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A Risk of “Violence of an Unpredictable Nature”
September 9, 2009
by John Negroponte '60
John Negroponte '60 has served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, and Ambassador to Iraq. He is on the faculty of the “Grand Strategy” seminar at Yale and is a lecturer at the university in International Affairs.
Earlier this summer I learned about a challenging dilemma confronting Yale University Press: whether to reprint the Danish cartoons and other images of the Prophet Muhammad in a forthcoming book by Jytte Klausen. The press is an institution deeply committed to free expression, with impeccable credentials and a reputation for publishing controversial, scholarly works. Yet these images have a demonstrated track record of violence associated with their republication, with deaths occurring as recently as last summer.
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The ready accessibility of the cartoons online and elsewhere means the book is not materially diminished.
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Given my 44 years of diplomatic and intelligence experience, which included service in the Middle East, I knew that publishing these images could very well result in violence of an unpredictable nature. I advised Yale of my serious concerns, and I was relieved to learn that multiple experts in national security and academia had offered Yale similar counsel. I also did not believe that the book’s academic purpose was diminished without these images. The ready accessibility of the cartoons online and elsewhere means the book is not materially diminished; in fact, I believe the book is now more likely to encourage scholarly debate rather than perpetuate this violent controversy.
The Yale Press’s decision is not without precedent, and it is noteworthy that, at the time of the initial crisis over the cartoons in 2005-2006, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe declined to print these images as well, along with almost every leading newspaper in the United States. These media outlets no more wished to incite violence by publishing the cartoons than did the Yale Press, and they too reached the conclusion that the context in which they would have published them—as part of objective news coverage—did not make a difference.
This was no doubt a tough call, but it was most certainly the correct one, and it was taken knowing full well that there would be criticism in some circles. I applaud the Yale Press for its brave and principled decision.  |
