Danish Cartoons Outrage

Here we go again. Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent were arrested by the Danish police last month on charges of plotting to kill Mr. Kurt Westergaard, one of the 12 cartoonists whose pictures of Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked protests by Muslims around the world in 2006. Mr. Westergaard drew Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

In response to these arrests, 17 Danish newspapers decided to offend one billion Muslim believers around the world, by publishing the offensive cartoons, so as to declare solidarity with Mr. Westergaard. Wise move indeed - for the Danish move only provoked another round of demonstrations by Muslims around the world.

I truly wonder how the Danish thinking process went - maybe it went something like this: "Three misguided men who profess to be Muslims, who are also potential murderers, are locked up in jail, and they will be sentenced for their plottings. But now we have to punish, belittle and insult scores of other Muslims around the world, who had no part of this plot at all! Afterall, one billion Muslims should be accountable for the actions of three individuals".

The ironic part is that people would have you believe that the issue at hand is about principles, democracy, liberalism and freedom of expression. It cannot be farther from the truth. Not even Mill went so far to suggest that all forms of expression were justifiable. In reality, freedom of expression is always to an extent regulated in all societies, for example, through hate speech laws in Western societies.

The editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Mr Felming Rose was quoted as saying "It was not about mocking a minority but a religious figure, the Prophet, so it was blasphemy, not racism. The idea of challenging religious authority led to liberal democracy, whereas the singling out of minorities, as minorities, led to Nazism and the persecution of the bourgeoisie in Russia. So this distinction is crucial to understand.”

Utter hogwash. It is blasphemy for the believer, to mock a religious figure, but not so for an unbeliever who holds nothing in the religion sacred. So it was not blasphemy the newspapers were guilty of. However, they could have been guilty of blasphemous libel in countries where there is such a law, like in the United Kingdom or. New Zealand. When expressing an opinion on any religious subject, it should be expressed in good faith and in decent language. Commonsensical enough. Doing otherwise, amounts to blasphemous libel.

Now considering that Denmark does not have such a law, then we can assume that the newspapers were also not guilty of blasphemous libel. If they were not guilty of blasphemy or blasphemous libel, were they guilty of racism?

The cartoons showed Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban with a bomb. The implication is easy enough to understand. The beliefs of one billion Muslims are derived from two main sources two - the Quran, the literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet, and the Hadith, which are the saying and actions of the Prophet. The Prophet is central to the Islam as the transmittor of religion.

Taken in that context, the bomb in the Prophet's turban, signified the Dane's assertion that the Prophet taught Muslims to be a violent and murdering people - that violence is at the cornerstone of the religion. But anyone who has studied the religion would tell you differently.

In effect, the Danes were saying that all Muslims are inherently violent because of their faith. They were tarring all Muslims with the same brush.

How is that not racism?

Mr Rose further claimed that "images are open to interpretation, they’re different from words”.

Words are also open to interpretation - two people can hear the same speech and come away with totally different impressions; note for example reactions to Senator Obama's recent speech on race in America.

But the cartoonist who drew the bomb in a turban cartoon, Mr. Westergaard admitted openly that “cartoons always concentrate and simplify an idea and allow a quick impression that arouses some strong feeling".

So how is that not an incitement to hatred towards Muslims?

The crux of the matter is that this is all about race and the blatant lack of respect accorded to Danish citizens who are not blonde or blue-eyed (bluntly said, but you know what I mean). Denmark has had to deal with its Muslim immigrants, especially with the younger generation of Muslims who were born and bred in Denmark, but who are now asserting their religious identity. The Danes are reluctant to accept the concept of multiculturalism as have successful multi-ethnic countries such as Singapore - why you have to ask them. Case in point, Denmark forces new immigrants to watch a video with unclothed females in it because they know it is offensive to Muslim sensibilities, just so they can force home the point that practicing Muslims are unwelcome in Denmark.

Try doing that in good old America and you'd have a proper backlash from feminists, evangelicals and so on!

To suggest that this is about something else other than plain racism is hyprocrisy.