Freedom
of _expression_ and The Offending Cartoons
http://www.MuslimsToday.com/EN/Contents.aspx?AID=4410
Mohamed Elmasry
I thank Paul Schneidereit, president, of the Canadian
Association of Journalists for inviting me to participate in this
panel. I have a soft spot in my heart for Nova Scotia, as my wife
is from Yarmouth.
First I must say that I have four personal reasons for
advocating freedom of _expression_:
- 1. I am a Muslim. Islam, more than any other religion, makes
it one's religious duty not only to support -- but also to
protect -- the rights of fellow human beings to freedom of
_expression_, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.
- 2. I am an academic. Academics are paid to speak, to use
their voices as teachers and researchers. Any compromise to
their freedom of _expression_, any silencing of their voices,
adversely affects their own academic freedom, and ultimately
that of their peers. Academic freedom is the basis for their
social and economic contributions to the well-being of this
country.
- 3. I am a writer who addresses religious, national, and
international issues.
- 4. I am a Canadian activist -- not only a Canadian activist
but a Canadian Muslim activist -- living in a post 9/11 era,
marked by dangerously high levels of Islamophobia and the threat
of further erosion to the civil liberties and human rights of
the Muslim minority right here in Canada.
I agree with the notion that in Canada anyone can say almost
anything, but the sad reality is only those with money can print
or communicate it.
Journalists constantly make decisions about what other people
will read, hear, or see. They are guided by their backgrounds and
values. Factors such as standards of taste and judgments of
importance also play a role. No editorial choices to publish, or
not to publish, are value-free.
Editors are trained professionals who are supposed to strive
for excellence. They should rise above personal views and follow
basic principles of balance and fairness.
For example, cartoons glorifying the Holocaust, making fun of
Jews, or violence against women; or those which ridicule gays,
lesbians, the disabled, the mentally challenged, etc., are usually
not published.
But the case for Islam and Muslims is different. The offending
material is usually published. This is because:
- 1. There are too few Muslim journalists in any senior
editorial or corporate positions in Canada.
- 2. Islamic groups representing Canadian Muslims are not as
powerful as those representing Jews, gays, lesbians, women, the
disabled, the mentally challenged, and so on.
- 3. There is a general hostility towards Islam and Muslims
which stems from political conflicts like the ones resulting
from the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
- 4. The rise of fundamentalist Christianity and extreme
rightwing politicians, especially in the U.S.
- 5. Few Canadian journalists have ever met a Muslim or lived
among Muslims.
- 6. The high concentration of Canadian media ownership in the
hands of a few families or corporations, none of which are
friendly to Muslims.
In cases where objectionable material appears in a Canadian
publication, special interest groups usually protest in a number
of ways: using
- (a). professional persuasion (e.g. meeting with editors);
- (b). political activism (e.g. asking elected politicians to
condemn the publication's lack of sensitivity);
- (c). emotional involvement (e.g. public expressions of
displeasure, such as writing op-ed’s, letters to the editor,
phone calls to complain, etc);
- (d). economic action (e.g. boycotts, picketing); and
- (e). legal or semi-legal responses (complaints to press
councils, the CTRC, hate law enforcement agencies, civil suits,
human rights).
This multi-dimensional form of protest has been used, and will
continue to be used by special interest groups, seeking to prevent
the publication of objectionable material.
But when Canadian Muslims tried to use the same methods in the
case of the offending cartoons reprinted in Canada, months after
appearing in a Danish newspaper, they were labelled as
"extremists," "fascists," "Islamists," or "idiots," and dismissed
as "not subscribing to Canadian values," or that they were
"against free _expression_," they "have no sense of humour," and so
on.
Their reasoned and peaceful objection to the publication and
republication of the Danish cartoons was called "bogus" and those
editors who ethically chose not to republish the cartoons were
taunted as "cowards."
Now any publication which incites hate, or which spreads
negative stereotyping about a Canadian minority is morally wrong,
because it negatively compromises or erodes the well-being of all
members of that minority.
The issue here goes beyond the boundaries of free _expression_;
it is about the power of "free speech" to dehumanize fellow
citizens and depict them as "not like us." Unfortunately, that
consideration did not deter publications like the Western
Standard.
In modern Germany, there are museum exhibits covering the
period leading up to the Holocaust. Among those displays one can
see "cartoons" depicting Jews as thieves, cheats, fools, liars,
misers, etc.
The message was clear: "Jews are not like us -- they are
therefore not worthy to live with the rights and respect that we
have."
In May 1934, the German newspaper, Der Sturmer, ran the
headline Jewish Murder Plan Against Gentile Humanity Revealed. The
newspaper ran also cartoons with captions like: "Jews are our
misfortune," "The Jew is our greatest enemy," "Beware of the Jew,"
"Defend yourself against Jewish atrocity propoganda," and so on.
In February 1943, the same newspaper depicted a bearded Jew
wearing a skull-cup, with the caption "Der Satan" -- the Satan.
The stereotyped image of the European Jew showed him dressed in
black, with dark eyebrows, a big nose, an evil or furtive
_expression_, and usually hunched over, whispering anti-European
conspiracies to his co-religionists.
All of these were caricatures meant to grossly exaggerate the
physical features and perceived mannerisms of a targeted group.
I believe it was this sort of "free speech" that led to
increasingly violent acts against Jews, culminating in events like
Kristallnacht, and ultimately the horrors of the Holocaust. It was
a gradual intensification of hate, with deceptively "harmless"
things like cartoons helping pave the way for the evil that
happened under the Nazis.
The Danish newspaper's offensive cartoons depicting the Prophet
Muhammad as a bomb-wearing terrorist, or a ridiculous fanatic,
fall into the same divisive and dangerous stereotypical category
as slogans like, "Jews are Christ-killers," "Christians are savage
anti-semitic Crusaders," "Blacks are drug-dealers," "Aboriginals
are lazy drunks," etc.
Ever since the news media broke the cartoon story from Europe,
numerous Muslim and non-Muslim Canadians have objected to the
publication of these drawings, especially in papers and magazines
originating from within our own country.
One does not have to be a Muslim to feel the pain and betrayal
these pictures convey. It is the same kind of pain felt by
descendants of Holocaust survivors when confronted with the
illogical ranting of those who deny it ever happened; or the pain
of Black citizens faced with the spectacle of white supremacists
marching down the main street of their town.
The editors of Canada's largest-circulation newspapers made the
right ethical and professional decision not to republish the
Danish cartoons and the government of Canada expressed regrets
that they were ever published in Denmark and republished in
Canada.
They realized that those cartoons are not about a so-called
"clash of civilizations," or the collision of Islamic and Western
worlds.
The real issue is about a Western Muslim minority, struggling
in a hostile post 9/11 environment to live as normally as any
other group in our multicultural society. It is about a minority
at a crossroads in their relationship with the Muslim world of
their former home countries.
As such a community, Western Muslims have much to learn from
Jewish history in both Europe and North America. Canadian Muslims
know they must not stand apart from their fellow citizens, but
must actively move into the concept of smart integration as the
ideal model for social unity and cultural coherence.
One of the Danish cartoons, which depicts Prophet Muhammad as a
terrorist, suggests by inference that all Muslims are terrorists.
This is not merely offensive or insulting -- it is enticing
hate, pure and simple. And those rogue Canadian publications that
insisted on reprinting it are therefore knowingly promoting hatred
against Muslims. To condone such an explicit depiction of the
Prophet of Islam as a terrorist, one has to be at the very least
willful, in not acknowledging that such a depiction vilifies and
discredits all Muslims, creating a dangerous climate for Muslims
in Canada and everywhere else.
Canadian Muslims are a minority, often a highly visible one,
and the vast majority of non-Muslim Canadians have grown up with
stereotypical views of Muslims, no matter how well-intentioned
they may be. The republication of the anti-Islam cartoons has
served only to further stereotype Muslims as dangerous and
threatening.
Canadian Muslims do accept and acknowledge that extremists
exist and must be dealt with. But when the ideologies and actions
of a very few are used as the basis to judge an entire people,
distortion and unfairness are the inevitable result. Extremism is
not in any way, shape, or form, the essence of Muslim life.
Extremism, in fact, is no more a monopoly of Islam than it is of
any other faith group, whether it be Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism, or Sikhism.
The vast majority of Muslims, though conservative, are moderate
in their political views. Islam has long been regarded among its
adherents as "the religion of the middle way." The Prophet
himself, so misconstrued in the infamous Danish cartoons,
repeatedly denounced extremism.
We Canadian Muslims share the same common values: a deep
respect for knowledge; a passion for justice; compassion toward
the sick, elderly, needy and underprivileged; devotion to the
values of family life, including respect for parents and elders;
and acceptance of the "other," the strangers and travelers in our
midst.
We live today in one world, a global village continually
connected via instant communication. Our world economy is an
interdependent entity, where a ripple on one continent can cause a
tidal wave on another. Consequently, the selfish and irresponsible
publication of hate literature, even if some consider it "funny,"
damages the world we live in. We need to stop, think, and care --
after all, it's the only world we've got.
-------------------------------------------------
* A talk given at the annual meeting of the Canadian
Association ofJournalists, Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 14, 2006
Posted May 15 2006, Media Monitors Network
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/30377
