Outrage in the Muslim world over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad stems both from resentment over perceived double standards and from political exploitation by some regimes, experts say.
Muslims worldwide have been angered by the publication of the caricatures of Muhammad, mostly in European newspapers, saying they are blasphemous and contrary to Islamic laws prohibiting depictions of the prophet.
Protests against the cartoons have led to Western embassies being attacked and at least three demonstrators being killed by gunfire during protests in Afghanistan.
For Muslims, ”since the Gulf War, international law has followed double standards”, said Mounia Bennani-Chraibi, of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, adding that they believe the same of freedom of expression.
She said the indignation in the Muslim world is ”linked to this feeling of inequality, of playing the villain in history”.
”The West has lost its Soviet enemy and has built Islam into its new enemy,” she said.
Muslims, including those who oppose terrorism, see the publication of the cartoons as ”the height of contempt”, with the subtext that ”’your religion is intrinsically terrorist and perverse’,” she said.
For Muslims, according to Bennani-Chraibi, ”others use the language of law but in fact manipulate it so they can continue to dominate and despise them”.
Olivier Roy, a French specialist in Middle Eastern affairs, said two crises have fused: that of Muslims in Europe who think that ”the other religions benefit from greater protection than theirs [and] want the benefit of legal protection” and that of roiling anger in the Middle East.
He added that the demonstrations conceal ”political exploitation” by regimes such as that in Syria, ”which has scores to settle with the Europeans”.
Roy pointed to France’s ”very hard-line” positions over Syria’s influence in Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear activities.
The Europeans, Roy said, are ”paying the price of their involvement in the countries in crisis”, citing their reaction to the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections.
Haizam Amirah Fernandez, from the Royal Elcano Institute of International and Strategic Studies in Madrid, said he is ”convinced” that most Muslims who demonstrated against publication of the cartoons ”had not seen them”.
”They simply received reports that the prophet had been insulted,” he said.
But ”you have to see why the reports are coming out now, why they are spreading [and recognise] the interests in play that want this publicity to grow.
”When internal social and political tensions rise, some regimes seek to direct it against an outside enemy,” he said.
According to Antoine Basbous, of the Paris Observatory of Arab Countries, ”regimes lacking legitimacy need this crisis to recover their purity”.
He also cited Syria, where he said the government ”is in difficulty” and seeking ”a diversion”, as well as Yemen, which he called ”the trailblazer in this affair”.
”Every time you have a weak government, to score points it will throw people on to the streets,” said Basbous, alleging the ”deliberate use of these caricatures by governments lacking legitimacy”.
Calls for calm
Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Tuesday added his voice to calls for calm as he condemned violent demonstrations around the world sparked by the publication of the cartoons.
”We regard the backlash as indefensible and urge people to desist and to remain calm,” Downer told Parliament. ”If people do take offence at anything … they’ve got a right to protest, but they should not resort to violence.”
Downer said Australia’s mission in the West Bank city of Ramallah has been temporarily closed because it shares a building with the Danish mission.
The cartoons were first published in a Danish paper in September and include a portrayal of Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban and show him as a wild-eyed, knife-wielding nomad flanked by two women shrouded in black.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also issued travel advisories for Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Tuesday to warn about the protests.
Australian media have largely refrained from publishing the 12 cartoons, although Queensland’s Courier Mail carried one of the images.
Editorials on Tuesday noted that the decision not to publish the cartoons was not taken because threats from Islamic radicals, but because it is offensive to Muslims to portray the prophet in any way.
”The most effective response may be to see the cartoons for what they are: crude, poorly drawn, not funny and undeserving of such attention,” the Sydney Morning Herald said.
A decision by several New Zealand media outlets to publish the controversial cartoons has put the country’s people at risk, Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Tuesday.
Three New Zealand newspapers and two television channels have reproduced the cartoons.
Clark said the country’s newspapers have the right to publish what they want, but called their decision to reproduce the caricatures ”ill-judged” and ”gratuitous”.
The country’s media ”dragged us into this, and it puts our people offshore at risk”, she told the ZB radio network. — AFP
