Andrew Skinner examines the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed

After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed last September, the first few months of this year saw the so-called cartoon riots, resulting in over a hundred deaths around the world. Muslim groups had earlier complained about the cartoons to Denmark, which is struggling to integrate its Muslim immigrant population.

The FCCJ held a forum on the issue in March with the ambassador of Denmark, Freddy Svane, Japanese cartoonist Hiroshi Motomiya, Hussain Khan of the Japan Muslim Peace Federation and Pio d’Emilia of the Il Manifesto newspaper. D’Emilia, representing the western media, handed out several cartoons, including a portrait of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a cannonball turban about to explode.

The Danish cartoonists have been advised by police to lay low after what started as an attempt to test the limits of censorship and self censorship. Danish Islamic groups eventually led a group of Imams in January to Arab Muslim capitals to win support for their protest. The subsequent provocation of heads of state there enflamed and exaggerated the issue and the Danish government found itself defending freedom of expression.

Many other papers throughout Europe and the world have now republished, either out of interest or solidarity, blowing the event up into a global brouhaha. The cartoons have appeared in more than 130 publications in 50 countries, not including online and student papers, and surprisingly even in some Muslim countries. Some editors have been fired for ‘lack of consultation’ or ‘failing to respect the beliefs of others’, and cartoonists and editors have been living with death threats and potential loss of employment.

Danish ambassador Freddy Svane had already invited and heard the complaints of Muslims in Japan, having repeatedly voiced his government’s requests for dialogue.

He emphasized that the cartoons were the work of a single newspaper, which has apologized. But he said that the Danish government would not interfere with the media. The ambassador said that any dialogue should be based on “facts”, a reference to an email from Khan suggesting that a Danish political party wanted to ban the Koran. “We are not banning anything, nobody will burn the Koran.”

Khan, who is a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, an opposition politician in Pakistan, was under arrest until recently, said that Muslims oppose all offenses against religion and that every country has limits to freedom of expression. “You should respect the religion and cultural values of others, especially in Europe with a growing Muslim population.”

He claimed that there are no images that make fun of religious figures in the Muslim world: “Of Jewish and Israeli political leaders yes, but not their prophets.”

Khan repeated that the cartoons insult Islam, which forbids the human representation of the Prophet Mohammed and said the violent reaction they provoked was the fault of the West. “All Muslims are ready to give their lives for the prophet… If you legislate to protect the honor of our prophet, then we will respect Western law.” He gave as an example the West’s failure to take action in the past to silence Salman Rushdie.

Manga artist Hiroshi Motomiya, who was forced to self-censor pages of his Young Jump Magazine manga series after pressure from ultra-nationalists, pointed out that his work is for entertainment and not satire. He says that in the past he tried to take a middle road in his manga portrayal of the Japan-China war but, “I made mistakes and was reprimanded in Japan. I felt that my life was threatened… I was especially careful about expressing things and I tried to keep my position in the middle.” But after all, “I still was not able to avoid some small mistakes.” He now says that all cartoonists should be respectful of cultural sensitivities.

Pio d’Emilia said Japan has no laws prohibiting artists from expressing themselves and that self-censorship was the norm. He questioned how effective satire is at challenging issues. “Satirical portrayal or over-the-top criticism has its limits.” said Shoichi Nasu of the Daily Yomiuri in a subsequent telephone interview. “Because we use honorific terms of address with the Imperial Family, naturally we would hesitate to use caricatures depicting the family.” He said most editors in Japan had agreed not to publish the cartoons because they are offensive.

Editors also cited a lack of public interest in the cartoons. The Japan Times was an exception, printing an image of someone viewing a French newspaper of the cartoons, but even this was soon followed by the Foreign
Ministry’s statements to the media that it would be inappropriate to publish. This kind of media discipline is not unusual in Japan, where some still remember the unresolved murder of Hitoshi Igarashi, translator of The Satanic Verses, in 1991.

The cartoons have also run in the scandal magazine Kami no Bakudan [The Paper Bomb]. But there has been little media or public response to what its editors say is an attempt to explain the background to the controversy.

Pio d’Emilia outlined the basic position on this issue for European newspapers like his own. He emphasized that freedom of satire is defined as “holding up shortcomings by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, and other methods sometimes with intent to bring about improvement.” But he said his paper decided not to publish for several reasons. Principally, the editors thought that mocking, denouncing and ridiculing would not have improved the situation [between Muslims and the West].

Satire he said concentrates on the positive and is only effective among people who share the same values. “If I want to make a joke in English, I will fail. In Italian I will succeed.” But he concluded by saying, “We will never agree on the limitation of freedom of expression and satire... there is no way that a European citizen will go back to the Middle-Ages.”

Sharing some common ground with Il Manifesto on the quality of the cartoons, Bill Emmott of The Economist magazine says his publication argues strongly for free speech and an independent media but said it is not its usual practice to publish other people’s cartoons. And on the question of whether readers needed to see the cartoons? “A description seemed to us to suffice. For online readers desperate to see these drawings we provided a link to a site that showed them.” He added: “The important question was what stand one took on the issue of free speech inherent in the controversy. We took a strong stand in favor of the Danish paper’s right to publish them. That does not mean we have to do so ourselves.”

The Prophet Mohammed’s image has appeared all over the world, even in the Supreme Court building in Washington DC But publishing these particular cartoons or other images of the prophet is not just irreverent but unhelpful at this time, because of the already violently political nature of the whole fiasco, which means the media and American and British governments agree on something.

The cartoon riots and subsequent boycott of Danish products have at least succeeded in getting European Imams and other European leaders together to talk about other issues. At the same time more images are probably popping up everywhere on the internet. Freedom of expression has retreated only temporarily.

It is a cardinal rule for most political cartoonists that rules were made to be broken and the instinct of many will be, without malice, to push the issue as far as possible. It’s only a problem when it moves beyond that initial instinct for freedom and becomes intentionally offensive.

The Italian minister Roberto Calderoli, for example, resigned after wearing a T-shirt of the offending cartoons.

His actions may have led directly to rioting in Libya where 10 people died. What he did, may have indeed gone too far, but such are the dangers when politics and pride enter the picture.