Governments playing with fire

  Anders Jerichow

Basically, the great Danish cartoon affair isn't about cartoons. For sure, quite a lot of people globally were offended by the cartoons, published by a paper based in the provincial capital of Aarhus, Denmark. But most of the people demonstrating against the cartoons or against Denmark never read this paper and never saw these drawings. And while several embassies were attacked and burned by angry mobs in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran; while hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated and set cars on fire as far away as Lahore, Jakarta and Kabul; and while governments took the "cartoon affair" to the Organization of Islamic Conference, the UN and other international bodies, a basic reality has conveniently been put aside: a lot worse has been said and done against religious minorities in European countries--just as in Arab and Muslim countries.

In European countries, minorities--Muslim as well as Jewish--have been subject to demonization and immigrants have been targets of discriminatory practices and exclusivist policies. And in many Arab countries as well as Iran, religious minorities and migrants have routinely been subject to discrimination, lack of tolerance as well as intimidation. Just ask Shi'ites in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Bedouins in Kuwait, Jews in Syria or Copts in Egypt. Yet, neither European nor Middle Eastern practices on any of these deep-rooted problems spurred demonstrators by the millions to take to the streets or governments to instigate an international crisis. In fact, illustrations, different images, even cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have surfaced many times in history.

But strange things happen. It took the Syrian government more than three months to feel "shocked" about these cartoons. In Syria, where illegal demonstrations are rarely seen, several thousand demonstrators were suddenly allowed to confront and burn the Danish embassy. In Saudi Arabia, where street demonstrations are even rarer, motorcades of youngsters--several months after the publication of the cartoons-were suddenly allowed to cruise through Riyadh with anti-Danish banners. And in Kuwait, a sheikh--again, several months after publication--was allowed publicly to call for a violent response to a cartoonist several thousand kilometers away.

Certainly, the cartoon affair confirmed the reality of globalization. A publisher in a Danish province will be held responsible for an act that went far beyond the horizon of his decisions. But those who read and listen to rumors in other continents will also be held responsible for their reactions. You cannot, in Kabul or Beirut, call for the death of some Danish media personality without people getting the news in Denmark. Seeds of hatred travel easily across boundaries. Responsibility goes both ways.

No doubt these cartoons offended a great number of Muslims in Denmark. Some 3,000 Muslims demonstrated peacefully in protest. Some 17,000 Muslims signed petitions against them. But the vast majority of the 200,000-strong Danish Muslim community shrugged their shoulders, expecting the cartoons to be quickly forgotten and probably hoping for more serious social and cultural problems to be dealt with.

In the great cartoon affair, governments have been playing with fire. In Denmark, the government tried to reduce the affair to a question of freedom of speech. In the Middle East, governments insisted on seeing the affair as a question of religious respect and made the most of the issue, trying to preempt rivals in the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah or underground terrorist groups. Both sides fear intervention either by European fascists or Middle Eastern religious terrorists.

So far, as these lines are written, no Quran has been burned publicly in European countries, certainly not in Denmark, where the government is working hard to ensure that it won't happen. And no major terror incident against Danish targets has taken place. But the seeds of hatred have been sown, and the whole affair has demonstrated the potential for lunatics to make the most of it.

In one way, it looks like a clean case. On the European side, it is a clean question of freedom of speech; in the Muslim world, a clear offense against the Prophet and Islam. Yet, in Europe traditions do call for sensitivity to religious feeling, just as hate speech generally--and wisely--is banned. And in the Middle East there is traditionally a pragmatic acknowledgement that Islamic dogma cannot prevail in non-Muslim societies.

But in both worlds the great cartoon affair has become an outlet for underlying frustrations. In Europe, marginalized immigrant societies have found a cultural symbol in the cartoon affair of their sense that they are being denied opportunities, equality and respect. In the Middle East, populations who would otherwise find plenty of reason for local frustration--the continued political oppression in their own countries, the Iraq war, the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, the Darfour genocide, lack of freedom of speech--were allowed to let off plenty of steam.

The cartoon affair itself will come to an end, if not for other reasons then because people in Denmark and the Middle East have more important problems to deal with than a set of drawings that would normally be ignored.

But when the dust has settled, European exclusion of immigrant minorities will continue to nurture growing frustration. And in the Middle East, government mismanagement of state affairs will see continued attempts to distract local opposition with international affairs. - Published 16/2/2006 © bitterlemons-international.org

Anders Jerichow is president of Danish PEN and editor at Politiken daily, Copenhagen.