February 10, 2006
So, the Prophet Mohammed walks into a bar …
Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the noted wit, expert on freedom, and unelected religious leader—the leader who counts—of Iran, observed the other day that in the West, "casting doubt or negating the genocide of the Jews is banned but insulting the beliefs of 1.5 billion Muslims is allowed." He apparently thought this was a devastating point. Touché, Ayatollah Khamanei.The worldwide fuss over 12 cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed (some mocking, some benign) that ran in a Danish newspaper has already killed at least 10 people. Many self-styled voices of Islam have made the bizarre comparison between showing pictures of the Prophet Mohammed and expressing doubt about the Holocaust. A government-controlled Tehran newspaper announced a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust, asking "whether freedom of expression" applies to "the crimes committed by the United States and Israel." In a spirit of "see how you like it," a European Muslim group posted on the Web a cartoon of Anne Frank in bed with Hitler.
Muslim complaints about a Western double standard would be more telling if the factual premise was accurate. But it is not. In fact, it is nearly the opposite of the truth. Nothing is easier and more common in the West, including the United States, than criticizing the United States—except for criticizing Israel. A few Western countries have stupid laws, erratically enforced, against denying the Holocaust, but that hasn't stopped Holocaust denial from becoming a literary industry and cultural phenomenon. This is distressing to many Jews and others because making sure that the world remembers the Holocaust has become the main strategy for trying to prevent another one. The willingness of so many people to disbelieve the reality of a historical event as relatively recent and well-documented as the Holocaust leads you to despair of the human capacity for reason, along with more or less every advance in human affairs since the Dark Ages. Nevertheless, there has been no rioting about the historical reality of the Holocaust. No one has died over it.
Meanwhile, whatever point these European Muslims were making with their cartoon of Hitler and Anne Frank is more or less disproved by their very exercise. No one tried to stop them from putting the cartoon on the Web. The notion that jokes about Anne Frank are beyond the pale is provably false. There's a play running in New York right now called "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother." It's a monologue written and acted by stand-up comic Judy Gold, who says on stage every night that her mother used to read to her from a pop-up version of Anne Frank's diary and would say, "Pull the tab, Judith. Alive. Pull it again. Dead." Maybe you had to be there. But the New York Times reviewer called the play "fiercely funny, honest and moving" and did not demand that the author be executed, or even admonished.
more from Michael Kinsley at Slate here.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 03:25 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Instinctively, I aggree with this article, but there is an old saying which goes: "...cleverness can get you out of a situation that a wise man would never have gotten into in the first place" In other words, does anyone need those cartoons so badly? What can be gained by attacking the founder of the Islamic faith? I think there's plenty of room for free expression without such material, which only serves to alienate the many moslems who do not aggree with the fundemantalist extremists, but are nonetheless sensitive to attacks on Mohammed. There is a real clash of cultures here. They believe that their dignity and sacred texts are more important than the concept of total freedom of expression. That's not about to change.
I think one has to be pragmatic about rhese issues and decide where its worth taking a stand and where it isn't. For example, I support the French ban on the veil in schools, because that touches very serious issues like segregation of a population by dress and the status of women, but I don't think reprinting those cartoons is going to do any good to anyone.
Posted by: aguy109 | Feb 10, 2006 4:41:35 PM
Agreed.
Posted by: Anal-Haq | Feb 10, 2006 11:19:39 PM
The violent reaction is simply not necessary though. As an American I see the flag of the United States burned almost every day, and yet I feel no real compulsion to riot, nor do I feel any animosity towards those committing the acts. (I'm an aetheist so nationallity is the closest thing I have to religion). So I say even when something sacred to you is disgraced like in these cartoons why disgrace yourself by acting irrationally.
Posted by: testarossa | Feb 11, 2006 2:12:57 AM
AGuy,
Nothing is to be gained from attacking Mohammed in these ways, and clearly the cartoons were meant to bring offense. But there is a lot to be lost in giving the state the power to say what is acceptable or unacceptable in speech if it isn't a threat.
I oppose the French ban on veils, and I oppose also banning Holocaust denials.
I realize that these views are particularly American, and the fear of state power that stands behind it may be an especially neurotic one. But the issue is not whether speech such as the insults by the Danish paper or Holocaust denial should exist. Of course, they shouldn't; they're evidence off ill-will, at best, or murderous pyschosis, at worst. Rather, it's an issue of what power we're willing to give the state, especially in divided societies in which one faction can use it as a weapon against another.
Regards
Posted by: Robin | Feb 11, 2006 11:34:51 AM
Because the protests were unacceptable, does not make the cartoons and slandering of Islam acceptable.
Posted by: jamal | Feb 11, 2006 12:16:02 PM
I may be wrong but I don't think there's ever been an instance of public rioting by an offended privileged class. Those in power don't riot. They pass laws, they deploy armies, they mount propaganda campaigns.
Kinsley:
"Nothing is easier and more common in the West, including the United States, than criticizing the United States—except for criticizing Israel."
This is of course untrue.
One thing glaringly easier and far more common is the public utterance of fatuous absurdities that are baseless and counter-factual.
Kinsley arranges some miniature straw men amongst the cotton hills of his bed clothes, then after smacking them into each other a few times he declares victory for the side he favors, and calls for more orange juice.
Posted by: rollo | Feb 11, 2006 1:25:42 PM
Rollo,
Yep, you're wrong. That's not to say that the West is good and true and that the Islamic world is the opposite. 'Western' foreign policy toward much of the Islamic world has been filled with hypocrisy, self-interest, manipulation, power politics, cynicism, outright cruelty and a handful of other outrages for a long time.
But on this one you're simply dead wrong.
Witness for instance, the turmoil within the West in general during the Civil Rights era or the Vietnam War. And these issues, if a may say so, were a tad more important than being offended by a few stupid cartoons.
And by all means be offended, by the way. And voice your offence. But the small sector of Islamicist types who have decided to turn being offended into a violent mobilization of the worst aspects of a dumb and monstrous ideology are not to be apologized for. And you should be ashamed of yourself for not having the balls to draw the lines where they need to be drawn. If Michael Kinsley is your enemy than you have exchanged reason and communication between men for a slave mentality of resentment and infantilism.
For shame.
morgan
Posted by: morgan meis | Feb 11, 2006 2:14:27 PM
Jamal,
The issue is what you mean by "acceptable" and what follows from it. I think views like that of the KKK or Nazi party or Kach or RSS or Lakshar e Tayyaba or whatever fascist hue can be found are unacceptable. I don't think that it is unacceptable in the sense that state power should be used to curtail them.
We may ask the state to accept things while asking society not to accept them in the confines of, er, acceptable acceptability, simply because what it means for the state not to accept something is very different for individuals and society not to accept something. If we give up the idea of society as some organic unit with a broad and thick harmonious interest, and see it a full of competing interests, comprehensive views, etc., the state stops being some easy expression of an enlightened view. Given the power at it's disposal, there's nothing wrong with saying that it should accept things that I would not.
Posted by: Robin | Feb 11, 2006 3:29:52 PM
Jamal,
There is a bright line difference between taking offense and punishing people for being offensive. So, while there is nothing wrong with people marching in protest of cartoons, there would be a lot wrong with governments censoring the printing of cartoons or punishing their artists. This is a fairly simple question of what it means to live in a liberal democracy, with a sharp distinction between state and civil society. I wouldn't want to give it up. I very much doubt any reader of 3qd would want to either.
Posted by: Jonathan | Feb 11, 2006 3:45:15 PM
Morgan-
Michael Kinsley is not my "enemy".
-
Cartoons that mock what someone holds to be sacred are not stupid to them. I may find them dull-witted or unfunny, but I don't hold the entire world accountable to my values.
You may, and from the tone of your writing it seems you do.
-
You say twice that I'm wrong, but you offer no rebuttal or proof whatsoever, so I'm left with the impression you completely misread what it was I said I might be wrong about - that "there's [n]ever been an instance of public rioting by an offended privileged class".
Either that or you're hoping that by repeating it enough times at the end you'll find you've made it so.
-
The turmoil of the Viet Nam and Civil Rights era was the frustrated rage of the powerless refusing to be silenced. How that is supposed to shame me in this context is beyond my comprehension.
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My shame is that I have spoken so little against what demands so much.
Posted by: rollo | Feb 12, 2006 2:54:20 AM
Morgan-
Michael Kinsley is not my "enemy".
-
Cartoons that mock what someone holds to be sacred are not stupid to them. I may find them dull-witted or unfunny, and but I don't hold the entire world accountable to my values.
You may, and from the tone of your writing it seems you do.
-
You say twice that I'm wrong, but you offer no rebuttal or proof whatsoever, so I'm left with the impression you completely misread what it was I said I might be wrong about - that "there's [n]ever been an instance of public rioting by an offended privileged class".
Either that or you're hoping that by repeating it enough times at the end you'll find you've made it so.
-
The turmoil of the Viet Nam and Civil Rights era was the frustrated rage of the powerless refusing to be silenced. How that is supposed to shame me in this context is beyond my comprehension.
-
My shame is that I have spoken so little against what demands so much.
Posted by: rollo | Feb 12, 2006 2:56:25 AM
Rollo,
I apologize if my initial response was a touch strident. You seem like a decent fellow and you'd probably find that I am as well. I am offended by the cartoons (though a dedicated secular atheist type myself) and gladly stand with Muslims around the world in demanding a little more frickin respect from a world that seems more and more intent on demonizing Islam and Muslims in general. This is sickening to me. My greatest hope is that countries of the West become more 'muslimized' as more Muslims become part of those cultures and that, reciprocally, a few of the nicer innovations of Western secular democracy might find their own way into some of the current debates about Mosque and state, as it were. I think such a thing really is possible and would leave both 'civilizations' changed in positive ways by one another.
I think that some people in the West have taken the opportunity of this cartoon incident to harp on about despicable misguided 'racist' and intolerant views about Muslims that they have long held. It is the job of born and bred Western folk like myself to stand against that, and I do.
But I think it is also the job of people like yourself to say that while you are offended, and you are appalled by the way the Muslim world is often treated and portrayed in the West, you do not appreciate that this issue has been hijacked by a rather malignant sub-section of Muslim thought that has its own fanatical and intolerant tendencies and strikes me as every bit as dangerous as the malignant and intolerant ideologies that the West has produced.
When you said that only the oppressed riot in these situations you made it seem as if the rioting was somehow a justifiable expression of justifiable rage. There I part ways with you. Much of the rage in the Muslim world is justified. The Islamicist ideology that has tried to tap into that rage is not. It is something we all need to stand against. When rich white people went down to the South on Freedom Rides and were sometimes killed in order to try and enfranchise the African American population, they were standing on the side of right in rage at a terrible wrong.
If a Western progressive priviliged type fellow went out with a mob to torch the Danish Embassy somewhere to show his solidarity with Muslim rage I would consider him terribly deluded indeed.
Posted by: morgan meis | Feb 12, 2006 11:55:03 AM
"When rich white people went down to the South" they weren't representing the class of rich white people.
Torching the Danish embassy is an act of inchoate rage, not a political strategy or even a coherent emotional statement. It's a form of mutilation, sacrifice, implosion, something desperate and weakening.
There's a weird lens this all must pass through to reach us, mediated, refracted through the values of the portal itself, which we're tacitly trained to ignore.
Very little of the events themselves are happening outside that media-boundaried terrain. Except the rioting.
What offends me isn't the cartoons, it's Kinsley's toadying obfuscation, the duplicity of the "news", and the coercive propaganda that goads basically decent but uninformed people on both and all sides toward actions that are neither in their best interest nor accurate expressions of their true values.
Posted by: rollo | Feb 12, 2006 12:34:34 PM
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