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A Caricature of Respect

(Los Angeles Times) Sara Bjerg Moller - * After the publication of 12 cartoons, all of Europe is on high alert. The questions raised by the caricatures have been asked with increasing frequency in European capitals recently: How much does a society have to change to welcome immigrants from different cultures and religions, and how much must newcomers have to change in order to become members of that society? * How, the newspaper's editor wanted to know, was Islam affecting traditional Danish values such as freedom of expression and tolerance? In the eyes of many Europeans, the problem is the immigrants' refusal to assimilate or compromise with Western culture and values. * Europe's strategic interest in retaining access to Middle East oil demands that governments soothe Islamic ire. But European politicians' interests lie in insisting that Muslim immigrants assimilate and in standing tough against censorship by standing up to Muslim mobs. * At issue is whether two cultures can coexist if Muslims refuse to accept one of the basic tenets of liberalism: the right of others to express their views, however offensive, without the threat of violent reprisal. The Muslims who torched embassies, and the governments that did not condemn them, have shown themselves incapable of understanding what pluralistic societies are all about. * It's not the decision by Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers to publish the cartoons that is appalling, it's the response from the Muslim world. If the Muslim outrage is really about demanding respect for others' beliefs (a valid argument), Arabs should be insisting that their own media stop the almost-daily depictions of Jews and Christians as bloodthirsty cannibals and murderers of children. * The real issue is not that some of the cartoons portrayed Islam unflatteringly but that the prophet's image was drawn at all. While Muslims are prohibited from depicting Muhammad, and doing so is considered blasphemy, this prohibition should not apply to non-Muslims. Demanding that non-Muslims abide by such a religious edict is tantamount to ordering them to follow an Islamic halal diet or cover their women's hair. In a world with more than a dozen major religions, no faith can prescribe such behaviors to others. The writer, a native of Denmark, is a graduate student in security studies at Georgetown University.
2006-02-08 00:00:00
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