Where’s the Why?

“Art is pattern informed by sensibility”
- Sir Herbert Read

“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”
- G.K. Chesterton

On February 24, various online news sources published the following articles on Christian-Muslim riots in Nigeria:

Sectarian Attacks Spreading in Nigeria  (Washington Post)
By DULUE MBACHU
The Associated Press

Christian-Muslim Bloodbath. More than 100 Nigerians Killed in a Week of Religious Clashes. (Time magazine photo essay)

Nigeria Counts 100 Deaths Over Danish Caricatures (New York Times)
By LYDIA POLGREEN

And again, people were killed, as the Time magazine article puts it, “in the wake of protests over Danish cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad.” Since the beginning of February, newspapers have been covering the riots caused by the Muhammad cartoons. They reported on the outrage in the Muslim world, the number of people killed during violent protests and the alleged ban of images depicting the prophet that caused the whole uproar. From a journalistic point of view, articles answered the who?, what?, where? and when?, they cited the how many? in the case of people that protested and those that were killed, and several timelines (BBC news, CBC news, Wikipedia) detailed the how? did we get, as one report called it, From Cartoons to Chaos. I took in all this information but still find myself having a heck of a lot of questions, first of all …

Where’s the Why? Many an article attributes the Muslim agitation to a ban on depictions of the Prophet Muhammad although this is a controversial issue. A BBC news report explains that “[t]here is no specific, or explicit ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad – be they carved, painted or drawn.” Furthermore, Reza Aslan writes in Slate magazine: “Since the publication of a series of cartoons depicting Mohammed in Denmark’s largest daily, Jyllands-Posten, much has been written about Islam’s prohibition against physical representations of the prophet of Islam. In fact, the Muslim world abounds with magnificent images of Mohammed.” Confused … anyone? Then, on top of that information, the Egyptian newspaper El Fagr publishes one of the cartoons on its October 17, 2005 cover, prints six of them in the edition, along with a critical article denouncing the images, and receives neither criticism nor protest. Why not?

The reasons, in my humble opinion, are two: different publisher, different presentation. Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish Jyllands-Posten, “decided to do it [the news story] by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don’t tell,” as he explained under the headline Why I Published Those Cartoons. Well, he has a lot of telling to do now. Take the cartoon that depicts Muhammad with a bomb in his turban; Flemming picks it as an example in his statement, makes an educated reference to a fairy tale about Aladdin, and finishes his lengthy explanation stating that “[t]his suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.” – Dear Mr. Rose, cartoons are a very abstract thing, a visual metaphor if you will, that is supposed to get a certain message across. To decode this message, it does not only need a certain portion of education and basic literacy but something called visual literacy; I guess one could call this process interpretation, right? Depending on the reader’s (cultural) background the interpretation might be different from that intended by the author … but you know that by now. Sincerely … But what am I telling you, you know that. - To me, Rose appears like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice who cannot control the spirits he cited. Anyway, I think the cartoons are not even what this is about, they’re just the spark that flamed it.

Apart from the fact that a delegation of Imams from the Islamic Society in Denmark brought the Danish cartoons to attention in the Muslim world, the continuing tensions (not only after 9/11) and the cultural differences between the West and the Middle East play an important role in the course of events. For some reason one of those major differences has never been mentioned (at least not in any of the articles I read about the topic) in the ongoing discussion about the conflicting cartoons. The main points however, were self-censorship, the right of free speech, and the discussion of religious topics. And that, I believe, is exactly the point at which we should stop and ask Why? 

Why, when it comes to the point of critizising religion, or parts of religious groups, do Cultures Collide? I found part of the answer – I dare not say the answer since we’re talking about a very complex and complicated topic here – in an Atlantic Monthly article … dating from September 1990 (so much has changed) titled The Roots of Muslim Rage. Bernard Lewis, the author, points out that a major difference between Christianity and Islam is the seperation between Church and State, that is religion and politics. The right of free speech established in western cultures as a political principle, or civil right, allows us to reflect upon religious issues due to the separation of these spheres. As Lewis puts it, “[t]his formulation of the problems posed by the relations between religion and politics, and the possible solutions to those problems, arise from Christian, not universal, principles and experience. There are other religious traditions in which religion and politics are differently perceived, and in which, therefore, the problems and the possible solutions are radically different from those we know in the West.” Unfortunately, one must say, religions tend to see their beliefs as original and universal truths; without tolerance and the necessary sensibilities, a clash of religions, or cultures, cannot be avoided.

Nevertheless, I keep wondering how ever so often political conflicts come along under the cloak of religion like in the Christian-Muslim conflict in Nigeria. According to the New York Times article by Lydia Polgreen I mentioned at the beginning, ”[t]he violence in Nigeria began with attacks on Christians in the northern part of the country last week by Muslims infuriated over the cartoons.” In my opinion, what is happening in Nigeria between the Muslims of the north and Christians in the south mirrors, within national boundaries, what is going on between the West and the Middle East on a global scale. According to Polgreen’s report, the Danish cartoons “were simply a pretext to act on very old grievances rubbed raw by political tensions” and I believe that this does not only hold true for the Nigerian conflict. As Kayode Fayemi, a political scientist, is quoted in the same article, “[a]t the end of the day it is all politics, [e]verything else is just pretext.” What struck me the most though, was a statement made by Rev. Joseph Ezeugo (also from Polgreen’s story), or rather his question at the end: “This cannot be Nigeria today. We have been living side by side with our Muslim brothers for so long,” said Ezeugo, then he asked “Why should a cartoon in Denmark bring us to civil war?”

Why, I ask, do people have to die because of a cartoon? And, do they have to die because of this? I mean, in the end, it’s not the cartoons that kill people - ”Killer cartoons” would indeed make a headline that pointed out the absurdity of the matter – but it’s people that kill people and it is intolerance, ignorance and fanaticism that kill people. In the end, conflicts like these are a give and take, there are always two sides involved. One can argue that the cartoons should not have been published, and at the same time one can say that the conflict could have been handled differently. Many Muslims see the Muhammad cartoons as an insult to Islam and its prophet, and at the same time, many people see the violent reactions as an insult to Islam (and yes, there are also cartoons on that). There are always two sides to the story; the problem is that either side rarely takes a peek across the fence and both insist on their point of view.

What disappointed me in Flemming Rose’s statement was exactly this tone of insistence. He states his point of view very well but fails to take a look at the other side and ask why? Instead, with his constant use of the first person, he even fails to answer the self-raised question “Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam?” by stating “It certainly didn’t intend to.” (I see the question as asking for yes or no!) At the same time, I was disappointed by the violent reactions to the cartoons. In the end, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t stop pointing the finger and ask ourselves: if we insist on our freedom, shouldn’t we question its limits more often? If we wish freedom to be granted to everyone, shouldn’t we realize that freedom has its limits. Freedom is a great ideal to have as well as truth is a great ideal to have. But the reality, I think, is that there is no absolute truth, and there is no absolute freedom. And when hundreds of people are dying in riots triggered by cartoons, shouldn’t we refrain from categorizing, labeling, stereotyping, and ask why?