The Hindu Business Line : Media freedom or Muslim-phobia?

THE entire episode beginning from a Danish newspaper commissioning and publishing outrageous cartoons on Prophet Mohammed to their being subsequently reproduced, as if on cue, sometimes repeatedly, by the media of several European countries, reeks of mean vendetta brought on by Muslim-phobia running riot. The West apparently is yet to get over the trauma and the ignominy caused by the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon on September 9, 2001 and other similar acts by jihadi terrorists in Madrid, London and elsewhere.

While the appearance of gentility was being maintained in references to Islam at the official level, there were undoubtedly sections of the population and the media in whom the puncturing of the West's self-esteem must have been rankling. It should not be surprising if they were on the lookout for opportunities to vent their spleen.

This is the only explanation one can think of for the Danish newspaper's wanton provocation and the song-and-dance about the freedom of the press. Will the media of the West commission and publish a series of obscene cartoons on Jesus and Mary the way they did in the case of the Prophet? The stand of the leading political lights of the Western countries that while they respect the sanctity of other faiths, they cannot do anything about the media running amok is untenable as well as hypocritical.

There are countless instances of Governments of these countries pressuring the media to spike or defer publication of items on the plea of security to serve political ends and the media kowtowing to them. During the Iraq war, the media willingly got "embedded" and became indistinguishable from political establishment in Washington.

More recently, the pictures showing the US President, Mr George Bush, and the disgraced lobbyist, Mr Jack Abramoff, together were withheld by national media for months at the Administration's behest. So, even assuming that the Danish Prime Minister was taken by surprise by what Jyllands-Posten did, the minimum that Governments of other European countries should have done was to stop their being re-published in their own countries. Instead, they are raising smoke screens assuming the rest of the world to be mere babes in the wood.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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