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February 03, 2006
Danish Newspaper Sparks Culture Clash
Good morning, class. Today's lesson is a thought experiment in the responsible exercise of free expression.
Let's pretend that the New York Times magazine wants to publish an article about the reluctance of some Catholic families to allow their sons to be alter boys in the wake of allegations that several priests in a particular parish sexually abused many children.
Next, let's pretend that NYT magazine's art director really liked to push the envelope, so he or she asks Andres Serrano to illustrate the feature article. The resulting photo, "Lube Priest," shows a half-empty jar of Vaseline, a full set of Rosary beads sullied by drops of some unknown liquid, a pair of size-6 Superman briefs, a crumpled black shirt with a clerical collar and a small photo of the Pope in an ornate gold frame.
The photo shows these objects in artful disarray on the floor as though they've been tossed there in a hurry. The foot of a bed, with a lump of twisted sheets, towers over this twisted still life in the background of the photo. Although we see only a fragment of the bed, it seems enormous and ominous and it overpowers the other objects. After publication of the article and illustration, some art critics hail "Lube Priest" as a masterpiece, others dimiss it as drivel and ACLU types defend the photo and newspaper by invoking the Constitution.
Since this is a thought experiment, your assignment is to imagine how Christians, Catholic and otherwise, might respond. Would they:
1. Salute the New York Times for fully exercising the rights of a free press by commissioning this illustration?
2. Personally regret the actions of the New York Times but support it publicly because of American respect and veneration for an independent press and press freedom?
3. Castigate the New York Times editors as atheist lunkheads and inundate them with sharply worded criticism, anonymous bomb threats, cancelled subscriptions, mass prayer protests on the sidewalk outside its building and other expressions of extreme outrage?
I suspect many people would choose number 3. I'm guessing a commissioned illustration with sticky Rosary beads, the Pope, a priest's collar and little boy's underpants would create a massive, immediate uproar. People would call for the illustration to be removed from the newspaper's web site, for the original to be destroyed, for the newspaper to apologize for its deeply offensive act and for the art director to be fired.
I would hope no Catholics expressed their anger violently. But some deeply religious anti-abortionists have killed doctors and bombed clinics, so I suppose it's both possible and indefensible.
In any case, I suspect Christians might explain why their anger is justified by saying something like this:
"In calling for an end to the display of this blasphemy ... people were not asking that their fragile sense of identity or boundaries be left undisturbed, but that their God be respected. ..."
Or they might say, if critics insisted on defending Serrano's art and its publication, something like this:
"To think a religious object can be extracted from its context and ‘purified,' ‘restored' or ‘improved' by doing to it something unthinkable among adherents of that tradition, is condescension. ..."
In fact, that's exactly what some people did say in response to Serrano's real-life "Piss Christ." And I'm thinking that outsiders, including non-Catholics and agnostics, understand why "Piss Christ" was deeply offensive to Catholics. And they would understand why Christians would be livid if the New York Times had specifically commissioned "Piss Christ."
Everybody with me so far? Good. Now, deliberately commissioning an illustration that a large number of people are guaranteed to find blasphemous and, thus, deeply offensive rarely occurs to editors but apparently it happens. An editor at Jyllands-Posten in Denmark heard about the difficulty a Danish author had in finding an illustrator for a children's book about Muhammad. Artists were afraid to illustrate the book for fear that they might be threatened. That's because images of Muhammad are considered blasphemous by most Muslims.
But Denmark isn't Iraq or Iran, so why the hell should Danish illustrators be too cowed to whip out a few editorial cartoons featuring Mohammad? I suspect the editor's thinking might have run alone that line and contributed to the newspaper's decision last September to publish an article about the issue, along with 12 caricatures of Mohammad it commissioned as illustrations.
This was not an especially wise move. Some of the illustrators now have guards. A boycott of Arla products has cost the Danish-Swedish dairy company millions. The newspaper has received bomb threats, Scandinavian citizens have been asked to leave certain areas, and it's possible that someone will die because of these stupid, stereotypical, offensive (one Mohammad has a bomb in his turban) and, yes, blasphemous images.
Several European newspapers have republished the images in support of the Danish newspaper, which issued on of those lame, Harry Shearer-ish type of non-apology apologies a few days back. Several other newspapers are under pressure to run the illustrations but have wisely refused. One British newspaper reader whined that the papers kowtowing to a misguided sense of political correctness. Hmm. Not everybody in the U.K. supports the monarchy but the mainstream papers don't run Photoshopped pictures of a nude Queen having sex with a servant. Is that political correctness? I don't think so.
There's an enormous cultural clash here. Westerners don't get it. Illustrations are no big deal to us. I've seen comments that Muslims should just "get over it." But that's like asking Britains to think it's okay if the London Times uses the Queen in some horrifying way or asking Catholics to be cool about a naked Pope and a poodle shown in Time magazine. Would we take such images in stride? I don't think so.
The New York Times piece on the controversy gives short shrift to the seriousness of the issue. "An international dispute over European newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by some [my emphasis] Muslims gained momentum on Thursday when gunmen threatened the European Union offices in Gaza and more European papers pointedly published the drawings as an affirmation of freedom of speech."
The New York Times reporter notes that he conflict "is the latest manifestation of growing tensions between Europe and the Muslim world as the Continent struggles to absorb a fast-expanding Muslim population whose customs and values are often at odds with Europe's secular societies." But not so fast. The Muslim population in Denmark is a lousy 4 percent. Maybe the Times could have mentioned that fact, but no.
The AP's Richard N. Ostling does a much better job of setting the controversy in context: "The spreading Muslim protests against newspapers that reprinted cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad stem from the deepest religious roots. Islam forbids visual depictions of the prophet, and regards violations by Muslims as highly sinful and by non-Muslims as the ultimate insult. The prohibition is in part an application of the Koran's strict opposition to idolatry. ...
"The Koran does not specifically address artwork of Muhammad, and through history a few Muslims have painted him. But the ban has been virtually universal in all branches of the faith from its earliest days. ... Zahik Bukhari, director of Georgetown University's American Muslim Studies Program, says the cartoons, first published in Denmark, constitute a triple offense for Muslims: first by depicting Muhammad at all; second by treating him disrespectfully; and third because 'in the present circumstance it is a symbol of the clash of civilizations that they want to insult the prophet and the whole of Islam.' "
Last I checked, the practioners of a faith get to decide what's blasphemous and what's not blasphemous. That is not up to outsiders to determine, no matter how much we want to.
The Danish paper ought to issue a real apology, not a pretend apology. According to one of the illustrators who works in the paper's art department, the newspaper's editor is a jerk who was itching to be provocative. Well, the editor was provocative all right. Not smart, not thoughtful, not educational. Just provocative. And now Norway, Sweden, Denmark and their citizens get to pay the price. Thanks a fucking pantload, as Denise Caruso might say.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at February 3, 2006 01:50 PM