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JAMES DEBONO takes a critical look at the orchestrated Islamic
backlash to a cartoon
The lag of five months between the publication of the controversial Mohammed cartoons and the violent eruption of anti-Danish protests has strengthened the case for those arguing that some Arab governments have had a role in stoking the flames of protest.
Despite there having been no immediate popular outrage in September, the uncharacteristically impressive speed through which the anti-Danish movement swept across the Muslim world in the past weeks has been impressive. For once in the Arab world, collective grassroots action was accompanied by decisive political moves led by various Arab governments. Yet this impressive sense of unity was only founded to punish a small European state for not apologising for a set of cartoons appearing in a small, right-wing regional newspaper.
Anti-Danish demonstrations were held in countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Libya where demonstrations are tightly controlled. In the case of Syria, protests offered a distraction from the current Hariri investigation. The attack on the Beirut embassy has also served to further destabilise the small Syrian neighbour. In Iran, the incident further swayed attention from the pre-electoral promises made by its controversial president Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The anti-western feelings generated by the cartoons strengthened the hold of the theocratic regime, which is currently facing a standoff with the USA and Europe in its bid to develop nuclear energy.
But Iran and Syria are not the only states with an interest in stoking the fires. The USA’s dubious moral standards in excluding Iran from the nuclear club are enough to bolster support for Ahmadinejad in Iran.
Even so-called “moderate”, but far from democratic regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have for once found themselves in synch with popular opinion in venting anti-western sentiment. Even ex-rogue state Libya has emerged from its slumber and Ghaddafi has given Libyans a taste of his past rhetoric. Surprisingly, in its new role as an opposition party, Al Fatah had a more prominent role than Hamas in anti-EU and Danish protests.
Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy wrote in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dastour “perhaps the Muslim governments who spearheaded the campaign – led by Egypt – felt this was an easy way to burnish their Islamic credentials at a time when domestic Islamists are stronger than they have been in many years.”
With Hamas winning in the most democratic elections ever held in an Arab country, traditional ruling parties have reasons to fear for their survival. Their reputation of being Western lackeys does not pay off in countries where the West is unfortunately associated with war, lies and torture, rather than with freedom of expression. Stirring popular anger against a small state in Scandinavia gives them a chance to distance themselves from the west on an inconsequential issue.
The Arab League has gone as far as calling on Denmark to close down the offensive newspaper. “This shows how deeply entrenched dictatorial practices are in many Muslim countries. They are so accustomed to closing down their own newspapers, they could not understand why the Danish government could not issue a decree closing the Jyllands-Posten,” Tarek Fatah, the director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, observed.
The confluence between ruling elites and Islamic movements has resulted in the most coordinated campaigns organised by Arabs since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
According to reports, the economic boycott campaign is rapidly translating into empty shelves in grocery stores that once offered Danish products across Saudi Arabia and other countries.
The Arab League, an organisation which was powerless during the Iraq war, has risen from the ashes asking the United Nations, with the hope of passing a UN resolution, to protect religion from insults.
“Where was such collectiveness when it was needed the most?” asked Ramzy Baroud, a veteran Arab-American journalist and the editor in chief of the Palestine Chronicle. If Arabs and Muslims can be so efficient in organising such popular campaigns that utilse economic, political and diplomatic leverage to extract concessions, one cannot but note their utter failure to carry out such campaigns protesting against the US war on Iraq, the occupation of Palestinian territories, human rights abuses in Guantanamo and torture at Abu Ghraib.
Perhaps one the reasons for Muslim silence on these issues is that torture and human rights abuses are the order of the day in most Arab countries.
One cannot discount the crucial role of Islam in Arab countries. Revulsion was inevitable. But Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons have struck home at a particular moment in history in which unstable Arab regimes are desperate to find a sense of legitimacy and they can only do so by riding high on the crest of the anti-western wave.
Closer to home the cartoons have also coincided by the growth of Islamophobia in Europe. Jyllands-Posten reflects the mood of Danish society which is losing its reputation for openness and tolerance. Rasmussen’s government relies on the support of the far-right Danish People’s Party, one of whose MPs has publicly likened Muslims in Europe to “a cancer”.
Ironically, the Danish newspaper, now perceived as bulwark of press freedom, had supported the rise of Adolph Hitler in the 1930s.
Yet the burning of embassies and the chanting of slogans like ‘9-11 is on the way’ the radical Islamists are only stoking the fires of a clash between fundamentalisms. Because civilizations never clash, only fundamentalisms do.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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