The recent controversy about the publishing of cartoons in Denmark depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turbin highlights the striking differences between the Eastern and Western beliefs.
The cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper in September, have incited organized and often violent, protests in the Muslim world, from Iran to Syria – including the burning of Danish, French and Austrian embassies – by those who feel the cartoons are an attack on Muslim culture and the Ismalic faith.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” that “everybody understands that there’s a sense of outrage, that these cartoons were inappropriate in the Muslim world,” Rice said. “But you don’t express your outrage by going out and burning down embassies. … You express your outrage peacefully.” And perhaps her comments express the dichotomy between two sharply contrasting views.
Only a few weeks ago in the U.S., military leaders angrily denounced as “beyond tasteless” a Washington Post editorial cartoon featuring a likeness of a severely wounded soldier, who had lost both arms and legs, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as an attending doctor who says, “I’m listing your condition as ‘battle hardened.'”
In response to his critics, cartoon artist Tom Toles said that the cartoon was not tasteless and displayed a harsh reality – mimicking and depicting Rumsfeld’s own words at a press conference earlier in the week. But the U.S. military, or even citizens of this country did not riot and burn down the Washington Post’s offices.
Toles did not resign, as a few editors in France and Denmark decided to do after response to the cartoons became increasingly out of hand. Those involved in the controversy did not fear for their lives. Why is that?
The reason is that even in a country of extensive rights and protected free speech, such as the U.S., the right and freedom to disagree with others’ rights or freedoms is also protected. Arson is a crime. Rioting is a crime. But insensitivity, as poignant and prickly as it might be, is not.
We understand in this country that the cartoons and caricatures of Prophet Mohammed were insensitive, because we have seen, and dealt with, the same kind of insensitivity here before.
But we embrace this freedom, even the freedom to publish cartoons of this nature, because we fear the repercussions of limiting free speech and the right to disagree because in the future we as individuals, in a democracy, will undoubtedly disagree with something that incites anger in us – and we want the unbridled freedom to express that disagreement, unafraid of losing our life or property.
The war in Iraq is a perfect example. Every day in this country, people, as diverse as the average-American citizen and political leaders, debate the validity, necessity and progress of the War in Iraq. The discussion is not always civil. The president is not always respected. Our soldiers are not always honored.
But we have learned since the conception of this country that burning down buildings and killing those who disagree with us, in the end, is not the most effective way to communicate our disapproval. Nothing is accomplished, and disagreement still exists.
Peaceful, organized protests and freedom of speech have lived side-by-side for centuries in this country. Occasionally, as with any civilized country, the two clash, and the results are sometimes dangerous and bloody. Consider the Chicago riots or the recent riots in Toledo.
Local and state governments are quick to respond and end the violence, not for the sake of those who were offended, but often for the offenders, who are also protected, under the same laws as everyone else, with the same vigor as everyone else.
Governments in Iran and Syria, which hold different beliefs and values than the U.S., are not so quick to condemn the cartoon protests. On Sunday, Iran rejected earlier U.S. and Danish accusations that the government had encouraged the protests.
Encouraging the protests, however, and not taking a stance against them, are essentially the same stance. Either a government protects the rights of citizens in foreign embassies and works to quell the violence, or it does not. There is no inbetween.
The continuing cartoon protests contrast key differences in Eastern and Western beliefs, in areas such as personal rights, freedom of speech and democratic values. The U.S. is often victimized for bullying the international community or planting its flag on every piece of land it deems appropriate.
But perhaps the world does hate the U.S. for its freedoms. Not the freedom to burn buildings or kill those with whom we might disagree, but rather, to protect the rights of those who incite others, by insensitive means, to burn buildings and kill those with whom they might disagree. Freedom of speech fosters disagreement, because it protects those who initiate the controversy.
Some might see the U.S.’s position about the cartoon protests as out-of-touch with the anger of the Muslim world. But in reality, it is because the U.S. understands the danger of allowing such actions to go unchecked that it stands by protecting so strongly personal rights and freedom of speech.
