World War III over a cartoon?

Last September, a Danish newspaper published controversial cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed. The most controversial image is one of Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban.

This naturally provoked indignation throughout the Muslim world. Even some Christian organizations denounced the cartoons as unnecessarily provocative.

Some Danes seemed surprised by the outrage. Apparently, there is a tradition in Denmark whereby satirists lampoon everything and anything, with no taboos.

Let's start by saying that this isn't an issue of freedom of speech. Neither the cartoonists nor the editor should be thrown in jail for the cartoons, nor should the newspaper be fined.

But with freedom comes responsibility. And to publish such a provocative cartoon with no point except to insult an entire religion was highly irresponsible..

I'm a connoisseur of political cartoons and one of the most important elements that distinguishes good satire from poor or downright offensive satire is subtlety. This cartoon was about as unsubtle as you can get; it's purpose wasn't political, it was offensive.

What if an American cartoonist had depicted Jesus Christ waving an AK-47 with blood dripping from his mouth? Or the Virgin Mary as a prostitute? Do you think there wouldn't be protests? And would would the point of such cartoons be, except to offend all Christians?

In response, an Iranian newspaper is holding a contest for cartoons to lampoon the Holocaust. Though it begs the question how you can lampoon an event that, according to Iran's president, never occurred.

The Danish cartoonists invited a reaction, as all satirists do, and were surprised to get one.

Unfortunately, some other European newspapers chose to fan the flames by reprinting the cartoons. One could have done a good job reporting on the controversy without reprinting the cartoons. But I suspect the papers chose to reprint the cartoons not based on good news judgement but out of defiance.

The message of the cartoon was: Muslim is an inherently violent religion. Sadly, some Muslims felt the need to live down to that stereotype. The overreaction in parts of the Muslim world is nothing short of obscene.

I have no problem with marches and demands for the paper to apologize. Freedom of speech works both ways, remember. I think burning the Danish flag and the call to boycott all Danish goods are a bit over the top, but still within the bounds of civilized protest..But much of the rest of the reaction went well beyond this to irrational hysteria.

An angry mob torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in the Syrian capital (a Norwegian paper reprinted the controversial cartoons). Another mob invaded the Danish embassy in neighboring Lebanon. Protesters tried to attack an American airbase in Iraq and others protested in front of a US mission in Indonesia, even though no US paper reprinted the cartoons. Palestinian militants threatened to kidnap any citizen of the European Union (not just Denmark) they could find in 'protest' of the cartoons.

I wonder how many of them understood the irony of protesting against the depiction of Islam as a violent religion by rioting, burning buildings and threatening to kidnap innocents.

I've spent some effort in the last several years trying to get people to realize that most Muslims are decent, moderate folk, just like most Christians. Lunacy like this makes such efforts significantly more difficult.

Two reasons lead me to suspect some sort of political manipulation in the hysteria.

First, it's worth noting that the most violent protests occurred in the Middle East. Contrary to popular belief, that region is not the extent of the Islamic world, though it clearly seems to be the most radicalized part. For example, were few if any violent protests in majority Muslim countries that practice a moderate brand of the faith. West African countries like Guinea, Senegal, Mali and Niger were conspicuously free of violence (I don't even think there were any street protests). Even in the Muslim-dominated region of northern Nigeria, there was a surprising restraint in a part of the country notoriously suspectible to rage whipped up by sectarian demagogues.

The other thing that makes me intensely suspicious is the timeline.

The cartoons were published on Sept. 30, 2005. It took three weeks for the Muslim ambassadors in Copenhagen to protest to the Danish government. And over four months before the 'spontaneous' expressions of outrage started appearing in parts of the Muslim world.

We live in an age of instant communication. An age where text messages zip around the world in seconds. An age where people blog their thoughts daily from Baghdad to Teheran. An age where every American misdeed in Iraq is exposed to the world in days or less. An age where Fatwas can even be found on the Internet.

Just look at where the worst protests happened: Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territories. All three regimes have come under fire in recent months. Syria faces intense international pressure for its alleged role in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The Syrian-backed Lebanese political establishment is under pressure at home for countenancing Syrian interference in the country's domestic affairs for decades. The Palestinian movement Fatah, the ones who threatened to kidnap EU citizens, has been raked over the coals by its own members for its humiliating loss in the recent elections to Hamas.

If the anger had been truly spontaneous, wouldn't it have erupted last September or October? The idea that it took four months for this anger to be generated makes one suspect that the eruption of anger was not spontaneous at all, but carefully provoked at a specific moment in time to suit certain ends. While the fury is certainly legitimate, the violence is completely deplorable. All this makes one suspect that the hysteria was conveniently whipped up by a handful of demagogues eager for a scapegoat to change the subject.


Update: this interview from NPR with a Wall Street Journal reporter who explains some of the deception and manipulation used to help spread this furor.

Further update: Is this what anyone really wants World War III to start over?

3rd update: It's easy to wonder how protesters intend to counter the stereotype of Islam as an inherently violent religion by holding signs like 'Butcher those who mock Islam' and 'Europe will pay. Demolition is on its way.'