The Mohammed Cartoon Controversy

The Mohammed Cartoon Controversy

Thought and Reflection:

Today’s discussion comes straight from the headlines around the world. By now you are all familiar with Muslim reaction to the YouTube video and the attacks on the Libyan embassy (claimed as the cause and then discredited to some degree) and other US interests in the Arab world. This problem was exacerbated by the subsequent publication of offensive caricatures in a French magazine only days later. Ironically, these events seem to parallel similar recent crises in Denmark and Sweden and elsewhere. The media have justified their actions on the basis of free speech and free press. The Islamic world argues that those freedoms do not include the mockery of the sacred. And so here we are. Our focus today is on what we might learn from this and, more importantly, how we can move forward in an increasingly diverse world. Let’s look at a series of controversies and see what we can learn from them.

The South Park Controversy

Let’s start with the following video clip that gives us a pretty good overview of how the two sides differ. This clip (from CNN) represents a report following anger at a South Park cartoon a couple of years ago (and before the recent crises began) that portrayed the Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit and then as Santa Claus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh4mi2Ea_7o&feature=relmfu

Larry King even responded to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1SAl0NVEHQ&feature=related

Here’s some background to help put the present moment in perspective.

The Jyllands-Posten (2005)

In the fall of 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons, some critical of the prophet, setting off a strong and eventually violent reaction in the Muslim world and throughout the Middle East. 

Published in Copenhagen, the Jyllands-Posten is the most widely read daily newspaper in Denmark with a circulation of slightly more than 179,000 and is considered to be at the center/right of the political spectrum (Mortensen, 2004).  According to the newspaper’s cultural editor, the cartoons were published with the objective of stirring a debate about self-censorship (Asser, 2009). Danish writer Kare Bluitgen had complained publicly that he was unable to find an illustrator for his children’s book about the life of the prophet Mohammed because of the Islamic tenet banning portrayals or images of the prophet. In response, the newspaper created a “contest” asking newspaper illustrators to “draw the prophet as they saw him, as an assertion of free speech and to reject pressure by Muslim groups to respect their sensitivities,” according to a report by the BBC News Service (Asser, 2009).

While some of the images published in the Jyllands-Posten were not critical of Islam, others drew heavily from cultural, political and racial stereotypes created in the current age of terrorism. One of the cartoons, for example, was a visual image of a police line-up that included Mohammed among other turban-wearing figures. The witness, who is examining the suspects, states, “I don’t know which one he is.” The figures in the line-up include Jesus Christ, Danish politician Pia Kjærgaard, and Bluitgen himself. Another shows Mohammed greeting deceased suicide bombers in Heaven. As they arrive in a long line, Mohammed proclaims, “Stop. Stop. We have run out of virgins.” Perhaps the most controversial cartoon was a drawing that included an image of Mohammed with a lit bomb in his turban.

The images were accompanied by an article written by the newspaper’s cultural editor, Flemming Rose, who had invited the submissions from the Danish Illustrators Association. The purpose of the article was to defend the decision to hold the “contest.” It was needed, he wrote, to prevent the kind of censorship that is found in totalitarian societies. Referring to the growing Muslim community in Denmark, he opined, “They demand special position when they insist on special considerations for their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with a temporal democracy of expression, where you must be ready to tolerate scorn, mockery, and ridicule.”

Initially, the Muslim community in Denmark complained peacefully to Danish political leaders and to the newspaper itself. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Islamic leaders that the principle of freedom of speech prevented him from intervening (Omestad, 2009). Unhappy with the lack of a Danish response, a group of local imams sent representatives to the Middle East to begin publicizing the newspaper’s publication of the offensive cartoons and the Danish government’s failure to respond sympathetically (from their perspective) to the Islamic community. On the streets of the Middle East, Pakistan, Nigeria, and even as far away as Indonesia, Muslims responded with violent riots that included burning Danish flags, staging protests at Danish embassies, and calling for boycotts of Danish products sold in those countries (Omestad, 2009).

Ongoing threats against one of the cartoonists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dweVZlnLFys&feature=fvwrel

Here is a response from representatives of the Islamic community in the UK following the publications of the Mohammed cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten in 2005:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FosJJR7c7fY&feature=related

Here’s a very interesting interview from Danish television regarding this (don’t worry it is in English, with Danish subtitles):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGGsar8sxy0&feature=related

Lars Vilks and the “Roundabout Dogs”

Two years later, a similar controversy would erupt in Sweden. Artist Lars Vilks was invited to participate in “The Dog in Art” exhibition. In response, he produced three drawings of the prophet Mohammed portrayed as a “rondelhund” (a “roundabout dog”). For several years prior to this exhibition, Swedish artists had been constructing and sculpting (usually out of crude and rudimentary materials) depictions of dogs and leaving them anonymously in the roundabouts on Swedish roadways. Vilks’ drawings appeared to be poking fun at both Mohammed and this popular cultural phenomenon. When several galleries refused to display the drawings out of fear of a backlash from the Islamic community, the regional Swedish newspaper, Nerkikes Allehanda, decided to publish them along with an editorial that was critical of censorship. The editorial argued:

This is unacceptable self-censorship. A liberal society must be able to do two

things at the same time. On the one hand, it must be able to defend Muslim’s

right to freedom of religion and their right to build mosques. However, on the

other hand, it also is permissible to ridicule Islam’s most foremost symbols—just

like all other religions’ symbols. There is no opposition between these two goals.

In fact, it is even the case that they would presuppose each other.

Here’s a report on this from Al-Jazeera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KALudLdC5q8

And here’s a report from CNN:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeIgpZdM4As&feature=related

The French Magazine: Charlie Hebdo

Only days after the US ambassador to Libya was killed in the attacks connected with the controversial YouTube video, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo announced it would publish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. This magazine loves to be the provocateur and has been at the center of many recent controversies. Here’s some good background on this. Please read:

http://rt.com/news/french-caricatures-mohammed-muslim-469/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/world/europe/french-magazine-publishes-cartoons-mocking-muhammad.html?_r=1

This clip also gives a good overview (note that it was produced by Jewish news agency):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZD3hcS_Sec

Finally, here’s the Al-Jazeera report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpHoBOsQVX4&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Some Questions

So, what is at the heart of this controversy? Do you feel that this is solely about free speech? Is there more? What are your sympathies for both sides? Do both have legitimate arguments? How do we get past this?

Here’s some additional background to consider (focusing on the Jyllands-Posten crisis in Denmark):

Free Speech versus Press Regulation in Denmark

Although the Danes loathe self-censorship, they have historically recognized the need for the press to be sensitive to potentially vulnerable groups within their society, including immigrant groups. The challenge, of course, is what happens when these potentially conflicting ideals collide.

Danish Press Regulation and Policy. The Danish Constitution, adopted in 1849, gives every Danish citizen the right to impart information while prohibiting any form of censorship (Mortensen, 2004). Additional contemporary press laws address the issues of defamation and libel. In addition to these legal regulations, Danish journalists follow a set of ethical guidelines that were adopted in 1991 and codified in 1992 as the National Code of Journalistic Conduct. While strongly supporting the notion of free expression, the code does not specifically address how to handle materials that might be deemed offensive to individuals or specific groups (regarding race, religion, etc.). The code does call for the need to respect an individual’s “integrity,” but it stops short of prohibiting publication of offensive materials. Section 3A states: “Information which may be prejudicial or insulting to somebody or detract from other persons' opinion of the person concerned shall be very closely checked.” Arguably, the phrase “closely checked” contains some ambiguity about how the media should respond to potential offensive images or content (Mortensen, 2004).

Religion in Denmark

The Danes, like most Scandinavians, take what can be described as a secularist, individualistic, or pragmatic approach to religion, which is a stark contrast to rigid, dogmatic, and highly structured demands of Islam. Only a small very small percentage of Scandinavians attend public worship services and most could be aptly described (in Swedish) as “namnkristna”—“Christians in name only” (Tomasson, 2002). Most Scandinavians maintain their connection to the church only through specific events—baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial—while maintaining indifference toward the organized Church itself. They recognize the need for decent values in preserving the community and see religion as contributing to human decency but not the necessary and only source of these values. As such, religion is seen as “private,” based on the individual’s own conception of moral values and universal guidelines (Tomasson, 2002).

The Danes locate religion well within the private sphere, which, they believe, is essential to, and consistent with, the ideals of a secular, liberal democracy.  The problem, according to Schmidt, is that the Islamic community insists that religion has a “normatively based right to play a role within the public sphere” and public life (Schmidt). As such, Muslims also have the normative understanding that religion must be considered ahead of secular governing principles and cannot become subordinate to the secular ideas found in Western democracies (Schmidt).

Portraying the Prophet

Media commentators in Denmark have argued that the Muslim-Danish controversy was precipitated only by the publication of drawings that include the likeness and image of Mohammed. Several writers and observers have noted that the Muslim community deems such portrayals highly offensive. While this may be true, the drawings alone (and the accompanying editorials) could not have been expected to trigger such a strong and violent reaction by themselves. History suggests otherwise. An examination of both historical and contemporary depictions of the prophet reveals that Islamic and non-Islamic painters have often depicted Mohammed. For example, the Apocalypse of Muhammad, written in Herat, Afghanistan in 1436, shows Mohammed meeting the prophets Ishmael, Isaac, and Lot in Paradise. The book is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, France. More recent depictions include paintings by Gustave Dore and Salvador Dali as well as a depiction of Mohammed in a Tintin comic book (France) in 1977.

Today’s Blog Assignment

Please read the assigned readings and watch the video clips. I want you to reflect deeply on these issues. Consider the cultural, political, social, and historical factors that are at play in the three crises that were discussed. Consider the arguments presented by both sides. Can you defend and challenge these arguments? What are the valid points made by both sides? Is this simply about free speech, or does this reflect a deeper divide? In your mind, how do we move forward? Can the media have a role in the solution? 

Some References

Martin Asser, “What the Muhammad Cartoons Portray.” BBC News. Available: http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4693292.stm. Accessed: January 16, 2009.

Frands Mortensen, “Denmark.” In Mary Kelly, Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Denis McQuail (eds.), The Media in Europe: The Euromedia Handbook (3^rd ed.). London: Sage, 2004, p. 43-53.

Thomas Omestad. “Culture Clash in Denmark.” US News & World Report. Available: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061231/8denmark.htm. Accessed: January 16, 2009.

Richard F. Tomasson, “How Sweden Became So Secular.” Scandinavian Studies, 74/1 (2002): 61-88.