Paternalism is natural, towards the weak, helpless, sick, mentally deranged, etc. Bruce http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/13848995.htm Posted on Sun, Feb. 12, 2006 <http://www.philly.com/images/common/spacer.gif> <http://www.philly.com/images/common/spacer.gif>
A troubling Western attitude: Paternalism toward Muslims The Danish cartoon incident flitted from tragedy to farce last week, when the editor of an Iranian newspaper solicited cartoons about Jews and the Holocaust. As a retort to the Danes, this was a bit of a non sequitur. As if to clarify matters, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran explained that the entire affair was a "conspiracy by Zionists who were angry because of the victory of Hamas." Never mind that the cartoons first appeared in September and that Hamas won its glorious democratic victory last month. You know how it is with those people. When you control the banks and Hollywood, you can do anything. Such was the state of affairs that it was no surprise when it turned out that one of the offending cartoons circulated by Danish imams turned out to be not a caricature of the prophet Muhammad as a pig-man, but a doctored photo of a contestant at the 2005 French Pig-Squealing Championships. You can't make this stuff up. But as we move beyond parody, there's something distinctly unfunny about the whole business: The West's continued paternalism toward Muslims. It is worth recounting some of the indiscriminate violence exhibited by Muslims: In Syria, mobs set fire to the Danish and Norwegian Embassies. In Gaza City, mobs threw stones at a European Commission building and trashed a German cultural center. Not satisfied with this, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar lamented that "we should have killed all those who offend the prophet, and instead here we are, protesting peacefully." In Turkey, a Catholic priest was murdered by a youth shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan casually linked the crime to the Danish cartoons. In Afghanistan, a mob armed with guns and grenades opened fire on a NATO compound. In Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami party offered a bounty on the offending cartoonists. And in Århus, Denmark, a Muslim cleric said that Fleming Rose, the cultural editor at the Danish paper where the whole scene began, should remember "what happened" to Theo van Gogh. "What happened," of course, was that van Gogh was shot eight times before having his throat slit with a butcher's knife. A letter explaining that this was retribution for van Gogh having offended Islam was pinned to his chest with a knife. The response of many Western officials to these spasms of violence and intimidation has been curious. The Vatican blamed the newspapers for printing the cartoons in the first place, calling it an act of "unacceptable provocation." A court in South Africa forbade its country's newspapers from running the cartoons. The British secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Jack Straw, called it "wrong" for European papers to publish them. American officials agreed. James P. Cain, U.S. ambassador to Denmark, likened the printing of the cartoons to terrorism and asked that Muslims not hold all Westerners accountable for the actions of a few: "That would be like the U.S.A. blaming all Muslims for the terror attack on Sept. 11," he said. Kurtis Cooper, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said that printing the cartoons was "unacceptable." The message Western governments are sending is unmistakable: Publishing the cartoons was irresponsible because Muslims cannot be expected to behave in a civilized manner. Since the cartoon incident first erupted, the Bush administration has changed its tone. But it is deeply worrying nonetheless that the administration's first reaction was to make excuses for Muslim violence. We've seen this paternalism before in American policy. Recall the period in May 2004, when President Bush rushed around the Arab media apologizing for Abu Ghraib - not just to Iraqis, who were the actual victims of Abu Ghraib, but also to the entire Muslim diaspora. "People who have been seeing those pictures," the President told Jordan's King Abdullah II, "didn't understand the true nature and heart of America." It was assumed that when Westerners saw pictures of the murdered Theo van Gogh - or, for that matter, Daniel Pearl or Nicholas Berg, or pictures of the Twin Towers - they would not impute such evil to all Muslims. When Muslims see Abu Ghraib, however, American policymakers assumed them incapable of making similar distinctions. Is American paternalism toward the Middle East warranted? Assume it isn't. Assume that Arab Muslims are capable of making the sort of minimal moral distinctions that we expect of non-Muslims. Doesn't the soft bigotry of our low expectations undermine precisely those Muslims we should be supporting? The Muslim Council of Britain condemned the violence, as did Afghanistan's Ulama Council. So did Jihad Momani, the editor of the independent tabloid al-Shihan in Jordan. Momani has now been jailed for his courage. These are Muslims who risk serious harm for their moral leadership. Why are we legitimating those who would attack them? The opposite answer is even more discomforting. Assume, as some in the administration do, that Western paternalism is warranted, that cultural differences are so profound that the Middle East must be treated differently. Would not that possibility call into question the very premise of the Bush Doctrine? If East is East and West is West, it becomes rather unclear why we should ever expect liberal democracy to take root in the sands of Araby. _____ Contact Jonathan V. Last at [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
