call for freedom of expression but express differing views on the cartoon controversy
Allal, Tewfik
WHEN THE JORDANIAN newspaper Shihane published on February 2 three of the Danish cartoons that sparked so much controversy, its editors wondered out loud, "What is a greater source of prejudice...
...See especially Dimitri Gutasis's Pensee grecque, culture arabe...
...We believe that all the contradictions at work in the Muslim world, past and present, should be seen openly...
...Baghdad became the center of world learning...
...The demonstrations and ostensible disorders provoked by the Danish cartoonists are in reality a call to order directed at those of us who come from this very same civilization, whether citizens of Europe or—especiallyelsewhere...
...We are being told, You are not entitled to be Europeans, you are not entitled to think "like Europeans...
...At the same time, we want to make known—and we want to bolster— all the efforts that have been made on behalf of freedom in this world, yesterday and today...
...The secretary-general of Hezbollah in Lebanon declared that "had a Muslim been found to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwa against the renegade Salman Rushdie, then this rabble in Denmark, in Norway and in France who insult our prophet Muhammad would never have dared to do this...
...We aim to seize it...
...It was without historical precedent, and it extended far socially...
...And we reassert and nourish hope for a democratic, common future together, with pluralism of cultural backgrounds...
...This hope is hated by the extreme right parties in Europe and by the radical Islamists...
...The Islamic Conference Organization and the Arab League recently proposed that the UN adopt a resolution forbidding criticism of religions...
...We can discuss and argue about the quality of these cartoons and whether or not they were influenced by the rightist and racist atmosphere in Denmark and some other European countries...
...They throw the ball back and forth between each other...
...A challenge has been issued to freedom of expression...
...Are we going to wait until another Theo van Gogh is murdered, perhaps in Copenhagen or in Oslo?," asks the Arab writer Magdi Allam in the Italian newspaper II Corriere della Sera...
...They lack freedom of expression more than anyone else...
...Are we going to wait for another tragic incident to realize that the "party is over," as a French journalist wrote at the time of the Theo van Gogh affair...
...One day the experience of freedom will, as Salman Rushdie says, "break open the door of this prison...
...We remember especially that once, for two centuries, there was a great experience of freedom based in Baghdad...
...WHEN THE JORDANIAN newspaper Shihane published on February 2 three of the Danish cartoons that sparked so much controversy, its editors wondered out loud, "What is a greater source of prejudice against Islam...
...The cartoons or the images of a hostage's throat being slit in front of a camera...
...Its aim is to bar freedom of thought and expression by artists, intellectuals, and by any critic of religion...
...It will undoubtedly be greeted with great sympathy by various Christian and Jewish groups...
...Copyright 2006 Tewfik Allal and the Association du Manifeste des Libertes, manifeste@manifeste.org...
...Published by permission...
...In those days, the intense desire for civilization was not outdone by an appetite for income from oil and the prisons paid for by it...
...The newspaper was then pulled off the newsstands, and its editor was dismissed...
...But it is something else entirely when there are calls for the murder of the cartoonists, indeed of an entire nation in the name of God...
...When other Jewish or Christian "communities" have been offended by some published text, cartoon, or speech, they took it to the right venue: the courts...
...42 n DISSENT / Spring 2006 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION This much is obvious and urgent: We must defend those who are being attacked by extremists in the name of Islam...
...There are people in Islamic countries who think the same way as these Jordanian editors do, but who are not allowed to express it...
...It was orchestrated four months after the fact, after the cartoons were originally published...
...We, the Association of the Manifeste des Libertés, insist on a dual commitment...
...We condemn fundamentalism and those who feed it...
...Liberation, February 3, 2006...
...It is a staggering effort against the backdrop of Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine and the positions of the Iranian government...
...But it is in fact a challenge to a long-established European right that is more urgent than ever: freedom of thought with its inseparable bond to freedom of conscience, as well as the rights of atheism and blasphemy...
Vol. 53 • April 2006 • No. 2
