Germany asks if Islam impedes on freedom of speech
A decision by the German publisher Droste not to print a murder mystery about an honour killing because it contained passages insulting Islam has raised questions in Germany about religion impeding on freedom of speech.
Droste publishers said they would have published the book, entitled “To Whom Honour is Due”, had author Gabriele Brinkmann softened the tone in some sections In one, for example, an angry character tells another to dispose of a Koran using a crude phrase we would not reproduce here. “The author was not prepared to change the derogatory passages, which would have been a condition for the publication,” Droste said in a statement on its website.
Little did they realise what a stir this decision would cause in Germany, which is sensitive to any compromise on freedom of speech and where security fears over Islamists have blocked several artistic ventures in recent years. “For me, it is about the principle. That is why I went public about this. I won’t hurry to be obedient and carry out self censorship,” Brinkmann told German media. “Justified fear or cowardice?” asked the headline in the daily Hamburger Abendblatt.
Droste insists it is not worried about releasing books dealing with controversial themes, but refuse to publish books which insult peoples’ faith — whether Islam, Christianity or other religions. But Brinkmann points out that her book was a work of fiction, and it was clear that the opinions expressed by fictive characters were neither her own nor those of the publishers.
Furthermore, it is questionable if the company would have similary toned down any insults of Christianity, a religion that is regularly parodied and demonised in popular culture. Why not? Perhaps because insults against Christianity probably wouldn’t have carried the same security risks. Monty Python’s comedy The Life of Brian and Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code both provoked outrage among sections of the Christian community, but not death threats or violence.
Publisher Felix Droste himself admitted that he was concerned about a security risk that could arise to the company if it published the book, in light of the riots that broke out in several Islamic countries after cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper sparked outrage among Muslims.
Debating a burqa ban with a French MP — in English
France 24, the French international television channel, invited me to debate the proposed ban on burqas and niqabs today with one of the parliamentary deputies leading the campaign. That’s me on the left. On the right is Jacques Myard, deputy for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party and a spirited defender of French interests. Myard wanted to ban full facial veils in France two years ago but could not muster enough support at the time. The mood in the National Assembly has changed since then and another deputy, the Communist André Gerin, got together 58 deputies from different parties to launch the inquiry that began work yesterday.
Here’s the video on the France 24 website. It’s about 20 minutes long. Myard presents the French case for banning burqas and niqabs very clearly. If you’ve read about this debate and can’t understand it, he is worth hearing to get a good feel for how many French people state the case for a ban.
Myard puts the debate squarely in the context of laïcité, the quintessentially French way of separating church and state. That separation is such an important principle in Western countries that even the Vatican — history’s big loser in this debate — now supports it. However, this principle is interpreted in different ways in different countries.
In France, it is seen through the lens of French history, where the Catholic Church was so powerful that the parliament passed a law in 1905 officially separating the two and banishing religion to the private sphere. It is meant to protect the state against the power of religion — exactly the opposite of the American view that the separation protects religion against the power of the state. Religion, more specifically the Catholic Church, was very powerful in France in 1905, but nobody would argue that now. In fact, the civil religion of laïcité is much more powerful now.
Defining the burqa/niqab issue in terms of laïcité frames this debate as a religious one. It widens a practice by a tiny minority of ultra-conservative Muslims into the stéréotype du jour of the Muslim minority (about 8 percent) that makes France so uncomfortable. In a Western society, having people hide their faces in public and refuse to show nature’s ID card even for driver’s licences or wedding ceremonies is a problem. Even at its strictest in centuries past, Christianity covered up its nuns but left their faces open. This is such a basic cultural fact in an open Western society that politicians should be able to appeal to this simple rule to outlaw such masks in the public sphere.
That would mean striking out into new territory. It would mean leaving the well-beaten and reassuring path of debate about laïcité, where one is assured of support, for a more challenging but more egalitarian approach based on the duties of a citizen in an open society.
Although, I personally am so far to the left that even the democrats appear to me to be “right-wing,” I consider myself to be a strict constitutionalist. It is my opinion that since its inception there has been an organized and systematic assault by the conservatives in the United States on the civil liberties written into the US Constitution. The “War on Drugs”; “War on Terror”; “War on Communism” and a host of other wars waged by the right wing are really nothing more than a War on People–an excuse to erode civil rights to the point of non-existence. I invite you to my website devoted to raising awareness on this puritan attack on freedom: http://pltcldscsn.blogspot.com/
Prejudice against Muslims, Jews on the rise in Europe – Pew study
Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish feelings are rising in several major European countries, according to a survey by the Washington- based Pew Research Center’s Global Attitude Survey. Mike Conlon in our Chicago bureau has summed up the report here.
Apart from the figures themselves, what struck me most was the way the study says the trends are moving. Pew said the upswing in anti-Muslim feelings came mostly between 2004 and 2006, with some falls since then, while the upswing of feelings against Jews has come mostly between 2006 and 2008. Is this matched by facts on the ground, such as attacks on religious people and sites or increasingly discriminatory acts or agitation against religious minorities? Or is this a change in mood that need surveys like this to be perceived?
The news media tend to focus on actual examples of such prejudices, such as the recent anti-mosque campaign in Italy or suspected anti-Semitic attack on a young Paris Jew, since these are news events that reflect prejudices. This is admittedly an imperfect measure (which, by the way, is one reason why we also report surveys like this). We don’t claim to be able to cover such events so thoroughly that we could track trends like Pew does. Even with that proviso, I’m not sure I would have said that Europe saw a surge of anti-Muslim feeling between 2004 and 2006 and a surge of anti-Jewish feeling since then. The evidence from actual events is difficult to read.
A certain level of prejudice and violence against both groups is always present. But events seem to point towards upswings in anti-Muslim feeling more right after 9/11 and then in recent years with the growing anti-mosque movement and the Prophet Mohammad cartoons controversy. As for anti-Jewish feeling across Europe, the upswing in actual anti-Semitic acts and rhetoric seemed stronger at the start of the second Intifada early in this decade. Maybe the fact that this poll series began in the summer of 2002 skews the data.
Do you see upswings in anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim feelings going the way Pew sketches them, or differently?
I have a lot of muslim friends and i know some since early childhood. They are all normal people like you and me, religion played no big role in their lives. Since a couple of years I sense a growing frustration and anger in them. Anger of being wrongly branded as “terrorists”, anger at being called “followers of a evil religion”. One of them told me he no longer feels like he belongs here (Germany). He used to dream of his own business and having his kids grow up here, now he isn’t so sure at all. He said that some of our other muslim friends also felt more or less the same. I am really troubled by this. I mean it’s not right whats happening and the bad thing is that all this hate is being spread by our media and even encouraged by some politicians.
Amr Khaled sees good side of Danish Mohammad cartoon row
The Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were widely condemned in the Muslim world and led to violent protests, attacks on embassies and even deaths. Even in recent days, they have continued to stir more protest (in Pakistan) and create security problems (in Afghanistan). They have set off a kind of “clash of civilisations” with a Muslim side denouncing them as blasphemy and a western side defending them as freedom of speech. The whole dispute has been extremely polarising.
Now one of the most popular preachers in the Middle East, Egypt’s Amr Khaled, has said there were positive sides to the uproar. The caricatures “were useful for Muslims and the Islamic world” because they prompted Muslims to stand up for the Prophet and for Islam, the television preacher told the German news agency dpa on Monday. The dispute “charged the batteries of Muslim youths, strengthened their faith and got them to stand up actively for their religion.”
Can a controversy that polarises people and leads to death and destruction be “useful” for a religion?
James — good point about the past. But what about going forward? I put this in the present tense to mean inter-faith relations now.
How Dutch Muslim leader reacted to Wilders anti-Koran film
“Our goal is nothing other than working peacefully for our society’s future, the future of our children, but also the future of the Netherlands. Muslims in the Netherlands love this country — they of course criticise some developments, as any citizen. The Netherlands is our country and we will try together with our compatriots to find the right tone … to finally get away from the ongoing polarisation in society, so that we can finally get on with our daily lives and don’t have to be afraid of each other.” — Mohammed Rabbae, Chairman of the National Moroccan Council of the Netherlands
The day after Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders showed his anti-Koran film on the Internet, warning of Islam as a threat to Western civilisation, Dutch-Moroccan leader Rabbae had separate messages for his compatriots in the Netherlands and for fellow Muslims abroad. Speaking to Dutch and foreign journalists in the El Ouma mosque in Amsterdam, he sought to assure the Dutch that Muslims considered themselves part of society, had no sympathy for violent extremism and respected the law and the constitution. “What people feel threatened by also threatens us. What threatens Westerners also threatens us. There is no difference,” he said.
He urged Muslims abroad to respect this. “We want to tell our Muslims brothers and sisters abroad, in the Middle East, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia etc, that we as Muslims in the Netherlands are best positioned to analyse the situation in the Netherlands, and to determine the response to Wilders and others … I am appealing to our brothers and sisters abroad to follow our strategy, not to frustrate our strategy by any violent incidents or an attack to a Dutch embassy,” he said.
“Looking for conflict with the Netherlands there is looking for conflict with us. We are indivisibly Dutch, indivisibly citizens of this country.”
This presents an interesting contrast to the reaction of some Danish Muslim leaders who went to the Middle East seeking support from fellow Muslims for their protests against the Prophet Mohammad cartoons. We know what that lead to. Rabbae stresses his Dutch identity as much as his Muslim identity and tells fellow Muslims abroad to respect the way Dutch Muslims have chosen to react to the Wilders film. There have been verbal official protests in the Muslim world and some loud street demonstrations, but so far not the violence seen after the Danish cartoons were published.
Dear Kvn, I think your right on the mark there. Those verses in the Quran, 8:39 for example- “fight them on until there’s no more…” I wonder how many of these ‘so-called’ religous fanatics actually read the whole verse and understand it the way the author wanted it to be understood? Maybe one of the problems is that these persons (terrorists) are either not being given the whole information of the Quran, but just a selected part (from the Immans) – “fight them on until there’s no more..” and then through lack of education (or penchant for murder and mayhem), act on that verse – literally. Of course you are definately right about the Holy Bible also with some of it’s verses. It goes to show that it ‘all boils down’ to the individual’s interpretation of the Holy word and how they are ‘educated’ to interpret it. We can see from Mr Wildeers film that his interpretation of the Quran is as twisted as the murderous miscreants using it (the Quran) as an excuse to kill. (Or Wildeer’s also has a penchant for mayhem). And Neil – I think you have the right idea too, “I guess being a spiritualist is the best of all.”
Ramadan wants Muslims to ignore far-right Dutch film on Koran
As the premiere of the long-awaited Koran film by far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders nears, it’s not uncommon to hear Muslims call for some way to censor what they expect to be a blistering condemnation of their faith.
But not all see the film — now expected to be broadcast by the end of this month — as an opportunity to revive the polarisation of the Prophet Mohammad cartoons clash in 2006, when freedom of expression and respect for faith were presented as implacable opposites.
Tariq Ramadan, one of Europe’s most prominent Muslim intellectuals, has never shied from confronting the critics of his faith. But his approach to the Wilders film aims to avoid a repeat of the cartoons controversy. At a recent conference in Sweden, he told Reuters that people could not be prevented from publishing material like the Wilders film and the Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that triggered protests across the Muslim world.
“My position is they have the right to do it and we don’t need new laws to prevent them from doing it,” Ramadan said. “But not everything which is legal is intelligent. Sometimes you have to think about a sense of decency and to live together.”
Ramadan went on: “My advice (to Muslims) is take an intellectual critical distance towards this. Say ‘we don’t like it’ but go ahead and just ignore it.”
Ramadan is optimistic that lessons learned from the Danish cartoons affair will help the Dutch authorities avert a similar crisis over the Wilders film, expected to be released on or around March 28.
His upbeat view was shared by Dutch security experts addressing the conference. One of them, Bob de Graaff of Leiden University, said the affair had fuelled interest in Islam among the Dutch population at large, with more visits to mosques by non-Muslims and a higher quality of media debate.
I don’t think films such as this constitute legitimate criticism. As one leading Dutch Jew pionted out, if this film had been made about HIS community, Wilders would be behind bars by now. But I largely agree with Tariq with regards to the preferred Muslim response.
Iran wants European law to squelch anti-Koran film
Iran has urged the Netherlands to block a planned anti-Koran film, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the legal basis for doing so. This is the latest twist in the saga surrounding the controversial film by far-right leader Geert Wilders (we’ve blogged on this before). In the letter, Iran’s Justice Minister Gholamhossein Elham asked his Dutch counterpart Ernst Hirsch Ballin to use European human rights law to stop a European from exercising one of those most basic rights. Freedom of expression has been the rallying cry of those who defended the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons — and republishing the most controversial one (the turban bomb) this week after a death threat against the artist who drew it.
This also raises the question of whether any protest against purported blasphemy against Islam this time might not turn out to be on the streets, as after the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, but in the courts. European Muslim organisations brought court suits against the cartoons in Denmark and in France but lost their cases — thanks to the principle of freedom of expression. Will the Iranian letter inspire any to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Nota bene — Danish imams preached calm at Friday prayers, in contrast to the imams who went to the Middle East to rally opposition to the cartoons when they first came out.
On Friday, Iran’s news agency IRNA reported on the letter, which the Dutch government told NRC Handelsblad it had not yet received. IRNA wrote the following (quotes from Elham in italics):
“You can stop the process of this satanic and highly intriguing move resorting to articles in European Convention on Human Rights … We, too, know and respect the freedom of expression, but insulting the sanctities and ethical values on that pretext is totally unacceptable.”
Elham reminded Balin of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, where it states, “…On this basis, observing freedom of expression, keeping in mind the responsibilities thereof, can be restricted in order to avoid the occurrence of chaotic social conditions, commuting crimes, safeguarding ethical values, or the others’ rights.”
Iran’s Justice Minister at the end of his letter to his Dutch counterpart considers the movie insulting against the most sacred sanctity of the world Muslims, a satanic move that can intrigue social unrest, and violating the rights of the entire world Muslims, asking for immediate halting of the blasphemous film’s production.
BTW Wilders has announced that his film will be called “Fitna.” That sounds like it was lifted from the book Fitna by French Islam scholar Gilles Kepel , who translates the Arabic term as “a war in the heart of Islam that threatens the faithful with community fragmentation, disintegration and ruin.”
Is another “West-versus-Islam” clash on the horizon?
Two Dutch politicians seem to be doing their best to stir up a controversy with Muslims. The far-right MP Geert Wilders says he wants to make a film for television about the Koran. Ehsan Jami, an Iranian-born local councillor who launched a Committee of Ex-Muslims in September, plans a film called “The Life of Mohammad.” Both are due to be ready early next year.
Shades of the bloody protests over the Danish Prophet Mohammad cartoons and Theo van Gogh‘s murder for his film “Submission”…
Are we in for another “free-speech-versus-blasphemy” (or, to put it more bluntly, “West-versus-Islam”) clash?
Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and called for it to be banned, says he only wants to express his opinions. “It is not my intention to offend people. I just want to illustrate my opinions, which I have expressed as a member of parliament,” he said. “If people do feel offended, that is a shame, but it is not my problem.” The Dutch justice and foreign ministers have met him to discuss the risks to himself and Dutch interests abroad if he makes the film. Jami says his film will “stir up more dust than the Danish Mohammad cartoons,” according to an interview with him in the Amsterdam daily De Telegraaf. “I show how violent and tyrannical Mohammad was. This man murdered three Jewish tribes, killed people who left the faith and married a 6-year-old girl, with whom he had sex when she was 9 … I will give 50,000 euros to anyone who can refute these facts.”
Is this a train crash just waiting to happen? Has anybody learned anything from the Dutch and Danish cases? Should anybody take precautions to prevent a clash — and if so, who should take which ones?
The film is here. SEE IT! Muslims have nothing to fear from freedom of expression. People will make up their own minds. More than 90% of “Fitna” (the film)is the straight words and deeds of Muslims themselves without commentary. These are real Muslims speaking to other Muslims. Not Westerners giving their infidel opinions. Muslim hate-mongers are what the film is about. They have been caught spewing hatred on film. Deal with the that. Are Muslims ashamed of this hate speech or is this simply “basic Islam 101″ ??? I would like to know how many pious Muslims actually reject the hate.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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Islam’s greatest strength is its intense paranoia, which is reflected in Gumnaan’s comments.
They’re quite simply scared of thinking about their religion at all, because doing so would show it to be the fraud it was.
Wake up dude. Mohammad was a clever shyster who borrowed bits of Christianity, Judaism and Arabic pantheism to create a virulent religion that would spread like wirefire during a period when there was no larger force to stop it. As soon as the West tried to confront it, it was stopped and driven back — starting with Charles Martell, all the way into the 20th century.
Since then, Muslims have only been able to make progress by the West giving them technology, money and license. They can settle in Europe without assimilating, but are too scared of our freedom to let anyone teach Christianity in their allegedly holy lands.
Islam is like Stalin — utterly paranoid and vicious, concerned with nothing except self-preservation and expansion.
It’s the responsibility of everybody who values freedom to resist this false religion from a false profit, serving a false god.
Who are you Gumnaan, or anyone else in the umma, to say we can’t cricize Mohammed?