Prophet Muhammed cartoons show media's double standard By Sarwat Husain

Prophet Muhammed cartoons show media's double standard

By Sarwat Husain

Al-Jazeerah, February 12, 2006

The anger shown by some of the Muslims around the world in response to the provocative cartoons of our beloved Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) published in some of the Western media, is not the way prophet Mohammad himself would have reacted. All the Western Muslim organizations, leaders and Masajid (mosques) unequivocally denounced the violent reaction from some of the Muslims in those countries.

The unethical double standards that are shown by the Western media and from all the other quarters are not surprising or anything new. Starting during the centuries of Crusades, all sorts of slanders were invented against our beloved prophet Mohammad. Even today, in this modern age of enlightenment, the propaganda against Islam, its prophet and his followers continue through different channels of media, self proclaimed scholars, some politicians, and hate-promoting right-wing evangelists, only to cash in by creating misunderstandings and misperceptions.

These people have made it their core position to bash, one way or another, the faith of one-third of the countries of the world.

This attitude of ignorance, arrogance and hiding behind the dogma of free speech and the freedom of expression is destructive to the rest of the world.

In order to understand the Danish and other Western newspapers' judgment to publish these cartoons, we must ask if it really is the right of freedom of expression or an intentional attempt to provoke a violent reaction when the tensions are already at their peak between the West and the Muslim world.

Long before publishing these particular cartoons of the prophet Mohammad, in April 2003, Danish illustrator Mr. Christopher Zieler submitted a series of cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten, the same newspaper that published prophet Mohammad's cartoons. But the paper refused to run the drawings, according to UK's Guardian newspaper.

The Guardian said the Sunday editor of the Danish publication, Jen Kaiser, sent an e-mail to Zieler saying, "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

But when it came to the respect of Muslims feelings, the same newspaper takes a 180-degree turn from its policies of respect for Christians and Jews and publishes the disgraceful and inflammatory images in the name of freedom of speech, civility and the "we don't care about you" attitude.

In addition, publishing anything anti-Semitic and against the Holocaust is against the law in much of the European countries. The Danish Constitution says, "The law prohibits publicly disseminated statements, which threaten, insult, or degrade persons based on their religion."

But they have a free passport and an open season to degrade Islam, Muslims in whatever, whenever and however they want. There are no laws to protect the Muslims citizens of the country. Double standards?

In journalism classes, it is taught that the concept of freedom of expression in a democratic society must always be balanced by the no-less-important notion of social responsibility. In this case, the West has crossed all the boundaries of civility for the followers of Islam.

If the Western media and the rest of the hemisphere could get to know who really the prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) was as a human being if not as the messenger of God, they may learn a thing or two about how to behave in a civilized and responsible manner.

Many non-Muslim writers gave him the credit for being the most effective leader in the history of the world.

One of them is French writer, poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine who says in his Histoire de la Turquie, "If greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Mohammad?

"The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, people and dynasties, but millions of men in one third of then inhabited world; and more then that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls."

In order to practice what they preach, perhaps the West can learn from Mohammad: "the greatness of purpose, smallness of means" in place of a "we-are-better-than-you attitude" to become civil once again to achieve peace.

Sarwat Husain is the president of the Council on American Islamic relations in San Antonio, TX, USA. She can be contacted at sanantonio@cair-net.org

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

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