by Rachel O’Brien
Stony Brook Independent
March 10, 2006
After months of violence in the Muslim world and heated discussions about the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad, Stony Brook University decided to hold a discussion panel in which the speakers were asked to discuss the religious and political implications of the cartoons, the Muslim response to the cartoons and freedom of the press.
Radeyah Hack, a Muslim student at Stony Brook and campus coordinator for AIDemocracy, an organization that she said uses discussion to bring light to world issues, introduced the panel’s speakers at the discussion on Thursday March 9. The speakers were Shamil Idriss, deputy director of the Alliance of Civilizations, a United Nations initiative, Imam Abu Yousef, an Islamic professor at Dar-al-Tawhid in Queens, and Roy Gutman, Newsday’s foreign editor.
The event started with a greeting of peace from Sister Sanaa Nadim, the chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Stony Brook. Her greeting, “aliqum salamo”, means “peace be upon you.” She went on to say that there is a necessity of dialogue between nations, during a “turbulent time where there is unrest in the Muslim world.” Nadim presented the idea that discussion is essential to calm down the work that has been done by extremists.
“The actions of a few thousand can hijack the peaceful message of over 1.3 billion people in the world,” Nadim said. The prophet Muhammad was one who presented the qualities of mercy, graciousness, wisdom, selflessness, coexistence and love. He said, “Submit to peace and wisdom, and that is the best of all your actions.” A discussion, Nadim said, was necessary to bring about understanding of the controversies that are taking place over these cartoons.
When the 12 cartoons, collectively titled “The Face of Muhammad” were printed in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, a statement by an editor of the paper was printed alongside it. It said, “The modern secular society is rejected my some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration for their own religious feelings and it is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price but that is of minor importance in the present context.”
Adam Osman, a student at Stony Brook and moderator for the panel, gave an overview of the events leading up to the printing of the cartoon and the events that unfolded after the printing. They are too numerous to list here, so the most important ones will be discussed.
The cartoons were printed on September 30, 2005 in the Jyllands-Posten. An outcry from the Danish-Muslim community and predominantly Muslim countries around the world resulted in Muslim clerics demanding a meeting with Danish government leaders asking them to take action against the newspaper.
The Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen responded by saying, “The government refuses to apologize because the government doesn’t control the media.”
Roy Gutman said, “If one is angry, one should go to the source of the offense and let them know.”
The Danish government said that freedom of expression had a wide scope and the government has no means of influencing the press. However, Danish legislation prohibits acts of expressions of blasphemous or discriminating nature. The offended parties may bring the one responsible for the acts to court. It is then up to the court to decide. However, charges on this basis failed and the Jyllands-Posten printed an apology on January.
Regardless of the apology, riots continued. Gutman explained that the riot in Syria, attacking the Danish embassy there, was supported by the state. The Baathist government played a major role in organizing riots, pushing angry Muslims to act out in violence.
“It was a manipulation by governments to take legitimate anger and turn it into violence and destruction,” Gutman said. Imam Yousef said, “We can’t do the topic justice by simply stating that there was violence. It wasn’t only violence on behalf of the demonstrators. Most of these demonstrations began as peaceful demonstrations. It is not appropriate, not fair, to say ‘look, they’re violent’, and exclude all the other elements involved in why they reacted in such a way.”
Yousef said that the authorities in the Muslim countries where riots occurred; whether it be the police or the government, created riots out of peaceful demonstrations by attacking demonstrators with clubs and tear gas.
Yousef explained the love Muslims feel for Muhammad.
“The more love you have for someone, the angrier you will be when they are harmed or insulted,” he said. “An insult to Muhammad is an insult to Allah. We are angry on behalf of Muhammad. The anger of the Muslims is, in essence, part of our belief.”
Yousef blamed the author of the cartoons for creating something that was “indicative of the blatant disregard to the Muslims”, when he knew that the outcome would be a bad one.
He described the cartoons as the result of the incapability of discussion when there is a lack in intellect. He also said that there is a benefit to the reaction of the violent Muslims to the cartoons.
“It is a means of channeling people’s emotions because when people are angry they react,” he said. “And it becomes possible for you to mobilize masses of people to rally behind a cause. When everyone’s happy, and when everyone’s content and pleased, it’s very difficult. At times, emotion can clog intellect. At other times, it can generate intellect, like we have today.”
“The anger that happened in the Muslim world, it has triggered this panel and triggered this dialogue and this discussion, so there’s some benefit,” he said.
Shamil Idriss discussed the relations of the western world with the eastern world and how it has been affected by the cartoons and Muslim reactions. He explained the cartoons as “a spark that was tossed into a room of standing fuel.” This “standing fuel” that was an explosion waiting to happen, was the alienation of Muslims in Western Europe and the global war against terror. Idriss explained that Muslims are beginning to view the war on terror as a war on Islam.
Idriss referred to a Gallup pole that took place in 10 Muslim countries, asking Muslims what the western world could do to improve relations with the eastern world. Idriss said that the overwhelmingly popular answer was “Respect Islam.”
“The cartoon hit on this number-one sentiment across Muslim countries- anti-Muslim sentiment,” Idriss said. “It’s an issue of hate speech and freedom, not blasphemy and freedom.”
He said that because Muslim people feel as if they are constantly under attack, the cartoons had a very large impact on their emotions.
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