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THE international controversy sparked off by the publication of caricatures of the Prophet in some European newspapers could snowball into an immense crisis. The month of February saw huge street protests in cities all over the world. The protests turned violent in many places, leading to the loss of lives and destruction of property. In South Asia, there have been huge rallies. Those in Lahore and Islamabad in the second week of February turned violent, leading to the deaths of two protesters.
Denmark, where the caricatures of the Prophet first appeared, has been put under a trade boycott by many Muslim countries. Its embassies have been physically targeted in Syria, Indonesia, Lebanon and Iran. Five of its diplomatic missions were closed temporarily. Several countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran boycotted Danish exports despite warnings by the European Union (E.U.) on Denmark's behalf as one of its member-states. Denmark's prosperity is to a great extent dependent on the export of its dairy and agricultural products.
Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said that the situation could have been handled better if the Danish government, while defending the freedom of the press, had also condemned the publications of the offensive cartoons.
A Norwegian newspaper reprinted the cartoons depicting the Prophet. However, unlike its Scandinavian neighbour, Norway generates huge revenues from the sale of oil and gas. The caricatures of the Prophet first appeared in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, in September last year. The editor of the right-wing paper decided that the timing was appropriate "to test cartoonists to see if they were self-censoring their work, out of fear of violence from Islamic radicals". Twelve cartoonists duly accepted the invitation and came out with caricatures lampooning the Prophet. The cartoons also equated Islam with terrorism and the oppression of women.
Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the paper, is a friend of the neo-conservative Daniel Pipes. Pipes is known to be close to the Bush administration and right-wing Israeli parties. The Bush administration has provided him with a sinecure in the United States Congress funded think tank, the United States Institute of Peace.
Pipes has frequently called for the military defeat of Palestinians and their expulsion from the occupied territories. Rose was a guest of Pipes in Washington in 2004. In 2003, Rose declined to publish caricatures of Jesus Christ in Jyllands-Posten. When the cartoons were first published there was only a mild outcry from the Muslim community in Denmark. The controversy was dying down when Norwegian, German, French and other West European papers reprinted the cartoons in January and February this year. Some editors in Jordan and Algeria also reproduced some of the cartoons only to invite the immediate wrath of the authorities. The editors were arrested and the offending publications closed down. The publishers claimed that their purpose was only to draw attention to the offensive nature of the cartoons.
The timing of the publications coincided with the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections and the decision to refer Iran to the United Nations. The Arab and Islamic psyche was already deeply injured by the American-led imperial project in West Asia, which has the support of many European nations. It is generally believed that the main purpose of the West is to protect Israel, monopolise the oil in the region and destabilise progressive governments in the region.
Danish Prime Minster Anders Fogh Rasmussen was initially reluctant to express any sort of remorse for the publication of the cartoons.. He refused to meet 10 Arab Ambassadors who wanted to lodge a complaint, saying that his government was unable to interfere with press freedom. Denmark, a country of five and a half million, has taken a rightward turn in the last couple of years; conservative parties rode to power fuelled by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments.
After its election in November 2001, Rasmussen's government passed the toughest immigration laws in Europe and approved legislation that effectively curbed freedom of speech on issues such as the war on terror. The present government survives because of the support of the anti-immigration Danish Peoples Party. The Danish Minster of Culture recently spoke about the need to create a "last line of defence against Islamic influence in Denmark". There are around 200,000 Muslims in the country. For the past 20 years they have been requesting the authorities for permission to build a mosque, which has not been granted. Denmark also has a small military contingent in Iraq.
The Washington Post described the cartoon affair as a "calculated insult... by a right-wing newspaper in a country where bigotry towards the minority Muslim population is a major, if frequently unacknowledged, problem". Fellowship of Reconciliation, a U.S.-based inter-denominational group, has said that the publication of the cartoons does "nothing but ridicule the core idea of an entire religion. They attack what is sacred. And there is no deeper wound, no deeper fury than that." Garry Trudeau of the cartoon-strip Doonesbury fame has said that he for one would never use the images of the Prophet or for that matter images mocking Jesus Christ. Trudeau is known for his liberal political instincts and devastating satire.
Observers have also not failed to notice the double standards in libel and hate laws in most European countries. Questioning the Holocaust, for instance, is considered unacceptable. In France a judge overruled an appeal by the French Council of Muslims to stop the newspaper France Soir from publishing the offensive cartoons. Yet last year another French court banned the publication of a fashion advertisement caricaturing the "Last Supper of Jesus Christ". The judge had ruled that it was a "gratuitous act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs".
French Interior Minster Nicholas Sarkozy, who hopes to ride into the French presidency on a right-wing vote, said that he "preferred an excess of caricature to an excess of censorship". French President Jacques Chirac criticised the cartoons as "manifest provocations".
The jailing of a British Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza, for seven years in early February on the grounds of inciting racial hatred is another illustration of double standards in the eyes of non-Europeans. Around the same time, another British court allowed two leaders of the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP) to walk free, despite evidence that showed that they preached violence against Muslims and other minorities.
The Indian government has expressed its "deep concern" over the cartoons, one of which crudely depicted the Prophet with a bomb in an Indian style turban. A statement released by the External Affairs Ministry said that India had expressed its outrage in October last year, after the cartoons were first published in Denmark.
Many in the West want to characterise the present controversy as yet another manifestation of "the clash of civilisations". President Bush has used the word "crusade" to describe the conquest of Iraq.
The Christian right-wing in the U.S. is also enamoured of the prophecies and apocalyptic language used in the Bible.
George Galloway, the outspoken British Member of Parliament of the Respect party, told the Arab media in Cairo recently that the only people still resisting imperialism were the Cubans and Muslims. He said that the Cuban people had been targeted for the past 40 years and faced the wrath of the West. With the majority of Muslims resisting the American blueprint for their regions, it is not surprising that they too "are at the receiving end of the imperialist lash."
Galloway, along with other well-meaning personalities, is however cautioning the Muslim community to be wary about the extremists in their midst who advocate mindless violence and a boycott of the democratic processes. A fanatic fringe claims that participating in elections and working with non-Muslims is haram (forbidden). The tendency to label all non-believers derisively as kofar (atheists) will only send wrong signals to the world at large. "The division is not between the West and the East, certainly not between Christianity and Islam. We believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. George W. Bush believes in the profits and how to get a piece of them!" Galloway said.
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