The thin veil of freedom

People are asking me what I think of the controversy surrounding the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in Danish and other European newspapers.In all honesty, I am torn apart. I am a liberatarian at heart, I always have been. I have been afforded the right to freedom of speech and consider it one of my most cherished possessions. The ability to rebutt anything and anyone without fear of reprisal. As much as I love this right however, I have come to realise that saying anything out loud is not necessarily the best option at all times, infact it had made me look pretty stupid and insensitive sometimes. I realise and do feel that these cartoons are an affront to Muslims everywhere. Its not about our sense of humour, this is not a debate about how we take to fictional work, this is about insulting our Prophet- a man of peace, piety and an individual revered by more people around the world than any other human in history. That is not an exaggeration, its the truth.

Now, freedom of speech has a lot to do with this and so does satire but it has its limits. You can freely proclaim that Muhammad was a great man, that he condoned jihad in certain circumstances, that he set the stage for numerous Muslim dynasties in Middle East and that he led his people to war in what they believed was a just cause. All that is true, even then only if you list teh circumstances that justify such actions. However, he never condoned the killing of innocents, or sucide bombings, or desecration of other religions. All that is the masala and spice that others have added onto Islam, it was never Prophet Muhammad's message and nor should it be attributed to him. That is infact, libel.

Freedom of speech gives you the right to make any statement you want as long as it is debateable. As long as that statement has proof that backs it up. Now, this raises a serious problem when it comes to satire, because satire usually is just plain fun rather than factually correct information. However, this is where the newspapers or the media responsible comes into question, they are the ones that have to decide whether something goes too far- it is one thing to portray Arafat with a dead child in his hands proclaiming peace, it is quite another to stick a bomb into Prophet Muhammad's turban and call it humour/caricature/cartoon. Its not funny because, 1) The Prophet never condoned such behaviour (ie. you are blatantly lying to the world about his message), 2) You insult every Muslim is the world, even those who are peaceful and only use words to rebutt, by portraying their revered Prophet as a terrorist and, 3) There is a line that you should never cross as a medium that informs, not everyone has the same knowledge base you do and as such, your portrayal ends up doing more damage than good- which is the last thing we need in the current political environment.

Daniel Atherton, a contributor to UCLA's Daily Bruin sums the issue up well in his article, "What students, even liberal students and students whose views are being targeted, have to remember is that offensive speech is still speech, and deserves to be protected. Does it deserve to be published? That's a decision each publication has to make on its own, but it helps if the point being made is insightful, not inciteful. Or at least funny."