listened to. In Denmark no one is spared over-the-top satire in the public debate, so in that regard, we Muslims should not decry some “equality”. The Danish government funds 85% of the cost of private all-Muslim schools, and we have full freedom to build mosques and cemeteries ourselves (although some in our community seem to think that the Danish Christian tax payers should foot the bill for this too). Anyway, this country has certainly been a lot more respectful of religious freedoms and welcoming to migrant workers and refugees than, say, Saudi Arabia, which bans even possession of the Bible. Denmark started by giving me free language teaching, free supplementary education, free health care, even free psychological aid, plus a generous allowance (by the standards of Iraq where I came from, after escaping conscription to a fratricidal war against Iran). And Denmark has given me every opportunity to work and earn money. Of course, there are some stupid racists and anti-Muslim Christian fundamentalists around, but most Danish people are just generally sceptical of all organised religion and ideology, their own included. We have a Muslim Member of Parliament, a Palestinian born in Syria, Nasser Khader, who is highly popular among the native Danes for his moderate views and constructive contributions to the integration of immigrants. He was, by the way, recently called a “rat in a hole” by Imam Abu Laban, another Palestinian living in Denmark who travelled the world to draw attention to these blasphemous drawings, when the Muslim world initially ignored them. (Only months later, once the storm had been raised, did the other European papers publish the cartoons, just to correct the utterly mistaken chronology in your article. To top it all, it was an Egyptian newspaper, which published them second).

Try some argument instead of gut reaction. Depictions of the Prophet Muhammed, Peace Be With Him, are banned to prevent idolatry, not to stop blasphemy! Even so, the Shiites have long made more flattering portraits, indeed you can buy pictures of Muhammad on the streets of Teheran! Secondly, you assume the Danish newspaper’s intention was to offend, which may well be true. Nevertheless, the possible hidden agenda and neo-con sympathies of the editor do not exempt you from tackling his argument about free speech, the same argument you make, rightly, in favour of David Irving and others. You seem to assume that two wrongs make a right, that attacking free speech is an appropriate answer to the attack on free speech. But interestingly, the US government and the US Christian right have largely sided with the Muslim protesters by only saying how horrible these drawings are, and saying nothing to defend the cornered Danish prime minister, supposedly a staunch ally. Perhaps there is a tacit alliance here between two kinds of right-wing fascism, namely Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, who can agree on the aim of rolling back certain freedoms which they both abhor, who want special protection of religion, so that their religious views do not need to be argued like ideological ones!!!

In Denmark, both the moderate right and the moderate left have agreed that liking or not liking the cartoons is irrelevant to this case. No matter how wrong the cartoons, the newspaper had the right to publish them, and the whole nation cannot be forced into an apology for something the nation as such has not done, though we should of course, in the ideal world, try to communicate and get along and not offend each other needlessly. Those who are perfectly comfortable fighting each other by escalating the rhetoric are, in this case, extreme Islamists and extreme Danish nationalists (some of them Christian fundamentalist), which are really just two different types of right-wing extremism!!!

In fact, the editor Mr. Rose did not commission any particular portrait of the Prophet, he left that up to the cartoonists. I agree the drawings were provocative, stupid and uncalled for, but there is only clues and no logical proof they were deliberately meant to offend. But okay, let us assume they were anyway. How incredibly successful Muslims themselves have then made this offence!!!

The Muslim reaction bore out the newspaper’s and right-wing nationalists’ paranoia that some immigrants want to impose not only Islamic views, but ISLAMIC RULES on Denmark, using the muscle of Islam as a world power. No, we do not want Danish people to follow the laws of our religion, unless they want to, but this now became many Danish people’s impression thanks to the reaction of those loud extremists among us Muslims, those who always claim to speak on behalf of all of us, just as the most extremist Danish nationalists claim to speak on behalf of all Danish people. This deep-felt apology sums up the mood among many of my neighbors:

“We´re sorry we gave you shelter when war drove you from your home country....

We´re sorry we gave you the opportunity to get a good education.....

We´re sorry we gave you food and a home when you had none.....

We´re sorry we let you re-unite with your family when your homeland was no longer safe...

We´re sorry we never forced you to work while WE paid all your bills.....

We´re sorry we gave you almost FREE rent, phone, car and school for your 10 kids...

We´re sorry we build you Mosques so you could worship your religion in our Christian land...

We´re sorry we never forced you to learn our language after staying 30 years....”

END OF QUOTE, because after that, it gets rather rude and racist.

In one thing you are right. This cartoon row does not pitch Muslims against Christians. It is not even a fight between bigoted, small-minded cartoons and common-sense moderation. No, it is indeed between intolerance and freedom of expression!!! I know you brush aside the freedom of expression argument, but this is because you, just like me, disagree with what is expressed. Yes, I do too, but I nevertheless defend the right to express even misguided and outright offensive ideas and images. As I will defend your right, Shamir, to write things that offend me.

Yes, like it or not, freedom of expression is also about the freedom to offend and degrade, to mock and blaspheme (only that people committing such acts blatantly judge themselves and become ineffective in their arguments, making reasoned arguments a much better choice). Because in some cases, one person’s insult may be another’s fair viewpoint, which is why we cannot impose our own limits on anyone else. And this, only this, is why a series of newspapers across Europe subsequently decided to publish these third-grade drawings, not because they are against Muslims or agree with any of the various messages of these drawings, but because they want to show that they will not be cowed by death threats and torched embassies!

Discrimination against people due to race or creed is indeed despicable, but let us not forget that religion is, unlike race, also an ideology, sometimes even a political one. For this reason, so sorry to all those offended, but we cannot uphold religious viewpoints as less subject to mockery than any other viewpoint. My advice to avoid rage: be self-confident enough in your belief.

Peace be with you all.

Hope you will publish this as a contribution to freedom of expression.

All the best from

Tarik Hussein, Copenhagen

Israel Shamir  replied:

Dear Tarik, I surely will publish your response, and I had published similar responses (from Beirut, actually). If you will have time to re-read my article you won't find there any opinion, positive or negative, on the cartoons per se, and I am for the right to publish whatever publishable. Even more, I say that the idea behind the publication is to undermine the freedom of expression. So I do agree with you on that.

I see the publication by JP as an enemy action - not only against Muslims, but first of all against freedom of expression.

Shamir

Tarik Hussein added:

Dear Shamir.

Excellent, I am very pleased I can have my say in this!!!

Let me add that Jyllands-Posten and the Danish right-wing press has indeed defended Mr. Irving's freedom (not his views, of course), despite rebukes from Jewish people who normally back those same papers.

Irving's present wife is Danish, she is campaigning for his freedom, but also calls him "a crackpot" and his theories "laughable", while Irving's teenage daughter's favourite book is Anna Frank's Diary!

Tarik