WHY AREN'T MUSLIMS "JUST IGNORING" THE CARTOONS?
Brandon Yusuf Toropov---------
The 1965 Watts riots were not about traffic laws, and this controversy is not about press freedoms.
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"Isn't this whole cartoon controversy just somebody's PR stunt? Aren't radical imams manipulating people? Wouldn't we all – Muslims included -- be better off simply ignoring these cartoons, if they are so deeply offensive?"
MANY PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL BELIEVE that
the best response to the publication of the cartoons ridiculing the Prophet
(pbuh) would be to ignore them entirely. I want to suggest, though, that if
we ignore the wellspring of emotion that is beneath the dispute, or dismiss
that emotion as the function of a PR stunt, we may be missing something quite
important.
Consider this. Forty-one years ago, a section of Los Angeles erupted in race riots that lasted six days, cost 34 lives, resulted in over a thousand injuries, damaged or destroyed 600 buildings, and caused $200,000,000 in economic damage. The dispute began when a white California Highway Patrol officer pulled over a black officer whom he believed to be driving erratically.
The Watts riots had to do with race
relations, not California traffic
regulations.
Lecturing the rioters in Watts in 1965 about safe driving, or their lack of patience in dealing with law enforcement officials, or their inability to tune out the irresponsible voices among them, would not have been the most constructive choice. There was a deeper problem then, and America was in denial about it.
There is a deeper problem now, and America is in denial about it.
It's not opportunistic radical clerics pushing "media buttons" that brought about professional torturers, a network of illegal detention centers, and 100,000 or so dead civilians in Iraq. Nor are partisan Islamist rabble-rousers responsible for the collective "ho-hum" of reactionary Western political commentators in response to these (pre-cartoon) events.
This controversy, in other words, did not materialize in a vacuum. The United States is still an occupying power in the Middle East, people are still being held secretly and illegally around the world, nine out of ten detainees at Gitmo had no connection whatsoever to al-Qaeda, the UN says America is torturing its prisoners, and the American military justice system still has yet to secure anything resembling justice for the sadistic murder of detainees at its Bagram facility in Afghanistan, in which the victims were suspended in midair and beaten for prolonged periods.
Most Americans, and a surprising number of Europeans, appear
to be pretty much okay with all of that.
And therein lies the difficulty.
The Watts riots were not about traffic laws, and this controversy is not about press freedoms.
Large numbers of Muslims are indeed mad about the cartoons. But they aren't just mad about the cartoons. Those who characterize this outrage as a spontaneous, rabble-rousing assault on free speech, with no meaningful connection to the events of recent years, are not moving the dialogue forward in a constructive way.
The Danish prime minister may think the reaction to the
cartoons in the Muslim world is absurd and out of all proportion. Fox News may
think the reaction in the Muslim world is absurd and out of all proportion. The
vast majority of non-Muslims may even think the reaction in the Muslim world is
out of all proportion.
This very reaction, alas, is part of the problem. and part of what is galvanizing
people. After all, the officer who pulled over the black driver on a hot August day in
1965 probably thought the ensuing reaction of African Americans in Los Angeles
was absurd and out of all proportion, too. Riots and violence are wrong; so is ignoring their causes.
The callous indifference of mainstream non-Muslim institutions to the ever-lengthening list of grievances in the Islamic world is the great unexamined story here. Perhaps we should all start looking at this strangely persistent cartoon controversy, not as an assault on the press, but as an opportunity for Muslims and non-Muslims to begin speaking respectfully to one another about the grave moral and practical implications of America's current foreign policy.
Brandon Yusuf Toropov
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{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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