A point of view on the cartoons affair
by Mahmoud Bouzouzou
La Tribune de Genève of 11 February 2006
A point of view on the cartoons affair
The cartoons crisis pitting Denmark, and Europe more generally, against the Muslim world is, alas, taking the turn of a mega-conflict. The protest against the cartoons is becoming increasingly violent, as we have seen in some capitals of Muslim countries with the burning of Scandinavian embassies – a reprehensible act, whether spontaneous or the result of political manipulation.
The Holy Qur’an commands us to be just towards every human being and teaches us that no one is responsible for an act committed by another. Moreover, the tradition of the Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him and upon all the prophets – teaches us that the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) never took revenge for a personal insult.
This crisis reveals two scourges that threaten humanity: injustice towards the Other and ignorance of the Other. The reaction of Muslim populations to the drawings desecrating the image of the Prophet (peace be upon him) expresses above all a frustration, and crystallises a feeling of injustice that Muslims have felt for far too long. Deprived of freedom and dominated by governments that are often illegitimate, they are constantly attacked militarily, plundered economically and humiliated symbolically by an invader who changes his name but uses the same methods as of old. A feeling of injustice can only produce anger, and even hatred.
Ignorance of the Other also breeds fear, conflict and hatred. For more than half a century I have been aware of the danger this scourge represents. In the midst of the colonial period, when the French occupier was banning schools teaching Arabic in Algeria, we strove to whet young Algerians’ appetite for knowledge, notably within the Algerian Muslim Scouts, and to encourage them to learn foreign languages – including French – because in our view they are the keys that open up the world of the Other and make it easier to know him.
To know the Other is to know his references, his symbols, his sacred values. Yet the tense international context in which we have been living for some years does not favour mutual knowledge. In the Western world, where the sacred values of the Muslim world are poorly understood, the significance of a grave attack on the Muslim symbol par excellence, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), is not sufficiently appreciated. In the Muslim world, where the media are often at the beck and call of those in power, the importance in the West of the independence of the press, regarded by some as a sacred value, is not sufficiently appreciated, and people go so far as to ask the Danish executive to apologise for an offence committed by a newspaper – which seems here, rightly, an aberration.
Press freedom is too precious a good to be dragged into the depths of gratuitous provocation, and mediocre provocation at that. The attitude of the cartoonist Lars Refn, who agreed to take part in the Danish publication solely to assert that “the journalists of Jyllands-Posten are reactionary provocateurs”, as he made clear in his cartoon, is honourable in this respect. The right to freedom of expression, an invaluable right enshrined by free humanity as universal, cannot contradict the right to dignity, which is just as invaluable.
The balance between, on the one hand, the right to freedom of expression and, on the other, the duty to combat racism, discrimination, slander, anti-Semitism and all incitement to hatred has been established over time by modern Western society. In the age of the Internet and satellite channels, our world is taking on the appearance of a great village whose inhabitants must learn to live together in harmony, as is the case in Switzerland, and in particular in Geneva, where communities of diverse origins, cultures and religions coexist peacefully.
So, not only when sacred values come into conflict, and in order to go beyond the purely legal framework, wisdom requires us to recall and emphasise that our differences are a treasure offering us the unique opportunity to enrich one another – and thereby to build bridges that bring us closer to one another. Such an approach is a matter of education, and of course begins at school.
We must all contribute positively, each at our own level, to resolving this grave crisis, which risks degenerating further by turning anger into hatred between the Muslim peoples and the friendly Western peoples, who can in no way be held responsible for the actions of a few irresponsible newspapers or of an Islamophobic minority.
In short, it is the duty of each of us, whatever our convictions, to make the necessary effort not only to know the Other, but also to recognise him and to do him justice in all circumstances.
Mahmoud Bouzouzou
Member of the Board of the Cordoba Foundation of Geneva (CFG)
Published in La Tribune de Genève of 11 February 2006
