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March 11, 2006
We can defuse this tension between competing conceptions of the sacred
The Muslim view that the west has double standards
has been entrenched, and reconciliation postponed
By Karen Armstrong
The crisis occasioned by the Danish cartoons, which depicted the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, has become a microcosm of the wider conflict between Islam and the western world. It also represents a clash between two competing conceptions of the sacred. The sacred, of course, does not necessarily imply an external deity. Some faith traditions, especially those originating in the east, have no conception of the supernatural and are not theistic in the western sense. The sacred symbolises that which is inviolable, nonnegotiable, and so central to our identity that, when it is injured in any way, it seems to vitiate the deepest self. For the Muslim protesters, the figure of the prophet is sacred in this way; for the supporters of the cartoons, free speech is the sacred value.
Freedom of expression is both a product and a prerequisite of modernity. In the pre-modern world, social order was regarded as more important than freedom of thought. It was not feasible to encourage people to have original ideas or to criticise established institutions in the hope of improving them, because agrarian-based society lacked the resources to implement many new notions. But independent thinking became essential to the modern economy; society could only become fully productive if inventors and scientists were able to pursue their ideas without the supervision of a controlling hierarchy. Our right to free speech and free thought has been hard won, and western civilisation could not function without it. It has become a sacred value, symbolising the inviolable sovereignty of the individual.
Nevertheless, we should not be surprised and affronted if people challenge it. Culture is always contested. Today all over the world religious conservatives and secularists feel deeply threatened by one another; they all fear the destruction of sacred, fundamental values. As a result, the modernisation process has been punctuated by such conflicts as the Scopes trial of 1925, when Christian fundamentalists in the US tried to ban the teaching of evolution in the state schools, and the Salman Rushdie affair, when Muslims felt mortally wounded by Rushdie's portrayal of their prophet.
These conflicts both began with what was perceived as an aggressive assault on religion by the proponents of free speech. But they ended by making the religious contenders more extreme. Before the Scopes trial, for example, Christian fundamentalists had often been on the left of the political spectrum, willing to work alongside socialists in the slums of the industrialising cities. But as a result of their media humiliation during the trial, fundamentalists swung to the far right, where they have remained. In other traditions too, the militant piety that we call "fundamentalism" has developed in a similarly symbiotic relationship with a liberalism or secularism that is experienced as hostile and invasive.
The cartoon crisis is simply the latest of these disputes, and as such could be seen as part of the bumpy process whereby societies at different stages of modernisation gradually learn to accommodate one another. But in the current political climate, we can ill afford this escalation of tension. On both sides, the conflict has been fuelled and exploited by radicals, who do not represent the majority.
At last week's meeting of the Alliance of Civilisations, a UN initiative with the mandate of drawing up a list of practical guidelines for member states to prevent the acceleration of hatred and misunderstanding, we were given the result of a recent poll of Muslim youth. This showed that 97% of the young people surveyed deplored the violence and rhetoric of the Muslim protesters, even though they had been offended by the cartoons. Another delegate reported that while most Danish people vigorously defended free speech, they were distressed that the cartoons had so heedlessly trampled on Muslim sensibilities.
On both sides, the radicals have tried to eliminate the middle ground, and this is extremely dangerous. The Muslims who vandalised embassies and brandished placards vowing to execute the cartoonists have fulfilled the stereotypical view of "Islam" in the west: a religion seen as violent, fanatical, self destructive and atavistically opposed to freedom. At the same time, those who aggressively support the repeated publication of the cartoons embody the view many Muslims have of "the west": as arrogant, disdainful of religion, chronically Islamophobic, and guilty of double standards - proudly boasting of its tolerance, but not applying it to anything Islamic. When the dust has settled after the crisis, these negative stereotypes will be more entrenched, to the detriment of a final reconciliation.
Many have been alarmed by the increase of the Muslim population in Europe, which seems inimical to western values. They are naturally defensive and apprehensive; the cartoons can be seen as an expression of this anxiety and as a blow for freedom. But they also revealed the darker side of the culture they purported to defend, and have a grim precedent. Historically, Europe has found it extremely difficult to tolerate minorities; one member of the AoC group recalled that before the Shoah, in preparation for what was to come, Nazi propagandists encouraged the publication of anti-semitic cartoons in the German press.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an indispensable member of our AoC group, spoke from personal experience of the abiding pain felt by people who see their traditions consistently scorned and ridiculed by an imperialist power. When people hurt in this way, he said, it only takes a little thing to push them over the edge. When Islam was a major world power and Muslims were confident, they could take insults about their religion in their stride. But today, fearful of the hostility in Europe and bombarded with images from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, many experienced the gratuitous vilification of their prophet by the Danish cartoonists as the last straw.
Hatred of the west is a relatively recent prejudice in the Islamic world. A hundred years ago, every single leading Muslim intellectual, with the exception of the proto-fundamentalist Al-Afghani, saw western modernity as deeply congenial and, even though they hated European colonialism, many wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France. Relations soured not because of an inherent "clash of civilisations", but because of western foreign policy, which continues to fuel the crisis.
How do we move forward? Washington's threatening posture towards Iran can only lead to an increase in hostility between Islam and the west, and we must expect more conflicts like the cartoon crisis. Instead of allowing extremists on both sides to set the agenda, we should learn to see these disputes in historical perspective, recalling that in the past aggressive cultural chauvinism proved to be dangerously counterproductive. The emotions engendered by these crises are a gift to those, in both the western and the Islamic worlds, who, for their own nefarious reasons, want the tension to escalate; we should not allow ourselves to play into their hands.
(Karen Armstrong is the author of The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah )
karmstronginfo@btopenworld.com
February 10, 2006
Who orchestrated the "cartoon" show?:
From Islamophobia to war: The Danish cartoon affair
by Michelle Rasmussen, Tom Gillesberg, and Dean Andromidas
…….”Jyllands-Posten”, which first ran no fewer than 12 defamatory cartoons on Sept. 30, is Denmark's leading right-wing daily, well-known as a follower of London's line from the days of the Cold War, through the Balkan crisis of the 1990s, and has now become the leading mouthpiece for the neo-conservatives, and particularly for the spreading of Islamophobia.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, “Jyllands-Posten” was the only Danish daily to ignore an appeal to the
Danish media by then-Social Democratic Prime Minister Paul Nyrup Rasmussen, not to publish inflammatory editorials comparing the attacks to the Clash of Civilizations. On Nov. 20, 2001, “Jyllands-Posten” published an editorial stating that the attacks ``demonstrate the truthfulness of the sensational thesis that professor Samuel P. Huntington put forward ... in his book on “The Clash of Civilizations”.'' The editorial went on to tout the ``freedom ideals of the West,'' and the ``Middle-Ages-darkened perception of the world'' of Islam.
It took up Huntington's racist notion that ``time is on the side of Islam'' because of the high birth rate in
Islamic countries, and warns its readers not to ``sell out'' to the ``realists'' who claim that only a minority
of the Islamic world abides by the fundamentalist creed. Since that editorial, the daily has been well known for its Islamophobic line.
Another very significant reflection of where “Jyllands-Posten” stands politically, is the fact that it had been instrumental in founding and financing a new Danish think-tank called CEPOS (The Danish Center for
Political Studies). With half a million crown donation ($80,000) from the Jyllands-Posten Fund, CEPOS opened its doors on March 10, 2005, and is modelled after two of Washington's high temples for the neo-conservative movement, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, as well as the London-based Adam Smith Institute, and the Institute of Economic Affairs.
On its advisory board, and an honorary member of its board of directors, is George P. Shultz. (Shultz not only hand-picked key members of the Bush Administration, he is the controller of Vice President Dick Cheney, and one of the architects of the war drive against Iran.) Other members of the advisory board, although lesser lights than Shultz, hail from the American Enterprise Institute, the University of Chicago, and British, as well as other American universities and institutes.
Flemming Rose, culture editor of “Jyllands-Posten”, commissioned 12 cartoonists to draw cartoons of the
Prophet Mohammed, after being informed that another Islamophobe, the author Kaare Bluitgen, was unable to get cartoonists to illustrate a children's book on the life of Mohammed. Despite being warned by religious experts that pictures of the Prophet are prohibited by the Islamic religion, and that it would be highly inappropriate and offensive to publish them, Rose, in a statement announcing the publication of the cartoons, wrote that the concern about making fun of religious feelings ``is less important'' than what he called following the ``slippery slope of self-censorship.''
In October 2004, Rose travelled to the United States, where he had been a correspondent for another
Danish daily in the 1990s. He went to Philadelphia, where he interviewed Daniel Pipes, director and founder of Middle East Forum, and the website ``Campus Watch,'' which has been accused of ``McCarthyite intimidation'' of professors who criticize Israel. Pipes, who is one of the top Islamophobes in the United States, is also a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, whose co-chairman is George Shultz.
Upon his return to Denmark, Rose published a highly favorable interview with Pipes, entitled ``The Threat of
Islam.'' After this Rose-Pipes connection was circulating on the Web, Pipes posted a statement claiming he was the victim of a ``conspiracy theory.'' While acknowledging the interview, Pipes claims he has had no contact whatsoever with Rose since, and has nothing to do with the cartoons. Nonetheless it is obvious that a bond in the realm of ``common ideals'' persists.
Coming to the support of Rose, vice chairman of CEPOS, David Gress, in an interview Feb. 8 on Danish
Radio, called the conflict between Islam and the West the ``new Cold War,'' in which those who refuse to support “Jyllands-Posten” are like those who were ``appeasers'' of the Soviet Union, and those who are fighting the new ``cultural war'' are like the Cold Warriors of old.
Between 2001 and 2003, Gress had been the ``John M. Olin Professor of History of Civilizations'' at Boston
University. This is the same Olin family of the infamous Olin Foundation, which has given millions to finance the neo-conservative movement in the United States. Gress, was formerly a journalist for “Jyllands-Posten”, and is one of two CEPOS founders on the board of directors of the Danish daily.
The bringing of Denmark into the epicenter of the Clash of Civilizations, is forcing members of the Danish
political elite to protest loudly. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Denmark's former Foreign Minister, and former head of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's European-style Liberal party, Ventre, already has called the publication of the cartoons a ``stunt,'' and called for “Jyllands-Posten” chief editor Carsten Juste to resign
because of his ``mistaken judgment.'' Ellemann-Jensen added, ``I am saying this now, because the current Foreign Minister and Prime Minister can't say it, but as an ordinary person who has a certain judgment of how the world works, I can do so....''
Ellemann-Jensen, who also is a founding member of CEPOS, strongly supported 22 former Danish diplomats with expertise in Islamic countries, who had denounced the publication of the cartoons, and demanded that the government take positive action and meet with Muslim leaders to resolve the crisis.
The publication of the cartoons in French and other European papers on Feb. 1 was a straight international
synarchist operation. For example, the French-based and internationally active ``Reporters Without Borders,'' which has been instrumental in supporting the publication of the cartoons, is in fact an Anglo-American-French synarchist intelligence operation. On the French side, it receives financing from the office of the President of France, the Foreign Ministry, as well as top corporations. On the American side, it receives financing from the National Endowment for Democracy, and the right-wing Miami-based Center for a Free Cuba, a notorious anti-Castro group. In its work with the latter organization, Reporters Without Borders cooperates closely with Otto Reich, who is currently President Bush's Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere. More importantly, Reich, an old Iran-Contra hand who is from Florida, and has been
the chief advocate of the anti-Castro groups, is in fact a crony of George Shultz, for whom he served as ``Special Advisor'' between 1983 and 1986, when Shultz was Secretary of State.
Another indication of the control of this operation by financier synarchists, is the fact that the editor
responsible for publishing the cartoons in the French daily “France Soir”, Jacques Lefranc, is the former
general manager of the French-based Banque de Participations et de Placements. BPP is very active in the
Middle East, and enjoys many links with the French intelligence services. The publication of the cartoons
cost LeFranc his job.
Britain's Muslim Brotherhood Assets Target Arab Leaders
A senior European security source told “EIR” (Economic Intelligence Report) that the publication of the cartoons in February by other European countries was clearly a ``guided'' operation on both sides, to mobilize Islamophobia throughout Europe. Nonetheless, it is also ``guided'' in the Middle East. The ``guides'' in Southwest Asia are run through British intelligence assets in the Muslim Brotherhood, who are active from Morocco to Pakistan. Recall that the first round of cartoons was an almost non-issue in the Islamic world until a second set of far more inflammatory cartoons began circulating at the end of January, some of which had never been published in the Western press. Circulation of these cartoons expanded tremendously after Feb. 1.
The same source pointed out that only 200 demonstrators took part in burning down the Danish
consulate in Beirut. They were clearly part of an orchestrated operation by ``certain groups'' in Lebanon.
As far as the entire country was concerned, it was not an issue, and in fact served to destabilize the very
sensitive Lebanese internal political situation.
He warned that the demonstrations in Damascus were most likely backed by elements within the government, since no one could get away with such an action, without some official backing. Syria, he said, is playing a dangerous game, and falling into a trap by thinking it can get some political support in the Arab street, in an attempt to take the lead on the issue, before the Muslim Brotherhood could use it to launch a destabilization.
The way hardliners in Iran are taking up the issue reveals that they, too, are playing their part in this
British-orchestrated crisis. In reaction to the cartoons, Iran threatened to launch an economic boycott against
Denmark, which provoked the European Union to threaten economic sanctions in retaliation. Thus, Iran is offering an opportunity to launch sanctions independent of the United Nations and the nuclear issue!
Similarly, the cartoons served to inflame the streets of Gaza just at the time that Hamas, which had just won
the Palestinian elections, was in sensitive negotiations with various Palestinian factions, and Egypt, to form a government that could continue to receive financial support from the European Union. The chaos also gave hotheads in the Israeli security services an excuse to escalate targetted assassinations of Palestinian
militants.
A senior Danish journalist, with many years of experience, told “EIR” that this whole controversy is
aimed against Jordan, Egypt, and other western-oriented states. He feared the inflaming of the Arab street would serve as a cover for the assassination of a major Arab leader.
There are no forces, either in Europe or Southwest Asia, who are politically capable of stopping this
orchestration. Only through blocking this synarchist drive in the United States, is there hope for stopping this
Clash of Civilizations.
Shultz and Aznar: Seeking War With Islam
It's not surprising to find that among the leading promoters of war against ``radical Islam,'' and Iran, are two men best known for their promotion of “Nazi” policies over recent decades. Both are also leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), one of the prominent war-mongering institutions on the global scene.
On the one hand, we have George P. Shultz, co-chairman of the U.S. CPD, and godfather of the George W. Bush Administration. Shultz spoke at a CPD press conference in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 23, where he announced its policy of ``regime change'' for Iran. He also is found on the advisory board of the Danish foundation CEPOS, along with representatives of the “Jyllands-Posten” newspaper, which launched the current campaign of provocations against Islam, through defamatory cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
The octogenarian Shultz, however, is best identified for his role in the Nixon Administration, when he played a crucial role in supporting the fascist coup of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and the subsequent bloodbath across the continent, known as ``Operation Condor.'' Nor was Shultz embarrassed in the least to admit his support for Pinochet, whose Chicago School economic policy--an all-out looting spree against the Chilean working population--he considered to be wonderfully ``successful.'' Among the economic accomplishments of the Pinochet regime which Shultz prized, was none other than the privatization of Social Security, a program which has immiserated the retirement of the majority of the Chilean
workforce.
What else can you call an economist who supports the fascist policies of the Pinochet government, but a Nazi? And is it any surprise that such a Nazi would support a Clash of Civilizations war against Islam, which is what a war against Iran would represent? Working right alongside Shultz in this endeavor, we have the former Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar functions as the co-chairman of the international adjunct of the CPD. He is also the founder the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES), which produced a report in October 2005, demanding that NATO be reorganized ``in order to
combat and defeat Islamist terrorism.''
Aznar personally presented the FAES proposal, titled ``NATO: An Alliance for Freedom,'' at NATO headquarters on Nov. 30, 2005. Many in Europe do not yet agree that ``Islamic jihadism/extremism/terror''--a phrase appearing over 20 times in the document--is an ``existential threat'' to countries, but ``the threat of Islamist terrorism will end up becoming the greatest priority sooner or later,'' FAES confidently asserted in 2005.
The Prime Minister's NATO vs. Islam proposal received its first international endorsement on Nov. 15, 2005: from Shultz's CPD.
Who is Jose Maria Aznar? He was previously the head of the Partido Popular (the Popular Party) in Spain, the direct heir of the political tradition of fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, until Aznar was ousted by the current Prime Minister, Jose Rodriguez Zapatero. As Prime Minister of Spain, Aznar fully endorsed the (Nazi) pre-emptive war policies of the Bush Administration, and promoted the Clash of Civilizations approach to Southwest Asia. True to the fascist tradition, which adopted methods directly from the Tomas de Torquemada Spanish Inquisition, Aznar and his associates are agitating for a new Crusade.
Do these two ideologues understand that the detonating of war against Iran, will usher in a global era of irregular warfare that will ultimately destroy the United States and Europe, as well as the poorer countries of the world? Or are they simply treacherous fools, useful to the higher-level synarchist bankers, like those Nazis whom the British financed into power more than 70 years ago, launching a wave of mass murder and destruction, which ultimately consumed themselves?
http://groups.google.com/group/larouchephilippines/browse_thread/thread/741fe164fd959e2c/1b5eaf6beba90d51#1b5eaf6beba90d51
Arab News – March 10, 2006
Muslims and the West: Bridging the Gap
Adil Salahi
Recent events in Europe and the Muslim world have highlighted — yet again — the gulf that separates two great cultures. The publication of the cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the angry feelings this released across the Muslim world presented the gap in garish colors. People in the West feel unable to understand the depth of the anger that the cartoons generated. They are just mediocre cartoons satirizing a man who lived fourteen centuries ago. Publishing them was in poor taste, perhaps, but they should not directly affect anyone alive today. Westerners may feel that the angry demonstrations taking place as far apart as Jakarta and Rabat show how strange the workings of the Muslim mind are. What do these demonstrators want? An apology by the Danish and Norwegian governments? Why? Neither government was responsible for the cartoons or their publication. When demonstrating evolved into burning embassies, it placed itself outside both the law and the comprehensible.
The newspapers insist that the whole thing was an exercise of the sacred human right to freedom; in this case freedom of expression. Many Muslims ask why anybody’s freedom of expression should acquire greater sanctity than the religious sanctities of millions? Muslims revere Muhammad as the bearer of a message from God, respect him as a social reformer and political leader and love him as a man and a role model. In all these capacities they would go to great lengths to defend him. What freedom, and what expression, then, could be given higher importance? Moreover, Muslims see no virtue in the freedom of expression expressed in these cartoons. This is merely freedom to hurl abuse. And is it not the case that one person’s freedom stops where it encroaches on another person’s rights. We all have the right to be treated with respect, so where do these newspapers get the right to ridicule and insult the Prophet — the man we hold dearer than ourselves?
The European papers that published the cartoons in solidarity with the Danish paper said they wanted Muslims to know they cannot be exempt from satire. But for Muslims the cartoons were sheer ridicule. They reflected nothing that the Prophet had ever said or done. They might refer to some ideas held by some Muslims; but none of those ideas were expressed by the Prophet. So they ask: If the papers only want to critique Muslims, why do they target the Prophet?
Had these cartoons been directed against someone alive today, that person might have a case to sue the papers for libel. How come, then, that Western laws protect Tom, Dick and Harry but leave the man who is the object of every Muslim’s love and veneration vulnerable to senseless abuse? The logic is straightforward to a Muslim who is under divine command not to mock the religious symbols of any religion, including idols and similar objects of worship.
Muslims see the West’s selective application of some of its enshrined freedoms. They ask: What freedom of expression are we speaking about when US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair discuss the bombing of the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeerah? In fact, the coalition actually bombed Al-Jazeerah’s offices in Afghanistan and Iraq and killed Arab journalists working in Baghdad. What freedom of expression sentences Al-Jazeera’s Tayseer Allouni to seven years imprisonment? One of the pieces of “evidence” against him was that he interviewed Osama Bin Ladin: Wouldn’t every Western journalist think of that as a scoop?
Such double standards are often cited when discussing relations between the West and the Muslim world. Recent examples abound, the latest being the attitude of the West to Hamas winning the Palestinian parliamentary elections. Everyone agrees that the elections were conducted freely and produced a clear winner. But the US and the European Union declared immediately that they would not deal with Hamas and that they would stop the funds already committed to the Palestinians. The message is that there is a limit to acceptable democracy: Elections must never produce a result the West disapproves of. What would the German, the French, or the British electorate think if their politicians tried to apply the same idea to them: We will have general elections, but they must produce a specific government? What is the likely result of a British opinion poll asking: “What would you say if elections in Northern Ireland produce a clear win for Sinn Fein?” Most respondents would probably say “good for them”. Why is it not good for the Palestinians that Hamas has won a free election? Fixing election results is common practice in the Arab world. Do we find in the attitude of Western democracies to the Hamas win a reminder of the attitude of Arab governments to elections? In other words, how far have these Western democracies already gone in borrowing policies and practices from Arab dictatorships? Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Al-Jazeerah, Allouni and now the Palestinian elections tell their different stories, but they all confirm such an unwelcome traffic. Arabs and Muslims in general have traditionally longed for the day when the freedoms of the democratic West are practiced in their own countries. Now they are in despair as they see the traffic going the other way, with many Western countries importing ideas and practices that are dictatorial in nature under cover of the “War on Terror”.
There is no doubt that the gulf between the two cultures is wide. Nor is there any doubt in my mind that it is bridgeable. What is needed is for both sides to understand and practice their basic principles: They will be surprised at how much they have in common. For example, the West rightly takes pride in its freedom. Well, Muslims should have no problem with freedom. Notable scholars of the Qur’an declare that freedom is the first human right under Islam. They cite in evidence a principle stated twice in the Qur’an: “Oppression is worse than killing.” (2: 191 & 217)
The Prophet is instructed in the Qur’an to say to all those who will not believe his message: “You have your religion, I have mine.” (109: 6) The Qur’an describes itself as the message of truth sent by God. It immediately follows this description with the statement: “Let him who will, believe in it, and let him who will, reject it.” (18: 29)
Why do many Muslims not reflect this emphasis on freedom in their attitude to others? The basic reason is that most Muslim countries have been living under dictatorships for several generations; this has left them socially embattled.
There is a general feeling among Westerners that democracy is incompatible with Islam. This notion is confirmed by the activities of some fringe Muslim groups. Yet the essence of democracy, i.e. consultative and representative government, is endorsed in two definitive Qur’anic statements one of which may be translated as: “Take counsel with them in all matters of public concern.” (3: 159) This is a command to the Prophet and to every Muslim ruler to institutionalize public consultation over all matters.
Gender equality is another important issue with which Islam has no problem. Islam addresses its message to both men and women and treats them on absolutely equal basis. The Prophet states: “Women are the full sisters of men.”
The gap between the two cultures is bridgeable, but much work is urgently needed on both sides. This can be done through dialogue based on mutual respect, as taught by Islam, Christianity and the best of the humanist traditions in both cultures.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=79012&d=10&m=3&y=2006
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