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OP-ED: “Prophetic Provocation,” by Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A21.
OP-ED: “Tolerance Toward Intolerance,” by Thomas Kleine-Brockoff, Washington Post, 7 February 2006, p. A21.
Got several emails pointing out how Christianity is regularly abused in the media and protests remain peaceful. Got several emails pointing out many Muslims the world over routinely sit on their hands when their own co-religionists commit some of the most heinous acts of terrorism, only to go postal (oops, another population slandered!) over a few cartoons in the Jylands Posten (same paper that profiled my talk in Copenhagen last year).
And these are all good arguments, as are the ones offered in these two op-eds, both of which are very intelligently written.
Robinson’s main point: the cartoons were purposefully inflammatory, but the response was purposefully over-the-top, and both actions indicate populations that feel quite pissed off and provoked beyond reason. And frankly, both sides are valid in feeling that, so fine, let’s talk it out.
And that’s Kleine-Brockoff’s point, he an employee of Die Zeit (where the original PNM article was reprinted): no sense in hiding the image that’s become an excuse for violence. Better to get it out in the open. I mean, it was gross and sick to see pictures of all those bodies and jumpers on 9/11, but what is the choice? To hide this reality so as to avoid talking about it? After all, if it’s okay and good to publish the Abu Ghraib pictures ad nauseum then it must be good to re-publish the cartoons, right?
Yes, by publishing such cartoons, European newspapers offended Muslims who’ve chosen to live in their lands. But when you choose to live in a secular democracy, do you not choose to abide by its dominant rule set? Should the goal of Europeans be to carve out a space for Muslims to be Muslims living as though they had never left the Middle East?
Upshot for me? I guess I care less about the provocation of the act than I do what comes next. Forcing debate, to me, is always good. Getting it out in the open, to me, is always good. But the key here is, what comes next?
There’s no question that Europeans need to find a social, economic and political space for Muslims in their societies. They either do this or decline mightily in coming decades. This is the kind of problem that you either rush toward its solution or scarier scenarios tend to rush toward you.
In the end, the cartoons end up being a very good thing, depending on what comes next.
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