Muslim Sensibilities and Freedom of Speech

Recently, the world has woken up to the controversy generated by cartoon of Prophet Muhammad, with violent outburst in the Muslim world and shouting voices in the west for freedom of speech. The boycott of Danish products has the potential of turning this controversy into an economical crisis now. This brings two questions to the fore. First, what are the reasons for such a violent reaction? Second, whether right of the cartoonist, as part of freedom of speech in a democratic culture, is an absolute right or is it limited by concept of relative freedom even in democracy? These two questions deserve to be addressed separately to understand the issues involved in a meaningful fashion.

It seems as if Muslims are over reacting. In fact they are over reacting. But such an over reaction is understandable because they believe the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad are blasphemous, particularly smoking turban of Prophet Mohammad. Muslims would consider such cartoons of other prophets as blasphemous too, although they are much less sensitive when an insult is hurled upon Jesus or Moses or any other prophet for that matter.

Emotional outburst of Muslims on publishing the cartoon is not very surprising. What is surprising is emotional use of pretext of free speech in democracy to justify hurting sensibilities of millions of Muslims in the world. Those who are ardent supporters of freedom of speech as part of democratic culture, while arguing in favor of publishing cartoons of Mohammad, fail to recognize that democracy is a rational attitude of culture, not an emotional perception of freedom. It is true that freedom of expression is the bedrock of democratic culture but equally true is that it is not an absolute right. The basic right is to express freely without fear of recrimination in a rational discourse of society. It is hard to justify an absolute freedom of expression, if it is aimed at satisfying only an emotional need for expression.

The both sides involved in this controversy have been rather emotional while forwarding their respective vantage point. This apparently conflicting use of emotional justifications on both sides is somewhat disturbing because none represents a liberated attitude which is obligatory for culture of democracy.

It is a common assertion that freedom of expression in democratic society has a price tag to it. One should be willing to endure insults to enjoy bounties of democracy. This line of reasoning is a very slippery slope. By no means can one stand to this justification that has consequences of unthinkable gravity such as undoing centuries of intellectual effort that has brought a consensus in western civilization that we shall teach every new born that racist language is wrong, anti-Semitism is not acceptable, sexism is not allowed, being disrespectful to the difference of opinion is unreasonable.

There is no controversy surrounding above areas, which makes a reasonably strong argument that freedom of expression is not an absolute right. It is a relative right. The concept of freedom of speech applies to rational discourses and interactions.

There is a palpable difference between disrespect and dissent. Disrespect is targeted at hurting the feelings of others but dissent means pointing flaws in intellectual position. There is always room for dissenting views. This is the fundamental core of dialogue that again is rational function of democracy. Of course, democracy in the final analysis is human relation and human interaction for which principles are agreed upon by rational discourse. Democracy does not condone disrespect while it encourages dissent.

Unrestricted free speech and emotional exuberance in some situations like reaction of Muslims in cartoon crisis are equally irrational functions. It can happen in a democratic society but democracy provides rational means to redress such situations. If democracy is rational and logic based culture then there can not be any room for entertaining the impulse that promotes irrationality or an outpouring of emotionality to resolve differences.

Nonetheless, there is one important question that ought to be answered; whether reaction in Muslim cultures is only based on cartoon being offensive to sensibilities or does it symbolize some other grievances?

This question would take us to annals of history. It is unfortunate but true that the areas under so called Muslim domination had been internally decaying while rationalism was taking roots in Europe. Those areas were later colonialized, mostly by British. In the middle part of last century, wherever colonialism came to an end, almost all of those nations came under the dark shadow of neo-colonialism, which is continuing even to this day. Anyways, it was during colonial era when democracy based on rationalism succeeded in the west as a system of societal governance and mutual living while religion remained alive in the hearts of faithful. In Muslim countries religion survived not only in hearts of faithful but countries came to be reborn with religious nostalgia. Additional fault lines appeared between European modernism and Muslim conservatism because Muslims failed to keep pace with technological developments in their respective cultures for numerous reasons; for which Muslims cannot absolve their responsibility.

Ironically, Europe used technological know-how to exploit almost every nation. Nominal development that appeared to have come about in colonized countries was geared toward transporting goods and securing trade. For example, in eighteen century British produced only 30 percent of food what she was actually consuming. It was British supremacy of sea routs and strategic locations of navy harbors in colonial outposts that ensured British interests. This kind of development in former colonies has lead to misconception in some intellectuals as if colonial master were the saviors of the old and savage nations. In reality, colonialism robed the natives of their natural resources and cultural identity. Europe happened to be the colonialist at that time.
There is no doubt that colonies gave away more than what they got back from their colonial masters. Trade balance always and everywhere favored colonial masters whether they were British, French or German. The US entered the race of exploitation at the later date but obviously, she resorted to the same old idea of self interest as has been the history of other nations. Let us not forget though Muslims had behaved the same way when they were in a position to exploit others, which is abundantly clear from the history of their expansionist imperialism that came to an end only in seventeenth century.

In past few centuries, Muslims have turned out to be parasites in almost all intellectual fields. Even in religious arena, it is a common practice to do creative interpretations of religious scriptures to retrofit them to scientific developments. This trend is only minimally noticeable among Christians because the areas where Christians live have been able to define themselves around the concepts like ‘national interests’ which, to a great degree, represents protectionist-economical attitude. On the other hand, Muslims for the fact that they lag behind in every technical and intellectual field resorted to maintaining their historic pride only. I wonder if there is anything else that could have helped Muslims redefine themselves in a new world. The historic-pride of Muslims provides them with a strong sense of identity that is very closely tied with their religion and religious symbolism.

In such an atmosphere in Muslim countries, democracy means nothing more than collective assertion of religious denomination. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan elections are very recent examples, to count only a few. In many other areas Muslim democracy has fallen along the same lines. What it means is that religion has not been marginalized in Muslims world. Secular societal attitudes as a consequence of democracy have not prevailed in the Muslim world so far. The west has acquired a light hearted attitude towards religion whereas Muslims are still stubbornly clinging to religion because it serves as the only available peg for identity.

There is a long list of Muslim grievances, some of which are right. In such an atmosphere, clash between democratic freedoms and religious fervor, between criticism and tender Muslim sensibilities is a reality that could have come out in the open anytime. Without trying to sift right from wrong at this point, cartoon crisis represents an ongoing mismatch between two societal attitudes that is here to stay for a long time.