– Cartoon Wars

Cartoon wars
Rutland Hearld

Who would have thought we would be hearing the cry "Death to Denmark"?

Yet angry Muslims have denounced Denmark, France and other nations where caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad appeared in newspapers. Visual images of Muhammad and Allah are forbidden by Islamic law, and the cartoon was viewed as blasphemous.

The Danish newspaper stood by its decision to print the cartoon, though it apologized if any offense was taken. France-Soir and several other European newspapers reprinted the cartoon to show solidarity with the Danish paper, and those newspapers have drawn the condemnation of Muslim mobs, who have threatened foreigners in Gaza and taken to the streets in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The European papers portray the controversy as a conflict between freedom of expression and respect for religion. The extreme sensitivity of the issue reveals something more: the hair-trigger tension that exists between Western and Muslim worlds.

Cartoonists often put themselves at the far edge of acceptability. That is their job. The good ones push the envelope in their effort to apply hard-edged humor to contemporary issues.

A cartoon by a syndicated cartoonist that ran in the Herald several years ago contained a disrespectful depiction of a Jewish holy site, prompting a demonstration in front of the Herald office. But it is not just Muslims or Jews who are likely to complain of disrespect or bad taste when a cartoon goes too far. Editors everywhere sift through submissions by cartoonists, rejecting excessively derisive depictions of African-Americans, Catholics, Arabs, women, gays or others. There is a fuzzy line between caricature that is humorous and caricature that is demeaning. Editors are always patrolling that line.

Of course, newspapers in the Western world are free to run whatever cartoons they like, and European editors are right to defend their freedom of expression. They are wrong to suggest it makes sense to run cartoons that will enflame whole populations. It is a not a question of rights; it is a question of judgment. Most Western newspapers would be reluctant to print admiring depictions of Nazis, not because they don't have the right but because it would be injurious. Most editors have a sense of how far to go, though readers inevitably differ with some editorial judgments. Editors often differ among themselves.

Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are a thumb in the eye of the Muslim world. In an era when Europe is facing continuing conflict between Western and Muslim populations, awareness of Muslim views about graven images ought to be lesson number one in journalistic picture editing.

Anti-Western elements in the Muslim world are quick to seize on examples of disrespect and use them to their own ends. When Newsweek printed a story describing desecration of the Quran by American soldiers, mobs in Afghanistan rioted, and people were killed. There is no reason to feed Islamic resentments by willfully showing disrespect for Islam.

Cartoons inevitably draw criticism, including those of the Herald's cartoonist, Jeff Danziger, whose bold and imaginative cartoons frequently test readers' tolerance for mordant and satiric humor. That goes with the territory.

It is important, though, to recognize the difference between a cartoon that goes a little too far and one that is deeply offensive to a broad segment of the population because it is obtuse and disrespectful. It is no compromise of free speech to criticize expression that is demagogic and destructive.