Misplaced Pages

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 88.250.50.6 (talk) at 13:22, 29 May 2007 (→Descriptions of the drawings). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 13:22, 29 May 2007 by 88.250.50.6 (talk) (→Descriptions of the drawings)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
The controversial cartoons of Muhammad, as they were first published in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. Larger versions of the cartoons (some translated into English) are available off-site.

The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 2005-09-30. The newspaper announced that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship.

Danish Muslim organizations, who objected to the depictions, responded by holding public protests attempting to raise awareness of Jyllands-Posten's publication. The controversy deepened when further examples of the cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence, including setting fire to the Norwegian and Danish Embassies in Syria, and the storming of European buildings and desecration of the Danish and German flags in Gaza City. While a number of Muslim leaders called for protesters to remain peaceful, other radical Muslim leaders across the globe, including Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas, issued death threats. Various groups also responded with support of the Danish policies, including numerous "Buy Danish" campaigns and various displays of support for the "free speech" of Denmark.

Critics of the cartoons described them as Islamophobic or racist, and argue that they are blasphemous to people of the Muslim faith, intended to humiliate a Danish minority, or are a manifestation of ignorance about the history of western imperialism, from colonialism to the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Supporters of the cartoons said they've illustrated an important issue in a period of Islamist terrorism and that their publication is a legitimate exercise of the right of free speech. They also claim that similar cartoons about other religions are frequently printed, arguing that the followers of Islam were not targeted in a discriminatory way.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmark's worst international crisis since World War II.


Opinions and issues

See also: Opinions on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy See also: International reactions to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy

Danish journalistic tradition

Freedom of speech was obtained in a new Danish constitution in 1849, and has been defended vigorously ever since. It was suspended for the duration of the German occupation of Denmark in World War II. Freedom of expression is also protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Danish newspapers are privately owned and independent from the government, and Danish freedom of expression is quite far-reaching, even by Western standards. In the past, this has provoked official protests from Germany about printing neo-nazi propaganda, and from Russia for "solidarity with terrorists." The organization Reporters Without Borders ranks Denmark at the top of its Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2005.

Religion is often portrayed in ways that other societies consider illegal blasphemy. While Jyllands-Posten has published satirical cartoons depicting Christian figures, it did, in 2003, reject unsolicited surreal cartoons depicting Jesus, opening them to accusations of a double standard. In February 2006, Jyllands-Posten also refused to publish Holocaust denial cartoons offered by an Iranian newspaper. Six of the less controversial entries were later published by Dagbladet Information, after the editors consulted the main rabbi in Copenhagen, and three cartoons were in fact later reprinted in Jyllands-Posten. After the competition had finished, Jyllands-Posten also reprinted the winning and runner-up cartoons.

Muslim tradition

Aniconism

Main articles: Aniconism in Islam and Depictions of Muhammad
File:Aziz efendi-muhammad alayhi s-salam.jpg
"Muhammad" in Arabic calligraphy.

Owing to the traditions of aniconism in Islam, the majority of art concerning Muhammad is calligraphic in nature. The Qur'an condemns idolatry, and pictoral forms are seen as ostensibly close to idol worship. These are found in Ahadith : "Ibn ‘Umar reported Allah’s Messenger (pbuh) having said: Those who paint pictures would be punished on the Day of Resurrection and it would be said to them: Breathe soul into what you have created."

File:Muhammad 2.jpg
Muhammad rededicating the Kaaba Black Stone. In Jami Al-Tawarikh "The Universal History" by Rashid Al-Din, at the University of Edinburgh library; c. 1315.

Within Muslim communities, views have varied regarding pictorial representations. Shi'a Islam has been generally tolerant of pictorial representations of human figures, including Muhammad. Contemporary Sunni Islam generally forbids any pictorial representation of Muhammad, but has had periods allowing depictions of Muhammad's face covered with a veil or as a featureless void emanating light. A few contemporary interpretations of Islam, such as some adherents of Wahhabism and Salafism, are entirely aniconistic and condemn pictorial representations of any kind. The Taliban, while in power in Afghanistan, banned television, photographs and images in newspapers and destroyed paintings including frescoes in the vicinity of the Buddhas of Bamyan.

Prohibition to insult Muhammad

In Muslim societies, insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad is considered one of the gravest of all crimes. Some interpretations of the Shariah, in particular the relatively fringe Salafi group, state that any insult to Muhammad warrants death.

However, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has denounced calls for the death of the Danish cartoonist. OIC's Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told journalists in Islamabad:

This is not a joke to go and say kill this and that. This is a very serious matter and nobody has the authority to issue a ruling to kill people.

Associating Islam with terrorism

Many Muslims have explained their anti-cartoon stance as against insulting pictures and not so much as against pictures in general. According to the BBC:

It is the satirical intent of the cartoonists and the association of the Prophet with terrorism, that is so offensive to the vast majority of Muslims.

— 

Why is the insult so deeply felt by some Muslims? Of course, there is the prohibition on images of Muhammad. But one cartoon, showing the Prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, extends the caricature of Muslims as terrorists to Muhammad. In this image, Muslims see a depiction of Islam, its prophet and Muslims in general as terrorists. This will certainly play into a widespread perception among Muslims across the world that many in the West harbour a hostility towards – or fear of – Islam and Muslims.

— 


Allegations of "agendas"

Agendas in the West

Some commentators see the publications of the cartoons and the riots that took place in response, as part of a coordinated effort to show Muslims and Islam in a bad light, thus influencing public opinion in the West in aid of various political projects, for example to support further military intervention in the Middle East. Most commentators in Europe framed the dispute as one between Islam and freedom of expression, which was useful banner "under which the most diverse sectors of society can unite in the name of ‘European values’: feminists and Christian conservatives, social democrats and neoliberals, nationalists and multiculturalists, civil rights activists and consumption-oriented hedonists."

The controversy was used to highlight a supposedly irreconcilable rift between Europeans and Islam, and many demonstrations in the Middle-East were encouraged by the regimes there for their own purposes. Different groups used this tactic for different purposes, some more explicitly than others: for example anti-immigrant groups, nationalists, feminists, classical liberals and national governments.

Muslim critics have also accused the west, in particular the EU, of double standards in adopting laws that outlaw Holocaust denial. Denmark, along with Britain and Sweden, have particularly libertarian traditions concerning Holocaust denial and pressed for wording in a recent EU legislation that would avoid criminalizing debates about the Holocaust and would ensure that films and plays about the Holocaust would not be censored.

Alleged Zionist agenda

Among others, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed a "Zionist conspiracy" for the row over the cartoons. The Palestinian envoy to Washington alleged the Likud party concocted distribution of Muhammad caricatures worldwide in a bid to create a clash between the West and the Muslim world. The criminalization of denial of the Holocaust in parts of Europe received renewed interest, raising concerns over freedom of speech being asserted selectively, although no such criminalization exists in Denmark.

Islamist or Mideast regime agendas

Other commentators see Islamists jockeying for influence both in Europe and the Islamic Ummah, who tried (unsuccessfully) to widen the split between the USA and Europe, and simultaneously bridge the split between the Sunnis and the Shia.

Regimes in the Middle East have been accused of taking advantage of the controversy, and adding to it, in order to demonstrate their Islamic credentials, distracting from their failures by setting up an external enemy, and "(using) the cartoons as a way of showing that the expansion of freedom and democracy in their countries would lead inevitably to the denigration of Islam." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a Holocaust Conference, supported by the OIC, to uncover what he called the "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel. Ahmadinejad started voicing doubt about the veracity of the holocaust at the same OIC conference in Mecca that served to spread the Akkari-Laban dossier to leaders of the Muslim world.

Alleged political correctness

Critics of political correctness see the cartoon controversy as a sign that attempts at judicial codification of such concepts as respect, tolerance and offense have backfired on their advocates, "leaving them without a leg to stand on" and in retreat again:

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. Muslim activists are finding out why getting into a negative-publicity fight is as inadvisable as wrestling with a pig: You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

— 

Comparable references

Main article: Freedom of speech versus blasphemy

Numerous comparisons have been offered in public discourse comparing earlier controversies over propriety of speech and art with the controversy that surrounded the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Some examples include:

See also

References

  1. "Arson and Death Threats as Muhammad Caricature Controversy Escalates". Spiegel online. 2006-02-04. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
  2. "Embassies torched in cartoon fury". CNN.com. 2006-02-05. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
  3. Cartoons of Prophet Met With Outrage Washington Post. "Kuwait called the cartoons "despicable racism."
    ° Blasphemous Cartoons Trigger Muslim Fury Iran Daily. "Although Jyllands-Posten maintains that the drawings were an exercise in free speech, many consider them as provocative, racist and Islamophobic"
    ° Muslim cartoon row timeline BBC online "Egyptian newspaper al-Fagr reprints some of the cartoons, describing them as a "continuing insult" and a "racist bomb".
  4. "Islam and globanalisation". Al Ahram. 2006-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. "The limits to free speech - Cartoon wars". The Economist. 2006-02-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. "70,000 gather for violent Pakistan cartoons protest". Times Online. 2006-02-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. Template:PDFlink
  8. "Chechen rebels seek talks with Moscow". BBC News. 28 October, 2002. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. "World Press Freedom Index, 2005". Reporters Without Borders.
  10. Painting by Jens Jørgen Thorsen
  11. Danish movie Jesus vender tilbage on Internet Movie Database
  12. Jesus vender tilbage plot description in the New York Times
  13. Drawing from Jyllands-Posten
  14. Zieler, Resurrection
  15. Gwladys Fouché (February 6, 2006). "Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons". The Guardian.
  16. "No Holocaust Cartoons in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten". Jyllands-Posten. 2006-02-09. Retrieved 2006-09-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  17. Danish paper refuses Holocaust cartoons, The Scotsman, 9 February 2006
  18. "Paper reprints Holocaust cartoons". BBC News. 2006-09-08. Retrieved 2006-09-08.
  19. "Holocaust-konkurrence flopper". Jyllands-Posten. 2006-09-15. Retrieved 2006-09-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  20. "Holocaust-konkurrence flopper (p. 16)". Jyllands-Posten. 2006-09-16. Retrieved 2006-09-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  21. "Iran varsler endnu flere Holocaust-konkurrencer (p. 20)". Jyllands-Posten. 2006-11-03. Retrieved 2006-11-05. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 24
  23. Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 24
  24. Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 24
  25. Islam Today: Drawing Pictures & Producing Animated Cartoons
  26. Answers of Grand Ayatollah Uzma Sistani
  27. CAIR press release
  28. Afghanistan: At the Crossroads of Ancient Civilisations
  29. "Question #22809: Ruling on one who insults the Prophet". Islam Q & A.
  30. "OIC denounces cartoons violence". BBC.
  31. Abdelhadi, Magdi (4 February 2006). "Cartoon row highlights deep divisions". BBC News. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. "Q&A: Depicting the Prophet Muhammad". BBC News. 2 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. "Islam and globanalisation". Al-Ahram. 23 March 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. "Rotten in Denmark". antiwar. 23 March 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  35. Heiko Henkel (May/June 2006). "'The journalists of Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs' The Danish cartoon controversy and the self-image of Europe". Radical Phillosophy. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  36. "EU adopts measure outlawing Holocaust denial". International Herald Tribune. 2007-04-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  37. "Qatari University Lecturer Ali Muhi Al-Din Al-Qardaghi: Muhammad Cartoon Is a Jewish Attempt to Divert European Hatred from Jews to Muslims". Al-Jazeera/MemriTV. 2 March 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. "Cartoons 'part of Zionist plot'". Guardian. 7 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  39. "PA: Likud behind Muhammad cartoons". ynet. 13 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  40. "Anti-Semitism in the Egyptian Media". Anti-Defamation League. 1997.
  41. "Irving tests Europe's free speech". BBC. 20 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  42. "Iranian paper launches Holocaust cartoon competition". The Times. 6 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  43. "Iran paper plans Holocaust cartoons". Al-Jazeera. 6 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  44. "The Cartoon Jihad-The Muslim Brotherhood's project for dominating the West". Weekly Standard. 20 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  45. "Behind the cartoon war: radical clerics competing for followers". Christian Science Monitor. 23 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  46. "Islamic Activism Sweeps Saudi Arabia". Washington Post. 23 March 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  47. "The Cartoon Backlash: Redefining Alignments". Stratfor. 7 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  48. "Cartoons Tap Into Deep-Seated Grievances". Forbes. 8 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  49. "En uhellig alliance har bragt konflikten om det hellige ud af kontrol«". Information. 1 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) Template:Da icon
  50. "Opportunists Make Use of Cartoon Protests". Washington Times. 9 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  51. "Clash of Civilization". WallStreetJournal. 11 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  52. "Iran plans Holocaust conference". CNN. 16 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  53. "Tehran faces backlash over conference to question Holocaust". Guardian. 16 January 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  54. "Iranian president says Israel should be moved to Europe". USAToday. 16 January 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  55. "How a meeting of leaders in Mecca set off the cartoon wars around the world". The Independent. 2006-02-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  56. "Respectful Cultures & Disrespectful Cartoons". Counterpunch News. 13 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  57. "The Mountain Comes to Muhammad". Reason Magazine. 13 February 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

Primary sources

Islamic views

Non-Islamic views

Press reviews

Video

Images

Online petitions

Other sources

Categories: