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Leader: Clash with notion of free speech
(The Scotsman Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)NEVER doubt the power of a cartoon - even one in a Danish newspaper three months old. Not for the first time, the smallest spark can light up the darkest of chasms that divide people and beliefs.
Yesterday brought fresh protests by fundamentalist Muslims angered by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. One showed him wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb. In another, he says paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers. Newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain have reprinted the cartoons. Danish products, from Lego to Lurpak butter, have been boycotted across the Arab world. The country's flag has been burnt and Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador.
On Monday, gunmen raided the European Union's Gaza office demanding an apology. In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, dozens of protesters from the Islamic Defenders' Front forced their way into a building housing the Danish embassy. In the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan, hundreds of students have demonstrated and the Pakistani upper house of parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the cartoons. The Danish prime minister has now met with Arab envoys to try to defuse the growing row.
Not only has this row escalated far beyond the initial offence to become a clash between western free speech and Islamic taboos, but also that the resentment mobilised by Muslim fundamentalists to the ways of the liberal western world is widespread, intense and growing. If not this spark, there would have been another.
The same spark has also lit up profound and complex differences within the non-Muslim world. These go beyond the immediate argument over whether or not to republish the cartoons. They reach to the core of our ideas about how matters of faith and belief should be treated and, indeed, to the basis of our notions of social cohesion and order in societies that seek to be open and liberal in outlook and behaviour.
The proximate cause of this astonishing furore is not so much the presentation of Muhammad per se, but the offensive and insulting context of the depiction. Many detect a hypocrisy or cowardice in western culture by which those who delight in material that is crass, offensive and deeply demeaning to Christians regard the Muslim faith as a "no go" area.
There is no certainty to be assumed in the Muslim world about the depiction of the prophet. For example, there is no explicit ban in the Koran. But to picture him would be in Muslim eyes to annexe God's creative power and attempt to depict the sublime. There are, however, some Islamic images of Muhammad. Examples exist from early centuries, in particular the early 14th century manuscript of Rashid al-Din's Universal History in Edinburgh University library. But they usually show the Prophet's face veiled or featureless. Christianity, more demonstrative in its iconography, is more open to satirical depiction.
For many who adhere to western liberal values, none of this preciousness should really matter. The freedom of the media to publish is indivisible and should brook no exceptions, save for that which is prohibited by law. There should be no "out of bounds" areas because the adherents of one particular ethnic or religious group are likely to protest more angrily or violently than others.
Yet a multicultural society can only hope to survive where there is respect for beliefs to which the majority does not adhere and where a decision to publish or not to publish offensive material has regard to the sensitivities of belief. No responsible news media should seek to gratuitously insult or offend sections of society for no other reason than the assertion that to publish would be "controversial". Merely to be "controversial" does not serve the public interest.
It is this difference in cultural sensibility that goes to the heart of why France-Soir thought it appropriate to publish and the British news media broadly has not (although the BBC has shown fleeting images, while some newspapers have provided web links for readers to choose whether they wish to see the original cartoons).
France, as a nation, has not accepted the multicultural route adopted by the UK, opting instead for a monoculturalist approach that inter alia obliges Muslim women and children to adhere to western modes of dress. While there are some in Britain who may prefer this model, the overwhelming majority has adapted to a more open, accommodative, multicultural approach that has grown out of a long history of protection for those seeking asylum. It has served the UK well, providing not only a flow of new workers for an ever expanding service economy, but also providing one of the most open, free, stable, tolerant and peaceful political orders in the world.
IT IS not without its tensions and difficulties. But it has worked for us, and far better than some bloodcurdling prophecies in the 1960s had led us to expect. This is the context in which our media, an integral part of this open and accommodative culture, has chosen not to publish.
Ironically, however, this liberal social model ultimately rests on the upholding of the right to free speech, and in particular the right to publish material that may cause offence. There is not at work here some invisible conspiracy not to publish as a matter of principle: indeed, such a principle would suggest uncertainty and a lack of conviction about the merits of an open society. Rather, it is a broad concern that any such publication should have regard to context. That is, it would need to be carefully weighed in terms of news values and whether publication was or was not in the public interest.
That these considerations are not set down in law, but are values constantly open to interpretation and to change, modification and amendment, is a further vital feature of a non-written constitution and the free, open and liberal society we enjoy. "A free-for-all ruled by hypocrisy" would be the Hobbesian summation. An open society tempered by manners would be a fairer description. There is no disinclination in principle to publish. But that openness is tempered by the firmest bias against giving gratuitous offence. That is the position of this newspaper, and one, we believe, that is overwhelmingly shared by our readers.
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