The Daily Background

A little while ago, I wrote about the Muslim cartoon story, explaining why it was so offensive and provoked such anger in Muslims worldwide. In that posting on my website, I explained in detail Islamic tradition and treatment of images of the prophet Muhammad.

Now, after I wrote that, I’ve seen dozens of blog postings in support of the original newspaper which published the images, yadda yadda yaddaing about how freedom of the press is important, blah blah blah.

This isn’t about freedom of the press, however. This is about one newspaper making a very bad editorial decision, and several other ones following it, and making the same bad decision. Publishing cartoons which violate certain religious rules is not necessarily wrong– however– doing that and happening to publish extremely racist cartoons, and promoting them is a bad thing. Not the type of thing that principled editors do.

For all you people out there talking about freedom of the press, and loony Muslims and their archaic traditions, blah blah blah– shut the hell up. This is about promoting racism.

Now that’s the stance which I’ve maintained through this whole story, until today, when new details emerged. Well, not really until today– what just was revealed only strengthens my point. Get this:

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

Well. HEY! All you people who were writing blog entries about how freedom of the press was so wonderful and blah blah blah, Bush disagreed with the publishing so therefore we have to disagree with him and blah blah blah there were other images of the prophet Muhammad before, blah blah blah blah– I don’t mean to pull an O’Reilly or anything, but– shut the hell up. (On the prior images existed point, you’re just plain wrong and haven’t done your research. Yes– a comparatively few images exist which portray the prophet Muhammad, but of those, the absolute vast majority that do exist have the facial region, or the entire head either blurred out or whited out on purpose by the artist out of respect).

This was about a newspaper publishing racist images, targeted towards a specific ethnicity, a specific religion, and a specific culture.

This is now about a newspaper first seeking out willing cartoonists to create these specific images, then contracting them, then publishing images derogatory to Muslims worldwide, as well as those from the middle east in general. And the same newspaper refused to publish images which might be hurtful to Christians. This is selective racism.
Targeting

Targeting Muslims, and people who live in the Middle East in general.

These are images which portray the religion of Islam as violence encouraging (even going so far as suggesting violence is a fundamental pillar of Islam, it can be argued), and portray Muslims and Middle Easterners as terrorists, backwards people, beasts (literally), who engage in sexual acts with animals, run around with curved swords, turbans and robes, abuse women, and as people who can’t get anything done without having plenty of virgins around to deflower.

Not cool, in my humble opinion. Now, do I support violence against those who published the cartoons? Certainly not. Do I think protests are appropriate? Sure, as long as they’re peaceful, and as long as those who participate in them do so of their own free will. So do I support censorship of the press? Not at all. Do I think newspapers have the right to publish inflammatory images or racist images? They sure have got the right to, and sometimes the exercise that right. But should these dozen or so European newspapers (many of them very right-wing and blatantly racist) have republished these particular images? That’s something their editors will probably be second-guessing for quite a while.

In hindsight, considering the alienation of the middle east, violent protests, arson of buildings, death threats, and general furor, it probably wasn’t so freaking bright of a decision. And furthermore, you have to remember which context these cartoons were published in. Next to an article which makes fun of Islam for discouraging images be drawn of the prophet Muhammad.

I wonder now. If I were to gain control of a dozen European newspapers and a handful of international ones, and in each one of them, publish a set of 12 images, all designed to make fun of…say… I don’t know…. OH! Christianity! And portray Jesus as somebody who likes to… say… encouraging violence (even going so far as suggesting violence is a fundamental pillar of Christianity, it can be argued), and portray Christians and those from western white backgrounds as terrorists, backwards people, beasts (literally), who engage in sexual acts with animals, run around with crucifixes, guns, and knives, abuse women, and as people who can’t get anything done without having plenty of virgins around to deflower— what do you think would be the popular reaction in the western world?

I don’t know if there’d be violence, but you can believe that mr O’Reilly would go on his pathetic excuse for a “news show,” and call for the boycott of this and that, and who knows, a war might even be started (heck, they’ve been started for less, if you know what I mean, cough cough.

The point is. We’re progressives. Yes– we like the freedom of the press. We believe it is absolutely essential to a free society. And we want it to be in place everywhere in the world. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes European newspaper editors make bad decisions sometimes (heck, even newspapers in the U.S.A.– cough cough, Washington Post & their blog comments– cough cough NYT and Judy Miller, etc etc etc).

But we shouldn’t automatically defend them because freedom of the press is somehow a concern here, or we feel like we have to disagree with our Administration and media at all costs. That’s just childish– and as progressives we’re more responsible than that.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog