Insults reserved for Islam
Recently, when a Danish newspaper published cartoons offensive to Muslims, Muslim protests met claims that our Western democracies had to uphold the sacred principle of free speech. Under no circumstances could we Westerners be expected to give up that important right simply because others objected to being criticized or insulted.
But wait a moment. Don't our Western democracies ban racial criticisms and insults? What happens to our sacred principles and rights then?
Indeed, even as the debate over the Danish cartoons was under way, an anti-Western Muslim in Britain was sentenced inter alia to 21 months imprisonment for allegedly inciting racial hatred against us Westerners.
And now in the United States and Australia, even speech favoring alleged Islamic enemies can be punished. So what are we to conclude -- that it is OK to disparage people for their religion, but not for their politics or race?
One wonders how educated Muslims view this contorted logic, particularly since it is contradicted by the brutally racist conduct of U.S. and British soldiers in Iraq.
As for the limp-wristed apologies for that conduct coming out of London and Washington, we all know that, if not for the incriminating videos and photos, those atrocities would have remained unpunished. Indeed, it is quite likely they would still be continuing.
In Vietnam, even worse atrocities continued happily for 10 years without any of our governments or media getting very disturbed. Racial contempt for occupied peoples is buried deep in the psyche of the Western soldier.
But getting back to the elevated world of what we in the West say rather than what we do -- the reason we oppose, at least in principle, racial insults is that race is an important part of our identity. We have a long history of racial brutalities, hatreds, discriminations toward each other. So today we have no choice but to try to put a lid on remarks that try to inflame or justify them.
Now turn to Muslim societies. For them religion rather than race is more important for identity. One reason is that they have a powerful religion -- Islam -- that provides a seemingly coherent code of both spiritual and temporal conduct. The global spread of Islam is one result. True, there are factional differences -- Shiite versus Sunni, for example. Even so, all Muslims accept that there is one source of ultimate truth (Mecca) -- something that cannot be said of our fractious Western religions.
The remarkable way Muslims manage to sublimate racial differences for the sake of religion is one result. The sight of millions of Muslims from all nations, rich and poor, all clad in identical white robes, all living and praying together for days on end to complete their Hajj obligations at Mecca, is proof. Could any of our Western religions claim to overcome racial differences as easily?
In short, while we in the West, and Japan, still cling to the tribalistic concept of race as the basis for identity, and are sensitive to any criticisms in this area, the Muslim peoples have moved on to the concept of religion as the basis of identity and are equally, if not more, sensitive to criticisms in this area.
At the very least, to ridicule Muslims for their sensitivity to religious insults while we busily jail people in our own societies for racial insults is not a very impressive example of our allegedly superior Western values in action. But the chances of this penetrating the closed, ethnocentric minds of our anti-Muslim pundits is close to zero, I am afraid.
The same biases pollute our media. Islamic militants fighting to rid their country of Western occupation armies are automatically denounced as "terrorists" (even if not too many years ago they were embraced as "freedom fighters" when they opposed Soviet occupying forces). Those willing to sacrifice their lives in the process are denigrated as deranged, cowardly, fanatical.
Nazi Germany in its efforts to suppress guerrilla and resistance forces in occupied territories would have used such vocabulary proudly.
True, the U.S. says it wants democracy for the Muslim peoples, yet it imposes bans whenever fair elections return or threaten to return Islamic movements it does not like -- Algeria, Iran and now Palestine. Meanwhile it retains close links with regimes that it likes but which refuse elections. It is like American industrialist Henry Ford saying his customers could have any color car they wanted, provided it was black.
The Islamic peoples are not fools. How much longer do we expect them to put up with this kind of self-serving nonsense?
Following the Hamas victory in the recent Palestine elections, we were treated to endless media warnings about the victory of a terrorist organization calling for the destruction of the Israeli state. The allegedly impartial BBC was as guilty as most. Soon afterward, though, the same BBC did give us an impartial documentary that made it clear that Hamas was the only political force offering concerned and non-corrupt government for the Palestinian people, and that its anti-Israel attitude owed much to Israeli defiance of U.N. resolutions condemning takeovers of Palestinian territory and the expulsions of Palestinian people.
More than anything else, it is this inability to realize cause and effect -- that if people lose their rights and their territory by force then they have no alternative but to retaliate with force -- that underlies Muslim anger against the West.
If I were to exercise my right of free speech and suggest that maybe use of force is justified in freedom-loving Australia, I would be jailed, to the applause of the very people who demand the right to insult and use force against Muslims. How hypocritical can you get?
Gregory Clark is vice president of Akita International University, Japan.
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Doubting Thomas! Although your comments are well planned in bashing Islam and you are pre-destined or let's say programed to just deliver your spurious message like an insisting Jehova's witness. Yeah, no reasoning only saying your piece and close your mind to rationale out of fear of somehow perceiving the truth. Truth that would be diametrically oposed to your claimed believes. Unless you were a psychiatric patient, I can't believe that you actually dig the crap that is coming out of your mouth. I'll try to answer to your cherry picking(comment#:36268):
1) Muhammad,pbuh, was a worrior? Please, when you mention prophet Muhammad,pbuh, mention him as a prophet. Otherwise I don't know what Muhammad you were talking about. Maybe you think that Muhammad II or "The Conqueror" of the Ottomans was the prophet? Because Prophet Muhammad,pbuh, was a million other things before being a worrior. In his time,Islam spread as much as Hijaz. If he would have been the worrior you claim, Muslims would have followed their prophet to Rome,Paris,London and name it. Prophet Muhammad was a pacifist(In Arabic pacifist is translated as Muslim). Anyway intristing philosophy we have here Mr. Thomas! A worrior is not far off of a terrorist! Couldn't agree more! As a Pacifist(Muslim in Arabic) I am against war! According to your philosophy: worrior=terrorist, the whole Judeo-Christian civilization is a congregation of terrorists. Again, I couldn't agree more. Look at European and American history. They didn't spare their own faith or national brothers in their pursuit for power and wealth! Now that's terrorism at its highest point. Watch out for what is coming out of your mouth, Thomas boy, your words work for me too, you know, words are two edged swords, dude!
The comments of Thomas are the same brainwashing instrument the west used on not only the American muslims but also the entire American public in order that the think the way of the neo-cons. But there will always be people to counter those rhetorics and misguided utterences, like Hudd. I pray u have urself a job as a columnist in one of those neocons media Hudd.
Peace.
1) To say that all Muslims are terrorists if in a cartoon, Mohammed is portrayed as a terrorists. That is the joke right, ok I get it! Anyway to put it as positively as possible Mohammed was a warrior, so it isn't so far off.
2) I know that all Muslims are not Arab, heck my girlfriend is an ex-Muslim and she is not Arab. When people are against Islam and say it is racism, that can't be any more wrong.
3) Qubecois culture is part of Western culture, so your example is not week it is wrong. Have you ever heard the Islamic phrase "Whoever imitates a people, he is one of them." That is just one of many, well way to many to mention here to show the incompatibility of these two very different cultures. In my readings I see a hate of Islam towards other cultures. Actually Islam is definded by being different from other cultures just for the sake of being different. One more example a funny one. "contradict the idolaters, trim the moustache and grow the beard." Wow Muslims are suppose to have beards and moustaches because the idolaters don't. These examples are to show that Muslims in non-Muslim countries are not suppose to integrate and become part of the larger community. To have final proof read the document by Dr. Nasr Al-Aql called "Imitation of the Kuffar" on the site of Calgary Islamic.
4) You said "Usually secular westerners are closer to Muslims than fundamentalist Christians and Zionist Jews." I agree, if those Muslims don't follow the teachings of the Koran and had'dith. I don't have anything good to say about fundamentalist Christians, so you can see I'm an equal opportunity skeptic. I can prove it to you if I wanted but I won't, check it out for yourself but if Christianity has been distorted with time so has Islam! Unless of course you believe it is perfect and unchanged.
Your comment knocked me off my feet:"Your post (Ref: 36171)is the best proof possible that it is impossible to have a society where Muslims can live with non-Muslims in a harmonious manner." How on earth could you reach to such an outrageous conclusion? I'll try to correct you, I said Islam was a "distinctive" culture,but so is French Quebecois(Quebecan,if you will). I didn't say anything about being at odds or incompatible with western civilization. Those were your words. Islam is very adaptible and can accommodate all aspects of life. The question is not whether Islam was compatible with Western culture. The question was and is that Islam demands every and any culture to respect and consider Muslims as humans and thus with a fundamental right to decide for themselves and live according to their beliefs like any other on the planet! My supposed anger about the West was not because of their culture or traditions, but against their foreign policies directed against the Islamic world. I am against war of any kind.Still I uphold the right of every nation to defend herself against aggressors. Afghanistan did not invade USA.Terrorists attacked US,coming from Germany.Wouldn't logics dictate that if US wanted to retaliate then they should of bombed Germany?But US chose to attack 2 countries that didn't attack them. My conclusion,US fights Islam.
Also, our community's beloved leader Muhammad was able to tell even the most, at least initially, objectionable people the truth about themselves in ways that made them feel good about having it finally explained to them. But alas most of us are torn between telling what we believe to be the truth and doing what we believe to be polite.
Pay due attention to what I say now,perchance you will understand where Muslims are coming from. In other than friendly relationship, any 'white' person would take it very offensif if called 'pot-head' or 'trailer-trash'. Would you like to be called to your face that by somebody you resent or you don't know? I call my Italian colleague 'mafioso' and we exchange Italian recipes on how to cook superb pasta dishes. They call me 'terrorist' in an attempt to reconciliate with their own fear of the possibility of a Muslim being one and their denial of that fear based on the fact that we share together in a common work place and common struggles and ambitions that are so human and regular that the term terrorist applied to their Muslim colleague appears as a great joke. They do not see me that. We are pals, we go together places like sport events and family trips.
Now, calling the founder of Islam a 'terrorist' ,is calling all Muslims,'terrorists! And that is not a joke. My pals have my tacid approval to call me that and I have their incouragement to call them anything crosses my mind, and we all laugh together. Did any of the Muslims laugh when their prophet was equated to the founder of terrorism? No, because the Islamic world is not pals with the West. The Muslim lands are invaded by Western powers that humiliate the local population and reduce those areas to rumble and ruin. And this,my friend,ain't funny! So the Muslims are occupied, murdered in their own houses and when they retaliate they are called terrorists and more of them are killed. Not funny! Terrorism was used as the leit-motif rhetoric to begin the ongoing war.
You are an American Muslim that doesn't mean you have all the knowledge of Islamic world. Lets take the example of Iraq, the civil war (thanks to US occupation) has nothing to do with racism, they are of same race, its actually the US and British solders (the so called civilized nations) actually are racist and treating Iraqis (Shia or Sunni) like sub humans. Alhumdulillah even at our worst time we are still the best among humans.
Don't believe, go to the country side and talk to native people go their reserved any where in north and see by yourself, or to aboriginals in Australia.
Brother when if comes to world affairs you poof you are American. Get some knowledge.
To Sarah,
We Muslims always welcome a debate, because its Islam which give us the right to have free speech. What we offended is with the provocative cartoons which have nothing to do with free speech. It is as if I am calling you a whore for your comments here, does it make sense to you ?
Regarding race, yes its wrong to judge people by their race and Alhumdulillah its more of an issue in west (the so called civilized people) then in Islamic nations.
For the ignoarant Danish cartoonists whats the consequence? Nothing not even a rebuke from the government.
Its not wrong to judge ppl for following a religion. A religion is a belief. A collection of ideas and ways of life ppl follow. Some ideas ppl have and actions ppl commit are wrong and unethical. It is wrong, however, to judge based on race. Race is how we are born and there is good and bad in every race.
Friction is created when Muslims, while at the same time rejecting Western culture, they try to change our Western culture to fit with the teachings of Islam. Which further creates friction. Two latest examples in Canada. The attempt to put Sharia law in Ontario, and the demand by Muslim orgs. to put in place blasphemy laws in Canada to protect Islam while no other religion has that protection. Two things that violently contradict the culture of Canada and The West.
I would imagine if a Muslim could have as good a life economically they would rather be in a Muslim country. Please read the alternative view showing Muslim attitude about Western culture. Thank-you.
You are so wrong when you say that Christians are persecuted in Muslim countries. I am an American Muslim who has spent half my life in the Middle East. Christians are given so much respect in the Middle East that at many time it is more respect than what is given to religous Christians in the US! They are at full and complete freedom to practice their religion and their way of life.
Michele N i urge you to visit a Muslim country and I promise you that you will be stunned to see what a cushioned and luxurious life many Christians lead in the Middle East and many Muslim countries.
Dont just spew your stereotypical views...step out and learn something about the world.
Peace be on you!
To the critique, the author is trying to say is racism is long gone in Islam and among Muslims, its not an issue to be sensitive about, but religion is because religion make them civilized that include non existent of racism. But on the other hand for "WEST" racism is a bigger issue, because they only recently started to address this issue and still commit it in one form or the other (colour, origin, native people, religion).
To Jason: those cartoons were not mere pictures, they show the hatred of people towards Muslims, I don't mind if critique of Islam come forward and have a meaning full debate, but depicting the noble prophet in those forms is sheer hatred from deep inside against Muslims and Islam.
Mr. Clark is right about Muslim sensitivity.You
can criticize Hinduism,Buddhism and Christianity,
and nothing will happen to you.If you criticize
Islam you will need a few bodyguards and a bul-litproof car.
I find Mr. Clark's comments about the West being racist and not open to be the biggest lie I have heard in a long long time. If the West was as racist as he says, then people from all around the world would not want to come to North America and Europe. The West is not free of racism, but it is much less racist then other places in the world, including the Muslim world. To be anti-Islam is not racist, and should not be twisted as such. To not believe in a certain religion or to even openly criticize is not racist, and it is my right to do so. If a Muslim complains about Christianity, he is not racist either. In the West the right to Blasphemy is legal. However to treat people improperly due to religious beliefs is not correct and such behavior is unacceptable. I wonder where in the world today people are treated improperly due to their religion! To use the behavior of a few soldiers, shows signs of intellectual dishonesty, and a generality that can't be carried to the whole population of the countries of the mentioned soldiers.
In Mr. Clarks last paragraph, he is not clear in his statement in what way the use of the word "force", could get him in "trouble" in Australia. As he is a person from Academia I find such an ill crafted paragraph just shows the weakness of his general argument, and that in reality it is empty.
You can not offer your political opinion and expect to be unquestionable because your political view are the views of God, therefore unquestionable. .....!!
I'll start with the later and say that from my western perspective Muslims have some very legitimate complaints about western powers interfering in their countries. For example it is perfectly reasonable for an Iranian to be extremely angry over the 1956 CIA-sponsored coup of a democratic government and the subsequent 20+ yrs dictatorship of the Shaw. I suspect most Iranians are also angry at the west for creating the conditions where the mullahs could sieze control. The conduct of the current Iraq war is another highly legitmate source of middle eastern grievance against America. Personally I'd love to see the west just leave the Muslim world alone and vise-versa: we buy your oil, you buy our food and tech and we'll both wave every now and then from accross the border.
Protecting religion leads to barriers between peoples. Racism attacks the physical characteristics and cultural practices people were born with. I cannot reasonably blame somebody for a thing that they have no control over (nor do I want to). Furthermore, I can easily share in the good aspects of another person's culture, and others can partake of the good aspects of my culture. When it comes to religion, however, its an all-or-nothing game. The believer looks at the non-believer and can reasobably (from the basis of faith) conclude that it is only the non-believer's obstinacy and base nature that prevents them from being a believer. Once somebody has proven themselves to be obstinate and base they have earned lesser treatment. How am I to welcome you to my country if you see me so? (no room to go o
To sum up the wertern attitude they are not democratic but they are hypocratic. They prove themselves to be hypocryte of what they say n do. Dont worry Islam will change that soon insaallah.
Peace be upon those who love Allah and His prophet Mohammed SAW/PBUH.
Greg also says:
"Now turn to Muslim societies. For them religion rather than race is more important for identity. One reason is that they have a powerful religion -- Islam -- that provides a seemingly coherent code of both spiritual and temporal conduct. The global spread of Islam is one result." That was a nice piece that is worth reading twice especially coming from Gregory Clark whom I presume is a non-muslim.
He equally adds:
"The remarkable way Muslims manage to sublimate racial differences for the sake of religion is one result. The sight of millions of Muslims from all nations, rich and poor, all clad in identical white robes, all living and praying together for days on end to complete their Hajj obligations at Mecca, is proof. Could any of our Western religions claim to overcome racial differences as easily?" The answer of course is NO. Let me add other statistics if u don't mind Greg,
Countries with more percentage muslim population have:
1. Less alcohol intake and its related crimes.
2. Also less drug usage.
3. Less, or no fornication/adultery.
4. Less free women cos' we marry them all(with the policy of polygamy)!.
e.t.c. The list is endless. I'm happy 'm a muslim. And I wish Greg to become one (ie if u aint a muslim already) also. May Allah guide us all to the truth , ameen.