Lars Vilks, the cartoonist behind last month’s so-called “Swedish cartoon scandal,” was recently quoted by BBC News as saying that he’s “not against Islam. Everyone knows that.”
Vilks’ cartoon, which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s head on a dog’s body, provoked worldwide controversy when it was printed in the Swedish Örebro-region paper Nerike Allehanda and has even led the alleged head of an Al Qaeda group in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, to promise a $100,000 reward for Vilks’ death.
Although the drawing, which accompanied an article on self-censorship, freedom of expression and religion, could be said to have sparked debate on these topics, it also reveals a stark reality of our post 9/11 world: you are either Muslim or against Islam.
Much like George W. Bush’s declaration that you are either a friend of the U.S. or part of the “Axis of Evil,” it’s becoming increasingly impossible for East-West relations to stay secular. While, yes, depicting Muhammad is taboo for Muslims, and dogs are considered to be unclean in the Islamic faith, the uproar created from the cartoon’s publication has nothing to do with disrespect and everything to do with Eastern intolerance.
According to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, there’s a growing tendency “among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide.” An insult is only insulting if it’s taken as such. It’s my personal opinion that prejudice comes in many insulting forms, such as anti-Semitic political parties, which still exist in parts of Europe, for example.
I’m not trying to trivialize the issue of Islamic-Christian relations, but Vilks’ cartoons do not criticize Islam in any way. They were originally intended to be shown at a local art exhibit entitled “The Dog in Art,” but the gallery—along with all the major art galleries in Sweden—refused to exhibit them for fear of retribution (obviously with good reason).
The global reaction to the cartoon’s publication was blown way out of proportion. Although Sweden is quite secular, it does have a significant Muslim population that put up minimal protests. Countries such as Iran and Pakistan, on the other hand, were quick to condemn the Swedish government, which technically has nothing to do with the cartoons because rules over media content and constitutional freedom of expression don’t allow the government any say over published items.
…the uproar created from the cartoon’s publication has nothing to do with disrespect and everything to do with Eastern intolerance.
Although global protests haven’t reached the catastrophic levels of 2005’s Danish cartoon scandal, militant Muslims have even gone as far as demanding a boycott of Swedish companies.
This incident is another fight in the ever-intensifying battle between the contrasting forces of Western secularism and Islam. Sweden, it may be interesting to note, is anything but intolerant. Last year the Swedish town of Sodertalje alone took in about 1,100 Iraqi immigrants, almost twice as many as the entire United States and only a fraction of the more than 18,000 Iraqi asylum-seekers who took refuge in Sweden during that time period.
The real problem is what’s being called “a new-world totalitarianism threat” by a group of writers and intellectuals from the French political-satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. They contend that issues such as the cartoon scandals are part of a bigger “global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.” In a brilliant twist of irony, the only countries who are denying Muslims basic rights and freedoms are Islamic nations like
Iran who are quick to point out alleged insults towards Islam but at the same time show a deep intolerance themselves for human rights such as freedom of expression. These rights are by now deeply rooted, almost institutional, societal values in Europe and North America.
By protesting media depictions of Islam, these states are further spreading their intolerance by creating a culture in the Western world that’s afraid of mentioning Islam for fear of accusations of Islamophobia. In the end, this will only further the cycle of misunderstanding between the East and the West.
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