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The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
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Why did the Press consult counterterrorism experts? The Press and its expert consultants wrongly assume (1) that Muslim objections to the Danish cartoons are based purely on a religious taboo: a strict, Muslim aversion to graven images, as it were, and (2) that violence is the “natural” outcome of offending Muslim sensibilities. This same faulty logic seems to be behind the administration’s decision to have the FBI on campus when one of the infamous Danish cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, spoke at a Master’s Tea, a high-security event where students were forbidden to bring bags, phones, and even pencils. The riots that broke out (months) after the publication of the cartoons in 2005 were not the spontaneous, irrational, and automatic Muslim response to images of the Prophet deemed offensive. Consider a counter-example: in 1997 16 Muslim American civil rights groups petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to sandblast a frieze of Muhammad off of the Court because, they argued, he was depicted as an “intolerant conqueror wielding a sword.” The judge ruled against them, arguing the frieze honored Muhammad as one of the great lawmakers of history and that the sword was a symbol of justice carried by several figures in the frieze. There was no strong Muslim reaction, no worldwide riots, no major headlines. What made the Danish cartoons so particularly explosive? Had the Press read Klausen’s book more carefully, it would have learned that in fact there was a long and complex series of events, including peaceful protests (letter-writing, appeals to the editors, diplomatic efforts, economic boycotts) that preceded the protests around the world, which, in some cases, escalated into violent riots and death threats against the cartoonists. The death toll associated with the cartoons was the result of out-of-control riots and rough policing, not terrorism. The violence of the ordinary Muslims who became involved in the riots following the publication of the Danish cartoons may not be justifiable, but it is qualitatively different from the terrorism of Al Qaeda, a distinction lost in so much of the analysis of the Danish cartoon controversy and, I think, in the discussions around campus over Westergaard’s safety on campus. In my opinion, we need to add questions about how safe some Yalies felt with Westergaard on campus to our discussions of security. Westergaard’s cartoon was amongst the most offensive and racially charged: Muhammad as a terrorist or suicide-bomber, pictured as a dark, menacing, hairy face with a bomb in his turban. Although Master Smith skillfully moderated what was a critical and civil conversation, I do not believe his invitation was a wise and responsible choice. Not all of the twelve cartoons were as objectionable as Westergaard's; three of them were meta-commentaries on the contest itself, lampooning the Danish newspaper editors rather than the Prophet. In my opinion, the cartoon depicting a young immigrant boy named Muhammad standing in front of a chalkboard that read “The editors of [this paper] are provocateurs” would have made perfect cover art for Klausen’s excellent book. That cartoonist might also have been a more compelling interlocutor for our campus community. |
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