Muslim Cartoons, Jyllands Posten and Some Second Thoughts Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Lots of interesting response here and at the Huffington Post on my musings on the cartoon controversy, which continues to rage.  In posting here I often read through what's being said in newspapers and blogs and try to offer up something I think isn't already out there.  In doing so, I don't always restate the obvious.  But this time maybe I should have.   

Yes, I believe that violence in response to images and cartoons is wrong and inexcusable.   Period.

Yes, I believe that all free societies need to defend to the death the freedoms that make them what they are.    But we need to do so in smart ways that do not have the unintended affect of inflaming the tensions we are trying to tamp down or of undercutting our own values in the name of preserving them.   This is a very tough balance to strike; we and the Europeans are learning lessons the hard way.

Yes, I think the governments in the countries where some of the most destructive protests have taken place were obligated to do far more to protect the peace.  But it also seems rather far-fetched to me to actually believe they would have done so, given the politics of the situation and their own sometimes tenuous hold on power.  Whatever "the answer" is, it isn't about the Syrians or the Lebanese somehow getting these radical forces under control, because that won't happen anytime soon.

No, I don't think the Danish government should have contemplated - for a moment - taking any action against any of the newspapers that published the images.   When I spoke of the need for the Danish government to meet with Islamic leaders, I had in mind conversations with moderate Islamic clerics and others with an interest in trying to calm tempers, not to retaliate against the exercise of free speech.

No, I don't think the answer to Islamic extremism in Europe or anywhere else lies solely in reconciliation, conversation, or social programs.  There are a frightening number of Islamic radicals who are far beyond the reach of those kinds of efforts, and need to be met with the most sophisticated and fearless intelligence, law enforcement and anti-terror tactics.  But there are hundreds of thousands of others who have not yet crossed that line, and should be prevented from doing so -- if at all possible -- for their own sake and ours.

Comments

[floating_holmes]

Curious that no Muslim religious leaders have said quite simply, "if our faith is so precarious that a cartoon in a European newspaper is enough to shake the fundamentals of our beliefs, we have deeper issues to tackle than press freedom and boycotts."

Ok, maybe its not curious that we haven't heard that.

[Dan Kervick]

Curious that no Muslim religious leaders have said quite simply, "if our faith is so precarious that a cartoon in a European newspaper is enough to shake the fundamentals of our beliefs, we have deeper issues to his own tackle than press freedom and boycotts."

I think this is a misreading of the emotional source of the reaction in the Islamic world. I don't hink it has much to do with a fear of beliefs being "shaken".

In many parts of the world, even here in the US, if a man's wife is insulted, let's say by the drawing of a vulgar and insulting image, or by a grossly inappropriate suggestion, the man would be expected to do something to defend his wife's reputation as an extension of his own honor. This has nothing to do with the man's fear that the foundations of his marriage are threatened. It is just a matter of honor. The source of the insult achieves a small victory in the battle for status and superiority, and the receiver of the insult has been lessened and brought down a notch until he does something to reassert his dignity, and indeed superiority, in unequivocal terms. He thus restores the previous status balance.

The offended man will seek to compel an abject and submissive apology, under threat of violence, and if the offense is grave enough employ violence right away. The weaker the attacker, the more important it is to avenge the wrong decisively and quickly. That is not because the receiver of the offense feels threatened by the weak individual himself. The threat comes not from the source of the insult, but from the effect on others produced by seeing the weak assailant succeed with impunity. That may suggest to stronger rivals that the offended man is a coward, and afraid to engage even the weak. And that may embolden rivals to challenge the offended man.

The low status individual in a world governed by honor is in a condition of permanent dishonor. The high-status individual is allowed by his peers to have rights of status power against his inferiors, and permitted withing certain bounds to take advantage of their women, to demean their words, thoughts and deeds, and and to dominate them. Attempts at vengeance by the low status man may be met with a response not just from the high-status assailant, but from the assailant's peers and from his law.

All the low-status individual has in that circumstance are the small moral victories that come from sporadic assertions of dignity. He also has the ability perhaps to carve out a small sphere of protection around himself by intimidating his social superiors, and by causing them to fear him. He may lead the superior to fear that he is stronger in a man-to-man competition, where there are no peers, and no law to protect the superior, and this bit of fear may be enough to thwart attacks. And there is always the hope that with resolve and courage, the weak may someday succeed in reversing the social order.

Islam, like many other religious traditions, is something to which its adherents are bound by a pledge of fidelity, like a spouse. What drives many young Muslim men, I believe, is simply that their community is currently in a position of inferiority with respect to the West. Westerners can insult their beloved faith, and more often than not get away with it. Muslims know, on the other hand, that if they insult the icons of Western nationalistic faiths - say by burning an American flag - not only does it piss off those Westerners, but the latter are often moved to intensify the drive to dominate them and control them. When Westerners are attacked by Muslims, many respond with a desire to exact payback on the Muslim or Arab community as a whole in the Middle East. And Westerners possess strong armies to accomplish the vengeance.

I don't believe many Muslims feel that their faith is itself under threat. Islam is a religion that has been in existence for over 1400 years, and I believe that today it possesses more adherents, as a percentage of the global population, than at any time in its history. But the global Muslim community is in a position of subordination to non-Muslim communities. The latter are able to insult Muslims and lecture them and preach to them and belittle them, because of their dominant position. (Imagine whether Western newspapers would have run the cartoons in question if the global power equation were reversed; if the West was weak and subordinate, and faced a nuclear-armed Muslim superpower, surrounded by a group of wealthy and militarily strong Muslim peers. I wonder how much of the brave talk would remain.)

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