Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy: Difference between revisions

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	* A documentary by {{interlanguage link\|Karsten Kjær\|da}} from October 2007 on the cartoon affair, including many interviews with the major protagonists. (46 mins)		* A documentary by {{interlanguage link\|Karsten Kjær\|da}} from October 2007 on the cartoon affair, including many interviews with the major protagonists. (46 mins)

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Revision as of 20:18, 27 November 2024

2005 controversy surrounding the depiction of Muhammad

[[File:Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png|thumb|260px|The controversial cartoons of Muhammad, as they were first published in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

Relationship between the liberal West and Islam

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Francis Fukuyama wrote in the online magazine Slate that "while beginning with a commendable European desire to assert basic liberal values," the controversy was an alarming sign of the degree of cultural conflict between Muslim immigrant communities in Europe and their broader populations, and advocated a measured and prudent response to the situation. Helle Rytkonen wrote in Danish Foreign Policy Yearbook 2007 that most of the debate around the cartoon controversy was over-simplified as a simple matter of free speech against religion. She said that the actual dispute was more nuanced, focusing on the tone of the debate and broader context of Western-Islamic relations.

Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate that official reaction in the West—particularly the United States—was too lenient toward the protesters and Muslim community in Denmark, and insufficiently supportive of Denmark and the right to free speech:

Nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.

William Kristol also wrote that the response of Western leaders, with the exception of the Danish Prime Minister, was too weak and that the issue was used as an excuse by "those who are threatened by our effort to help liberalize and civilize the Middle East" to fight back against the "assault" on radical Islamists and Middle Eastern dictatorships.

Flemming Rose said he did not expect a violent reaction, and talked about what the incident implies about the relationship between the West and the Muslim world:

I spoke to Bernard Lewis about this, and he said that the big difference between our case and the Rushdie affair is that Rushdie is perceived as an apostate by the Muslims while, in our case, Muslims were insisting on applying Islamic law to what non-Muslims are doing in non-Muslim countries. In that sense, he said it is a kind of unique case that might indicate that Europe is perceived as some kind of intermediate state between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world.

Freedom of speech, political correctness and self-censorship

One of the principal lines of controversy surrounding the cartoons concerned the limits of free speech, how much it should be legally or ethically constrained and whether the cartoons were an appropriate expression for a newspaper to print. The cartoons were first printed in response to the perception of some journalists at the newspaper that self-censorship was becoming a problem; the ensuing reaction did nothing to dispel that idea. Rose said:

When I wrote the accompanying text to the publication of the cartoons, I said that this act was about self-censorship, not free speech. Free speech is on the books; we have the law, and nobody as yet has thought of rewriting it. This changed when the death threats were issued; it became an issue of the Sharia trumping the fundamental right of free speech.

Rose also highlighted what he believed to be a difference between political correctness and self-censorship—which he considered more dangerous. He said:

There is a very important distinction to be made here between what you perceive as good behavior and a fear keeping you from doing things that you want to do ... A good example of this was the illustrator who refused to illustrate a children's book about the life of Mohammed. He is on the record in two interviews saying that he insisted on anonymity because he was afraid.

Christopher Hitchens wrote that it is important to affirm "the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general." He criticised media outlets which did not print the cartoons while covering the story. Ralf Dahrendorf wrote that the violent reaction to the cartoons constituted a sort of counter-enlightenment which must be defended against. Sonia Mikich wrote in Die Tageszeitung, "I hereby refuse to feel badly for the chronically insulted. I refuse to argue politely why freedom of expression, reason and humour should be respected". She said that those things are part of a healthy society and that deeply held feelings or beliefs should not be exempt from commentary, and that those offended had the option of ignoring them.

Ashwani K. Peetush of Wilfrid Laurier University wrote that in a liberal democracy freedom of speech is not absolute, and that reasonable limits are put on it such as libel, defamation and hate speech laws in almost every society to protect individuals from "devastating and direct harm." He said that it is reasonable to consider two of the cartoons as hate speech, which directly undermine a group of people (Muslims) by forming part of an established discourse linking all Muslims with terrorism and barbarity:

create a social environment of conflict and intimidation for a community that already feels that its way of life is threatened. I do not see how such tactics incorporate people into the wider public and democratic sphere, as Rose argues. They have the opposite effect: the marginalised feel further marginalised and powerless.

In France, the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was taken to court for publishing the cartoons; it was acquitted of charges that it incited hatred. In Canada a human rights commission investigated The Western Standard, a magazine which published the cartoons, but found insufficient grounds to proceed with a human rights tribunal (which does not imply criminal charges, but is a quasi-judicial, mandatory process) against the publication. These government investigations of journalists catalysed debate about the role of government in censoring or prosecuting expressions they deemed potentially hateful.

Tim Cavanaugh wrote that the incident revealed the danger of hate speech laws:

The issue will almost certainly lead to a revisiting of the lamentable laws against 'hate speech' in Europe, and with any luck to a debate on whether these laws are more likely to destroy public harmony than encourage it.