Cartoon thinking and free speech

February 28th, 2006

There was an international commotion recently over a collection of cartoons with the subject of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

Some people were talking about "freedom of speech" or of "artistic freedom". There was talk about the supposed 'extremism' of Moslems. Some talked about the need to respect religious symbols, and the contempt shown Islamic culture by western culture. Many people expressed amazement that so much violence could occur over something they see as silly; its just cartoons, after all.

None of this helps in understanding or grappling with the issues hidden deep in these pictures of a prophet. They are cartoon thinking.

All people could be said to think in cartoons; there is no other way to organise our thinking except by symbolic images and stories. Some people are aware of this and some are not. Too many people confuse symbols and stories for their real environment. This is why it is so easy for demagogues and troublemakers in the Islamic and western worlds to manipulate people.

Many people will be extravagantly offended by this article. Like the Moslems and the Danes, they are responsible for their own reactions. Like all authentic advocacy of freedom of speech, this article aims at real understanding.

The background

Like most west European countries, Denmark has a substantial non European minority, including Moslems. They arrived because until twenty years ago Europe had a labour shortage. When unemployment increased in Europe, it proved impossible to send them back 'where they came from.'

Substantial xenophobia has developed in Denmark and other countries. European societies are long established and do not have the settler tradition of countries like Canada.

Relations between European Moslems and 'real' Danes, or Spaniards, or whatever, are further strained by the "clash" of western and Islamic "civilisations" that the ruling elite of the United States has declared, and which European elates have partly followed.

Good guys, bad guys.

This clash is a 'we are the good guys' story to cover off the aggression against Moslem lands containing the main sources of the worlds most important commodity; oil. Moslems, and especially arabs, are further aggravated by the Jewish Zionist campaign to establish a 'Jewish homeland' called Israel by displacing an existing, largely Arab Moslem, population.

In this type of 'good guy' story the enemy is called 'terrorist' and 'our' side are 'freedom fighters'. Moslems have been trying to drive western and Israeli armies out of their homelands. Western and Israeli armies have been killing, starving, and humiliating civilians in occupied moslem lands. Moslem resistance organisations have staged retaliatory attacks on civilian targets in Europe and the United States, usually with the help of local Moslem populations.

The reason Moslems are so touchy is that they see their community as under threat. They are being made the bad guys in a cartoon story drawn by an American fundamentalist establishment and so are indeed under dire threat. Christians do not react the same way to insults to their religion because their community is not threatened.

Nasty cartoons

Last year the editor of a newspaper in Denmark decided to 'test self censorship' by holding a contest for the 'best' cartoon portrayal of the prophet Mohammed. He published twelve cartoons. Three cartoons that were not published got into the hands of members of the Danish Islamic minority.

These three cartoons are not seen by many people in the west. They are said to be; Mohammed drawn as a pig, Mohammed as a pedophile, and a Moslem kneeling in prayer being sodomised by a dog. These are the kinds of 'art' usually drawn on wash room walls by people who are charitably described as 'inadequate.'

People who see only the twelve would not understand why the Moslems are so offended. And many Moslems do not seem to understand that these three were rejected and never published.

When members of the Danish Islamic community could get nowhere with their complaints, they went to Islamic countries and showed them to officials there.

Cartoon politics

Some 'leaders' of the Islamic world are competing to position themselves as champions of Islam against the west. They are trying to tell the best cartoon story with the Moslems as the good guys.

Numerous disturbances have occurred. In certain moslem countries, where normally 'rioters' are gunned down by police, mobs have burned down the Danish and other European embassies.

Denmark is a very minor power and safe to become violently indignant at. The government of Denmark has had to offer apologies for the cartoons, but has no laws to restrain the cartoon's publisher.

The president of Iran has improved his domestic position by announcing a contest for the best cartoons on the topic of the Jewish holocaust. This is further to his recent statements that this 'holocaust' never occurred.

The Americans turned French fries into 'freedom fries.' Now in Islamic countries Danish rolls have become 'roses of prophet Mohammed' rolls.

Speaking freely

The cartoon's publisher has never made any genuine apology. The deaths and turmoil caused by his provocations seem not to bother him. His simple minded story seems to be that it is all the Moslems fault; they are too primitive to comprehend 'free speech'.

There is great support in western society for his warped idea of 'free speech'. But a real test of free speech and purification from the sin of 'self censorship' would be to publish something to insult and provoke people with real power.

It seems blasphemy against Christian beliefs is still illegal in Denmark, as it is in Canada. Why not publish a cartoon on the theme of Jesus consorting with prostitutes? That is an old and well known slander against christianity.

But let us get really brave in defence of 'free speech' and hold a contest for the best 'holocaust denial' cartoon. Do it not in Iran but in one of the fifteen countries where denial of this Jewish cartoon version of their recent history can get you a jail term. This has happened lately in Austria.

These Danish cartoons promote what is called 'negative stereotyping' of Moslem culture, as violent and inferior. They were published because the publishers and authors saw only small risk of comebacks to them. From this it would seem that the idea of 'free speech' is an alibi for bullying cowards.

Contradicting the Dominant story

The idea of freedom of speech gets treated as something sacrosanct and vital to a democracy until some one gets into the really important topics. Nobodies and outsiders can be vilified, but the sacred cows of powerful groups cannot be spoken of. Where these zones of silence lay says much about where the real power lays in 'free' societies.

For example, nobody is bounding to the side of the dope in Austria who got caught by these 'holocaust denier' laws, declaiming "I disagree with what he says, but I fight to the death for his right to say it!" These laws are an offence against free speech if anything is.

Only an ass denies that the Nazis killed millions of people in their slave labour camps during the second world war, or tries to make alibis for them. But the official cartoon image version of history is rich with potential for 'historical revision'.

For example, even the holocaust historians of Vad Vashim in Israel have admitted that the soap story is false. Germans making soap bars out of corpses was a holdover from first world war propaganda. There was no people soap then, either.

What free speech is about

What is wrong with the Danish cartoons is that they they invite the stupid and cowardly to live in a two dimensional world drawn for them. Their authors ape the Jewish zionists and American imperialists. And the Islamic jihadist 'holy war on the infidels' cartoon story is equally stupid and destructive.

"Is there some way to 'resolve' all this" is merely another idiot cartoon story. The same with "people must discard illusions and live in 'The Truth' or in 'Reality'. There is no 'Truth' or 'Reality'. All 'real world' knowledge is indirect and all thought is manipulation of symbolic images.

What would help is if more people understood that their thoughts are symbolic images, but there are ways to bring our thoughts into close conformity with what is happening in the world about us. One way is to understand that while there is no sure way to tell what is true and real, it is possible to be sure of what is false and unreal.

The world is full of people who want to control others by telling them what to think. Often this is subliminal; cartoon images. It is more hazardous to say "no, that is wrong". That is what the concept of freedom of speech is for; to protect the image breakers, not the image makers.

Hopefully, this is a clear enough picture.