Socialist Worker 1987, 11 February 2006 (www.socialistworker.co.uk)
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=8267
Cartoon row: the issue is racism
This is not about freedom of speech or a war of civilisations its
about racism
This is not about freedom of speech. Its not about a war of
civilisations. Its about racism. Anyone who doubts that need look no
further than the right wing Danish paper that commissioned the notorious
anti-Muslim cartoons last September.
It would have us believe it was all for a noble principle of freedom of
speech. Oh, really? This is the same paper, Jyllands-Posten, which:
* Campaigned in 1984 to censor an artist who produced an erotic image
of Jesus.
* Refused three years ago to print a cartoon because the editors said
it would provoke an outcry among Christians.
No brave commitment to freedom of speech there. That was only invoked,
cynically, when the editors chose to target Muslims, not for debate about
religious views, but with bigoted caricatures that imply every Muslim is a
terrorist.
One rule for the majority, another for Arab, Asian and African immigrants.
Theres a word for that its called racism.
And the same scapegoating, masked by the same hypocrisy about freedom, is
oozing from the other right wing papers in Europe that have leapt to give
these racist images a wider circulation.
The French paper France-Soir claims it is committed to freedom of
expression. But not, it seems, for Muslims.
The same paper supports the French governments ban on young Muslim women
wearing headscarves in school. Whats tolerant or liberal about that?
As for those who claim it is impossible to be racist against Muslims
because Islam is a religion not a race, consider the followers of the
Jewish faith.
If a paper reprinted a cartoon depicting a Jewish person in the manner of
Nazi propaganda in the 1930s, every liberal paper and commentator would
rightly slam the racism, rather than denouncing Jewish people and
anti-racists for being outraged.
None would say it was merely a question of debating religious views rather
than being about spreading racism.
Yet in Britain, while no paper has republished the cartoons, we have not
had furious editorials in the millionaire-owned press exposing the racist
demonisation of Muslims.
Instead, the media is further demonising Muslims by suggesting that they
dont understand Western democracy and press freedom.
These well paid editors could do with learning a thing or two themselves
about standing up to censorship.
The lot of them, with the exception of Socialist Worker and the Morning
Star, have gone along with government censorship in refusing to name
Nicholas Langman, an MI6 agent implicated in the illegal seizure of
Pakistani immigrants in Greece.
What kind of fearless media is this that refuses to stand up to powerful
secret government agencies, but berates some of the most powerless people
in society?
And make no mistake, Muslim immigrants in Europe are among the most
downtrodden across the continent.
In Britain they fall behind the average on every social indicator
housing, earnings, employment, education. The same is true in France,
Germany, Demark and the rest of the European Union.
And since 11 September 2001 they have been systematically targeted.
Anti-Muslim racism, Islamophobia, is the ideological cover for George
Bushs endless war on terror.
The US and British military refuse to even count the number of dead in
Iraq. That would not be the case if they, their governments and the bulk of
the media considered the lives of brown skinned Muslims in the Middle East
every bit as valuable as those who have been killed in New York, Madrid and
London.
They dont. Our names honoured, theirs not even recorded racism.
The British government cannot admit that the war on Iraq and decades of
Western intervention in the Middle East are the reason why Britain and the
US are so hated in the region and beyond.
Instead, we are told it is something to do with Muslims themselves. And in
order to prove you are a good Muslim, not an evil extremist, you have
to sign up to Bush and Blairs campaign. Hence there are the endless
loyalty tests.
Liberal
Supposedly liberal commentators feel no restriction, show no signs of self
censorship, when they routinely abuse people who were born here (and who
happen to be Muslim) of being insufficiently British racism.
Government ministers sense no shame in telling one group of people what
language they should speak in their own home, as if every British resident
on the Costa del Sol spoke Spanish round the kitchen table.
This respectable Islamophobia fuels the violent racist attacks of the
Nazi British National Party (BNP), which exploits the general anti-Muslim
climate and whose leader, a Holocaust denier, walks away from a court case
over incitement to racial hatred.
And when those on the receiving end of all this speak out and protest, they
are demonised again.
Stereotypes
The cameras seek out those images that will confirm the provocative
stereotypes that people are objecting to in the first place.
Its like kicking someone repeatedly and then, when they hit back, saying,
Look, I told you they were violent.
And the overall effect goes beyond Muslim people who are targeted. For if
those responsible for wars, exploitation here and across the globe, and the
destruction of our civil liberties succeed in scapegoating Muslims, we will
all suffer Muslim or not.
Racism has always meant divide and rule. It has always been undermined by
unity of working people against the common enemy we all face.
Today, for everyone who was genuinely sickened by the sight of the BNPs
gloating last week, that starts with standing up against this anti-Muslim
hatred.
