by Michael Jansen

The cartoon row, the ongoing event in the "clash of civilisations" between the worldwide Muslim umma and the West began when a well-intentioned Danish author expressed frustration over the fact that artists were reluctant to provide illustrations for a children's book on the life of the Prophet Mohammad. The book was intended to educate Danish schoolchildren on the religious background of Muslim classmates. At first, the writer found no illustrators prepared to deliver because they feared a violent backlash, but eventually one agreed to do the job without attribution.

Having heard the tale of the children's book, the Jyllands-Posten, a newspaper trying to boost its circulation by taking up a controversial issue, commissioned and published satirical caricatures of the prophet drawn by cartoonists who all too clearly intended to provoke by depicting him in an unfavourable light. Their drawings demonised and denigrated Islam and smear one billion Muslims as terrorists.

The paper's aim was to elicit a reaction, which is precisely what happened. But the paper's editor did not take into consideration the fact that cartoons published in Denmark, a country which had no history of conflict with the umma, would be projected across the world by jet-setting clerics, interconnected media and the Internet. He focused on secular, liberal, monocultural Denmark and forgot that it belongs to the pluralistic global village where there must be mutual understanding and respect between communities with widely differing views on religion, identity, society and politics.

There are two distinct issues at stake. Portrayal of the prophet and insulting the prophet.

First and foremost, portraits of the prophet are prohibited implicitly in the Holy Koran and explicitly in the Traditions of the Prophet. The author of the Danish children's book could have avoided a negative reaction by following the example of the late Syrian film director, Mustafa Akkad, in his acclaimed film about the prophet, "Mohammad, Messenger of God". Akkad did not show the prophet but had his companions speak to the camera as if they were talking to him. Nevertheless, even the respectful Akkad was threatened by zealots who had not seen the film.

Muslims are not alone in being prohibited to portray religious figures. A ban on representations of all human beings and animals was laid down in the Ten Commandments dictated by Moses. In observance of this ban, mosques and Jewish temples are decorated with abstract and geometric figures. Muslim adoption of the prohibition on idols and "graven images" prompted the Eastern Orthodox Church to wage a campaign of iconoclasm involving the destruction of images in painting and statuary during half of the eighth century and part of the ninth. Eight hundred years later, fundamentalist Protestant Christian churches took a strong line against Catholic images of Jesus and his followers.

Second, deliberately insulting the prophet is considered the ultimate offence by many Muslims. One empathetic Western analyst commenting on the row quoted the adage: "You can say what you like about God but be careful what you say about the prophet." He was quite right. While God is remote, the prophet is not. Thanks to the Traditions, the last 23 years of his life are closely documented, enabling ordinary Muslims to develop a close personal attachment to revere him as an exemplar. Muslims are furious because he was not only portrayed but unjustly libelled in the cartoons.

His companions noted that he walked rapidly as if striding downhill, laughed with his mouth open, loved children and was kind to animals. He played practical jokes and had a good sense of humour. Although he lived modestly, he also liked silk and perfume. He did not eat onions or garlic because he did not wish to offend those around him at times of prayer. He told his followers not to commit aggression but only use violence in self-defence. He did not return insult for insult or injury for injury.

Muslims are also angry because the cartoons constitute fresh abuse of the umma, piled on top of the mountain of insults heaped upon Muslims in recent decades through crass cartoons, sneering articles, ugly depictions of Arab and Muslim characters in books and films, hostile media presentations of Arab and Muslim issues, and harsh anti-Muslim declarations by political leaders.

Muslims might have been ready to shoulder the insult of the cartoons if the editor of the paper had apologised properly and the editors of other newspapers around the world had not challenged Muslim complaints about unlicensed press freedom by reprinting the offending cartoons. This is what happened.

Muslims reacted so strongly and, unfortunately, on occasion, with violence because they are facing unending Western military, political and economic pressure. The cartoon insult came on top of injuries committed in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In his oft quoted book on the clash of civilisations, Samuel P. Huntington, observed aptly: "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

It is hypocritical for Westerners to demand freedom of the press while Muslims do not have freedom from Western violence manifested through invasion, occupation, territorial expropriation and financial exploitation.

It is no coincidence that the first Muslims to protest the cartoons were Palestinians living in battered Gaza and the fragmented Israeli-occupied West Bank. Iraqis in Basra and elsewhere soon staged demonstrations and Iraq's supreme Shiite religious figure, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, condemned the cartoons.

Commenting on Western condemnation of the negative Muslim reaction to the cartoons, Gary Younge, a columnist for the Guardian, quoted the slain South African activist Steve Biko who said: "Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked." Indeed.

Thursday, February 9, 2006