In August 1998, South African comedian Mark Banks discontinued a series of comedy shows in Cape Town due to disruptions and threats of violence from a local Muslim organisation. Banks likened the Muslim call to prayer (coming from a mosque) to that of a mosquito.
Shaikh Sadullah Khan, the former editor of the Muslim newspaper Muslim Views, found that the joke was neither blasphemous nor was it intended to be offensive to Muslims in particular. Nevertheless, Banks apologised unconditionally and said that he would treat religious sensibilities with respect. However, he also added that some subjects “naturally lend themselves to parody, so when people start throwing stones at the village clown, we are indeed in a sorry state”.
This was eight years ago — a time some of us in Cape Town still vividly remember as the era of urban terror, a time when Muslims emerged as both victim and villain in the tragedy. One of the elements of the drama then was the fatal non-dialogue between moderates and extremists. Another was the suppressed discourse of the mysterious killings by a third force, allegedly in collaboration with the state. No one was willing or able to talk about who was responsible for the assassination of scores of people in our community, many of them Muslim businessmen.
Although some of the themes and players in the Danish cartoon drama today are familiar, this one has a life of its own. The important difference here is that we have a forced discourse as opposed to a suppressed one: that of binary opposites, that of fanatic Muslims versus fanatics of absolute freedom. There is a fixation on the rights and wrongs of ways to defend the honour of the prophet Muhammad and on the rights and wrongs of exercising freedom of expression.
This has polarised people and set them up in a diabolically contrived dialectic that serves the interests of those who can benefit from a clash of civilisations. The potential for conflict here is also a potential for pretext and opportunity: to hasten and intensify the war on terror. The media hype, exemplified by the hyperbolic Reuters headline “Uproar over images of Muhammad spreads across Asia” when only 300 Indonesians protested on February 3, helps the campaign of the Bush administration to invade Iran finally.
It is not worth expounding on the Danish, Norwegian and French media’s abuse of their freedom of expression because that has been done ad nauseam. The most emphatic affirmation of the right to freedom of expression I have come across in recent times appeared in a Guardian editorial in London on February 3: “The right to freedom of speech … has been hard won, is inextricably essential to liberty, must be robustly defended and has sometimes to be controversially asserted.
“If free speech is to be meaningful, moreover, the right to it cannot shirk from embracing views that a majority — or a minority — finds distasteful, even on occasions bitterly so.”
If this is how far editors are willing assert their freedom, with a disregard for basic religious sensibilities of all religious people, then we will remain polarised.
It is also noteworthy that the editor of the Mail & Guardian thought it appropriate to reproduce the cartoon and then apologise when she was censured for doing so. Her reason for publishing it was to show what the controversy was all about. I assume the decision to publish was purely functional — devoid of any malice or prejudice — in order to graphically illustrate the issue. However, it was also devoid of regard for the sensibility of its readers and a religious minority in this country.
People’s cherished religious values are best not subjected to public scrutiny in the same way that the foibles of public officials and politicians are. This is imprudent for a newspaper known for its undaunted commitment to coverage of grassroots issues affecting minorities and the majority of people in the country.
Of course, religious sensibility has no legal claim to respect in most countries, including South Africa. However, built within our constitutional provisions for religious pluralism is a basis for inter-religious mutual respect. This, in turn, is a basis for a tradition of respect for religious sensibilities in the government, media, business, community organisations and so forth. I would like to believe this is why other newspapers in this country decided not to reproduce the cartoons.
Unfortunately, this may just be a fanciful notion because other newspapers may well have considered publishing them. The Sunday Times says it had no such intention, but that it objected to the court order brought by the Jamiat-ul Ulama banning their publication. This has shifted the focus from preventing publication to preventing the decision to publish. There is merit in the former, provided that the intention to publish is known, but none in the latter because it is tantamount to undermining free will. Muslims should know that free will is God-given and that it includes the freedom to decide to commit a wrong.
The call for the boycott of South African newspapers by Muslims may have been avoided if there had been engagement with the editor after the publication of an offending article in the Sunday Argus of February 5. This would have been a good opportunity for Muslims to test the sensitivity of Independent Newspapers in the absence of a boycott threat. There was no engagement with the editors prior to the call. The boycott campaign is truly legitimate when media deliberately offend or when they offer no right to reply in their publications.
However, the power of the boycott is illustrated by the astonishing speed with which Arab states, led by Libya and Saudi Arabia, mobilised diplomatic, economic and political efforts against Denmark and Norway, promptly extracting apologies from reluctant newspaper editors. It is strange, though, that none of this resolve is evident in their feeble defence of Palestine or Iraq or any of the other Muslim countries where the United States manufactures consent to invade, occupy and bomb their fellow Muslims.
There is an important question Muslims need to ask themselves. If the prophet Muhammad is their model and exemplar, is it not necessary that they look for an answer to this model in order to respond appropriately to this wave of Islamophobia? No Muslim scholar can ignore the prophet’s tolerance for those who abused him in his lifetime.
Early in his mission, at Taif, the prophet was pelted with stones till he bled, and his followers were persecuted and reduced to eating leaves and grass. Yet he never struck with vengeance and conducted war only with the aggressors. He never acted with blind fury or on impulse. His life is replete with instances of tolerance, compassion and wisdom in the face of ruthless oppression and aggression.
If that offensive cartoon so grossly misrepresents the holy prophet, it is the responsibility of Muslims to defend his honour in a manner that befits his honour. Thus far, much of the defence by small numbers of errant Muslims has only further tainted the noble character of their prophet. And it has given the purveyors of Islamophobia cause to justify their campaign.
In essence, there is a need for Muslims to develop an appropriate culture of defence of their values. There is also a need for world media to exercise freedom of expression tempered by the spirit of civility as opposed to the letter of the law.
Mahmood Sanglay is a journalist and projects director for Muslim Views