The Hindu Business Line : Talk about globalisation

THE world is in a turmoil all because of cartoons in a newspaper most have not heard of published in a country with fewer people than live in Chennai.

Let's review the facts. A Danish newspaper, Jyllands Posten, in September 2005, published 12 satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. A writer of a children's book about Islam had not been able to find any artist willing to illustrate his book for fear of repercussions from the community. So the newspaper thought it needs to make a point and invited cartoonists to submit cartoons for them to publish.

Islam considers images of its Prophet as blasphemous. So local Muslims were upset at some of the cartoons, said to represent the Prophet. There were protests from Danish Muslims who are estimated at about 270,000 out of 5.4 million people.

However, without much encouraging response from the paper or the government, a few radicals from Denmark took up the issue and began touring the Arab world, demanding protests from their co-religionists.

The media picked up the news, it began to be mentioned in talk shows, Web sites, and in Friday prayers. The issue literally caught fire about three months later and we are still seeing the reverberations today.

Some Arab countries took official action. For example, in January, Libya shut its embassy in Denmark in protest and Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador. Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the Danish ambassador and demanded an apology. Interior ministers from Arab nations meeting in Tunisia demanded that Denmark punish those responsible for the publication.

In Pakistan, both houses of parliament passed resolutions against the publication of the cartoons and the Foreign Office summoned the envoys of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Hungary, Norway and the Czech Republic, in addition to that from Denmark and lodged protests. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference said they would ask the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution banning attacks on religious beliefs.

It is the unofficial protests that have been alarming. The Danish embassy in Beirut was set on fire. Indonesian protestors charged their Danish embassy. Palestinian demonstrators burnt flags not just of Denmark but its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway and Sweden. They shouted `Death to Denmark.' A militant group in West Asia is supposed to have issued a warning that all Danes and Swedes should leave Gaza.

The Swedes do not know why they are clubbed with the Danes in all this, but scrambled to warn their citizens. The voices of moderate Islamic leaders calling for calm to prevail is being drowned by those of the radicals.

With the snowballing effect, the editor of the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons apologised in January for offending Muslims, although it stuck to its stand that printing the political cartoons was a journalistic right in a democracy. Some Muslim groups in Denmark said they were satisfied by the apology.

The Danish Prime Minister criticised the paper for offending people's religious feelings whether they were about Mohammed or Jesus, but also said his government could not apologise on behalf of a newspaper and supported the publication on grounds of freedom of expression.

On February 1, some French, Italian, Spanish and German newspapers republished the cartoons as their demonstration of their right to free expression.

Even if you argue that the religion of Islam only prohibits Muslims from publishing images of the Prophet (and there are some sects in Islam who do have images), some of those cartoons were in poor taste and definitely insensitive.

Religion is an emotional issue for the believers of any faith and even a sensible atheist will refrain from publishing cartoons of this nature against any religion.

If globalisation is a sharing across the world by people in pursuit of their dreams, this is a nightmare. At one level, it is turning out to be a clash of values — newspapers in societies that fiercely protect their right of freedom of expression clashing with the values of people who see it as an assault on their religious values.

But sometimes `freedom of expression' is curbed in the interests of decency, even in the freest of societies. But this is a time when freedom of expression is becoming as much a sensitive topic in the west as religious beliefs are among the Muslims.

The US, under the garb of its Patriots Act, an anti-terrorism measure, can now ask librarians to reveal the names of people who borrow certain kinds of books.

Internet companies are being asked to turn in search records. In such an environment even the meek and the mild in the west are wondering where their freedoms are going and think they need to take a stand.

Meanwhile, others see a darker purpose. One writer, Karima Rhanem, writing in the Morocco Times about the incident, put it in the larger context of what she perceived as anti-Muslim.

"The recent assaults against Muslims through the publication of satirical cartoons on the prophet Mohammed will not be the last attack on Muslims if the Islamic Ummah does not move to protect the dignity of the one billion Muslim around the world," reads the conclusion of her article.

Islam is one of the fast growing religions in the world. Its followers are estimated at between 1.1 and 1.5 billion, or 20-25 per cent of the world's population. Over 50 countries have Muslim-majority populations. And except for a handful of them, like Turkey, the rest have declared Islam as the official religion of the state.

Thus, here is a religion that enjoys both the power of numbers, and the backing of official sanction. Yet, Muslims worry about how their religion is treated by others, so much that they are prepared to sacrifice life and property to protest.

A quick scan of the editorials of `Islamic' newspapers gives the impression that they consider themselves a small, persecuted community. Every slight is taken as an assault on the whole religion. Why have Muslims developed this defensiveness when they should be looking at the world from a position of strength and magnanimity?

Globalisation has resulted in each country not being free to do what it wants in its own borders; there is a larger audience for everything.

A rape victim in Pakistan was sentenced to death by stoning by a judge. Should the women's groups around the world — who raised their voices in protest — have ignored it as a local issue within the gambit of Pakistan's `Islamic' values?

In all the analysis, it increasingly appears that the agenda has been hijacked by the extremes at either end of the argument — radical Islamists proving to their followers that the west always had nasty designs on them, and the radicals in the west proving to their followers that Muslims are always a violent lot.

Whatever the political or the religious issues involved, I think the sane way of protesting in today's economically driven world is through a product boycott. That is also a truly democratic message. It takes just one misguided person to set a shop on fire, but it really takes a widespread feeling of hurt to make a boycott work. And it has been used even in this instance.

Several Muslim majority countries began an unofficial boycott of Danish products. Egypt's Federation of Chambers of Commerce urged organisations in the shipping business not to transport Danish products.

The papers report that West Asia is a major market for Arla Foods, a Danish producer of dairy products and it has seen its sales drop to zero. Their dairy employing about 800 people close to Riyadh was closed.

Other Danish food and pharmaceutical companies are said to have lost several millions. Signs in Saudi Arabian grocery stores ask the shoppers not to buy Danish goods.

A few editorials have remarked on the selective feeling of umbrage that the Arabs express with regard to religion. How can they ask us to respect their religion when they do not even allow non-Muslims to practice their religion in the Arab world, they ask.

Good point. So let us respond with a boycott of the Arabs. Now, what can we stop buying from the Arabs so that it will hurt them? How about oil?

(The author is professor of international business and strategic management at Suffolk University, Boston, US. His Internet address is cgopinat@suffolk.edu)

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