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© Donald Richardson,
February, 2006
The enormous amount of unnecessary aggression generated by
the publication of a series of cartoons on Mohammed in the Danish
newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, at the end of 2005 made it
impossible for Australian publications to re-print them, so the
public had to leave judgment to others. I found the offending
drawings on a website and decided that a verbal description and
appraisal of them would go some way towards addressing this situation;
however, no journal would print the article
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These drawings arose from an author's complaint to the newspaper,
that he could not find an artist willing to illustrate a children's
book explaining the Muslim faith. Reacting to this apparent self-censorship
in the context of general concern about the underclass of Middle
Eastern migrants in Europe - similar to that which we have in
Australia - the paper invited cartoonists to comment in the way
they do, and it published twelve of the drawings. This occurred
some weeks before radical Muslims used them as a trigger for
demonstrations. The rent-a-crowds should not, of course, have
viewed the actual cartoons but, Muslims being as human as Christians,
it is possible that many may have sneaked a peek on the internet
or even seen smuggled prints of them.
The cartoon that has been mentioned most often in newspapers
may be the only actual representation of The Prophet himself.
It is a strong characterization in serious mien, his turban subtly
represented as a bomb with a burning fuse, as if an afterthought.
There is a representation of a fool sprouting horns and an ingenuous
traveller leading a pack-donkey. One is a black-bearded face
inscribed tightly within a green crescent. Two show the cartoonists
themselves drawing, one looking extremely troubled, half concealing
the picture from view, the other labeling it "PR stunt".
In two others, the captions carry the potency: an imam says to
angry militants "Relaxit is just a sketch made by a Dane
in the South-West of Denmark" and a blackboard sports an
inscription which translates as "Jyllands-Posten's
journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs".
Perhaps the funniest to our eyes shows a file of charred martyrs,
ascending to Heaven hopefully, being greeted by an imam with
the words: "Stop, stop. We ran out of virgins". But,
the most incisive - as well as the strongest graphically - has
a scimitar-wielding Arab with his eyes censored out by a thick
black horizontal line which repeats, in negative, the eye-openings
in the black hijabs of two women lined up behind him.
According to Western values, few are remarkably either funny
or satirical. Both humour and satire are, of course, culture-bound:
a book of Russian political cartoons I have barely raises a smile
in me; similarly, American humour can leave many Australians
cold. The reason the drawings have inspired such a violent reaction
is that traditional Muslim culture has a stricter adherence to
the Fourth Commandment ('thou shalt not make unto thyself any
graven image, nor the likeness of anything.') than Christians
do. Thus, any visual representation at all is proscribed,
not just pictures of The Prophet - hence the exclusively abstract
decoration in Muslim books and architecture. Andrew Dutney, in
The Independent Weekly of 12 February, 2006, notes that
this is blasphemy and points out that - whereas it is a crime
in Christendom as well as Islam, and that anti-blasphemy laws
are still on our books - it is no longer prosecuted in the West.
In Islam, blasphemy is still punishable by death.
This indicates the depth of the cultural difference we have to
deal with. Rather than a "war on terror", we have a
- much-deeper - "clash of cultures". Some have declared
that - because the radicals are impervious to reason - the Middle
East is not yet ready for democracy. An indication of this lack
of common reason is the call for retaliatory cartoons on the
Holocaust. Although vilification of the Jews in cartoons on Muslim
countries is common, it is not rational to equate these cartoons
with the Holocaust: one is about belief, the other historical
fact. (However, people are often more ready to die for their
beliefs than the facts of life.)
Possibly, the majority of Muslims in the West appreciate our
freedom of speech and can see these cartoons for what they are,
but it is the radical extremists that are the concern. The situation
is identical with that of the fatwah against Salman Rushdie (which,
because it is no longer news, we forget is still in operation
and could be effected by a single radical at any time), but with
a much greater possible sweep. Indeed the Taliban has offered
gold to anyone who kills a Dane. Most commentators have expressed
despair at what can be done about the situation but stress the
need to do something before the militants acquire WMDs.
The only possible remedy, of course, is education: not inculcation
by rote of the Koran, but the kind of humanistic and pluralistic
education we have in the West: political correctness in its best
sense (i.e., old-fashioned good manners and respect for others).
The other side of the coin, though, is that much of our television
entertainment breaches this code every evening - a fact that
is not lost on Muslim culture. For every freedom there is a corresponding
responsibility, of course.
In this educational context, it is unbelievable that Australia
passed up a unique opportunity to effect this - in the Far East,
at least - when a few years ago the government discontinued Radio
Australia broadcasts and leased the facility to a Christian organization,
which proceeded to proselytize Asia. It is understandable that
now our near neighbours believe that Christianity is the official
religion of Australia in the same way that Islam is of the Middle
East. Fortunately, Radio Australia is back on air, but the damage
done will take years to correct.
The Muslims may reason that proselytization by force is exactly
what Western Christians did in the empire-building period. We
now see it as unforgivably arrogant that we did so, but 'two
wrongs do not make a right' and the countries of Europe are now
doing their own penances for it.
Many commentators have attempted to dismiss the cartoons as unfunny
scribbles - illogically unable to see that they are, in fact,
the very cause of the controversy. In fact, many of the drawings
make pertinent points. Because, like the poor, they are always
with us, we tend to be not aware of the potency of political
cartoons; indeed, they are essential to free communication in
our democratic society, often making points that are difficult
to say in words. And, from the early days of newspapers, cartoonists
have expressed minority or left-wing views that are contrary
to those of the government of the day or their papers' proprietors.
Our cartoonists are, in fact, among those artists who are - justifiably
- very afraid of our new sedition laws.
So, it is not surprising that the most pertinent commentaries
on this story have been made by our own cartoonists - Atchison,
for example, in The Advertiser of 7 February. But the
final word must be that of Nicholson in The Australian
of 9 February: he represents himself drawing a cartoon showing
a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian "burying their differences",
which results in clerics from all three faiths laughing: "That's
a good one!"
Finally, we should observe that the newspapers' cry of restriction
on freedom of speech has a very hollow ring because our papers
- as well as commercial television - practice self-censorship
all the time. They often decline to publish items that run against
the principles of their political or economic masters: for example,
the very significant rise of left-wing governments in South America
is only grudgingly reported and in a minority of outlets, and
the attempt to impose 'terminator seeds' on the world's agriculture
goes totally unreported.
But they do have a point when they say that the Muslims are practicing
blackmail - which of course, is a crime in most cultures.
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