Violence not the answer to anger

ANITA Pratap

EUROPE: Why is it that American and British authorities have condemned the anti-Islam and anti-Prophet Danish cartoons, while most European nations are reluctant to do so?

There could be two reasons, one religious and the other secular.

First, the religious reason. Contrary to what most people around the world think, America is still a deeply religious country. The Blacks who form a sizeable proportion of America's population are a strong church-going community.

So are the whites, especially those who live along what is called the Bible-belt. Equally religious are the minority communities like the Hispanics or Arabs.

Immigrants, be they from India, Mexico, Sri Lanka or China, are still a very God-fearing community and have established not only their community centres, but also places of worship across the length and breadth of America.

Religion is sacred and deeply entrenched in America and so the people and governments are extremely mindful of religious sensitivities. Poking fun at ethnic customs is a fine art in America, but lampooning religion is taboo.

That is why they have laws against anti-semitism. Occasionally there are ads that spoof eight-armed or pot-bellied Hindu deities, but strong protests result in their quick recall.

There are clearly drawn lines that nobody wants to cross or are allowed to cross. But Western Europe has gone completely secular.

Besides, religion has little place in the lives of the people anymore. Travel through these countries and you feel religion has gone out of fashion. Large and beautiful churches are empty. At best, a few old people still go to church on Sundays.

The irrelevance of religion in Western Europe hit me hardest when I was visiting Maastricht in the Netherlands two years ago. Nobody went to churches any more.

The result: three beautiful churches in downtown Maastricht had found shocking new uses. One had been converted to a night club, another to a lodge and the third to a cycle park!

When religion is no longer relevant in the daily lives of people, how can it be sacred to them? Most believing Christians would consider it profane to convert a church into a night club.

Clearly the local Dutch didn't seem to think so. And that's because the Church or religion is no longer sacred to them. This is the huge cultural gap that explains the attitude of the West Europeans.

"What's the big deal in some absurd cartoons lampooning the Prophet" is the attitude of most West Europeans. Because they don't have strong religious feelings, they are unable to realize how grossly offensive this can be to a deeply God-fearing community.

This seeming European insensitivity stems from a lack of awareness of how sacred the Prophet is to the Muslims. Exactly as Christ is to the Bible-belt of America. And that is why believers around the world, be they Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu condemn the cartoons.

They know what constitutes blasphemy. It is no surprise therefore that the Vatican strongly criticized the cartoons.

Europeans have become genuinely secular, but that is not to say they have become a godless people. They no longer worship Christ the way they did before, they are no longer Christian in habit or rituals, but they are still very Christian in spirit. Take Norwegians for example.

Christianity is the state religion and all Norwegians are baptized. But 97 per cent of them do not go to Church. Yet, they are among the most honest, ethical and law abiding people and the highest charity-givers in the industrialized world.

The second reason for the difference in American and British attitude as compared to the European is purely temporal.

Britain and USA are genuinely multicultural societies. Both societies are a mosaic of different ethnic, religious and cultural communities.

Muslims are a strong and large component of this mosaic. Authorities know only too well how destabilizing and dangerous it is to have a large and hostile ethnic group in their midst. France discovered this in a big way during the recent Paris riots.

Though staunchly secular, France is by far more multi cultural than many other Europeans nations and that is why it comes as no surprise that the French editor who published the cartoons was fired. Nordic countries on the other hand are far more homogenous.

Again, this makes them more insular and less knowledgeable about ethnic sensitivities. This insularity explains why Muslims and other immigrants are less integrated into mainstream societies in Netherlands, Belgium or Scandinavian countries.

The religious and secular reasons for the difference in European and

American/ British reaction to the profane cartoons serve to underscore that the average Dane or Belgian is not bigoted as many offended Muslims are inclined to believe. They do not support the cartoons because of deep-seated ill-will to the Muslims.

It stems from a lack of understanding, from a cultural ethos in which no religion, not even their own, is sacred to them. There is a quality of liberalism inherent in their public life that is impossible for much of the world to understand.

In Netherlands, pornography and euthanasia are legal, whereas both are banned across much of the world. Likewise, liberalism extends to press freedom in a way that much of the world would deem unacceptable license.

In any case, the argument that publishing the cartoon is a matter of press freedom is specious. Even these countries have strong defamation laws wherein journalists are imprisoned or fined for defaming individuals.

Clearly, there are well-established limits to press freedom. And, surely the Prophet ranks higher than ordinary mortals.

To Scandinavians, religion is not sacred, but freedom is. And that is what West Europeans should realize.

Just as they find any curbs on their freedoms, be it speech, movement or dress, offensive, they must realise that other societies value their religion and customs and find ridicule or disrespect of any sort unacceptable. I know of European women who refuse to visit Saudi Arabia because they do not want to comply and wear the Abaya.

To them, their freedom to dress the way they are accustomed to is sacrosanct. They must then appreciate how sacrosanct the Prophet is to Muslims. Just as they will not tolerate any violations to their secular freedoms, Muslims will not tolerate any violations to their sacred beliefs.

Just to make West Europeans realise how genuinely hurt Muslims are by these cartoons, it would help to spread the story about how leading Saudi cleric Saleh Bin Humaid choked back his tears when he referred to the insulting cartoons in his Friday sermon in Makkah's Grand Mosque. This is not drama. This is deep-felt emotion.

Even though I would like to absolve the average West European of any bigotry with regard to the current brouhaha over the Danish cartoons, I have to mention the existence of a deep-seated and growing animosity against Muslims among a thin slice of the people around the world, including West Europeans.

There seems to be no other explanation for this sudden rash of reprinting of these cartoons in so many European countries - Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary and now even New Zealand. Its like there is this hostile group of people who are deriving malicious pleasure from insulting the Prophet and Muslims.

It is a fact that after 9/11, Muslims around the world feel wronged and discriminated. The western media has played an unpardonable role in this. It is not just young Arab men who experience and resent this stereotypical notion that all Muslims are terrorists or that Islam is a violent religion.

I remember meeting a young, terrific-looking and highly successful Muslim actor in India about a year after 9/11 who was so perturbed and angry at the negative portrayal of Muslims world-wide.

This perception that they are vilified exists among Muslims across the world and the earlier non-Muslims realise and address this, the better it is for all concerned.

Press freedom is very important. But so is press responsibility. The media has a responsibility in reporting news, however unpalatable it is. But they also have a responsibility in not spreading poison or fostering false and stereotypical notions of a community or their beliefs.

If anything, it is their job to dispel such wrong notions, while always exposing the errant sections of any community. The Danish cartoons were not only offensive in content, they are insidiously more harmful in the way it propagates and accentuates false notions that Islam and its founder are violent.

In an ideal world, the media should be a bridge between estranged communities. But it is unacceptable when they deliberately and provocatively widen existing schisms.

It is also extremely short-sighted and counterproductive in the long-run. As the Danes now realize, it can have economic and violent side effects that bring harm to themselves and their nation.

But Muslims must take care that their justified anger does not result in actions that fuel the stereotypical notions that exist worldwide that they are violent. Protest they must, but it must be peaceful.

Economic boycott of goods and street demonstrations are extremely potent and visible forms of protest.

When Arla foods, the Danish-Swedish dairy products company and Europe's second largest, loses $1.8 million a day in sales due to the Muslim boycott and has to lay off 125 Danish workers as a result, the Danish media will quickly re-discover its responsibility and the governments will start expressing concern.

Muslims can derive a sense of satisfaction when European multinational companies like Nestle release front-page ads clarifying they are Swiss and not Danish and publicly "denounce any offensive references to religions".

But Muslim public must realise that burning down embassies and harming innocent civilians would only reinforce negative impressions of Muslims as being violent. It is heartening to note that so many Muslim intellectuals and activists have come out strongly urging their people to refrain from stooping to violence to express their anger.

Explanations cannot assuage hurt. They can at best help Muslims understand that Europeans are not evil. But explanations will not lessen their anger and hurt over the cartoons. They are not meant to.

Ventilation is vital and that is what Muslims across the world are doing. It is therapeutic. And it serves to make the Danes come to grips with the folly of these offensive cartoons and the dangers of its consequences.

But there is one last issue that Muslims and non-Muslims should ponder about. The cartoons were published in September. Why are they creating such an international furore now?

Why are Muslims spilling out onto the streets only now and why are European publications reprinting the cartoons only now? The answer is simple.

There are organised fundamentalists on both sides of the divide, hell-bent on exploiting issues that create divisions, inflame passions and aggravate animosities. These lobbies thrive on creating and fostering clashes of civilizations.

Terrorists and bigots flourish amidst public alienation and anger. The tragic saga of Sri Lankan ethnic hatred between Sinhalese and Tamils is classic proof of this. Muslims and Europeans must not fall into the trap laid by their fundamentalists.

For if they do, ordinary people on both sides of the gulf pay the price. They lose what they take for granted: their personal peace and their nation's stability. Their economy suffers. Factories close, tourists flee, towns languish, jobs disappear, incomes dwindle. And their children lose their future.

Anita Pratap is a former New Delhi bureau chief for CNN. Also former Time, Indian Express correspondent. She is also an author.