This contains an article from the Jackson Sun speaking with multiple people. It is followed by a blog from one of those quoted who is co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union and President of Islamic Writers Alliance. (Note: When you are finished, go to the blog to read the award winning poetry!) That is followed by comments on global dialogue.

http://www.jacksonsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060211/LIFESTYLE/602110302/1024
Originally published February 11, 2006

By OMAR SACIRBEY
Religion News Service

Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and misogynist have offended Muslims in the United States as they have Muslims worldwide. But the debate raging among Muslim Americans on college campuses, the Internet and in Islamic media has its own unique flavor because of this country's constitutional commitment to free speech.

American Muslims are adamant in their support of exercising their First Amendment right to protest the drawings through boycotts and other peaceful means, but many are embarrassed by the torching of European embassies in the Middle East and other forms of violence that have accompanied some demonstrations.

Because the cartoons constitute what he considers hate speech, the issue is not "black and white," said Junaid Ahmad, a student at the College of William and Mary Marshall-Wythe Law School in Williamsburg, Va., who is active in national Muslim organizations.

"This is not just a matter of being for freedom of speech and against freedom of speech," Ahmad said. "The first thing we should realize is that Muslims don't accept the basic framework. The principal issue here is not freedom of speech but the Islamophobic context in which such a caricaturing of the prophet is taking place. I think that's the issue here."

Nevertheless, Ahmad said he was against laws restricting such speech.

"You can't give the state too much power. It's better to fight hate not through laws but education and community organizing and activism."

The Council on American Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and other American Muslim groups have condemned the violent reactions to the cartoons and have urged Muslims to protest peacefully, write letters or take part in boycotts.

"As a Muslim, I can understand the emotional intensity of the issue, however, responding through violence does not uphold the dignity of our faith," said Mahdi Bray, head of the civil rights bureau of the Washington-based Muslim American Society, in a statement following a meeting with Denmark's ambassador to Washington. "Burning buildings and throwing bricks is definitely not the answer. Muslims united and using their economic leverage, now that's something the world can respect."

While Muslim Americans disagree over reactions to the cartoons, a consensus seems to have emerged that the cartoons crossed a line that demand some type of response.

"On the legal level and from an Islamic perspective, people have a choice," said Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, secretary-general of the Indianapolis-based Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim organization in the United States. "I don't expect my neighbor to have the same reverence about the Prophet Muhammad.

"All that we are expecting is that they don't insult a personality that's made such a historical contribution. This is more a responsibility of living in a pluralistic society than a question of legal restrictions."

Imam Mohamed Magid, executive director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Northern Virginia, said while he understood Islamic offense at the cartoons, Muslims would be better off protesting defamations against the faith perpetrated by their co-religionists.

"Prophet Muhammad is offended every day when somebody blows themselves up in a marketplace in Iraq. He's offended whenever somebody is beheaded. Prophet Muhammad would have opposed the burning of these embassies, or calls to kill Danes or other people," Magid said. "You can't be untouchable and then call other people infidel."

_________________________________

Watching the Muslim indignation at caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad spill over into outbursts of anger and violence, I find myself, an American Muslim woman, wondering:

Which would make the prophet sadder - the libel of his character by Danish non-Muslim cartoonists or the actions of his followers that are so out of keeping with his own example, actions that would seem to prove that the cartoonists' depictions are not so far from truth?

During his life, Prophet Muhammad was revered by many, but there were some who resisted his teachings. He was insulted and cursed, at times physically assaulted, and yet, he did not return insult for insult, attack for attack.

Rather, he asked God to forgive the people who harassed him, much as Jesus asked God to forgive his tormentors.

His example of forbearance is in keeping with the Quran, which advises Muslims, "Keep to forgiveness and enjoin kindness, and turn away from the ignorant" (7:199). Clearly, those Muslims who threatened the cartoonists with murder, and those who set fire to embassies, have betrayed these injunctions and abandoned the prophet's example.

To me, that is a greater insult to the prophet they claim to follow than a few offensive drawings, especially as people who know little of the prophet's true character and history attribute their violence to him.

Furthermore, Islam brooks no compulsion in religion, nor does it demand followers of other religions adhere to its religious sensibilities.

"There shall be no compulsion in matters of faith" (2:256) and "To you your way, to me mine" (109:6) lay out Islam's cardinal tenet of tolerance and make it clear that non-Muslims are not expected to follow Islam's religious rules.

Even though many Muslims believe Islam prohibits portrayals of the prophet, protests of blasphemy are misplaced as the Danish, non-Muslim cartoonists aren't bound by Islam's rules.

Having said that, I must also say that the drawings are indeed deeply offensive, not so much for the mere fact that they portrayed Prophet Muhammad, but because some of them are hateful, slanderous and inflammatory to the point of verging on racism, particularly the ones showing the prophet with a bomb-turban, as the devil in disguise, or blindfolded and bristling with knives.

The cartoonists had to know those images were going to be as provocative and insulting as Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" or Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" images.

Freedom of expression is a cardinal value in both the West and in Islam (another value that many in the Muslim world have neglected to uphold), and we must defend the right of cartoonists to draw satirical, biting commentary, and papers to publish items which may be offensive or perceived as blasphemous by some.

A society without such freedom rapidly becomes poisonously repressed and out of balance. Or worse, it begins to resemble a Barney cartoon with all its saccharine sweetness.

Even though we may hate what another person might say, we must, like Voltaire, defend to the death his or her right to say it.

Similarly, if people are going to publish offensive items, they must accept our right to express our distaste, our disagreement, and our outrage. No people can be expected to sit by quietly while the central figure of their religion is defamed.

While we defend the right to freedom of expression, we must use that right responsibly. Protests must be peaceable. And there are items that, rightfully, no editor should publish, particularly ones that foster hatred and bigotry.

Could a cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb turban or with devil horns reinforce hatred for him and his followers? Could it provoke a dialogue exploring the root causes of the violence that has ripped through the edges of Muslim society, threatening to plunge us all into chaos? Publishing confrontational and defamatory cartoons in the tinderbox that is modern Europe was akin to crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater. If it's not illegal, it certainly wasn't very responsible.

Pamela K. Taylor is co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union and director of the Islamic Writers Alliance.

Taylor's Blog on the above article about what she wrote: http://www.pktaylor.com/pksblog/warpedgalaxies.html

Friday, February 10, 2006

Yes, but...

Whenever you write something, especially whenever you get something in print, it's easy to re-read it and cringe. Sometimes justifiably and sometimes not. My recent column (in the Pioneer Press, or a slightly different version in the: Indy Star) is just such a column. I've gotten a lot of nice comments about the column, and in a lot of ways I'm proud of it, but in a lot ways it's making me cringe. And justifiably so.

Why? Because I open with a question -- which would make the Prophet sadder, the libelous cartoons or the violent reactions of his followers. Even though I answer that the actions of his followers is a betrayal of the Prophet and a bigger insult to him than the cartoons, I'm still uncomfortable with the fact that I pretty much equated nasty words/pictures with violence. Duh. Obviously, killing and burning on the part of his supposed followers is way worse! There is simply no comparison -- drawings vs murder and mayhem. It's like comparing gnats to killer bees. As I said... duh!

Which brings me to the issue of apologetics (otherwise known as the "yes, but..." syndrome). Looking at the column objectively, it probably wouldn't be perceived by most people as apologetic -- I didn't excuse the violence, or try to explain it, I condemned it roundly and showed how it was totally unIslamic. And yet, isn't placing the offense of the cartoons on a level with burning embassies in a way apologetic? Isn't that saying your pictures are as bad as violence, when in reality they are no where near as bad? Doesn't it minimize the significance of that violence, by saying it's no more important than a handful of offensive drawings? Is that not, in itself, apologetic in some ways?

This is, I believe, a huge issue for moderate, liberal, and progressive Muslims. We feel so shamed by the actions of our radical brethren that we are driven to explain why they do what they do. We rush to make their evil deeds seem less evil, so that we are not stained quite so badly by their actions. I believe this is a fatal mistake. I believe we need to stop explaining and go on the offensive.

One, because we are never going to successfully combat extremism if we are busy explaining why it isn't so bad, really. After all, radicals are going to take that as a sign that we actually agree with them, but that we're just not brave enough to say so. What they need to hear is other Muslims saying, this is wrong. It's un-Islamic. Period. No justifications, no explaining away.

Two, because while we are telling our neighbors it isn't so bad, we water down our own resistance to these things. We start to believe well maybe they are justified, maybe allowances should be made. Baloney. We know better.

Three, because anyone with half a brain sees through apologetics for what they are. Trying to cover the stench of militant actions by covering it with perfume doesn't work -- we just smell like skunks in the lilac bush. The only way to really stop stinking by association, is to wash ourselves of it completely.

Four, it's good for the soul. Truth sets our hearts at ease. Truth is Divine, and when we speak truth, we are blessed with peace.

________________________

Ed Note:
Salman Rushdie, President of PEN American Center, for years was in hiding and protected by the British government after a fatwa was placed on him for his novel, The Satanic Verses. Though Rushdie lived, that fatwa caused the murder of others, like his Japanese publisher, by Islamic radicals. Rushdie wrote something that really speaks to all of this on a fundamental level. "Free speech is life itself. It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it."

The issue of the cartoons really has little to do with cartoons published in a small little country in northern Europe. They became an issue when they were spread by both anti-Islamists and by radical Islamists, and when threats of violence occurred, reprinted by right, left, and center in the West as a statement that "free speech is life itself" without consideration for the responsibilities that come along with free speech. The media fanned the rhetorical flames while Islamic radicals fanned real flames.

But like crying "Fire" in a crowded theatre, think of the absurdity - people have died for a handful of tasteless cartoons. In the meantime, the real issue, the attitude of fundamentalists of all religions that only theirs is the one true religion, only theirs the one true God - is ignored. And for Muslims in Europe, there is the racism. The fires in Paris showed the treatment of Europe's Muslims in much the same way that Katrina showed America's treatment of African Americans.

Below is something Rushdie wrote for a gathering of writers. It says much about what the current discussion in the media should be about. He was writing about America but we need a global conversation.   

http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/818

In 1986 it still felt natural for writers to claim to be, as Shelley said, ''the unacknowledged legislators of the world,'' to believe in the literary art as the proper counterweight to power, and to see literature as a lofty, transnational, transcultural force that could, in Bellow's great formulation, ''open the universe a little more.'' Twenty years later, in our dumbed-down, homogenized, frightened culture, under the thumbs of leaders who seem to think of themselves as God's anointed and of power as their divine right, it is harder to make such exalted claims for mere wordsmiths. Harder, but no less necessary.

In many parts of the world -- in, for example, China, Iran and much of Africa -- the free imagination is still considered dangerous. At the heart of PEN's work is our effort to defend writers under attack by powerful interests who fear and threaten them. Those voices -- Arab or Afghan or Latin American or Russian -- need to be magnified, so that they can be heard loud and clear just as the Soviet dissidents once were. Yet, in America, unlike in Europe, a lamentably small percentage of all the fiction and poetry published each year is translated from other languages. It has perhaps never been more important for the world's voices to be heard in America, never more important for the world's ideas and dreams to be known and thought about and discussed, never more important for a global dialogue to be fostered. Yet one has the sense of things shutting down, of barriers being erected, of that dialogue being stifled precisely when we should be doing our best to amplify it. The cold war is over, but a stranger war has begun. Alienation has perhaps never been so widespread; all the more reason for getting together and seeing what bridges can be built.