Politics: October 2007 Archives

Two years ago, Denmark became the hot topic around the world when the right-wing newspaper Jyllandsposten published twelve cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. More recently a Swedish journalist felt the predictable wrath of offended Muslims after publishing another picture of Muhammad.

Referring to "freedom of expression," Jyllandsposten waived all responsibility for the ensuing protests when it dawned upon the editors that there was a world beyond the Danish borders where Muslims were also offended. Today, hopefully it is only the most naïve individuals that still believe that the cartoons had anything to do with freedom of expression, and nothing to do with the steep increase in xenophobia and racism that Denmark has witnessed over the last thirty years. In fact, Jyllandsposten had published the cartoons in spite of being warned of the effects next to an editorial explaining that Muslims should accept ridicule, and one of the cartoonists included a hidden comment to Jyllandsposten's motivation in his drawing: in Persian, the text on the blackboard says, "The editors at Jyllandsposten are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs." Nonetheless, Jyllandsposten's editor Flemming Rose, a great fan of the intensely anti-Arab Daniel Pipes, decided to print the cartoons. It is hard to believe that Jyllandsposten was caught entirely by surprise.

Freedom of expression is only relevant to minority groups. Jyllandsposten in Denmark represents the majority which has the power, and is also a traditional and almost uncritical supporter of the right-wing government. To such a medium, freedom of expression is a moot point. The majority has the power to say what it wants, exactly because it has the power to do so. It does not need any protection or freedom to do this. Freedom of expression is a tool that protects the weak from oppression of the strong when they voice their opinions. The strong do not need this protection, and their opinions are no more covered by freedom of expression than they are covered by mob violence. (In this particular case, the newspaper received the express support of the similarly right-wing government which advocated the right to free expression while recommending that left-wing or politically centered newspapers support the government's decisions.)

Generally speaking, any picture would be covered by freedom of expression to the extent that you can ignore power-relations such as oppression or state-sanctioned vigilante justice.

Many debaters remarked that there was a certain double standard applied to the question about freedom of expression, because although we do have a more forgiving attitude towards derisive images of religious symbols in Denmark, the same newspaper has rejected comparable drawings of Jesus, various clothing has been withdrawn from stores because of a perceived blasphemy against Christianity, and the government withdrew an sex-educational CD after pressure from religious interest groups.

But there is yet another form of double standard that is less evident. Muslim demonstrations against Denmark included burnings of the Danish national flag, and the "extreme right" party, the Danish People's Party (which is no more extreme than being able to collect more than ten percent of the votes) were still advocating that freedom of expression should be defended at all cost when they proposed a legislation against burning the Danish national flag.

As a principal argument, they stated that burning a flag is material damage while a cartoon only offends people's feelings. In other words, material damage has more weight than damaged feelings.

You might be inclined to accept this argument, but only until your realize that it is an entirely different issue if it is your own feelings that are hurt. For example, when occasionally a graveyard is desecrated for some reason, the complaints always refer to the fact that although the material damages were considerable, the worst damage was that the victims' survivors felt violated.

It shows that if we are the ones that are hurt, it is our feelings that have the greatest importance compared with the material damage, so the argument that material damage is more important than feelings is not generally valid.

When burnings of the Danish national flag is compared with the Muhammad cartoons as an example of expressions that are not to be covered by freedom of expression, the argument reveals a reality where "their" feelings are considered inferior to both our tangible material and our own feelings, which in turn we consider superior to our own tangibles. It is worse to step on our feelings than it is to step on our flag, but both are much worse than stepping on others' feelings.

This view extends to patronization as well. Christians in Denmark have stated that Muslims should not be offended by the Muhammad cartoons because Christians would not be hurt by similar drawings of Jesus. If for a moment we ignore the historical facts showing that this is a blatant lie, the Christians are in fact stating that not only are Muslim feelings considered inferior to Christian feelings; Christians even reserve themselves the rights to dictate what Muslims should allow themselves to feel.

When a newspaper such as Jyllandsposten draws intentionally demeaning cartoons of Muhammad, or when Muslims burn the Danish national flag, they attack symbols, and the importance of symbols cannot be emphasized enough in this conflict. Peace negotiators know that a mutual accept of symbolic values are key to conflict resolution and, conversely, that one of the easiest ways to start a conflict is to attack the opponent's symbols.

The cartoon conflict was initiated by a Christian culture against people from a Muslim culture, who in turn reacted very strongly. The reaction did not seem directed at the drawings themselves, however, and this begs for a better explanation than religious outrage over the images of the prophet. Firstly, there are many accounts of Muslim depictions of Muhammad that did not cause uproar; secondly, many protesters had never seen the drawings and had only heard about the deliberate provocation against their culture and peoples; and thirdly, many Muslim protesters expressed their anger against the Western world rather than the drawings themselves. The drawings that originally symbolized the Danish attitude towards their Arab immigrants had now become symbols that expressed the Western world's attitude towards the Middle East both in the eyes of the West and the Middle East. Although there are religious aspects involved from both sides of the conflict, it is difficult to classify the conflict as a religious conflict when you recognize Jyllandsposten's motivation and the nature of the protests.

Perhaps the protests may have been cloaked in religious trappings because the Muhammad drawings happened to be considered blasphemous, but although the Danish People's Party's inner circle does include a number of fundamentalist Christians, their reaction against burnings of the Danish national flag can hardly be said to be clearly caused by Christian faith; this is evidence that the feelings are related to the violation of a symbol, and that the conflict is based on cultural values attributed to the symbols.

Jyllandsposten triggered a conflict that was perhaps inevitable because it is reasonable to assume that the newspaper merely reflected the general rise in Danish xenophobia and racism. However, by attacking the Muslim symbols, they showed the Danish sentiments very powerfully, and the strong support that Jyllandsposten received in the Western world shows only too clearly how the Western world views its neighbors in the Middle East. And at the same time, the drawings became a symbol to the Middle East that illustrated their frustration with the Western world.