Media Wise Bulletin No.119 takes up the Danish cartoon controversy.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Socialist Worker on Danish cartoons
Lots of coverage of the Danish cartoons issue in this week’s Socialist Worker.
The front page article is headlined: “Cartoon Row: The Issue Is Racism”. Further relevant items are “Racism against Muslims has rocketed since 9/11” and “Cartoon caricatures were designed to offend”. Alex Callinicos contributes an article entitled “Freedom to spread hate?” And there’s a polemical piece from John Game on “Cultural Relativism”.
Game points to the double standards applied when it comes to Islam: “We live in a society where if a Catholic bishop talks reactionary nonsense about homosexuality there is some mild tut-tutting in the media. But if a Muslim does the same, articles are written about the ‘failure of multiculturalism’ and the need for Muslims to collectively embrace secularism.”
Muslim rally to condemn cartoons and extremists
Thousands of Muslims are expected to attend a rally in London at the weekend to protest at both the publication of cartoons defiling the image of the Prophet Mohamed and the response of Islamic extremists.
Muslim leaders will use the demonstration to call for calm and urge the media to apologise for the offence they have caused. The rally, expected to be one of the biggest Muslim demonstrations in Britain, is to be sponsored by Muslim newspapers and broadcasters.
Ihtisham Hibatullah, of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: “Last weekend was very damaging for the Muslim community. We are sometimes held hostage by extremists on both sides.”
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “British Muslims have been deeply hurt both by the provocative actions of the newspapers that printed these caricatures, but also by the disgraceful actions of a tiny group of extremists.”
He added that the aim of the rally was to protest against the “rising wave of xenophobia towards Muslims across Europe”.
Islamophobia – racism’s final holdout
Islamophobia – racism’s final holdout
By Louise Nousratpour and Roger Bagley
Morning Star, 7 February 2006
Peace campaigners condemned the “racist” mass media and accused ministers of applying “double standards” against the persecuted Muslim community yesterday. The comments followed government pressure on police to carry out mass arrests of Friday’s protestors in London against offensive caricatures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. At the event, some extremists threatened “another July 7”, while others dressed as suicide bombers.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke seized on the furore to demand that MPs back his repressive anti-terror Bill when it returns to the Commons on February 15. Mr Clarke urged support for a ban on “glorification” or “encouragement” of terrorism, which was thrown out by the Lords. He also hinted that police will shortly make a wave of arrests following the weekend demonstrations.
While rejecting the extremist protest, peace campaigners joined British Muslim leaders in condemning media “double standards” and its “mirage argument” – claiming to champion freedom of speech while attacking a minority group already facing persecution.
The cartoons, caricaturing Mohammed as a terrorist and a killer, were first published by right-wing Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September. The images have since been reprinted in many European countries, such as France and Norway, by other right-wing titles.
The entire episode is taking place at the height of Western aggression in the Middle East, with the ongoing war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan joined by recent threats from the international community to cut funds to the Palestinian government over the recent election of Hamas.
Campaigners branded the action “racial stereotyping”, likening the images to those of Jews by anti-semites and nazis in the early to mid-20th century. Respect national secretary John Rees said that Islamophobia has become “the last acceptable form of racism”. He said: “If this were a cartoon of a hook-nosed Jew counting money, the liberal press would be, rightly, full of angry editorials denouncing the racism of such images.”
A reply to Sunny
Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics has asked, in connection with the provocative idiocies of former Al-Muhajiroun supporters on the demonstrations at the Danish embassy in London: “why can’t these inbreds be locked up? That’s what I want to know. I’d like to see Martin Sullivan comment on that.” Sunny goes on to say that “the only people who can really deal with these extremists are Muslims themselves, yet most of the time they’re too busy defending these idiots”.
What planet does Sunny inhabit? The actions of these lunatics have been condemned by everyone from the MCB to MPAC to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Nobody has defended them. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that the police should have intervened and arrested the provocateurs, and prosecuted them under the Public Order Act.
Ziauddin Sardar confronts the commentators
If journalists described Jews or gay people as they do Muslims, they would be hounded out of what is left of Fleet Street, agues Ziauddin Sardar.
Gary Younge on the Danish cartoons controversy
“In January 2002 the New Statesman published a front page displaying a shimmering golden Star of David impaling a union flag, with the words ‘A kosher conspiracy?’ The cover was widely and rightly condemned as anti-semitic….
“A group calling itself Action Against Anti-Semitism marched into the Statesman’s offices, demanding a printed apology. One eventually followed. The then editor, Peter Wilby, later confessed that he had not appreciated ‘the historic sensitivities’ of Britain’s Jews. I do not remember talk of a clash of civilisations in which Jewish values were inconsistent with the western traditions of freedom of speech or democracy. Nor do I recall editors across Europe rushing to reprint the cover in solidarity.
“Quite why the Muslim response to 12 cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten last September should be treated differently is illuminating…. they are vilified twice: once through the cartoon, and again for exercising their democratic right to protest. The inflammatory response to their protest reminds me of the quote from Steve Biko, the South African black nationalist: ‘Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked’.”
Excellent article by Gary Younge in the Guardian, 4 February 2006
In the opinion of this Islamophobia Watch contributor the New Statesman cover was indeed anti-semitic and protests against it were justified. We have reproduced it here from Ha’aretz.
Anti-Muslim hatred in Norway
A letter from an anti-racist worker in Oslo warns of the dangerous anti-Muslim climate in Norway in the context of the Danish cartoon debate:
“We are experiencing extreme times here at the moment. After a Christian fundamentalist paper printed the drawings of the Prophet Mohammed, things have been on the far side of crazy. The editors and all mainstream papers support the publishing of the drawings and proclaim this as an important battle for freedom of speech. What is actually won is not easy for me to discover, but the climate is worse than ever. The Islamic Council has done a terrific job and its spokesperson has made it perfectly clear that Muslims are angry and hurt, but will try to put this behind them and go forward because ‘we are all brothers in this country and must treat each other with respect’. But the papers, websites and blogs and discussion groups are flooded with anti-Muslim statements now, and the word ‘Islamophobia’ is not the correct word for Norway today – it is pure hate. Thankfully the far-Right is weak, but we are very close to violence.”
MCB warns against falling for provocation
The Muslim Council of Britain has condemned the publication of the Danish cartoons and called for an apology, but also warns Muslims not to be provoked and to behave with restraint.
Those blasted cartoons
Osama Saeed offers a nuanced and reasoned response to the controversy over the Danish cartoon controversy. His post included links to comments by Yusuf Smith and other Muslim bloggers.