Rami Khouri *
The Jordan Times, February 17-18, 2006.
Beirut - When religious blasphemy and genocide denial converge, watch out: we`re in for a rough ride. This may be the case in the controversy over the offensive Danish cartoons equating the Prophet Mohammad and Islam with terrorism.
One of the most unnecessary, unfortunate and dangerous aspects of this matter has been the slow introduction into the discussion of the issue of the Holocaust by various Arabs, Iranians and other Muslims, and the counter-accusations that this is simply a new form of rabid anti-Semitism.
Sadly, this is not an isolated or unusual phenomenon. It occurs often, whenever a contemporary political or religious argument in the Middle East touches on Israel. Legitimate political accusations against Israeli state policies — illegal colonial settlements, for example, or bombing civilian quarters and killing babies along with wanted militants — often become lost among either of two equally reproachable phenomena. Israelis, and slightly hysterical pro-Israeli quarters in the United States, quickly accuse Arabs and Muslims who challenge Israeli policies of being anti-Semitic, while some Arabs and Muslims are baited, or on their own degenerate into Holocaust denial.
This trajectory seems to be at work again these days in relation to the Danish cartoons, in particular in view of the announcement Monday that one of Iran`s biggest newspapers has launched a Holocaust caricature competition. The paper, Hamshahri, initiated the contest under the title, “What is the Limit of Western Freedom of Expression”?
This is a most disturbing development at the moral level, and extremely counterproductive at the political level. It will surely escalate the existing penchant of sinister polemicists and provocateurs on both sides to transform a legitimate debate about religiously offensive cartoons into a mindless, destructive mud-slinging match about whether Jews should live or die, and whether Muslims and Arabs were fully human, moral and rational.
Both parties that foment this anti-Jewish, anti-Islamic frenzy are equally despicable. It is bad enough that devious or ignorant minds in Denmark and other Western places have resorted to arguments as press freedom and secular modernity to rationalise the blasphemous, insulting cartoons about the Prophet Mohammad and Islam. It is equally regrettable that some Iranians and others in this region should respond with the same sort of gutter behaviour.
Europe seems to have received the message that publishing the offensive cartoons is inappropriate and unacceptable, on the grounds of basic human decency at least. The many, mostly peaceful, popular demonstrations by Islamic communities around the world, combined with diplomatic, media and religious expressions, seem to have sparked a genuine sense of regret about the cartoons among many Danes and others in the West. This is likely to lead to more constructive engagements with Muslims and others around the world on the many important issues involved. These include: secularism, religiosity, identity, modernity, press freedom and responsibility, and religious pluralism, tolerance and respect.
The last thing we need now is for an Iranian newspaper to sponsor a contest on Holocaust cartoons, or for websites in Europe to publish cartoons that slander Jews or ridicule the Holocaust. These are grotesque examples of precisely what we should not do. Arabs, Iranians, Muslims and all people who value faith and human decency must not stoop to the same sort of degenerate racism that some in Europe have practised in their relaxed attitude to blaspheming Islamic dignity, identity and religious sanctity.
The appropriate antidote to Western Islamophobia and racism against Arabs and Muslims is not counter-racism, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. If some Iranians and Arabs want to fight back against the illegal and inhuman policies and assorted crimes of the state of Israel against Palestinians, I would suggest a better way would be to pick from the following options:
— Start a worldwide drive to support Palestinian universities under Israeli occupation.
— Promote a global support system for Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem.
— Mobilise the lawyers and judges of the world to challenge Israeli practices in credible courts of law.
— Build 1,000 new nursery schools for Palestinian children.
— Launch a high-profile campaign for the whole world to engage peacefully with the new, democratically elected Palestinian government to be formed soon.
— Sponsor institutions that allow Christians, Muslims and Jews in Israel and Palestine to collectively discuss and manifest their shared moral and religious heritage, which affirms life and dignity, rather than death and insults.
— Start a serious international academic programme that would study the parallels between the Israeli colonisation and control of the occupied territories with the parallel apartheid system that ultimately collapsed in South Africa.
— Demand diplomatic action to ensure free export lanes for Palestinian agricultural produce.
— Match a well-off family in the world with a needy Palestinian family in occupied lands or in Palestinian refugee camps, to ensure that every Palestinian boy and girl has enough money to complete secondary education, and has a chance to go to college or post-secondary vocational school.
We should respond to the inhumanity of the insulting cartoons and the ugly emotions behind them by affirming our commitment to life, truth and positive human values.
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* Rami G. Khouri writes a regular commentary for The Daily Star.
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