The row over depictions of the Prophet Muhammad has me confused. It’s one of many ideological clashes that have hit the headlines in the last few years, all of which have left me unsure which side to take. Perhaps taking sides isn’t what’s important – I’m not the one charged with resolving the dispute after all. But some day I might have to. It’s just not good enough to hold judgement at arm’s length while you can; some day it’ll smack you in the face and then you’ll have to deal with it. Better start learning.
Here’s the situation. Last September the Danish Jyllands-Posten published caricatures of Muhammad, one of which showed him wearing a bomb-shaped headdress; the others equally offensive. Unsurprisingly, this offended quite a few Muslims. The decision by other European papers – seven in all – to reprint the drawings has just as unsurprisingly been ill-received by Muslims everywhere. But should we intervene to stop this kind of thing?
The difficulty seems to arise because these cases involve a clash of liberties. We don’t feel entitled to place one person’s liberty above another, so whose position do we protect? What’s it to be: the freedom of the press held up as a symbol of democratic, western society, or the freedom of Muslims to practise their religion as they wish? Obviously, neither one can be given unlimited scope, since this would leave the other with no breathing space whatsoever. Give the press too much freedom, and you may legitimise the deliberate incitement to religious hatred. Give Muslims too much freedom and the press effectively become gagged when it comes to publishing anything they might find offensive.
Borders have always been disputed, and the border between these two liberties is no exception. Have newspapers like France Soir and Die Welt strayed too far into religious territory? To reach an answer, we have to weigh up the cost to each side of shifting the border backwards.
Arguably, all the press would lose is the satisfaction of riling the Muslim world. This seems to be what certain high-profile Muslim representatives think, in any case. But is there not more to it than that? Surely the press must be allowed to comment on aspects of religion they believe to promote the infringement of others’ rights, like the right not to be blown up by a suicide bomber. If we’re barred from communicating about what we believe to be the root causes of other violations of liberty, perhaps these causes will go unaddressed.
True enough. But banning a caricature that makes no pretensions to subtlety or sensitivity does not amount to a bar on religious commentary. It could hardly be claimed that cartoons like this communicate ideas better than, say, a well-argued article given the same prominence in the same publications. So we certainly have no reason to believe that the controversial drawings would have gone any further to protecting the liberties of those affected by Muslim fundamentalism than would similar views presented in a less extreme form.
On the other hand, what do the cartoons cost the Muslims in terms of liberty? An increased threat of violence from non-Muslims? I doubt it; anyone informed enough to understand the caricatures understands that they are precisely that: nothing but caricatures. Interference in the practise of their religion? Not really. Offence? Probably, but this is isn’t exactly an infringement on liberty; it puts no barriers in place preventing Muslims from living as they wish.
So what would I do if it were my job to legislate on the issue? Where would I draw the border? Well I wouldn’t. My (considered) reaction is that both sides are being unreasonable in their claims to liberty. The cost to each camp of conceding the disputed territory is so negligible that it really doesn’t matter where exactly we draw the border, so long as its rough position is determined. Things start to get silly when there is a call for liberties to be so precisely cordoned-off that we’re always infringing each others’ boundaries. Better for us all to live with the slight discomfort of fuzzy borders than run the risk of being strung up for stepping over the line.
Still, giving others discomfort by deliberately entering the disputed territory for the sake of doing so should be condemned. As we’ve seen, the press defend no liberties by doing so, and run the risk of losing their precious freedom by persisting in this childish brinkmanship.
the apprentice 