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Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK,
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
International Migration Vol. 44 (5) 2006
ISSN 0020-7985
The Danish Cartoon Affair:
Free Speech, Racism,
Islamism, and Integration
Contributors:
Professor Tariq Modood, University of Bristol, is currently working on multi-
cultural challenges to secularism, including a Leverhulme Programme project
on British National Identity, Religion and “Difference”. His next book, Multi-
culturalism: A Civic Idea, Polity Press, appears in April 2007.
Professor Randall Hansen, University of Toronto, organized this debate. He
became interested in the controversy for two reasons. First, as he witnessed the
events unfolding in late 2005 and early 2006 it seemed to him that the whole
crisis raised basic questions about multiculturalism, religious accommodation, and
integration. Second, the crisis coincided with an email debate that he was having
with members of the political science department at the University of Toronto
(including Joseph Carens) about how liberals should react to an event, organized
here, entitled “Israeli Apartheid week”. He is the author of Citizenship and Immi-
gration in Postwar Britain (OUP, 2000). His website is www.randallhansen.ca.
Professor Erik Bleich, Middlebury College, is the author of Race Politics in
Britain and France: Ideas and Policymaking since the 1960s (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2003) and has written extensively on issues of ethnic minority
integration in Western Europe. His current research focuses on state responses
to hate crimes and other forms of ethnic, racial, and religious violence.
Professor Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania, is the author,
co-author, or co-editor of 15 books, including Terror, Insurgency and the State
(2007), Understanding Northern Ireland: Colonialism, Control and Consociation
(2007), The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq (2005), and The Northern Ireland
Conflict (2004). He is now evaluating the stability of pluralist federations and
consociations.
Professor Joseph H. Carens, University of Toronto, is the author of a book on
multiculturalism (Culture, Citizenship, and Community, Oxford University Press
2000) and is completing a book on the ethics of immigration tentatively titled
Who Belongs? Immigration, Democracy, and Citizenship.
4The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
The Liberal Dilemma:
Integration or Vilification?
1
Tariq Modood
The origins of the infamous Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad do not
lie in an attempt to offer contemporary comment, let alone satire, but the desire
to illustrate a children’s book. While such pictures would have been distasteful
to many Muslims – hence why no illustrator could be found – the cartoons are
in an entirely different league of offence. They are all unfriendly to Islam and
Muslims and the most notorious implicate the Prophet with terrorism. If the
message was meant to be that non-Muslims have the right to draw Muhammad,
it has come out very differently: that the Prophet of Islam was a terrorist.
Moreover, the cartoons are not just about one individual but about Muslims per
se – just as a cartoon portraying Moses as a crooked financier would not be
about one man but a comment on Jews. And just as the latter would be racist, so
are the cartoons in question.
That does not in itself mean such cartoons should be banned. One relies on the
sensitivity and responsibility of individuals and institutions to refrain from what
is legal but unacceptable. Where these qualities are missing one relies on public
debate and censure to provide standards and restraints. Hence, where matters
are not or cannot easily be regulated by law one relies on protest as well as
empathy. This is how most racist speech and images and other free expressions
(e.g. the use of golliwogs as commercial brands or British television’s Black
and White Minstrel Show) have been censured – rather than censored – away.
Sometimes legal intervention is also necessary. For example, when there is a
serious risk of incitement to hatred; or when the “fighting talk” is likely to
inflame passions and risk public order; or when it is likely to reinforce prejudice
and lead to acts of discrimination or victimization.
In recognition of this, the British parliament passed a bill on 31 January 2006 to
protect against incitement to religious hatred. Yet it was only passed after mem-
bers of both houses of parliament – supported by much of the liberal intelligen-
tsia – forced the government to accept amendments that weakened its initial
proposals. A key sticking point for the critics – that incitement must require the
intention to stir up hatred – reveals a blind spot in liberal thinking that the Danish
cartoon case amplifies.
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The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
If the intention of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was not to cause
offence, there clearly was a purpose of trying to achieve some kind of victory
over Muslims, to bring Muslims into line – especially as it has recently emerged
that the same paper refused to print cartoons ridiculing Jesus because they
risked offending some Christians (see G. Fouché, “Danish paper rejected Jesus
cartoons”, Guardian, 6 February 2006).
The Danish editor cannot plead ignorance about the effect the cartoons would
have on Muslims, for the whole exercise was premised on the view that a
collective effort involving 12 cartoonists was necessary to withstand Muslim
opposition. As for the republication of the cartoons across continental Europe,
this was deliberately done to teach Muslims a lesson.
A hole in the mind
But the cartoons themselves are a trigger rather than the main issue, for everyone
– Muslims and non-Muslims – “views” them (whether literally or imaginatively)
in a wider domestic and international context that is already deeply contested.
From the Muslim side, the underlying causes of their current anger are a deep
sense that they are not respected, that they and their most cherished feelings are
“fair game”. Inferior protective legislation, socio-economic marginality, cultural
disdain, draconian security surveillance, the occupation of Palestine, the inter-
national “war on terror” all converge on this point. The cartoons cannot be
compared to some of these situations, but they do distil the experience of infe-
riority and of being bossed around. A handful of humiliating images become a
focal point for something much bigger than themselves.
This at least helps to explain if not condone some of the violent protests in
several Muslim cities, and the language of some of the initial protestors in places
like Copenhagen and London. Such behaviour is wholly unacceptable and does
great damage to the cause of the protestors and to the standing of Muslims in
general. Yet while violent protests do not win Muslims many friends, they are
not the principal reason for a lack of sympathy for Muslims. Much more real
estate has been burnt and more lives lost and endangered in protests in, say,
Detroit or Los Angeles; in cases like that protest has been understood by many
commentators and politicians as legitimate rage to be addressed by positive
socio-economic policies.
Two factors are critical to the lack of sympathy for Muslims in Europe. First,
there is a lack of recognition that the way that Muslims are treated is a form of
racism – after all it is less than 15 years ago that Britain’s Commission for Racial
Equality and most British anti-racists denied that the vilification of Muslims was
6The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
a form of racism. Most of continental Europe has hardly begun to have that
debate. The suggestion that Muslims are not the subject of racism because they
are a religious group is nonsense when one considers that the victimization of
another religious group, the Jews, is paradigmatic of many peoples’ under-
standing of racism, especially on the continent.
The second reason is the idea – prevalent among anti-racists, the progressive
intelligentsia, and beyond – that religious people are not worthy of protection;
more than that, they should be subject to not just intellectual criticism but mockery
and ridicule.
The idea is that religion represents Europe’s pre-enlightenment dark age of super-
stition and clerical authoritarianism and so has to be constantly kept at bay.
Look at how Richard Dawkins in the recent Channel 4 series, The Root of all
Evil, traduces faith by identifying all religious people with the worst cases.
This understanding of religion is deep in the culture of the centre-left intelligen-
tsia and is what is being appealed to in the current sloganeering around “free-
dom of expression”. That’s why, when Muslims counter by citing what
Europeans regard as acceptable limits to freedom of speech (e.g., the imprison-
ment of holocaust deniers), it cuts little ice; for no one actually disagrees with
limits to freedom of expression as such, it is just that some will not limit it in the
field of religion. In this, liberals are no less following a creed, indeed are no less
fundamentalist, than some of those who they want to be free to abuse.
Marginal or equal?
Satirizing clericalism may have been emancipatory, but vilifying the marginal
and exhorting integration is a contradiction. For radical secularism – no less
than aspects of the “this is our country, you Muslims will have to put up with
our ways” right-wing nationalism – is an obstacle to Muslims becoming in-
cluded in Europe and coming to have a sense of being part of Europe.
Europe has to choose which is more important, the right to ridicule Muslims or
the integration of Muslims. If the Danish cartoons have not been reprinted in
Britain it is because we came to this fork in the road with the Satanic Verses
affair. While we could not be said to have made a decisive choice there is greater
understanding in Britain about anti-Muslim racism and about the vilification-
integration contradiction than in some other European countries.
This is not to say that Muslim sensibilities must be treated as fixed. They too
will rightly change and adapt to new contexts. The point is that this cannot be a
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© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
one-way process. Civic integration and international interdependence – let alone
anything as ambitious as a dialogue of civilizations – means that there has to be
mutual learning and movement on both/all sides, not just the hurling of absolutes
at each other. This is not just a matter of compromise but of multicultural inclu-
sion: Muslim sensibilities, concerns and agendas should be knitted into society
just as is the case when other marginalized groups or classes are accepted as
democratic equals.
The current temper of the controversy in Britain – in particular the non-publication
of the cartoons – is a sign of some progress since the Satanic Verses affair. But
we have only just begun on a long journey and the task of carrying our European
Union partners with us makes it more uphill. The important thing is not to lose
focus. If the goal is multicultural integration, then we must curb anti-Muslim
racism and exercise restraint in the uses of freedom directed against religious
people – who, after all, are a minority in Europe. While in the United States, the
Christian right stand in the way of civic integration, the secularist intelligentsia
needs to consider whether it is not playing the same role on our continent.
NOTE
1. This essay was originally published on the independent online magazine
www.open democracy.net on 8 February 2006. The responses below grew out of
an email exchange between some members of the Ethnicity and Democratic Gov-
ernance Project, a new international Canadian-based five-year major collabora-
tive research project detailed at www.edg-gde.ca.
The Danish Cartoon Controversy:
A Defence of Liberal Freedom
1
Randall Hansen
The Danish cartoon controversy,2 which erupted following the publication by
a conservative Danish daily of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, pro-
voked popular passions and intellectual debate that recalled the 1988-1989 Rushdie
8The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
affair. In this piece, I review the Danish cartoon controversy and offer a robust
defence of the right to free expression that, importantly, rejects the notion that
Islam and the West are split by any immutable differences of principle. The
“clash of civilizations” thesis is another rendition of the argument made dozens
of times in the settler societies – against Germans, Jews, Italians, Asians, and
East Europeans – that this current batch of immigrants is for reason x harder to
integrate than previous waves of immigration. Against this argument stands the
weight of history: all of these groups have integrated into Canada, the United
States, and Australia. The precedent suggests the same will be true of Muslim
migrants; indeed, in most cases, it is already true. The corollary of rejecting the
thesis of Muslim exceptionalism, however, is the rejection of any claim to religious,
in this case, Muslim preference: like all actors living within the liberal state,
observant Muslims’ beliefs are to be respected, but they are to be accommodated
within the norms and principles that underpin the liberal constitutional state.
They cannot be accommodated through a revision of those norms and principles.
Events, dear boy, events:
the development of the Danish cartoon crisis
On 17 September 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken published an article
titled “A profound fear of criticizing Islam”, which discussed the difficulties
encountered by a Danish writer, Kare Bluitgen, in finding an illustrator for a
children’s book. The paper attributed its difficulties to self-censorship. Two
weeks later, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Jyllands-Posten is a conservative newspaper with a circulation of 175,000, the
largest in Denmark. It has close ties to the Prime Minister of Denmark, Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, whose coalition includes the far-right Danish People’s party.
Its core demographic is made up of farmers and the provincial middle class. It
had never published anything that would offend their religious sensibilities
(Klausen, 2006).
The cartoons themselves, depending on one’s tastes, varied from the anodyne
and perhaps even amusing to the offensive. One was a subtle attack on the
paper itself: in it, Muhammad is not the Prophet but rather a young boy, a
second-generation migrant. He points to a chalkboard script: “The editorial team
of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of reactionary provocateurs”. The most offensive
portrays Muhammad with a bomb, replete with a lit fuse, in his turban. It was
penned by a member of Jyllands-Posten’s staff.
Following the publication of the cartoons, Muslim groups in Denmark launched
a series of protests. All of these fell well within what we would regard as regular
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Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
interest group activity. The Islamic Society of Denmark demanded an apology
and the withdrawal on the cartoons on 9 October, and 5,000 people held a
peaceful protest at the Copenhagen offices of Jyllands-Posten on 14 October.
At this moment, the crisis became international. On 19 October, ambassadors
from 11 Islamic countries requested a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister,
Rasmussen, to discuss the cartoons. He refused, citing free speech and his
government’s unwillingness to influence editorial opinion. A week later, Muslim
organizations in Denmark filed a complaint against the paper, claiming the pub-
lication constituted blasphemy under a rarely invoked section of the Danish
criminal code. At the end of the month, there were the first signs of what was
to come. Muslim youth, possibly taking inspiration from the French suburbs,
rioted in a suburb of Aarhus, citing in part the cartoons as justification.
Until this point, the story was a Danish one. Then, with the court case un-
decided, a delegation of imams headed off to the Middle East with a 43-page
document titled “Dossier about championing the Prophet Muhammad peace be
upon him”. The dossier contained the 12 caricatures, pictures from another
Danish newspaper, anti-Muslim hate mail, a televised interview with Dutch
member of parliament Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who received the Freedom Prize
from the Danish Liberal Party, and three additional images. The last included a
picture of a man with a pig’s face. The dossier claimed that this was an insulting
representation of the Prophet Muhammad, but it was in fact the winner of a
French pig-squealing contest that had nothing to do with Islam. The delegation’s
spokesperson was Ahmed Akkari. Akkari was secretly filmed by a French TV
crew suggesting, to the delegation’s head, Sheikh Raed Hlayhel, that Naser Khader
– a moderate, integrationist Muslim and member of the Danish parliament – be
bombed. When confronted, Akkari rediscovered his sense of humour (though
he remained irony-blind): he was only joking. It was a form of expression pre-
sumably covered by free speech principles.
In early 2006, things began to get ugly. A Norwegian newspaper republished the
cartoons, followed by other papers and the Brussels Journal, which published
all 12 cartoons. On 24 January, Saudi Arabia publicly condemned the cartoons,
followed by Yemen and Syria. Libya closed its embassy in Denmark. The Dan-
ish flag was burned in Nablus and Hebron, on the West Bank. Jyllands-Posten,
clearly taken aback by the events it unleashed, issued two apologies for hurting
Muslim feelings, though not for publishing the cartoons. They had no effect.
On 30 January, armed gunmen in the Gaza strip stormed the European Union
(EU) office in Gaza, threatening to kidnap the workers unless the EU issued an
official apology. Hamas’s leader demanded that Denmark punish the cartoonists
and Jyllands-Posten.
10 The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
By February, one French, four German, one Italian, one Spanish, one American,
and three Dutch publications had decided to publish (some or all of) the cartoons.
Publishers in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, India, Ire-
land, New Zealand, and South Korea followed suit. Demonstrations were orga-
nized outside the Danish embassy in London, during which radical Islamists
brandished placards stating: “Slay [also butcher/massacre/behead/exterminate]
those who insult Islam”, “Free speech go to hell”, “Europe is the cancer and
Islam is the cure”, and “Europe will pay, your 9/11 is on its way”. In the Middle
East, Syria and Lebanon decided to instrumentalize the crisis. In Damascus,
demonstrations (with direct or indirect government assistance) were organized
outside the Swedish and Danish embassies, and the building housing both was
set on fire by a mob. The Norwegian embassy was next, and it too burned. In
Beirut, protesters set the Danish embassy ablaze. In Gaza, the same happened to
a German cultural centre. Demonstrations became ever more violent, and in
Somalia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan people were killed. When the protests
finally ended, some 139 people were dead.
Reactions in the EU and the West
As the accusations of Western hypocrisy and Islamophobia became ever louder,
reactions in the West became ever more accommodating. The EU protested the
burning of the embassies, but balked at the prospect of collectively withdrawing
its ambassadors. In the face of the unofficially encouraged boycott of Danish
products, the EU threatened vague retaliation, but did nothing. As Danish flags
burned – the protestors demanding respect for religious symbols that matter to
them but showing none for the national symbols of others – the EU remained
silent. The EU’s reaction was nothing short of feeble.
The United Nations (UN) had entered the fracas in the autumn. Under pressure
from Muslim countries, some of whose records on tolerance are hardly without
blemish, it requested observations from the Permanent Danish Mission to the
UN and launched an investigation into the cartoons’ “racism”. Next, the Council
of Europe attacked the Danish government’s invocation of free speech as a
defence of the cartoons. The cartoons were “insulting” and a “seam of intoler-
ance” characterized the Danish media.
Finally, major politicians – active and retired – offered their pronouncements.
Tony Blair and George Bush, according to Guardian commentator Jonathan
Steele, showed their “good sense….by siding with left-wing and liberal critics
of the offensive drawings’ publication”. But it was Bill Clinton who went fur-
thest in attacking the cartoons, describing them as “totally outrageous” and
comparing European Islamophobia today with pre-war anti-Semitism.
11
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© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
Whither freedom of speech?
In the midst of the furore, those who defended the cartoons in the name of free
speech – the Millian principle that we may hate what people say but will defend
to the death their right to say it – found themselves isolated and their motivations
impugned. They were at best hypocritical, and worst racist. As a Research
Fellow at the University of Manchester put it:
A chorus of European commentators have invoked the freedom to speak as a
smokescreen for the crudest form of racist vilification. In addition to Israel, this
racist vilification spans at least 13 European states. The constellation of
responses spanning media coverage cannot have escaped anyone’s attention.
Reminiscent of the liberal inquisition pursued by western commentators during
the Rushdie affair in 1989, we are yet again witnessing attempts to denigrate
legitimate Muslim political expression. Back then Muslims merely questioned
the conventional criteria of free speech. Now, however, they recognize free
speech as the red herring in an Islamophobic onslaught…These cartoons can-
not be located in the tradition of European satire, but they can be located within
the tradition of racist representation, currently directed at Europe’s powerless
minorities (Nabi, 2006).
If there was a “chorus”, it was barely audible; the majority of liberal newspaper
commentators and scholars did everything they could to judge the motives of
the cartoon’s publishers – they were racist, wanted to provoke, in partnership
with the right-wing government, and so on – and to relativize that of the violent
protestors – they were frustrated with poverty, social exclusion, discrimination,
the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. When an earlier version of this paper
was sent to the misnamed website OpenDemocracy, they rejected it on the
grounds that their coverage had “moved on”. Some weeks later, the headline
story sung from what has become the standard scholarly song sheet: “the Mus-
lim protest…challenges the conceits of liberal democracy”.
The equation of the cartoons with racism has become so common (a Google
search of “Danish cartoons” and “racist” produces 232,000 hits) that it is rarely,
if ever, questioned. It should be. Three possibilities present themselves. The
first is that the cartoonists and editors are themselves racist. They might well
be, but the cartoons themselves do not provide a doorway into their heads. The
second is that Denmark is a particularly anti-Islamic society, and that the pub-
lication of the cartoons reflects that hostility. Again, this might be the case, but
it might not. Comparative public opinion polls, content analysis of editorials, and
studies of day-to-day discrimination faced by Muslims would shed light on this
question. The cartoons themselves tell us nothing. The third is that the cartoons
equate Muslims with terrorists.
12 The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
Do they? The question is open to interpretation, but none of the cartoons por-
trayed stereotypically looking Muslims; they were not, as many claimed, the
equivalent of der Stürmer’s hooked nose, bearded Jew reaching into a pot of
gold. The most offensive cartoons portray Muhammad with an unsheathed sword
and with a lit bomb in his turban. They seem to equate Islam with terrorism, to
argue that Islam is an essentially violent and deadly religion. This is of course
nonsense, but is it racism? It is not. It is hatred of a religion. And in a liberal
society, there is and must be a distinction between racism and religious hatred,
for the simple reason that while there can be no acceptable reason to object to
“blackness” there are many good reasons to object to religion, whether Chris-
tianity, Judaism, or Islam. Many people believe, not without historical evidence,
that religion encourages intolerance and violence (how many throats have been
slashed in religion’s name?) and oppresses women and minorities (think of all
three religion’s attitude toward gays). In a liberal democratic society, religion is,
like it or not, a fair target for criticism, satire and, fortunately or unfortunately,
mockery and ridicule.
This point relates to the question of whether the cartoons were hate speech, the
only conceivable grounds for censoring them. Most of them were not. The
sword/bomb cartoons came closest, but again only if they are read as equating
Muslims with terrorists, or if it can be shown that they provoked attacks on
Muslims. As far as we know, they only provoked attacks by Muslims.
Some might reject the hatred of religion/hatred of race distinction as untenable
on the grounds that putative hostility to religion masks a deep-suited hostility to
Muslim people. Tariq Modood (2006) argues this case, pointing to two pieces
of evidence: “First, the suggestion that Muslims are not the subject of racism
because they are a religious group is nonsense when one considers that the
victimization of another religious group, the Jews, is paradigmatic of many
peoples’ understanding of racism, especially on the continent”. Second, there is
an “idea – prevalent among anti-racists, the progressive intelligentsia, and beyond,
that religious people are not worthy of protection; more than that, they should
be subject not just intellectual criticism but mockery and ridicule” .
The first argument oversimplifies the matter. A religious group may be trans-
formed by racists into an ethno-racial group, which is exactly what happened to
the Jews. There are, of course, clear cut instances when Muslims are attacked
because they are Muslim: women wearing the hijab are spat on, men with beards
or who otherwise appear Muslim are denied jobs. Such and similar incidents are
depressingly common. Islamophobia does exist, but this does not mean that
every injustice suffered by Muslims – social exclusion, poverty, physical and
verbal attacks – can be related back to a hatred of religion. In many if not most
cases, those committing the injustice could not distinguish a Muslim from a
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Hindu and are motivated by nothing other than base racism. Many of those who
invoke September 11th as an excuse for attacking Muslims would have attacked
them pre-September 11th as Asians, Pakistanis, or Indians. Some readers may
view the hatred of religion/hatred of race distinction as one without a difference,
but there are broader issues at stake. Some of those who are quickest to claim
Islamophobia – and I cite the Muslim Council of Britain here – have an interest
in essentializing Muslims, placing their religious identity above their nationality,
ethnicity, sexuality, or any other sort of attachment they might have. Rather than
being Pakistanis, Indians, Saudi Arabians, Britons, Germans, Londoners, Berliners,
Europeans, cosmopolitans, gays, atheists, workers, or anything else, the foun-
dation of their identity can only be Islam (Adamson, 2006). And their spokespeople
head an organization that denounces homosexuality as a sin, does not include
Muslims gays and lesbians, and refuses to recognize Holocaust Memorial Day.
Modood’s second argument can be easily dismissed. Defenders of free speech do
not hold that religion should be subject to mockery; they hold that it can be subject
to mockery. In a liberal democratic society, religion is, like it or not, a fair target
for criticism, satire and, fortunately or unfortunately, mockery and ridicule.
Hypocrisy and free speech: the case of holocaust denial
Defenders of free speech are frequently accused of hypocrisy because of the
West’s treatment of the holocaust: it criminalizes holocaust denial while allow-
ing Muslims to be mocked, ridiculed, and vilified. While this argument seems
superficially appealing, it too is unsustainable for three reasons. First, banning
holocaust denial while allowing the ridicule of religion is not inherently hypo-
critical. Liberal thinkers have long admitted exceptions of freedom of speech,
and it might be argued that criminalizing holocaust denial is an acceptable limit
while limits on religious satire are not. Denying a historical fact is not the same
thing as mocking a religion. The accusation of hypocrisy would only make
sense if it were the case that any limit on freedom of speech was evidence of
hypocrisy; clearly this is not so. Second, holocaust denial is hardly illegal across
all of Europe, though that is the most common position; it is perfectly legal in
the United Kingdom and in Denmark. Third, and most importantly, there are
many liberals – including Ronald Dworkin and Deborah Lipstadt (and the au-
thor) – who believe that such laws should be overturned in the name of freedom
of speech and who oppose the recent imprisonment of historian David Irving
under Austria’s holocaust denial laws.
Who’s the hypocrite now?
The real hypocrisy and inconsistency would be if Western countries protected
some religions but failed to protect others. They do not. When Christian
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fundamentalists burn abortion clinics, demand the teaching of education and
prayer in school, and attempt to have homosexuals fired, they are told that their
religious beliefs are inconsistent with liberal constitutional values. If any religion
has been treated with leniency and indulgence, it is Islam. As noted, in the
weeks since the protests erupted, major politicians – George Bush, Tony Blair,
Jack Straw, and Bill Clinton – and liberal intellectuals (see the contributions to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/0,,1703418,00.html) have lined up
to denounce the cartoons; they have urged self-censorship; and they have
expressed sympathy with offended Muslims. I doubt that Christian fun-
damentalists would receive such an empathetic response under comparable cir-
cumstances. If, following the screening of the Last Temptation of Christ, Christian
fundamentalists had burned theatres, and held placards in Times Square saying
“Death to you and your Freedoms”, the response from the liberal intelligentsia
and politicians would have been total condemnation. I find it unlikely that either
would justify their actions with reference to the difficulty of living in a world
that does not respect one’s deepest beliefs, or explain that years of seeing babies
murdered (which is what abortion is for Christian fundamentalists), deviant
lifestyles flaunted, and insulting representations of Christians (think of the Church
Lady on Saturday Night Live) led to a level frustration that boiled over because of
the film.
One ironic element in the whole crisis was that the real hypocrites were not
identified. They were not observant, non-violent Muslims: it is entirely right of
them to let their offence be known, and to protest, as Catholics and Jews do, a
failure to respect their religion. They only have to accept that they may not
convince everyone that it or any religion is worth respecting. Nor, for that
matter, were the violent Muslims hypocritical: the position of those few who
shouted “massacre those who insult Islam” was all too clear and consistent.
Neither were Danes hypocritical: Denmark has some of the most robust free
expression laws in the world. It is the home, against German protests, of many
publishers of neo-Nazi propaganda, and it hosted, against Russian accusations
of support for terrorism, a Chechen congress. Danish courts rejected police
demands that a journalist reveal his sources for a story on Islamic extremists in
Denmark. Danish artists have with impunity painted murals of Jesus with an
erect penis and made films portraying him as a sexually active terrorist. The
country consistently ranks near the top of “Reporters without Borders” world-
wide index of press freedom. Since the crisis erupted, there has been much talk
of the importance of context – particularly broader Muslim frustration and deeply
held prejudice in Denmark – but little has been said about this libertarian Danish
context. In failing to placate Muslim demands for censorship and/or apology,
the Danes were on one level treating them as citizens rather than foreigners.
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The real hypocrites in the debate were liberal intellectuals, too many to name,
who spent years denouncing Christian fundamentalist demands for prayer in
and the teaching of evolution in schools, the censorship of books and films,
limits on abortion, only to cave to fundamentalist Muslim demands: for the
introduction of Shari‘a law, for separate swimming classes for boys and girls,
and – in the Danish case – for the respect for religious rules not only by
members of the religious group but by the society at large. Portraying the Prophet
may be prohibited for Muslims, but it is not and cannot be for anyone else.
Muslims may ask that others respect their religion’s precepts, but they cannot
demand it any more than observant Jews can demand that their fellow citizens
not shop on Saturdays or Christians can demand that non-believers respect their
sexual mores. That liberal intellectuals could be so absolutist in their dismissal of
the demands made by Christian fundamentalists but so apologist and relativist in
their indulgence of those made by Muslim fundamentalists beggars belief.
Muslim exceptionalism?
One argument for a Muslim “opt-out” of the liberal free speech requirement might
be that Muslims take their religion more seriously than Jews or Christians. I know
many Jews and Christians who would disagree, but let’s admit the possibility. If
we do, then there is a problem. Academics, including myself, have for years
rejected as bigoted the argument that Muslims are particularly difficult, relative to
earlier generations of migrants, to integrate. Many of those angered by the cartoons
would also reject the claim, but they cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue
that Muslim integration does not present particular challenges and that religion
is so important to Muslim identity that our conception of and laws on freedom
of speech have to be changed. Because if the latter were the case, then Muslim
integration would raise particular challenges and present particular difficulties.
For my part, I am convinced that it does not. I am sure it is the case that many
Muslims are deeply and genuinely offended by the Danish cartoons, and I sym-
pathize with them. But this offence is the price of living in a liberal society, one
that has been paid by many groups before. Soldiers in Canada or Britain who were
disgusted by the thought of serving in the army with homosexuals have been
told they must; Christians and feminists who object to pornography have been
told that others have a right to view such material; Bavarian Catholics who
demanded a crucifix in every school were told that respect for other religions in
Germany meant that they couldn’t. Elderly Jews, including holocaust survivors,
have been told that they could not stop neo-Nazis from marching past their
front windows. Going back further, racists have been told that their deepest
convictions were unacceptable. In these as in many other cases, people have
been told that their firmly held beliefs and attitudes were inconsistent with liberal
democracy and that, however important those beliefs and however offensive a
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failure to respect them was, they simply had to accept it. So it is with those Muslims
who think that their religion is above satire and mockery. It is not; no religion is.
At the end of the piece cited earlier, Modood presents Europe with a choice: it
has to decide which is more important, the right to ridicule Muslims or the
integration of them. This gets it entirely wrong. It is not Europe that has to
choose; it is rather those who wish to restrict free speech, whether they be
Muslim or non-Muslim, citizens or non-citizens, recent immigrants or long-
standing permanent residents. They have to decide whether they wish to live in
a liberal democratic society. If they do, they have to accept that they will hear
and see things that offend them, sometimes deeply. They are free to protest
them peacefully, but not to demand their criminal sanction. They will hopefully
do this in the knowledge that that same liberal democracy sustains many values
and practices from which they benefit and that they cherish. In the end, the
same liberal democratic values that protect a right to practice one’s religion, to
maintain one’s distinctive cultural practices, to be reunited with one’s family
through family reunification, protect the right of free speech. It is part of the
liberal democratic framework, not a negotiable addition to it.
NOTES
1. This piece first appeared in EUSA Review, 2006, 19(2), Spring: 1-6. I am grateful to
Amy Verdun and the editors of the Review for granting permission to reproduce
the piece here.
2. I have discussed the issues raised in this essay with many people, and I am
grateful for their comments: Emmanuel Adler, Fiona Adamson, Erik Bleich, Joseph
Carens, Matthew Gibney, Todd Lawson, Rahsaan Maxwell, Shourideh Molaei,
Shahreen Reza, Phil Triadafilopolous, Gokce Yurdakul, Melissa Williams.
REFERENCES
Adamson, F.
2006 “‘Muslim’ as a politicized identity category: changing discourses of “im-
migrant” mobilization and political incorporation in Western Europe”,
paper presented at the Council of European Studies conference, Chicago,
29 March-1 April 2006.
Klausen, J.
2006 “Rotten judgment in the state of Denmark”, Der Spiegel, 8 March 2006,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,399653,00.html.
Modood, T.
2006 “The liberal dilemma: integration or vilification?”, Open Democracy, http://
www. opendemocracy.net/faith-terrorism/liberal_dilemma_3249.jsp.
Nabi, S.
2006 “Honing European traditions”, OpenDemocracy, http://www.opendemocracy.
net/faith-europe_islam/muslim_cartoons_3244. jsp#seven.
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On Democratic Integration and Free
Speech: Response to Tariq Modood
and Randall Hansen
Erik Bleich
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to these thought-provoking essays
by Tariq Modood and Randall Hansen, as they touch on issues of perennial
concern to citizens of liberal democracies. The terms of Muslim integration and
the protections granted to freedom of speech are particularly pressing issues in
the wake of recent events, and the Danish cartoon controversy opens an impor-
tant window into these debates.
The cartoons as tools that help construct images of Muslims
Given the dominant public framing of Muslims as a “problematic” group in
contemporary Europe, I thoroughly disagree with Hansen’s argument that equat-
ing Islam with terrorism, violence, and death is not racism. In the September
2006 Council for European Studies newsletter, I argue that Muslims are being
constructed as the newest ethno-racial outsiders in Europe. This construction is
taking place by non-Muslim Europeans (and not by Muslims, as Hansen sug-
gests) and it has all the earmarks of classic racialization: namely the essentializing
of an entire group of people based on a primordial identity marker, and the
classification of such a group as inherently dangerous and inferior.
While European Muslims are being constructed as ethno-racial outsiders in many
places and in multiple ways, I do not believe that they are always cast in this
role. What “Muslim” stands for is politically contested, and the Danish cartoons
reveal this contestation. It is not true that the cartoons universally contribute to
Muslims’ ethno-racial outsider status. Modood is wrong to assert that “they are
all unfriendly to Islam and to Muslims”. Hansen comes closer to the mark by
noting that the cartoons varied “from the anodyne and perhaps even amusing to
the offensive”. I would go one step further than Hansen at the two extremes.
On my reading, two of the images actively promote the view that Muslims can
be integrated into Western Europe, while two others go beyond mere offensive-
ness into the realm of hate speech that should be sanctioned by law. The first
point to emphasize, therefore, is that these cartoons were much more of a
mixed-bag than commonly recognized, because the public’s eye has been drawn
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to those that are unambiguously offensive. I will return to the most controver-
sial images below, but first I would like to make the unusual case that at least
two of the illustrations actually contained positive messages about Muslim inte-
gration in Denmark and in Western Europe.
One of these cartoons – apparently penned by someone pragmatically interested
in the job as a children’s book illustrator – is a straightforward image of
Muhammad as a shepherd-figure. Looking at this cartoon, one is struck by the
fact that it could just as easily be a depiction of Moses or Jesus. In other words,
this image puts Muhammad squarely in the Abrahamic tradition, signalling, one
could easily argue, the compatibility of Islam with Judeo-Christian heritage.
Although observant Muslims may object to this cartoon on the grounds that it
violates the norm against pictures of the Prophet, for less observant members
of the faith and for those of other religions, this portrayal may actually foster
sympathy and understanding. The second image is one discussed by Hansen,
namely that of a schoolboy clad in standard-issue Western youth garb who has
written on the chalkboard “The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of
reactionary provocateurs”. This is expressly not a picture of the Prophet and
therefore does not contravene religious prohibitions. Rather, it is an immigrant
child who is both cheeky and savvy enough to thumb his nose at the media. The
Muhammad depicted here is not a sheltered, conservative, fundamentalist boy,
but rather a well-integrated Muslim child, perhaps representative of Muslims
not only in Denmark but also of those across Europe.
Trust democratic institutions
In spite of these positive images of Muslims, there remain enough doubts about
the role of Muslims in Europe that I have to take issue with core aspects of
Hansen’s article. Hansen comes out fighting, announcing that he is offering a
“robust” defence of the right to free expression. But at times, his vision of how
to defend such an important right verges on the authoritarian. This is particu-
larly so in the last two paragraphs of his essay, in which he deploys phrasing
such as “this offence is the price of living in a liberal society, one that has been
paid by many groups before”, “people have been told…they simply had to ac-
cept it”, “they have to decide whether they wish to live in a liberal democratic
society”, “if they do, they have to accept…” and, finally, that free speech “is
part of the liberal democratic framework, not a negotiable addition to it”. Such
firm phrases are consistent with Hansen’s argument that the weight of history
demonstrates that other groups have integrated into settler societies in the past
on the presumably rigid and static liberal terms dictated by the hosts. The over-
riding impression these formulations leave is that Muslims are demanding more
than other groups have been granted. For Hansen, this appears to be the Muslim
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exceptionalism, and it is something that cannot be tolerated. It is only by
democracies holding firmly to principles of liberal free speech that Muslims will
eventually be integrated as others have been in the past.
But it is untenable to maintain that other ethno-racial, religious, and linguistic
groups have not negotiated the terms of their integration into liberal democracies.
In fact, such negotiations are politics-as-usual, and major liberal democracies
have proven quite flexible even when it comes to core elements of their identity.
Jewish groups were among the leaders in pushing for provisions against incite-
ment to racial hatred in Britain in the early 1960s. Now, such anti-incitement
laws are common across Europe, but at the time, many MPs fretted about their
impact on the right to free speech. Latinos have successfully supported Spanish
language use in schools and in other public institutions across the United States,
in spite of the challenges it poses to many Americans’ dearly held beliefs about
the English-speaking identity of their country. And Turkish groups helped push
for easier access to German citizenship in the 1990s, a revision that flew in the
face of long-standing convictions that membership in the nation was based on
blood not soil.
Such ethnic, racial, or religious lobbying has sparked major cultural and legal
changes in all liberal democracies. Thus, when Hansen asserts that those who
confront things that offend them “are free to protest them peacefully, but not to
demand their criminal sanction”, one wonders, why not? Lobbying for the ap-
plication of a law or a change in the law is part and parcel of democratic politics.
There are plenty of limits on speech in these societies, and I believe that the
appropriate boundaries must be worked out through democratic channels. Per-
haps it is not free speech that needs a robust defence from Muslims or their
sympathizers, but democracy that needs a rhetorical defence from ardent free
speech proponents. I have faith that the democratic institutions in Western
Europe are themselves robust enough to mediate such competing claims.
Clarify acceptable boundaries
Because I take the view that democratic institutions should be the venue for
determining the rules of the game, I think it is imperative that individuals, groups,
and countries delineate as clearly as possible the lines they wish to draw around
legally protected speech. While Modood and Hansen argue forcefully for more
respect for Muslims or for free expression, neither author explicitly identifies
the boundaries he advocates for freedom of speech. Modood strongly implies
that he believes the Danish cartoons should not be banned – that such images
should be “censured – rather than censored”. However, in the next paragraph he
admits that legal intervention is sometimes necessary, notably when speech “is
likely to reinforce prejudice and lead to acts of discrimination or victimization”.
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The bulk of his subsequent essay is devoted to the myriad ways in which these
cartoons reflect and reinforce a profound lack of sympathy for Muslims in
Europe, suggesting that legal intervention is justified in this case. Would Modood
have these cartoons banned on these grounds? It is not clear.
Hansen is equally difficult to pin down when it comes to the question of which
acts he deems acceptable and which he thinks cross the line. At the outset of
Hansen’s chronology of events, he identifies the original domestic response to
the cartoons’ publication as a “series of protests” that he labels “regular interest
group activity”. But if protesting the publication is acceptable behaviour, then
presumably Muslims, liberal intellectuals, and others should be expected to par-
ticipate in such activities and should not be condemned for it. If everyone agrees
that at least some of the cartoons were offensive, why should it be surprising or
even annoying to Hansen that people complained about their publication?
To the extent that Hansen does identify what he deems unacceptable, it follows
the sentence “In early 2006, things began to get ugly”. What comes next is an
amalgam of acts, ranging from Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of the cartoons, to
the burning of Danish flags in the Middle East, to demonstrations in London
with “radical Islamists brandish[ing] placards”, to the burning of embassies in
Syria and Lebanon, to people getting killed in Somalia, India, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan. But which of these acts does Hansen condemn? It is unclear. Surely,
most people would not countenance the sacking of embassies, riots, and
killings. But does Hansen also condemn the burning of the Danish flag? Saudi
Arabia voicing a public complaint? Placards brandished in London? The logic of
his overarching support for free speech suggests that he does not, yet he uses
these examples as part of a broad story he judges “ugly”.
What precisely does Hansen wish to defend? It is only through specifying Modood
and Hansen’s positions on the toughest questions that we can see the true dif-
ferences between them, and decide where we wish to situate ourselves in the
debate. For my part, I belong to the near-unanimous chorus that decries the use
of violence. Moreover, I side with Hansen’s underlying principles (and probably
Modood’s) in that I would not bat an eyelash at the speech aspect of Saudi
Arabia’s public criticism or of the Danish flag being burnt. Freedom of expres-
sion is important, and should be defended.
Where I believe I would differ from Hansen and where I might diverge from
Modood (though I do not think so) is over the placards. Two of the statements
Hansen identifies fall squarely in the realm of protected speech, namely those
that announce “Europe is the cancer and Islam is the cure”, and, perhaps ironically,
“Free speech go to hell”. However, the one reading “Europe will pay, your 9/11
is on its way” (aside from being a little late, coming in the wake of the Madrid
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and London bombings) promises violence. More dramatically, the placards that
call upon readers to “Slay/butcher/massacre/behead/exterminate those who insult
Islam” are unambiguous in their aim. These placards, by threatening or inciting
violence, cross the acceptable boundaries of free speech. If Hansen wishes to
robustly defend free speech, he should defend (to the death?) the right of Mus-
lims to carry such placards. For my part, I side with the Crown Prosecution
Service, which advised Scotland Yard that public order offences had been com-
mitted during this demonstration, including incitement to racial hatred. My stand
against incitement is not as controversial as it would have been in earlier
decades, yet it is important to note that hard-core free speech advocates should
oppose legal action against those who carried the placards. Does Hansen?
Perhaps the harder task is to elaborate principles that allow us to determine
which if any of the cartoons should be legally actionable. I believe that it must
remain permissible to criticize elements of a religion, even interpretations of
core beliefs. However, a line is crossed when criticism evolves into essentializing,
stereotyping, and branding the entire group as dangerous or inferior with the
likelihood of stirring up hatred. Such criticism is hate speech, and I believe it
should be penalized by law. On these principles, I view the cartoons that depict
Mohammad with a sword and a bomb as hate speech. By casting Mohammad,
the spiritual forefather of the entire group, as inextricably linked to violence, the
message is clear – all Muslims are linked to violence. Here, I side with Modood’s
analysis that the cartoons are “not just about one individual but about Muslims
per se”. Modood’s logic suggests that he agrees that these images should be
actionable, but he does not come out and say this, and I am puzzled as to why
not. Hansen ostensibly opposes legal penalties for the publication of these car-
toons. Yet, ironically, Hansen himself seems open to banning hate speech, call-
ing it “the only conceivable grounds” for censoring the cartoons. His defence
against doing so is that the sword/bomb cartoons do not equate Muslims with
terrorists. If these cartoons do not link Muslims with violence, what do they
do? And if they do link Muslims with violence (and/or terrorism), does Hansen
concede that they should be banned as hate speech?
Danish law forbids dissemination of threatening, insulting, or degrading material
on account of race, colour, national or ethnic origin, or sexual inclination, but
not on the grounds of religion. I would advocate that this list be extended to
include religion, as it has been in some countries, and that it be limited to inci-
dents that are likely to stir up hatred. This second qualification would exclude
acts such as a shepherd-like depiction of Mohammad that some Muslims view
as insulting by virtue of Islam’s prohibition on images of the Prophet, but that
would fail to generate animosity among non-Muslims. I wish to be clear, though,
that the lines of legally acceptable speech I advocate are just that: lines that I
advocate. I believe they make sense in most or all developed democracies.
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However, in keeping with my argument about the value of democratic institu-
tions, I recognize that different countries have drawn legal boundaries in differ-
ent ways for locally important reasons. So while I believe that some of the
placards and some of the cartoons should be legally banned, it is the task of
individual societies to hash out this argument and to arrive at workable solutions
through their domestic democratic institutions.
Censuring versus censoring
Although legislation against hate speech and incitement is sometimes enforced
in courts, often it is more useful as a symbol of discourse that society deems
unambiguously out of bounds. As such, it is not the only tool at our disposal in
debates about integration and free speech. Modood is correct that censuring is
at least as important as censoring when negotiating these matters. The terms
of integration and boundaries of acceptable speech are fluid and contested, and
individuals, groups, and societies constantly work to define these for them-
selves. I believe that it is vital for those offended by public statements to voice
their complaints and even to seek redress through normal democratic channels,
just as it is critical that those defending the right to be offended stand up for that
principle. All sides must be free to speak their minds, subject to the limitations of
incitement and hate speech I have outlined above. It is through the careful jux-
taposition of multiple arguments that citizens are persuaded to condemn or to
applaud the cartoons, or to develop more complex and nuanced feelings about
their effects on the world. From this perspective, Modood’s and Hansen’s es-
says are more than just scholarly analyses of the current situation; they are also
forceful contributions to debates about social integration and free speech. While
I’ve tried to highlight some limitations and alternatives to each author’s per-
spective, I applaud their efforts to stimulate our thinking.
Liberalism, Multiculturalism,
Danish Cartoons, Islamist Fraud,
and the Rights of the Ungodly
Brendan O’Leary
The late Ernest Gellner argued that liberalism is a “miracle”, by which he meant
both that its emergence is not easy to explain, and that it is not the “natural”
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condition of humanity, not that it was a gift from a “god”. He described
our natural (or default) condition as the “tyranny of the cousins” [clan rule], or
“the tyranny of the ‘ideo-crats’” [theocrats or ideological monopolists], and
celebrated the exit from these mentally repressive equilibria. Gellner’s Muslim
Society is enormously stimulating (as is his less well-known Legitimation of
Belief), and I think it is correct to suggest that predominantly Islamic societies
are experiencing an Islamist (fundamentalist, if you prefer) temptation in
response to modernization. Some Muslim migrants in Western (and substan-
tively post-serious Christian) societies experience the same temptation.
Western liberals have strategic choices about how to respond to that temptation
(if one does not share it). That response may be different at home and abroad,
for reasons of prudence, strategy, and morality. For example, it may be neces-
sary to support secular Kurds having to temporize with some Islamist Shi‘a to
build a pluralist federation in Iraq – the constitution of 2005 allows Kurdistan to
preserve its secular politics, but permits other parts of Iraq to apply the Shari‘a.
This compromise was necessary to protect Kurdistan but it is tough for liberals
in other parts of Iraq, which did not vote for secular parties in significant num-
bers. But where one does not have to be prudent one should be vigorous in
protecting liberalism and secularism in their established heartlands, where all the
participants in this discussion live.
My concern in what is called the “Danish cartoons episode” but should be called
“the Islamist cartoon fraud” is that no liberal principles should be sold now that
might be regretted later. Among their number is protecting freedom of expres-
sion, freedom to have no religion, and freedom of the press. Agreeing not to re-
publish a mild dozen cartoons out of some misconstrued notion of respect is
succumbing to bullying and thuggery in the name of religion. That is what
happened in Great Britain; that is what is endorsed by Joseph Carens. Deciding
not to publish the three fake cartoons designed by Danish Islamists in their
dishonest act of manipulation has let the true provocateurs off the hook. Secularists
and the irreligious must be very cautious not to allow a new alliance of the
religious to insinuate changes in our political systems – out of misguided notions
of respect and out of the misleading efforts of some to conflate criticism of
religion with racism. It is right to respect people’s languages; there is no obligation
to respect every belief expressed in these languages.
Many liberals in Canada, the coastal United States, and urban London breathe
liberal air, i.e. they live in an atmosphere which has been liberal (and libertarian)
for a while, but not that long. We should not forget the abuses done by their
ancestors to natives in colonies, slaves, Catholics and Jews, and countless other
categories subjected to customary human cruelties. Contemporary liberals, I
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find, have too easily accepted the fall of Communism and the quiet retreat of
those who claimed “Asian values”, and there is nowhere nicer to be complacent
than Canada. Such liberals have not won their faith in any hard trials. It is their
“heritage”, for which they fear not enough. In consequence, they do not under-
stand why those who have just emerged from illiberal environs, or who have
lived or worked in deeply illiberal places, are much more concerned than they
are to draw liberal “red lines” on certain matters, especially in the homelands of
liberalism.
One of these red lines is the right to criticize all religions, the right precisely to
treat nothing as “sacred” or “taboo”, the right, contra Carens’ words, not to
respect sincerely held religious conviction, the right to have a good laugh at the
godly. That right includes the right to tell good or bad jokes about religion and to
draw portraits of Muhammad as many Sufis did until recent times. Tariq Modood
and Erik Bleich probably do not want to require liberals to respect sincere reli-
gious fundamentalism, which mandates that creationism, intelligent design, and
a certain set of “family values” be educationally institutionalized. But since Modood
refuses to declare his religious convictions – as is his right – I am not sure what
his sincere convictions on religious matters are. I suspect Carens and others
simply want liberals to respect sincerely held and liberalized (“rights-respecting”)
religions. These are, of course, no longer, at least for now, the religions they
were. Many exponents of Christianity and Judaism have tempered or modified
the historic cores of their beliefs precisely because of centuries of scientific
falsification, textual criticism, and ridicule in the heartlands of the West. Per-
haps Carens accepts John Rawls’ risible claim of an “overlapping pluralist con-
sensus” among all religions, which he believed to be compatible with liberalism.
Such an assumption cannot be based on any deep acquaintance with Islam, to
name just one religion, but the one under discussion here.
Islam, as expounded in the Koran and the hadith, is a religion that commends
war, not one of peace and tolerance. Islam has an iconoclastic and murderous
record with polytheists, and the artefacts of non-Islamic religious cultures. It
prescribes the death penalty for apostasy. In power it historically subjected
Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians to the status of dhimmi. Neither in theory
nor in practice does Islam respect the equality of women and men. It licenses an
instrumental approach to the truth and treaties with non-Muslims. According to
some current cant this summary statement makes me an Islamophobe. But to
paraphrase the Christian who hates sin but not the sinner, I hate these beliefs,
and their consequences, not the believers as persons. It is absurd and a repudiation
of the liberal heritage for Modood and Bleich to expect me, and others, to respect
a religious belief, and they mean an Islamic belief, because it is sincerely held.
Many dangerous beliefs are sincerely held. I may have to treat exponents of
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such beliefs with prudence, but I do not have to respect the beliefs or the
believers qua believers. Sadly many self-styled liberals and multiculturalists dem-
onstrate the anthropologists’ relativist heresy: to each culture its own, including
its sense of what is cognitively and morally true, and peace, blessings, and equal
respect to them all. Islamists grant no such reciprocity.
There may be good reasons to regulate where people express their freedom of
opinion, and indeed about how they may do so. Had the Danish cartoons been
marched on banners into a mosque in Copenhagen and hung on the walls that
would have been violently provocative, and a violation of the freedom of assembly
of others, and indeed of their property rights. But to publish mockery of
Muhammad in an outlet not noted for its Muslim consumers was well within the
newspaper’s rights (and indeed public manners) both under Danish law, and
under the European Convention. Liberal rights also permit public relations stunts.
But in this case Danish Islamists pulled off the public relations stunt that mattered.
Modood and Bleich make a case for taking seriously Muslim offence and outrage.
Their case is however embarrassed by the facts. The outrage was manufactured,
and cannot be justified by the cartoons’ putative racism. One of the explanations for
the delayed, allegedly “outraged”, and grotesque overreaction to the cartoons pub-
lished in Jyllands-Posten was the active campaign waged against them by Ahmed
Abu Laban, a Danish imam. His campaign got under way two months after the pub-
lication (in the low circulation Danish journal), and some time after six persons
associated with his mosque were arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist
activities. This man, and the Islamic Society of Denmark, then lobbied the Arab
League to take offence on behalf of the entire Muslim umma. When Arab govern-
ments got in on the act, no doubt, seeing a chance to “defend” Muslims and attack
Western liberal democracy, there was then a feedback effect on Islamist and Islamic
(yes, I distinguish the two) networks in Europe. Then the campaign truly took off.
It led to deaths, death threats, and government-encouraged boycotts. Demonstrators
called for the beheadings of the cartoonists, just as one of the cartoons predicted.
The Society’s campaign was utterly dishonest, built on lies, and more dishonest
than any alleged hypocrisy over the Danish newspaper’s apparent greater
enthusiasm for lampooning Muhammad as opposed to Christ. The lobby group
did not simply complain about the 12 cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten
when engaging the Arab League. They added three others, grotesque carica-
tures (showing paedophilia, sodomy, and the Prophet represented as a porker),
to bolster their campaign portfolio. When this fact was exposed, they defended
these additions on the grounds that they showed how “hateful the atmosphere in
Denmark is towards Muslims” (spokesman Ahmed Akkari). The spokesperson’s
excuse might seem convincing had not one of the additions already been shown
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to be a Frenchman competing in a village pig-squealing competition. It was not
an example of Danish Islamophobia or Danish racism, but an Islamist lie.
We should not be obliged to “feel the pain” of any of the allegedly disrespected
Muslims for the publication of cartoons most of them cannot have seen – unless
they sought them out. We can feel sorry that they were manipulated. Muslims
in Europe may deserve our sympathy if they have experienced unjust police
repression or discrimination in employment or employment opportunities, or
denied citizenship rights. But liberalism – not democracy, which may merely
mean majority rule – requires freedom of religious opinion, including the right to
have no religious opinion. The cartoons were in no worse taste than Salman
Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. The cartoonists did not make their cartoons a global
issue. Islamists did, and Arab league governments.
This takes me to the issue of racism, where I find myself in agreement with
Hansen. Were the original 12 cartoons racist? No. They mock religion, and
politically violent Islamists, not race. They mock Muslim suicide bombers in
particular, but not because they are not white, but because they are said to be
motivated by religious conviction, including a sexist notion of paradise. Inciden-
tally, when it comes to racism, some of the worst I have heard expressed – and
I am not shockable – has been Arab racism (toward Kurds in Iraq, and toward
blacks in the Sudan, including black Muslims). A little less hypocrisy on the
matter of racism is in order in Arab Muslim quarters.
Liberals must defend freedom of expression, provided it clashes with no other
reasonable right, and that includes when that expression ridicules beliefs,
and causes offence. There is no liberal case for immunizing religions, religious
institutions, and religious personnel (in their formal roles) from public criticism.
There are good arguments for reasonable laws of libel and defamation to protect
particular persons’ reputations – there I part from some in the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) – but not, I think, dead persons, like the alleged “last of
the prophets” (a false claim on many grounds), or Christ, or Buddha. Equally,
liberals are willing to regulate public constraints on freedom of expression in
public places – one should face a fine for crying “fire” falsely in a crowded
location – or to regulate and censor on paternalistic grounds, to protect chil-
dren. But these arguments do not apply to the publication of cartoons ridiculing
Islam and Islamists in Danish or European newspapers.
Those of us with passports in our pockets, who can contemplate “offers” or adver-
tisements in universities in multiple states, usually have little practical experience
of what it may be to be a refugee, an illegal or unregistered alien, or a source of
sweated labour in an ethnic enclave. Equally, we find it easy and pleasant and
entirely appropriate to welcome novel foreigners to our departments, but that is
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not, sadly, the median response of those at the bottom of the division of labour.
Academics are happy to be and to be received as “metics”; the same is not so true
among the working class. Multiculturalism is great for us; we get the benefits.
Must we not listen to others who say they do not experience the benefits? Must we
simply re-educate them? Must we require them as well as competing with other
workers to respect their beliefs – when that respect is manifestly not reciprocated?
It may be acceptable, as Modood argues, to have limits on freedom of speech when
there is a “serious risk of incitement to hatred” (I’d prefer “to kill”, or “to injure”,
i.e. actual bodily harm), or even a “risk to public order” (although I would preface
the latter with “serious” before “risk” also). But, limits are not acceptable contrary to
what Modood suggests, when speech or text merely “inflames passions”, or when
it is “likely to reinforce prejudice”. That would mandate a very broad curtailment
of freedom of expression, and enable each victim-group – real or alleged – to claim
to be inflamed, or to be suffering from prejudice. I have been a member of a
minority nationality in Great Britain, one whose alleged collective lack
of intelligence is part of ingrained English “humour”. That inflames some of my
co-nationals, but I see no warrant for curtailment of such freedom of expression.
I can present you catalogues of racially offensive cartoons of the Irish as a people,
and am proud of the fact that the Irish, at their best, have responded by showing
that they do not fit the stereotypes and by telling better jokes. That is not how many
Muslim demonstrators responded. Many of them precisely conformed to stereotype.
Even if it was true that the Danish newspaper sought to “achieve some kind of
victory over Muslims”, “to bring them into line”, as Modood puts it, and these
claims, as the Scots say, are unproven, it is a logical non-sequitur to argue that
the subsequent republication of the cartoons throughout Europe (which did not
happen universally) was “deliberately done to teach Muslims a lesson”! This
expression suggests that Modood shares a partiality for victimhood, and that he
sees a coordinated conspiracy against Muslims. Such republication as occurred
was prompted by freedom of expression concerns, and by the operation of
market forces (competition for readers); in some cases, it may even be argued
that republication and web-links were intended to promote information. The
only significant conspiracy was that of the Danish Islamists, with the conniv-
ance of governments in the Arab League, to use the Muslim diasporas in Eu-
rope, and Muslims elsewhere, for “cheap politics”. That quote is from my friend,
an academic political scientist, and a secular Danish citizen, of Sunni
Muslim origin.
It is fallacious to argue that if Muslims are economically marginalized, e.g. suf-
fering in Palestine or feeling generally bossed about, that the way to resolve
these lists of grievances is to curtail liberal freedoms in liberal states. The way to
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address any just Muslim’s grievances is appropriately, i.e. to practice progressive
economic policies toward deprived areas in which poor Muslims are resident in
Great Britain, or the banlieux of Paris, and to achieve a just political settlement
in Palestine (and Israel). It would, of course, help if Muslims consistently showed
universalism in their moral concerns – but in this respect they follow the coun-
sel of their Prophet. I watched al-Jazeera throughout my extensive time in
Kurdistan in 2004, and noted a total lack of reporting of the horrors in Darfur,
and a dramatic over-reporting of American atrocities in Iraq by comparison
with primarily Sunni Arab organized atrocities against other Iraqis. My point is
this, “Muslim grievances”, allegedly caused by the West, to the extent that they
can be homogenized, weigh more heavily in typical Islamists’ eyes than atroci-
ties by Muslims, and atrocities by Muslim regimes, and even than much worse
atrocities by Muslims on fellow Muslims. That group-centred hypocrisy is nor-
mal, though textually explicit in Muhammad’s sayings. Liberal criticism is one
of the few therapies for exposing all group-centred egoism, and foolishness. It
is after all absurd, and funny – in the sense of funny peculiar – that an orthodox
Islamist suicide-bomber who kills infidels imagines he is going to be rewarded
with a sexual cornucopia, and that he should regard virgins as especially sexu-
ally delectable.
Modood cites two factors as critical in explaining a lack of sympathy for Muslims
in Europe: the fact that Muslims are considered a religious rather than a racial
minority, and the fact that post- enlightenment intellectuals do not like religion.
These explanations seem to be variations on one factor (religion) rather than two.
It was Islamists (who proclaim themselves devout Muslims) who were respon-
sible for 9/11 (New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania), 3/11 (Madrid),
and 7/7 (London). But I agree that the lack of sympathy for Muslims in Europe
has a long vintage; it is not just recent. It is partly rooted in the legacies of
Ottoman imperialism in Europe (about which Balkan peoples rarely have nostal-
gia), but among intellectuals and others it is partly explained by a reasonable
appreciation of what orthodox Sunni or Shi‘a Islam teaches.
Europe’s choice, as Hansen argues, is not between “the right to ridicule Muslims”,
or “the integration of Muslims”. The European Convention permits the right to
ridicule religious beliefs. It is the right of the European Union’s member-states
to set the terms of integration of their immigrant and their national minorities in
accordance with liberal human rights and various levels of recognition of group
autonomy (in which there will be significant variation in modes of incorporation).
I, for one, welcome the prospect of Turkey’s entry into the EU, but if and only
if Turkey conforms to the criteria for entry into the liberal democratic club,
which includes proper treatment of Kurds, acknowledgment of the genocide
against Armenians, and the removal of their military from political decision-
making. No one is doing a worse job for Turkey’s entry prospects than hard-
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line Muslim extremists, and the soft-accommodation of their threats, of which
Modood’s essay is an illustration. Modood sees progress since the Satanic Verses
affair. I do not, and that affair is not over. I see collusion between communitarian
Anglicans, cowardly politicians in marginal seats, and radical Islamists, which
may re-erect taboos on criticisms of religion. Perhaps that’s what Modood re-
gards as progress.
Now let me turn to consociations and pluralist federations, mostly in response
to Joseph Carens. Liberal multiculturalism should not grant each group (or its
representatives) veto rights over criticisms of its core beliefs. If Carens is sim-
ply recommending good manners, here’s to that. Veto-rights over constitutional
change or the passage of legislation, of course, is not the same as veto-rights
over public expression. For example, parity of esteem between (Irish) National-
ists and (British) Unionists is usually understood to refer to parity of esteem for
their national symbols (flags, dispositions toward monarchism and republican-
ism, and so on). In no sense, does it require others, including those who are
neither unionists nor nationalists, to avoid criticism of these national symbols –
and what they express. Nor does it require nationalists and unionists themselves
to avoid criticizing the others’ symbols, or their own. What parity of esteem
mandates is that public institutions treat these symbols equally (but not that
everyone respect these symbols, or equally respects them – fine distinctions,
but important). In fact, Northern Irish nationalists seek parity of esteem as
nationalists, not as Catholic believers. Those Irish nationalists who are Catholics
have full freedom for their religion – there is no established religion in Northern
Ireland. So they do not seek religious “parity of esteem”: equality of school
funding is another matter. Some, no doubt, are old-style Vatican supremacists
(who like orthodox Muslims believe they are in possession of the one true faith)
and therefore they would regard parity for their religion as an insult.
Liberal multiculturalists should not conflate (1) freedom of expression, (2) free-
dom of association and (3) the right to demonstrate, though these public liberties
are linked. Ulster Unionists and the Orange Order have the right to say and publish
whatever they like in my view – including hateful, provocative, and false caricatures
of Irish nationalists, republicans, the Vatican, priests, and nuns. [And they do].
They have exactly the same normative rights in this respect as the Danish publica-
tion in question. On freedom of expression, I do not, unlike some, wish to use the
concept of “harm” in “defence of public morals” at least for the protection of adults.
I think we have good reasons for sheltering children on grounds of “public morals”,
but usually, at base, to protect them from exploitation. But freedom of association
requires some more regulation than freedom of expression. Without this freedom
there can be neither liberalism nor pluralism, political parties, interest groups, civil
society, and so on. But we are entitled to ban freedom of assembly for those intent
on armed attacks on our freedoms (but we must do so extremely carefully, so that
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we do not intimidate dissentient opinion). I have explained why I thought it would
be a matter for a regulatory, and a police, response had the Danish cartoonists
marched into mosques in Denmark to decorate them with their “artwork”. The
freedom to demonstrate or parade requires more regulation than freedom of expres-
sion – precisely because direct physical harm may be occasioned to others, be-
cause disorder may occur, and because the exercise of such freedoms requires
a decision as to what “spaces” are public and which private (and how we shall
govern access to public spaces). But we should operate with the presumption
that those who wish to demonstrate in public places should have the right to do so
– provided that right does not clash with that of others, and provided they are
not intent on physical harm of persons, public sites, or neighbourhoods.
So I defend the right even of the Loyal Orders to have their “parades”, though I
regard the beliefs expressed by many of the marchers as highly disagreeable,
offensive, hateful, and false; they are not mere “folk festivals”. I certainly do
not favour any general ban on “parades” by the Loyal Orders as an outcome of
the principle of parity of esteem. Yes, I decode many (but not all) such marches
as deliberately intimidatory, and as expressions of what the late Frank Wright
called acts of “communal deterrence”. For that reason, among others, such
parades require regulation, and policing, and, reasonable negotiations (with elected
authorities, special commissions, and residents’ associations) to ensure that such
parades do not become sources of public disorder. The Loyal Orders have tended
to be cavalier and provocative in defining “traditional” marching routes. The
original Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association deliberately marched through
predominantly Unionist neighbourhoods to reject the idea that public parading
was the privilege of one group. This is exactly the application of the principle of
parity of groups in the public domain to which I subscribe. Organizations which
abuse, especially those which persistently abuse, the freedom to demonstrate,
including those which deliberately organize riots, with damage to persons and
property, may lose their rights to freedom of assembly, and may be appropri-
ately fined, or have their officers taken before tribunals and courts. What for me
is crucial and warrants restraints on public liberties is the idea of physical harm
to persons and property. “Moral violations”, “offensive behaviour”, and “hate
speech” for me are better ridiculed than jailed – except where the practitioners
commend physical harm and killing (i.e. incitement).
So I have a consistent and long-standing position here. I am very happy for
Muslims to have the right to demonstrate peacefully – including with outrageous
placards – to express their feelings and views. Where I deeply disagree with
their position is straightforward. I want no blasphemy laws. I want free speech
protected, especially of religious and non-religious and anti-religious opinion.
And that for me is a planet-wide commitment – it is not an opinion I want to
modify for Baghdad, Berlin, or Bristol.
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In response to the question as to whether Muslims are entitled to parity of
esteem my response is compared with whom? and in what respect? Compared
with other religions, Islam, or rather those who have freely submitted to Islam,
should have parity of association, assembly, speech, and conversion with other
religions, even though Islamic states often do not grant these reciprocal rights
to other religions. They should have exactly the same rights as others, but no
special blasphemy protections. With regard to the status of Muslims vis a vis
the state in member-states of the EU at least two positions may be consistently
taken by liberals. One is to have no established religions. The “Kymlicka-
liberal”, I presume, may argue that immigrant minorities do not have the same
presumptive group rights as national minorities, and consequently he or she
may defend the existence of national churches – provided people don’t have to
belong to them, and provided other religious communities can operate, and that
democratic and human rights are maintained. This style of settlement is often
reached in the negotiation of constitutions which respect pluralism in religions.
As for personal law, this is a very tricky domain and I’ll try to be terse. The
liberal state has the right to insist on a common civil marriage law but may
respect diverse religious ceremonies for marriages – and may respect different
practices. Whether Islamic marriage rules, e.g. on divorce and post-divorce
property rights, should be permitted by liberal states depends on whether one
regards these as within the margin of religious belief or whether they affect the
equality of men and women. It is my view that they violate the equality of
women. But I would not object to true parity in this domain (men may have up
to four wives legally provided women may have up to four husbands). On
education: I see no reason why the liberal state should treat Islamic schools
differently from schools run by other religions. The liberal state may reasonably
require a common curriculum; if it funds schools it should fund all schools
equally without paying clergy or mullahs in their religious capacities. I can see
why state schools may insist on uniforms – but I see no reason to insist on
stripping children of Islamic scarves, crucifixes, or Jewish kippahs. I think,
as a matter of fact, Islamic schools would adversely affect the education and
career opportunities of Muslim children in Europe, and therefore would not
commend them, but I would recognize the right of Muslims to have such schools,
provided they teach the public curriculum so as not to reduce the life-chances
of their pupils.
One last matter. Explanation and justification are analytically separate enterprises,
though often conflated. Carens quotes me, correctly, as saying that, “People
voluntarily kill, or die, for collective causes expressed in words that register their
group’s esteem, dignity and honour. Actions that provoke and rekindle resentment
are the catalysts of violence” (O’Leary, 2005). I emphasized in my article on the
IRA, from which these sentences are the opening lines, that one cannot explain
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the IRA’s origins, conduct, or the termination of its campaign, solely by reference
to materialist or “realist” explanations. The “words” that I had particularly in mind
were those in the Treaty of 1921, Ireland’s constitution and the IRA’s own consti-
tution. Two things do not follow from my argument in that paper, namely (1) that
we should always avoid hurting, or avoid allowing others to hurt, a group’s esteem,
dignity, or honour or (2) that explaining a group’s commitment to political violence
necessarily means that violence is justified. What I showed, I hope, in my article on
the IRA, was that its evolution could not be understood without appreciating its
own constitutional beliefs, and that its successive de-mobilizations (in sovereign
Ireland and Northern Ireland) could not be understood without reference to con-
stitutional engagements, by the Irish and UK governments, with those beliefs.
So am I consistent (empirically and normatively) with respect to Muslim reactions
to (alleged) Danish cartoons? One of the mechanisms I specified in my IRA
article – offence to group honour and esteem leading to violence – has definitely
operated. There have been deaths and demonstrations in abundance from North-
ern Nigeria to Kabul. But that mechanism was manipulated by hard-liners, as I
have claimed (without effective rebuttal), which is why I appropriately used
“alleged offence”. And, in this case, as was often true of the IRA, there has been
gross disproportion between the [alleged] offence and the reaction (I earlier
showed in these electronic discussions that even taking offence relied on accepting
one narrow construal of Islam – one which presumes that the prohibition of
representation of Muhammad is universal among Muslims when in fact Sufis in
Iran historically drew such cartoons). Without the action of the Danish Islamist
entrepreneurs and the actions of Arab governments – matters would not have
gotten out of control, and I am surprised some here seem to avoid this conclu-
sion. Had they not intervened – deliberately – there would have been no wide-
spread “knowledge” of the cartoons and therefore no offence. It is also clear, as
is often true of symbolic politics, that the alleged offence became a unifying
issue to rally a whole gamut of Muslim grievances in the EU and against the
foreign policy of the Western democracies.
But it is often a mistake to appease authoritarians, especially when there is no
necessity to do so. Many (legitimate and genuine) grievances require appropriate
responses, and they should be redressed, but not by weakening liberal institutions.
For the record, I do not commend offending just Muslims as the liberal perspective
on religion; but I do think, as Islamists recognize, that liberal principles taken
seriously are an affront to all seriously held historic versions of monotheism.
Liberalism rejects “faith”; it makes a virtue of scepticism. Liberalism arose in part
from the clash of rival Christian monotheisms. So, what I defend is the right to
criticize (and mock by word and movie) all religions, especially those which are
religiously supremacist. Liberals should engage Muslims’ beliefs, including their
beliefs on the appropriate responses to blasphemy, rather than accepting them as
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given data which must alter law and public practice. I assume no certainty of knowl-
edge about the insides of others’ minds, but retain the right to question whether
people truly are offended – especially when I know they have been manipulated.
REFERENCES
Gellner, E.
1974 Legitimation of Belief, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
1981 Muslim Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
O’Leary, B.
2005 “Mission accomplished? Looking back at the IRA”, Field Day Review:
216-246.
O’Leary, B., et al. (Eds)
2005 The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia.
Free Speech and Democratic Norms
in the Danish Cartoons Controversy
1
Joseph H. Carens
In my contribution to this exchange, I want to make two main points. First, a
deep commitment to free speech is no barrier in principle to criticism of Jyllands-
Posten for publishing the cartoons. Second, people who are committed to lib-
eral democracy in Europe should criticize Jyllands-Posten for publishing the
cartoons, even if they do not share any Muslim religious beliefs.
I want to start with a critical comment about the style of these exchanges. Both
Randall Hansen and Brendan O’Leary adopt a polemical tone that is (perhaps)
entertaining to read but that obscures more than it clarifies. Hansen, for ex-
ample, hurls an accusation of hypocrisy against “liberal intellectuals, too many
to name” who criticized the publication of the cartoons by Jyllands-Posten.
This is a serious charge. It is one thing to say that someone with whom one
disagrees is inconsistent or wrong. That is a normal part of intellectual debate.
But to say someone is a hypocrite is to accuse an interlocutor of bad faith. It is
like saying that someone has cheated (rather than simply made a mistake). Hansen’s
broad and unqualified indictment implicitly impugns the integrity of a significant
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number of reputable scholars without warrant, even though I am certain that is
not his intention. O’Leary is, if anything, more sweeping in his claims about the
failures of “many liberals in Canada, the coastal United States and the United
Kingdom.” Little is gained by casting aspersions upon those with whom one
disagrees. It is possible to disagree sharply with others without calling into
question their character and motivation. Indeed, that is precisely the sort of
wider democratic dialogue that we should try to promote in dealing with the
many hotly contested issues around immigration and multiculturalism. We are
more likely to do so if we model it in our own scholarly discussions.
Free speech: rights and responsibilities
Let’s start by distinguishing between what is (and ought to be) legally permis-
sible and what is morally right to do, or, to put it another way, between having
a right and exercising that right responsibly. Someone can have a moral and
legal right to do something and still deserve criticism for the use she makes of
her right. Some things, including expressions of opinion, may be legally permis-
sible but may still deserve moral criticism. So, one can endorse a very robust
conception of free speech without endorsing everything that is said. Freedom
of speech does not entail immunity from criticism, including criticism of the
decision to say what one has said. To say that certain cartoons are offensive and
that a newspaper should not have published them is not, in itself, a violation of
democratic norms of free speech. All this would seem so obvious as not to need
elaboration were it not for the fact that Hansen and O’Leary both seem to think
that no one who is really committed to free speech can criticize Jyllands-Posten’s
decision to publish the cartoons.
Let’s unpack this puzzle a bit. Like Hansen and O’Leary, I think that the news-
paper had a right to publish the cartoons in the sense that no liberal democratic
state could prohibit their publication without violating fundamental norms about
free speech. Here I depart a bit from Bleich and perhaps, though I think not,
from Modood. The cartoons were offensive to most Muslims but, in my view,
they do not rise to the level of hate speech, which is the sort of thing that is
restricted by law in some liberal democratic states. Similarly, but importantly, I
will assume that everyone accepts the principle that the cartoonists and the
publishers should not have been subjected to death threats. No one should be
threatened with violence for what they write or publish, no matter how offensive.
No one should feel unable to express views out of fear of physical retribution. I
take these claims to be uncontroversial, at least with the readership of this journal.2
The mere fact that it is legally permissible to publish something does not mean
that it should be published, however, or that a given newspaper is obliged to
publish it. Major newspapers have greater responsibilities than individual
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authors to exercise judgment in what they publish and to think about its public
impact. As many commentators have noted, Jyllands-Posten chose not to pub-
lish some anti-Christian cartoons a few years previously, and at least partly
justified its reactions on the grounds that it did not want to offend its readers. It
is legally permissible in many places to publish racist and anti-Semitic cartoons,
but no major newspaper – or perhaps I should say no reputable newspaper – in
Europe or North America would do so, even though such cartoons are available
on the web and appear in print in small circulation journals, and would undoubt-
edly turn up in the archives of many major newspapers from the first half of the
twentieth century, if we looked for them.
I am not claiming here that the Danish cartoons were racist. I will leave the
discussion of racism to Tariq Modood and Erik Bleich (though I agree with their
general line of argument). I am simply trying to establish the point of principle.
If Hansen and O’Leary really think that it is wrong to object to the publication of
anything that is legally permissible, they have no grounds to say that racist
cartoons ought not to be published, when there are no legal obstacles. Is that
really their view? If so, they should acknowledge it explicitly, rather than duck-
ing behind the debate over whether the Danish cartoons were racist. And they
should acknowledge that their position is an extreme one, not shared by most
liberals or by most liberal newspapers which generally acknowledge some re-
sponsibility to exercise discretion (in various forms) in what they publish. Even
those newspapers that published the Danish cartoons do not take such an ex-
treme position. If this extreme position is not their view, i.e. if they think that
newspapers in a democratic state should not publish racist cartoons even when
they are legally free to do so, then we are back to the substantive argument
about whether the Danish cartoons were so objectionable that they should not
have been published or not objectionable at all but just fair comment. I will turn
to that issue in a moment.
Let me first consider an alternative reading of the position of Hansen and O’Leary.
Perhaps what really motivates their position is the fact that the publication of the
cartoons was greeted with violent protests and threats of violence against the
cartoonists and the editors of Jyllands-Posten. Perhaps their view is that any
criticism of Jyllands-Posten is an implicit endorsement of the violence and the
threats of violence. Hansen and O’Leary do not make this argument explicit, but
there are passages that suggest that this is what drives their stand. This seems a
more plausible position at first glance because the right to freedom of speech
clearly requires protection against threats of violence, but it, too, fails. We do not
forfeit our own right to evaluate and criticize someone’s position simply because
they have been threatened by violence by others. We should criticize the threats
of violence, to be sure, but we can still object to the opinions of those being
threatened. When people have been threatened for expressing their views, those
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who want to criticize them may have a special obligation to dissociate themselves
from the violent threats so that their own criticism cannot be construed as an
implicit endorsement of the violence. But this is a long way from saying that one
should not criticize, and a long way from the position of Hansen and O’Leary.
Democratic norms: respect and offence
Do those who published the cartoons deserve criticism? Hansen and O’Leary
argue that they do not, on the grounds that, in a democratic society, no subject
is taboo and one must be able to criticize, even mock, all sacred cows (includ-
ing, as the phrase “sacred cows” suggests, religion).3 Even if one accepts this
general principle, however, it does not follow that anyone may publish anything
in any context without violating democratic norms.
Step back for a moment and consider again the origins of the controversy. An
author was writing a children’s book about the life of Muhammad. That sounds
admirable. It evokes an image of some multiculturally oriented Danish author
who wants to provide Danish children from the non-Muslim majority with some
information about the leading historical figure in the religion practised by some
of their fellow Danes. Rhetorically this reference to the origins of the conflict
has made it appear as though an innocent exercise in intercultural communication
was disrupted by the irrational reactions of an illiberal minority. But wait a minute.
If the author knew anything about Islam, he must have known that many Mus-
lims object to representations of Muhammad. And if he did not know this at the
outset, he ought to have figured it out when the illustrators kept turning him
down. So, why would someone deliberately present information to children
about another religion in a way that the author knows will be offensive to many
followers of the religion? Suddenly the author’s agenda does not appear so
benign, and the refusal of the illustrators (if they acted out of principle and not
fear) an admirable exercise of multicultural respect rather than a suppression of
free expression.4
What about Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that solicited and published
the cartoons of Muhammad, ostensibly because it was outraged about the
restrictions on free speech revealed by the inability of the children’s book author
to find an illustrator? Here again, context matters in interpreting what is at stake
and evaluating actions. As I have already established, newspapers always have
to make choices about what to publish, and no reputable major newspaper in
Europe or North America will publish overtly racist or anti-Semitic cartoons, even
though they are often legally free to do so. Why not? What keeps them from doing so
and are they acting appropriately? One of the reasons, I assume, is that they think
such cartoons do not treat Jews and racial minorities with the respect that is due
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them as members of a democratic society. And this does seem to me an appropriate
exercise of self-restraint.
Are the Danish cartoons also objectionable? Do they fail to treat Muslims with
the respect due them as members of a democratic society? I think the answer to that
question is Yes. Again, I will leave to Modood and Bleich the debate over whether
some of the cartoons deserve to be labelled racist. Clearly some are more offen-
sive than others, but unlike Bleich, I want to argue that even the ones that only
depict Muhammad and don’t portray him as a terrorist are objectionable. Why?
Because they offend widespread Muslim sensibilities, and the publishers knew or
should have known that they would. To offend others violates a norm of civility
and respect in engaging with other members of society. This requires justification
beyond the claim that one is legally entitled to act in this way. Sometimes giving
offence is justifiable, even unavoidable. But that is not the case here.
If Muslims had a norm against publishing pictures of any contemporary Muslim
figure, the conflict with the obligations of newspapers to report the news would
be clear and direct. They would be justified in publishing such pictures despite
the offence. But Muhammad is not news. The only reason to publish pictures of
Muhammad was because Muslims do not like pictures of Muhammad to be
published. That is not a good enough reason. In fact, it is not a good reason at all.
In Denmark the Muslim minority has been marginalized socially, economically,
and politically and has been portrayed as a threat to the Danish nation. The
publication of the cartoons by Jyllands-Posten grows out of and contributes to
this marginalization. So, one can reasonably say that Denmark has not met the
morally legitimate expectations of Danish Muslims about how they should be
treated in a democratic society, and Jyllands-Posten deserves criticism for its
part in this failure, including its decision to publish the cartoons.
One objection to my argument so far is that I am taking at face value the claim
that Muslims were offended when, as both Hansen and O’Leary were at pains
to show, certain Muslim leaders inside and outside Denmark publicized this
event for their own political purposes, at times misrepresenting what was actually
published. But Hansen and O’Leary fail to explain why these parts of the story
are relevant to the question of whether Jyllands-Posten was right to publish the
cartoons in the first place and whether the cartoons were offensive to Muslims.
Is the implicit message that what Jyllands-Posten did was acceptable because it
did not really offend anyone, that all those who claimed to be offended were
disingenuous or duped? That is an implausible view.
Of course, the Muslim leaders who lied and manipulated deserve criticism for their
actions, but that does not affect the question of whether Jyllands-Posten acted
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badly and whether ordinary Muslims are right to feel aggrieved. The former Soviet
Union published a lot of propaganda about the treatment of African Americans in
the United States, some of it true, some of it false, all of it deployed as a political
tactic to discredit an external political rival and to distract the domestic audience
from problems at home. The distortions and political uses of Soviet propaganda
did not mean that African Americans had no legitimate grievances.
Commentators, including O’Leary, have pointed to the fact that there have been
times and places when Muslims themselves have portrayed Muhammad. They
rightly observe that Islam has no single central religious authority, has many
different strands and traditions, has evolved over time, and will continue to do.
It is a mistake, they insist, to treat a few political activists as though they speak
for all Muslims and the entire tradition.
All of this is perfectly sound, but, as with the stories about the Danish imams,
the implications are not self-evident. The fact that some Muslims in the past
have thought it appropriate to represent the Prophet Muhammad in pictures
does nothing to contradict the claim that some (many? most?) Muslims today
think it is inappropriate to do so.
There is a partial parallel here with the hijab debate. We know that the require-
ments of hijab are interpreted differently by different Muslim traditions and that
these partly reflect different national and ethnic traditions. But the fact that
some Muslims feel that they have no religious obligation to cover their heads
does not prove that other Muslims are insincere in saying that they do believe
that they have such an obligation or that their belief is not worthy of accom-
modation and respect. And the fact that some of those who share this belief may
be violent and hostile to democracy does not prove that all (or most) of those
who share this belief feel the same.
Critics like O’Leary suggest that those liberals who are concerned about the
offence given to religious sensibilities by these cartoons are unwittingly playing
into the hands of the extremists, but I would propose that it is actually their
position that does this by associating all those who are offended by the cartoons
with a narrow spectrum of Islamic opinion. Everything I have read suggests
that most Muslims – not just “Islamists” – were offended by the cartoons. The
notion that the offence Muslims throughout the world have said they feel at the
derogatory portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad is entirely a product of politi-
cal manipulation is preposterous. It is possible that most Muslims would not have
learned about the cartoons in the absence of the political use of them, but that is
quite another matter from saying that the offence they felt once they did learn
about them was not real. There are many, many Muslims who live in Western
democratic states and accept familiar democratic constraints upon politics (e.g.,
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rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, no use of threats of violence against
those with whom one disagrees, etc.) who were deeply offended by the cartoons.
That is the reality that Hansen and O’Leary are obscuring with their emphasis on
Danish imams and Syrian politicians.
In a second, somewhat different objection, Hansen and O’Leary accept the
claim (at least for purposes of argument) that Muslims may believe that it is
wrong to portray Muhammad, especially in a derogatory way, but insist that this
is irrelevant to those who are not Muslims. Religious dictates, they say, apply
only to believers. To exercise restraint in portraying Muhammad would be to
allow the Muslim minority to dictate to the majority.
This line of argument misses the point that treating people with respect, when it
does not cost you anything to do so, is not the same as internalizing their reli-
gious norms. Suppose you were inviting guests to dinner who were Jewish or
Muslim. Would you serve pork just because you had a taste for it? Now think
about the food served in a public school’s cafeteria. Would it be appropriate to
serve pork as the only main course to a student body known to include Muslims
and Jews? I treat these both as rhetorical questions, while recognizing that the
second may cause a moment’s more pause than the first. But what both these
cases illustrate is that it is appropriate to take others’ religious and cultural con-
cerns into account and to accommodate them when one can do so at very little
cost to anyone else. To refuse to do this, to insist on serving pork in either of the
contexts that I mentioned above would be profoundly disrespectful. In the first
case, it would be a violation of personal friendship, in the second a violation of
civic friendship, since public schools are one of the most important places where
people learn what it means to live in a democracy – not from what they read but
from how they and others are treated.
It matters, of course, what the nature of the belief is and what you give up, if
anything, in respecting it. O’Leary seems to believe that if you show respect for
any religious belief that you do not share by refraining from saying or doing
something you might otherwise say or do, you are compromising a fundamental
freedom and taking the position that every religious belief must be respected, no
matter what its content. This is an absurd position, and not one that I or anyone
I know holds.
As we all know, deep conflicts can and do arise between what one group’s religious
beliefs dictate and what others believe to be right or desirable. But there is no need
to manufacture conflicts unnecessarily, and indeed a responsibility not to do so.
This was precisely the failure of Jyllands-Posten. Of course, there is no religious
(or legal) obligation for non-Muslims not to publish portrayals of Muhammad,
but there is a civic obligation not to do so, when this serves no important purpose
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and causes offence. Moreover, this civic obligation is much greater for public
officials and for major actors in civil society, like a leading newspaper, than it is
for ordinary individuals. Even for individuals, gratuitous offence is not justifiable
simply because it is legally permissible. This is perfectly compatible with the view
that in a liberal society religion is open to criticism and even mockery. Ridicule can
be an important form of social criticism. But again the normative (not legal) stan-
dards for mockery that are appropriate for a major newspaper are different from
the ones that are appropriate for a novelist or a filmmaker or a stand-up comedian.
O’Leary’s version of liberalism (more than Hansen’s) contains a hostility to
religion that is unwarranted and unwise. It is unwarranted because a proper
understanding of liberal principles will leave much more space for religious and
other views than he does. It is unwise because this approach encourages politi-
cally moderate but deeply religious people to accept the radicals’ claim that there
is a fundamental incompatibility between their religious beliefs and the normative
requirements of a democratic society.
A final objection to my approach is that I place too much emphasis on the
particular situation of Danish Muslims as a marginalized minority. Elsewhere
Hansen has asked why it matters whether those offended are rich or poor,
powerful or weak, integrated or socially excluded. There are a number of ways
in which context matters morally to this sort of question.
First, recall that Mill, that classic defender of free speech, was particularly
worried about the repressive effects of majority views and attitudes on minorities
because of the enormous social power – not just political power – that the
majority inevitably wields in a democratic society. In democracies, minorities need
more protection from majorities than majorities need from minorities. Some
commenting on Muslims in Europe and North America seem to forget this elemen-
tary feature of the logic of democracy. It matters that Muslims are a minority.
History matters as well. Again, take an extreme case. There was very good
reason for Germans to have especially strict laws restricting the expression of
Nazi or anti-Semitic views in the second half of the twentieth century. But leave
aside the question of what was legally permitted. If a major German newspaper
had published an anti-Semitic cartoon in the 1950s, would this have warranted
(or received) only the same level of public criticism that it would have received
anywhere else in Europe or North America at the time?
Similarly, the specific circumstances of Danish Muslims do and should matter to
our reactions. It matters greatly whether one sees the publication of the cartoons
as an isolated event or as part of an overall pattern of negative and hostile public
communications about Islam by major players in civil society and in the state
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within Denmark. In the former case, ignoring it may well be an appropriate
strategy. In the latter case, ignoring it entails sticking one’s head in the sand.
Finally, I think that there is a wider context that matters as well. Equal legal
rights for Muslims and for Islam are not enough to bring justice and contain
conflict in Europe and North America. They are necessary, to be sure, and not
yet achieved in some important areas, but they are not sufficient. In my view,
there is a deep and unjustified hostility to Islam within Western states – not just
to Islamists and their actions and versions of Islam. I think that this hostility is
manifested in a wide variety of attitudes, dispositions, and actions, as reflected
in part by the reactions to the Danish cartoons controversy. (I also think that
anti-Semitism is a growing problem, especially in Europe.) It seems to me that
one’s views on the Danish cartoons case and on what policies and practices are
appropriate in Western states are likely to depend, at least in part, on whether
one thinks that Islamophobia is a serious problem in these states or not.
I do not want to be misunderstood here. I am not suggesting that everyone who
disagrees with me on the Danish cartoons issue is Islamophobic. This sort of
polarizing “you are with us or against us” attitude is the death of open discus-
sion. It is perfectly possible to think that Islamophobia is a serious problem and
still think, on a certain view of free speech, that it was appropriate for Jyllands-
Posten to have published the cartoons or that the cartoons themselves did not
contribute to or reflect this Islamophobic pattern. Nor am I saying that every-
one who denies that Islamophobia is a serious problem is, ipso facto,
Islamophobic. There is a respectable body of scholarship that argues that the
basic problems facing African Americans are best analysed through the catego-
ries of class rather than race. Taking that approach does not make one a racist.
So, too, there is a respectable body of scholarship that argues that the problems
facing Muslims in Europe are best analysed though the categories of class and
have little to do with Muslims as a social category or with Islam as a marker of
social identity. Taking that approach does not make one Islamophobic. Never-
theless, if one thinks, as I do, that Islamophobia is a serious problem in Europe
today and that many Muslims are disadvantaged in part because they are Mus-
lims, then one cannot ignore the ways in which civil society contributes to this
problem, including by means of the legitimation of anti-Muslim views in major
newspapers. The formation of public opinion is not beyond critical scrutiny.
And that is why context matters so much in this case.
NOTES
1. A few of the paragraphs in this essay appeared previously in the 2006 Yearbook
of the Philosophers of Education Society under the title “Fear vs Fairness:
Migration, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Political Community”.
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2. By the same token, those who engaged in non-violent protests against the
publication of the cartoons were exercising their legal rights of free speech as
permitted by liberal democratic laws, as Bleich rightly notes. To go slightly beyond
Bleich, one can say that placards advocating “death to the cartoonists” would
be a violation of democratic norms, even if they were legally permissible because
they did not in themselves constitute the sort of threat that could be punished
by law. Indeed, in my view, the people who advocated or endorsed violence
against the cartoonists deserve criticism, regardless of where they live or whether
they accept democratic principles. In addition, however, any resident or citizen
of a democratic state expressing such a view can be criticized for violating
legitimate normative expectations that members of a democratic community are
entitled to have of one another. I have heard different reports about what the
placards in the actual demonstrations said, so I do not know to what extent this
sort of advocacy of violence actually occurred in Europe or North America. It
seems clear, however, that it was generally not the typical public reaction of
Muslims in Western states, a point emphasized by Modood.
3. Note how the rhetorical effectiveness of the phrase “sacred cows” depends
upon the assumption that the reader will see the absurdity of this belief – a
sacred cow is something that does not deserve the respect it is given – and so
implicitly draws upon the cultural legacy of British colonialism and missionary
Christianity. One can mock Christian beliefs, of course. (See Monty Python.) But
is there a comparable phrase in English that simply presupposes their absurdity?
4. There are conflicting accounts about whether the illustrators refused the request
out of respect for Muslim sensibilities or because they were afraid of violent
reactions. So, let me repeat that no one should be impeded from publishing
anything out of fear of being subject to violence, and it is of vital importance for
a liberal democratic state to create a climate in which people do not restrain
themselves out of that sort of fear. But if the illustrators refused the job simply
because they knew such pictures would be offensive to Muslims, that seems to
me a perfectly reasonable reaction.
Free Speech, Liberalism,
and Integration: A Reply
to Bleich and Carens
Randall Hansen
Professors Bleich and Carens have provided detailed, considered responses
to my “The Danish cartoon controversy: a defence of liberal freedom”. Their
comments have made it clear to me that I need to clarify some of the views I
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presented, and their searching questions gave me cause to consider the
implications of the views I presented. Nothing in them has, however, led me to
revise those views.
I should begin with Carens’ comments on the “polemical” tone I adopted. I
admit that my choice of the term “hypocrite” was deliberately provocative, but
I defend the logic behind it. My point was that many liberal intellectuals – I will
let Carens decide for himself if he is in this category – have operated with a
double standard. They have refused to countenance Christian demands for a
public recognition of religious demands (prayer in schools, the teaching of
creationism, the banning of offensive films), but have been wholly accommo-
dating of Muslim demands (for special dress, the campaign for the [limited]
introduction of Shari‘a law in Ontario, and respecting Muslim prohibitions on
portraying the Prophet). I used the term “hypocrisy” because Muslim critiques
and anti-racist activists frequently accuse “the West” of hypocrisy in its deal-
ings with Islam and/or Muslims. I would happily substitute the (perhaps more
accurate) term “inconsistent” for “hypocritical”. The important point, which
should not be lost in this semantic debate, is that the position taken by Carens on
the Danish cartoon controversy implies other commitments that he may be
hesitant to make. If we should attack Jyllands-Posten for publishing the car-
toons, if we believe that they should not have published them, then we should
attack Martin Scorsese for making the Last Temptation of Christ. We should
similarly side with offended German Christians who opposed an August 2006
Madonna concert in which she sang during a mock crucifixion of herself. Catholic
Bishops tried, unsuccessfully, to have her charged with blasphemy. All three
productions deeply offended the firmly held beliefs of religious groups, and
those producing them knew or should have known.
There might, however, be good reasons for distinguishing Muslims and Christians.
Carens suggests several reasons why we might want to adopt a different attitude
toward Muslims than we do Christians: they are a minority, they are poor, and
they suffer discrimination. The contrast between the two groups is, however,
less clear when we consider Christian fundamentalists, who are in any event
the ones who take these demands most seriously. If all religious groups were
like contemporary high-church English Anglicans, then there would be precious
little religious conflict. Christian fundamentalists are a minority, many of them
are poor (the “white trash” who are the butt of so many high-minded jokes told
by the liberal intelligentsia), and they feel every bit as aggrieved as Muslims.
Even if we were to accept that Muslims suffered poverty and social exclusion in
a way that Jews do not, treating this context as salient leads to perverse outcomes.
Given Hindus and Jews’ relatively higher incomes and greater political integration,
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it becomes acceptable to mock Jews and Hindus’ beliefs, but unacceptable to
mock those of Muslims. Would Carens be content with this result?
In explaining the Muslim anger, Tariq Modood argued that, “from the Muslim
side, underlying causes of their current anger are a deep sense that they are not
respected, that they and their most cherished feelings are ‘fair game’. Inferior
protective legislation, socio-economic marginality, cultural disdain, draconian
security surveillance, the occupation of Palestine, the international “war on ter-
ror” all converge on this point”. Thinking of Christian fundamentalists, we could
replace “Muslim” with “Christian” and keep every word in the first sentence.
We could then rewrite the second sentence to read “the failure to legislate to
protect Christian beliefs and symbols, the removal of crosses from streets and
squares, cultural disdain from the claret-sipping East coast elite, pandering to
deviant lifestyles, and the UN’s effort to promote immoral sex, through condom
distribution, rather than abstinence all converge on this point”. This is not terri-
bly far-fetched; though they have done well out of the current US presidency,
there has been for decades a deep sense of resentment and marginalization on
the part of Christian fundamentalists. Having seen Christian fundamentalism
from the inside (as a devoted Pentecostal from the impressionable ages of 14 to
16), having sat through their denunciations of gays, abortion, and premarital
sex, I have not the slightest sympathy for them. But I feel a liberal obligation to
treat all religious groups equally, however reactionary, irrational, and absurd
their ideas might seem to me. If Carens wishes that we take Muslim grievances
seriously, how can he not but do the same for Christians?
The answer would have to be that Muslim concerns are on a surer foundation,
or that the context in which Muslims find themselves requires us to adopt a
different approach. In the former, it might be the case that, assuming that Jyllands-
Posten was really only trying to offend Muslims, that Islam is subject to greater
disrespect than Judaism or Christianity. I am not sure that it is. Through a
quick web search, I found the following t-shirts, which can be purchased online
(http://www.foulmouthshirts.com/religiousshirts.htm):
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These t-shirts are presumably deeply offensive to Christians, and the last makes
clear the artist(s)’s intention in making them. Why is the liberal academy not up
in arms about them? More importantly, does the offence they cause to a minor-
ity – Christian fundamentalists – justify a working-through of basic liberal norms
on sexuality, freedom of speech, and school education? Should we enter into a
conversation with Christian fundamentalists to rework the boundaries of liberal-
ism (recognizing the possibility that creationism might supplant evolutionary
theory, and the rights of gays might be repealed)? By Bleich’s logic, it does and
we should, unless – in a reversal of the old adage about doing as the Romans do
in Rome – only immigrants and not long-standing citizens are able to renegotiate
liberal democratic terms.
This takes me on to context. Carens is wrong that I do not take context seriously;
it all depends on which context, and the implications of one’s actions and deci-
sions. Quoting Carens:
History matters as well. Again, take an extreme case. There was very good
reason for Germans to have especially strict laws restricting the expression of
Nazi or anti-Semitic views in the second half of the twentieth century. But leave
aside the question of what was legally permitted. If a major German newspaper
had published an anti-Semitic cartoon in the 1950s, would this have warranted
(or received) only the same level of public criticism that it would have received
anywhere else in Europe or North America at the time?
Similarly, the specific circumstances of Danish Muslims do and should matter
to our reactions. It matters greatly whether one sees the publication of the
cartoons as an isolated event or as part of an overall pattern of negative and
hostile public communications about Islam by major players in civil society and
in the state within Denmark. In the former, ignoring it may well be an appropriate
strategy. In the latter case, ignoring it entails sticking one’s head in the sand.
Carens is right that it is an extreme example. Extreme, and non-analogous. Laws
on anti-Semitism and holocaust denial in Europe are a response to the system-
atic slaughter of six million innocent people, to women and children being dragged
helpless from their apartments, packed on to trains and shipped east without
food or water, lined up naked, with women clutching their babies and men
holding their little boys’ hands before they were shot and dumped in open graves.
Jews were subject to medical experimentation without anaesthetic, Nazi doc-
tors cut off the genitalia of Jewish boys, sewed the spines of twins together,
and placed Jews in pressure chambers, watching them explode or be crushed.
In the end, they were gassed in the millions. As much as some left-wing intellec-
tuals would like to suggest that there is something comparable in the treatment
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of Muslims in Europe today [I refer readers to a risible article called “The Next
Holocaust,” published in the New Statesman on 5 December 2005 and based on
nothing more scientific than recollections of taxi rides and scummy bars in
three European backwaters], the Jews of Europe suffered a level of hatred,
discrimination, and suffering that makes anything Muslims in the EU are cur-
rently experiencing seem like comic relief. Ask yourself this: would you rather
be a Muslim in Germany today, with full welfare rights, free and excellent health
care, and rights entrenched in a liberal democratic constitution, or a Jew in that
country in the 1930s? The Europe of today is not the Europe of the 1930s, or
even the Europe of the 1950s. For these reasons, an anti-Islamic cartoon cannot
and will not have the same impact as an anti-Semitic one did before the war.
This point relates to the question of racism. In a curious passage, Carens states:
If Hansen and O’Leary really think that it is wrong to object to the publication
of anything that is legally permissible, then have no grounds to say that racist
cartoons ought not to be published, when there are no legal obstacles. Is that
really their view? If so, they should acknowledge it explicitly, rather than ducking
behind the debate over whether the Danish cartoons were racist.
The debate about the cartoons’ racism is not peripheral, it is central. For if the
cartoons were racist, then there would be every reason to censure them; if they
were racist to the point of inciting violence, there would be reason to censor
them. None of the cartoons incited violence against Muslims. They only in-
spired violence by Muslims. I dealt with the issue of racism and drew on a
distinction between hatred of a “race” (which can never be justified) and hatred
of a religion (which can be justified). The cartoons argued that Islam is an
essentially violent religion. I regard this a false interpretation, but given the events
in New York, London, Madrid, and (far less violently) London again following
the publication of the cartoons, is it so outlandish that someone would draw this
conclusion? Carens is at pains to point out that only a minority of Muslims
rioted, killed people, and (in London) threatened terrorism and butchery, but he
sidesteps the fact that in the Europe of today Muslims instigate and react with a
degree of violence that is unparalleled among Jews, Christians, Hindus, or any
other religious groups. No amount of liberal hand-wringing will change the fact
that the majority of terrorists are Muslims who commit unspeakable crimes in
the name of Islam. Academics have the knowledge and conceptual apparatus
that allows them to separate Islam and violence (Bleich, 2006), but can we truly
be so surprised, horrified, and indignant when some members of the public fail
to? To pick up German analogies again, when the glass and blood from
Kristallnacht covered the streets of Berlin, serious historians could explain the
distinction between Nazi and German, but it was lost on many ordinary Europeans.
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Essentializing Muslims
This takes me to the thought-provoking points raised by Bleich about the
essentializing of Muslim migrants. He argues that “Muslims are being constructed
as the newest ethno-racial outsiders in Europe. This construction is taking place
by non-Muslim Europeans (and not by Muslims, as Hansen suggests) and it has
all the earmarks of classic racialization: namely the essentializing of an entire
group of people based on a primordial identity marker, and the classification of
such a group as inherently dangerous and inferior”. I do not disagree. Muslims
are being so constructed, but by non-Muslim Europeans (racists, for instance),
Muslim activists (the head of the Muslim Council of Britain), and Muslim and
non-Muslim intellectuals. All of these groups are suggesting that European racism,
social exclusion, economic failure, and discrimination flow from the status of
being Muslim. For the racists, the “Muslims” deserve their fate because Mus-
lims are inferior, lazy, violent and so on; for the academics and Muslim activists,
Europeans have oppressed Pakistanis, Turks, Algerians and others because they
are “Muslim”.
The racist version of this essentializing project is obviously untenable, but so is
its well-meaning liberal opposite. Religion is an acquired, not a “primordial”
characteristic. It is not the equivalent of race, sex (leaving surgery aside), or
sexuality. It has been barely ten years since scholars used the terms “Muslims”
and “immigrants” interchangeably, and economic failure, discrimination and social
exclusion has been the fate of these groups for decades. In the early 1990s,
when people spoke about Muslims, we thought about Bosnians. The average,
street-level racist is more likely than not working class and uneducated, and
such individuals could not distinguish a Muslim from a Hindu (evinced in the
fact that “Paki” is the most common form of verbal abuse on English streets).
The difficulties and the very real hostility these communities face reflect a com-
plex set of factors – their relatively poor skill and educational levels, poor bridging
social capital in their neighbourhoods, the transformation of the European economy
from industry to service, racism, and classism. To suggest that they in any
simple way flow from their status as “Muslims” is reductionist and inaccurate,
and academics should be concerned rather than captured by the idea. Islam has
been seized on by opportunistic racists looking for another stick with which to
beat the “darkies”, and “Islamophobia” has been seized upon by PhD students
looking for a topic, by academics hoping to publish a journal, and by religious
Muslims seeking to advance their religious agenda and to divide ethnic minorities
who should be united in a common struggle against racism. It captures only a
part, and not the most important part, of the ethnic minority experience in Europe.
Returning to the issue of racism, ten out of 12 cartoons are obviously not racist
(Erik Bleich’s reading of them was extremely helpful); there is a question mark
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over two of them: the one showing Muhammad with a sword and the one
showing him with a bomb on his head. I regard these as religion-hating rather
than race-hating, and do not believe – to quote the oft-repeated mantra – that
they are in the tradition of European anti-Semitism, that they are the equivalent
of the Nazi magazine, der Stürmer. I have randomly selected several caricatures
of Jews from the magazine which can be seen below (see http://www.calvin.edu/
academic/cas/gpa/sturmer.htm).
The first cartoon is from 1933 and is titled “Legion of Shame”. The caption
says: “Ignorant, lured by gold, They stand disgraced in Judah’s fold. Souls
poisoned, blood infected, Disaster broods in their wombs”.
The second cartoon is also from 1933 and is titled “Fidelity (or Faith)”. The trans-
lation is: “The sword will not be sheathed. The Stürmer stands as ever in battle
for the people and the fatherland. It fights the Jews because it loves the people”.
The third cartoon is from 1944 and is titled “Why?”. The translation is: “Why,
for what purpose is the blood flowing?” Behind the scenes, the Jew grins. That
makes the answer clear: They bleed for the Jews”.
Are people actually suggesting that the Danish cartoons are the equivalent of
these hate-mongering publications? Evidently.
While I find the accusation of racism unconvincing, I accept that they could be
subject to multiple interpretations. If individuals believe that they were racist
(Carens ducks this issue), then they are absolutely right to criticize them. But
these are not the grounds on which the cartoons were criticized. Carens himself
concedes this – without qualification – when he writes:
Unlike Bleich, I want to argue that even the [cartoons] that only depict
Muhammad and don’t portray him as a terrorist are objectionable. Why? Because
they offend widespread Muslim sensibilities, and the publishers knew or should
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have known they would. To offend others violates a norm of civility and respect
in engaging with other members of society. This requires justification beyond
the claim that one is legally entitled to act in this way. Sometimes giving offence
is justified, even unavoidable. But that is not the case here.
This gives away the game. What Carens is saying is that cartoons should not
have published (“the publishers knew or should have known”) because they
offend Muslim sensibilities. But why do they offend Muslim sensibilities? Because
they are racist? Reflect European hostility to Muslims? Are part of a wider campaign
in Denmark against Muslims? To answer these questions, I undertook a content
analysis of 113 newspapers articles published in seven major newspapers (The
New York Times, Washington Post, Observer, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, the Globe
and Mail, and the Toronto Star) in the first two weeks after the crisis became news,
and coded them on a three-point scale: those that attacked the cartoons because
they were offensive to Islam, those that attacked them because they were rac-
ist, and those that reported the story without explaining why they were offen-
sive. Sixty-eight (51%) were neutral. Of those that took a position, 58 (43%)
argued that the cartoons were offensive to Islam, while seven (5%) said they were
both offensive to Islam and racist. All articles quoted Muslim spokespeople, and
not a single person stated that racism was the only or main ground for protest.
The basis of both the wave of protest, and of Carens and (to a lesser degree
perhaps) Bleich’s argument, is that publication of the cartoons violated a widely
accepted prohibition on publishing representations of Muhammad. The publishers
of the cartoons, and the rest of us, are expected to internalize and respect Muslim
norms. This is absolutely wrong for the reasons I outlined in my original piece.
Religion is and must be a just target for satire, mockery, and ridicule. Equally
importantly, religious principles apply only to members of the religion and not to
anyone else.
Carens rejects these arguments by analogy: if you invite a [kosher] Jewish friend
over, you do not serve him pork. The analogy does not work: if you invite a
Muslim friend over, it is equally inadvisable to hang a portrait of Muhammad on
the wall or (if your guest is female and wears the hijab) to launch into a lecture
on the headdress’ sexism. Our private lives are, however, fundamentally differ-
ent from our public lives. The day after my Muslim and Jewish friends visit, I
might be tempted to go to an art exhibit based on different representations of
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Afterwards, I might pen an article making the
case that supposed Jewish dietary requirements have little to do with essential
Judaism and are rather a make-work project for cash-starved rabbis. Or I might
give a paper arguing that the hijab and the burka are symbols of female repres-
sion that have no essential connection to Islam. In Bleich and Carens’ world, I
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could do none of these things. If academics want to respect religious groups’
dictates, they are free to. But they should refrain from becoming latter-day
prophets using political theory to define the bounds of acceptable religious
behaviour for the rest of us. In a liberal society, I can eat pork, shop on Satur-
day, drink on Sunday, go to a gay sauna, write a play about sex in a Sikh temple,
hold an art exhibit on all of the prophets, and do any other number of other
things that offend religious opinion. It has been barely 30 years since these were
all taken for granted as individual rights, and Bleich and Carens are already
prepared to hand some of them back.
Integration and Islam
In the thought-provoking piece that initiated this discussion, Modood argues
against what he calls a “take-it-or-leave-it” approach to integration. Similarly,
Bleich argues that my own conception of integration borders on the authoritar-
ian. Both argue in favour of a conception of integration as a flexible process of
“give and take” in which the limits of liberalism are worked out over time. I
would submit that Bleich, Carens, Modood and I have the same view of integration
– it is sometimes “take-it-or-leave-it” and sometimes “give and take”. We simply
differ on which issues fall under which heading. The examples that Bleich cites
– preventing fascists from rallying anti-Semites to beat Jews, bilingual edu-
cation, reforming German citizenship – all fall easily in the “give and take” camp.
Indeed, liberals like Dworkin would argue that these rights are implied by other
liberal commitments we hold. But what of other beliefs? Most Muslims appar-
ently regard homosexuality as repugnant and to be outlawed. Are we going to
enter into a conversation about that? Some Christians and some Muslim men
think their wives should stay at home, walk behind them, and can be beaten. Is
such a view part of the negotiation package for migrants integrating into liberal
societies? Of course not. In my view, but not in those of Bleich, Modood, or
Carens, demanding that others refrain from satirizing religion is in the take-it-or-
leave-it camp. To compromise on this is to compromise liberalism itself.
There might be a consequentialist answer to this argument: even if what I say is
true in theory, might the implementation of it not inflame Muslim opinion and
pander to anti-Muslim bigots. Scholars made a version of this argument in France’s
2004 decision to ban the hijab (which was itself interesting, because it resulted
from precisely the sort of two-way conversation between Muslims and non-
Muslims that Bleich and Modood recommend). Recent evidence published by
Pew suggests exactly the opposite. After surveying Muslims and non-Muslims’
attitudes to each other, they found those attitudes were best in France, the
country with the most robustly integrationist framework in Europe. A majority
of French Muslims held positive attitudes toward non-Muslims, and the French
were tied with the British for the best attitudes toward Muslims. There were,
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however, substantial differences between the two countries’ Muslim communi-
ties: 25 per cent of Muslims in France thought there was a conflict between
their religion and living in a modern society (the lowest in Europe), while a
majority of British Muslims (51%) believed there was such a conflict. At the
same time, British Muslims had the most hostile attitudes towards non-Muslims:
clear majorities of British Muslims viewed non-Muslim Britons as selfish, arrogant,
violent, greedy, and immoral, and a substantial minority viewed them as fanatical
(44%). French policy has neither pandered to racism nor alienated Muslims.
British policy, which Modood praises as a model for Europe, has resulted in the
greatest value divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe.
These comments take me to a broader issue: the future of immigration and
religious diversity in Europe. Europe’s declining birth rates mean that it will need
to accept many more immigrants over the coming decades. At the same time,
Muslim birth-rates mean that Europe’s Muslim population will grow. Unlike
some US authors who predict a sinister “Eurabia” populated by anti-American
and anti-liberal Muslims, I welcome both processes. I maintain, however, that
this immigration is the cause for strengthening, not questioning, the liberal, indi-
vidualist framework that is the unique product of the West. In contrast to what
Bleich and Carens will have us believe, increasing immigration and diversity
make liberalism and secularism more important, not less.
REFERENCE
Bleich, E.
2006 “Religion, violence and the state in Western Europe”, paper presented at
the Council for European Studies conference, Chicago, 29 March-2 April.
Obstacles to Multicultural Integration
Tariq Modood
I am grateful to Brendan O’Leary and Randall Hansen for their criticisms of my
original piece and their provocations, and also to Joseph Carens and Erik Bleich
for their comments and contribution to this debate, which originally took the form
of two series of email exchanges.1 I largely agree with much of Bleich’s
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contribution and nearly all of Caren’s and will try to not simply repeat points
of agreement. Nevertheless, there will inevitably be some repetition as I defend
a point or attempt to develop a linked argument. Equally inevitably, given the
limitations of space, I have had to omit or shorten some comments, especially on
matters not to do with the Cartoons Affair or integration (as not a few of O’Leary’s
remarks are).
I first came to the issues of freedom of expression and Muslims in the West in
considering some of the implications of the Satanic Verses affair and I shall draw
on what I argued there; and on my view that groups such as British Asians are
objects not just of a phenotypical racism but also of a cultural racism in which
issues such as religion can play an important role in a process of racialization
(the relevant essays have been reproduced as chapters 6 and 1 respectively in
Modood, 2005).
In relation to free speech my strategy has been, firstly, to assimilate Muslims
into existing legal provisions by extending the widely supported need in contem-
porary democracies for an offence of incitement to racial hatred to incitement
to religious hatred and group defamation. Secondly, to protect the Millian value
of unfettered pursuit of truth by defining it more narrowly as free inquiry rather
than as free expression. Thirdly, to emphasize the importance of non-legal, non-
coercive measures to reduce the dangerous effects of racist and quasi-racist
public and media disrespect so as to reduce the need for legal interventions and
at the same time promote respect for stigmatized and marginal groups and pro-
mote multicultural integration.
My OpenDemocracy piece that initiated the present debate was based on this
perspective but as I made no mention of the second point, it is quite understand-
able that Hansen and O’Leary focus on the first point. I did however emphasize
the third point and so it is very disappointing that they ignore that. Liberal objec-
tion to legal curtailment of offensive speech and images without suggestions of
non-legal remedies is unhelpful.
Hansen and O’Leary broadly share a common strategy, which is as follows
(though not each may subscribe to every aspect of every point):
1. A Muslim Fraud: the Cartoon Affair was whipped up by Islamist
extremists/fundamentalists and so the Muslim case rests on a fraud.
2. Religion and Race: there is a fundamental distinction between race and
religion; racial hatred and racist expression should be censured and where
likely to lead to violence should be a legal offence; the giving of offence
to religious people and the expression of religious hatred should neither
be censured nor censored regardless of the consequences.
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3. Hypocrisy: the “soft accommodation” of Muslim militancy by liberals,
intellectuals, politicians, publishers and so on is not only illiberal but is
also hypocritical; and Muslims are hypocritical because they accuse
others of racism and intolerance but are guilty of the same.
4. Integration: the making of exceptions in relation to Muslims as regards
freedom of speech works against the integration of Muslims in Europe.
I shall respond to each of these points but my main focus will be on the second.
A Muslim fraud
The heart of the fraud is that: “The lobby group did not simply complain about
the 12 cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten when engaging the Arab League.
They added three others, grotesque caricatures (showing paedophilia, sodomy,
and the Prophet represented as a porker), to bolster their campaign portfolio”
(O’Leary, this issue: 25).
This argument is something of a non sequitur for Hansen and O’Leary are not
suggesting that if these other cartoons had been “for real” they would take a
different position on the Affair. There is certainly no suggestion that they think
that the false cartoons, which they believe made some Muslims so angry that
there was arson, violence and mayhem, should be banned. Moreover, as Carens
has pointed out there is enough evidence that many, probably most Muslims,
especially in Europe, were actually angry about the cartoons that were pub-
lished (not having seen and not even knowing about those others in the cam-
paign portfolio). Again, the fact that it took various organized campaigns by
some activists before Muslim publics were made aware of the publications is
neither here nor there, for that is generally how matters are publicized and pro-
tests mobilized. What is clear is that many Muslims were offended by the real
cartoons and their reproduction in numerous Western newspapers.
I did also emphasize in the original piece that the cartoons were a trigger and had
to be seen in the context of many events and policies that make Muslims feel
that they are not respected but are dealt with by double standards. I could re-
make the point by updated illustrations. When Muslims were being lectured and
hectored on how they are denying freedom of speech and seeking to ban what
they do not like to see/hear and so failing to appreciate western culture, the
following were prominent in the British media:
1. A British court acquits Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party
(BNP), and one of his followers on the charge of incitement to racial
hatred even though he was secretly filmed making a speech to his
members in which he calls Muslims in Britain cockroaches.
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2. Abu Hamza, a radical Muslim preacher, is imprisoned for seven years
for incitement to racial hatred and for possessing “a terrorist encyc-
lopaedia”.
3. David Irving, a historian, is imprisoned for three years in Vienna for
denying the holocaust.
4. The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is suspended from office for
four weeks for making an alleged anti-Semitic remark to a journalist in
private.2
What Muslims rightly notice is that Western society protects certain vulner-
abilities and sensibilities but not theirs, and that incitement by Muslims is more
likely to be punished than incitement against Muslims. To see this one does not
need to postulate a conspiracy theory. The point is that the status quo in coun-
tries like those of the EU is not anything like what could be called a level legal-
political playing field in relation to Muslims. It can be explained historically,
primarily by reference to who made the existing laws and what problems they
were meant to address. Most Muslims simply want European society to take
some of their concerns and sensibilities into account in the way that those
of others have been taken into account and institutionalized and “normalized”
so certain things are simply not said in public and the law plays its part in
sustaining that.
I accept Bleich’s point that I over-generalized: the cartoons are a mixed bag and
not all of the 12 cartoons are unfriendly to Islam and Muslims. At least two do
not even attempt a depiction of the Prophet; and on the other hand, two link
Muhammad with violence and are, as Bleich explains, racist. As Carens points
out the portrayal of Muhammad will be taken by most Muslims to be disrespect-
ful – but he (nor I) would ban that, and the generality of Muslims have not
sought this. The one that gave the most offence is Muhammad with a bomb in
his turban, with a lit fuse, and the shahadah (the Islamic creed) written on the
bomb. As Muhammad is meant to represent Muslims as such, the drawing is an
incitement to hatred and therefore in the category of the kind of images that
ought to be banned, especially in the context of the total exercise. I am particu-
larly mindful of the view, shared by O’Leary, that group-honour often provokes
more violence than considerations of material self-interest, or material group-
interest (O’Leary, 2005; cf Modood, 2005, chapter 6). Nevertheless, I would
not categorically say that even that cartoon should be censored rather than
censured. It is enough to make the point that it is in the borderline area of the
kind the banning of which needs to be discussed. Placards at angry demon-
strations calling for certain people’s death ought to be a legal offence though the
(possibly unlawful) provocation of the cartoons must be taken into account as
a mitigating circumstance.
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Hansen and O’Leary deny that any of the cartoons are racist for they maintain
that in general there is no such thing as anti-Muslim racism. It is to this I now turn.
Race and religion
Hansen and O’Leary maintain that my portrayal of the cartoons as racist and
generally of my talk of Muslims as suffering racism is inappropriate for in so far
as they suffer racism it is not qua Muslims. Yet as Carens notes, they attempt to
blame or at least de-justify the cause of Muslims in general by reference to the
worst case Muslims. This is to judge Muslims as a group. (As I once heard a
British Muslim say: “our extremists are taken to be typical of us, their extrem-
ists, like the BNP racists, are always dismissed as just a few hotheads and rotten
apples in a barrel”.) In O’Leary’s case this is not just in relation to the anti-
cartoons protests but to Islam, picking on some dark aspects of its history and
doctrines and suggesting that they are an impediment to civic respect.3
Muslims are, indeed, being generalized about in these and other ways in Europe
(and elsewhere) at the moment. They are being perceived not just as neighbours,
citizens and so on but as Muslims; and it has to be said that many Muslims – like
some blacks, Jews, gays, women, Scots, etc. in parallel situations before them
– are vociferously challenging the negative perceptions but not the underlying
logic that Muslims are a group. They are responding to the negative perceptions
by offering positive images, stories, and generalizations about Muslims; less
often by saying Muslims are not a group but a variety of individuals, citizens
etc. Hence a process of group-formation is well underway.
Why do I call this process “racialization” and the negative dimension of it, “anti-
Muslim racism”? Because the “otherness” or “groupness” that is being appealed
to and is being developed is connected to the cultural and racial otherness that is
connected to European/white peoples’ historical and contemporary perception
and treatment of people that they perceive to be non-European or non-white.
How Muslims are perceived today is both connected to how they have been
perceived and treated by European empires and their racial hierarchies, as well
as by Christian Islamophobia and the Crusades in earlier centuries. The images,
generalizations, and fears have both a continuity as well as a newness. More-
over, these perceptions and treatments overlap with contemporary European/
white peoples’ attitudes and behaviour towards blacks, Asians, immigrants, and
so on. The perception and treatment clearly has a religious and cultural dimen-
sion but equally clearly it has a phenotypical dimension. Presented with a num-
ber of images – cartoons – most people asked to pick out a Muslim would not
reply but I do not know what any of these people believe, just as if they were
asked to identify Jews they would have a go (though probably less today than in
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the past – because Jews are becoming de-racialized, normalized as “white”, in
some parts of the West).
It is true that “Muslim” is not a (putative) biological category in the same way
as “black” or “south Asian”, aka “Paki”, or Chinese. But nor was “Jew” once: a
long, non-linear history of racialization turned a faith group into a “race”. More
precisely, the latter did not so much replace the former but superimposed itself.
No one denied that Jews were a religious community with a distinctive
language(s), culture(s), and religion but they also came to be seen as a race –
and with horrific consequences. Similarly, Bosnian Muslims were “ethnically
cleansed” by people who were phenotypically, linguistically, and culturally the
same as themselves because they came to be identified as an “ethnic” or a
“racial” group. The ethnic cleanser, unlike an Inquistor, wasted no time in finding
out what people believed, if and how often they went to a mosque and so on:
their victims were “ethnically” identified as Muslims. My argument is that this
same kind of process – though at least so far at a much lower level of violence
– is taking place in Western Europe and, I would hazard, in the United States,
given public support for “racial profiling” at airports and by security services, etc.
The results of such racialization or ethnicization are not “pure” racism, i.e. it is
not just biological or phenotypical, which it might be said to be in the case of
people of African descent. But it is clear here that Muslims are not exceptional,
as the above example of the Jews illustrates. Indeed the same is true of the most
numerous non-whites in the United Kingdom, namely people of south Asian
origin, locally called “Asians” (and less pleasant monikers). I have argued that
even before the rise of a distinct anti-Muslim racism there was an anti-Asian
racism and that it was distinct from anti-black racism in having distinct stereo-
types (if one was unintelligent, aggressive, happy-go-lucky and lazy, the other
was “too clever by half”, passive, worked too hard, and did not know how to
have fun). Moreover, if in the case of black people the stereotypes appealed to
some (implicit) biology, to IQ, physical prowess, sense of rhythm, sexual drive
and so on, none of the main stereotypes about Asians even implicitly referred to
a scientific or folk biology. The stereotypes all referred to Asian cultural norms
and community structures – to gender roles and norms, patriarchy, family au-
thority and obligations, arranged marriages, religion, work ethic, and so on. So,
anti-Asian racism is best understood as cultural racism. The most violent form
of racism that Asians in Britain have experienced is random physical attacks in
public places – “Paki-bashing”. I have not seen any analysis of this phenomenon
that refers to any biological beliefs held by the perpetrators. Interviews with the
pool of people from which the perpetrators come – young working-class white
males, especially “skinheads” – and others in their neighbourhoods accuse Asians
not of a deficient biology but of being aliens, of not belonging in “our country”,
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of “taking over the country” and so on. Actually, they are accused of things that
the Nazis accused Jews of (as well as of not having the right biology).
Once we break with the idea that (contemporary) racism is only about biology
or that racism is of one classical kind, then the idea of a pure racism should lose
its social science appeal. We should be able to see that cultural groups and
religious groups can be racialized; that Muslims can be the victims of racism
qua Muslims as well as qua Asians or Arabs or Bosnians. Indeed that these
different kinds of racisms can interact and have a dynamic and so can mutate
and new forms of racism can emerge. This is not to reduce the multiple factors
that account for the position of European Muslims to a single set, as Hansen
alleges, but to recognize that a form of racism has emerged which connects
with but goes beyond a critique of Islam as a religion.
Hansen acknowledges that racists are now explicitly targeting Muslims but
apparently this is not anti-Muslim racism for what motivates them is a “base
racism” (Hansen, this issue: 13), apparently a general colour-racism, for he
writes: “Islam has been seized by opportunistic racists looking for another stick
by which to beat the darkies” (Hansen, this issue: 47). Colour-racism is cer-
tainly a factor in the equation here but as we have seen that does not mean that
it is not a compound racism that may legitimately be called anti-Muslim racism
or that Muslims are merely a convenient tool. Racists may simultaneously hate
a number of groups but that does not mean that they do not racialize these
groups differently or treat them all as a kind of “base” race, say, non-white.
Indeed, we potentially have an absurd regress here for some have argued that
neo-Nazi groups’ principal target continues to be the Jews and they have only
latched on to the “darkies” to make political capital. For me a key question that
could help analysis here is to ask: could all other/older racisms disappear but
anti-Muslim racism persist? For me it is possible to imagine a (not necessarily
likely) Britain of the future where the only non-whites that suffer racism are
Muslims. Neither logically nor sociologically do the existence of anti-Muslim or
anti-Asian or anti-black racism depend upon each other and increasingly there
are people who express only one or only two of these racisms (Modood, 2005:
6-18 and chapter 1).
Hansen has a second argument to distinguish between racism and hostility to
Muslims, namely that “while there can be no acceptable reason to object to
‘blackness’ there are many good reasons to object to religion” (Hansen, this
issue: 12). While it is not clear how this brief statement is to be interpreted, it is
not obviously true. There certainly are forms of “blackness” that there are ac-
ceptable reasons to criticize. For example, the form of “blackness” that states
that scholastic endeavour and obedience to teachers is a form of “acting white”.
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Many people, including black people, do indeed object to this self-conception of
“blackness”. This only illustrates that ideas like blackness are not merely bio-
logical and that biology does not circumscribe contemporary ideas about “race”.
We must not, then, over-religionize Islamophobia and think of it as a form of
religious intolerance; it is more like racism than religious intolerance. Nevertheless,
I accept that in the general phenomena of hostility to Muslims is hostility to
Islam. That is why I originally argued that the lack of sympathy for Muslims
among the centre-left intelligentsia was partly caused by a failure to appreciate the
racialization of Muslims, but that there was a second factor too. Namely, a lack of
sympathy amongst the same people for those who place an importance upon
religion. O’Leary denies that this is an additional factor but in my view while the
first explains a confusion about racism, the second explains why hostility to or
ridiculing religious people is not seen as disrespectful or requiring censure.
Hypocrisy
There are two distinct issues here. Firstly, whether some liberals are hypo-
critical in not extending the concern they have expressed about the vulnerability
of Muslims4 to other groups such as Christian fundamentalists; secondly, whether
some Muslims are not also being hypocritical.
I largely concur with Carens’ rebuttal of the first point and will add some points
of my own, including that Hansen does not realize that in pointing to a certain
disdain for religion amongst liberals, a disdain which he and O’Leary share, he
is supporting my point about an anti-religious intellectual bias in our culture. It is
quite independent of any form of racism, it predates the post-war immigration
from the South, and has no especial connection with perceptions of Muslims.
Nevertheless, its existence makes it more difficult for Muslims to be respected
in Europe and for their hurt to be taken seriously or sometimes even understood.
As Carens points out, in the contexts we are interested in, Muslims but not
Christians have a vulnerability – discursive aggression against Muslims can lead
to violent and exclusionary consequences against Muslims in the West. If other
groups shared the same vulnerability (e.g. poor Christian fundamentalists) or no
longer shared it (Hansen asks about upper-income Hindus), then I would hope
this would affect the kind of protection that we would consider. Moreover, my
biography has not made me as unsympathetic to Christian fundamentalists as
Hansen’s has made him. I do not want to encourage closed-mindedness and
dogmatism, let alone bigotry and hostility to non-believers or other-believers but
I do get annoyed when I see some Christians, especially if they are not wealthy,
highly educated, or powerful mocked and made fun of by people who are (or
are patronized by people who are) wealthy, highly educated, or powerful.
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We should also recognize one other important difference between offending
Christians and offending Muslims such that liberals who are nonchalant about
the first but urge restraint in relation to the second are not necessarily being
inconsistent. People brought up in Christian homes or at least in Christian soci-
eties but who as adults are not Christian believers, nevertheless will think of
Christianity as “ours” in the way they will not so think of Islam. Hence, they will
feel a freedom to criticize aspects of their own culture in a way they may not
think proper in criticizing aspects of the culture of others. This is analogous to
the way that we speak to friends and family (being sarcastic, raising our voices,
swearing, making personal remarks, etc.) but would not speak in the same way
to people with whom we did not have a similar relationship. With outsiders we
would indeed “mind our p’s and q’s” and speak in a more civil tone of voice.
The fact that we would respond quite differently to the same remark made by a
friend and a non-friend is not a form of hypocrisy.
Both Hansen and O’Leary think there is some hypocrisy on the part of Muslims
as well. O’Leary mentions that Arab racism against Kurds and black Muslims in
Sudan is worse than the racism Muslims criticize against themselves in Europe;
and that Muslims are quick to talk about atrocities against them and slow to
criticize Muslim atrocities against Muslims and others. I fear there is a lot of
truth in this and I certainly do not want to justify it though I think one of the
causes of such double standards is that Muslims are in a position of weakness in
relation to the West and so see self-criticism as increasing vulnerability and
perpetuating their inferior status. I think, however, O’Leary’s examples have
little to do with the Cartoon Affair, though Hansen has an example which is
perhaps relevant to European integration.
In his first piece Hansen states that the Muslim Council of Britain denounces
homosexuality as a sin and “refuses to recognize Holocaust Memorial Day [HMD]”
(Hansen, this issue: 13). While it is true that many Muslims, together with many
Christians and those of other faiths, regard the practice of homosexuality as a
sin, Muslims, like the others, have different views about it socially and in the
main British Muslim activists have an attitude of toleration towards homosexu-
als (Modood and Ahmad, 2007). Hansen’s remarks about HMD are completely
misleading in so far as they suggest some kind of holocaust denial. Anyone who
visits the relevant web pages (http://www.mcb.org.uk/article_detail.php?article=
announcement-530) will see that the MCB recognizes the horrendous nature of
the Nazi holocaust but has refused, perhaps unwisely, to attend the HMD public
ceremonies because it excludes the memorialization of a number of genocides –
e.g., those in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
In any case the reason for not vilifying Muslims is not because they are better
than any other group but because the alternative is a second class, alienated, and
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resentful population. That would be a failure of integration as well as of demo-
cratic principles.
Integration
The final set of issues I want to consider are those to do with what principles
are at stake in relation to integration, and how the integration of Muslims is best
achieved in Europe. Most specifically, whether integration is advanced or under-
mined by constraints on the vilification of Muslims?
Hansen argues that those who advocate restrictions on offensive and hateful
speech directed at Muslims are thereby arguing that Muslims are so different
that they cannot be integrated into Europe without special measures, and thereby
undermine the cause of Muslim integration and give indirect support to those
who say Muslims are inassimilable (Hansen, this issue: 15).
I do not feel this criticism of self-contradiction can be directed at me for it
should be clear from my original argument and my writing in general that I have
been arguing that Muslim integration raises particular challenges and presents
particular difficulties of which we need to be alert. This is to not exceptionalize
Muslims but to recognize that all minorities raise distinctive challenges and
problems of adjustment. This is part of the meaning of the “multi” in
multiculturalism and it means that there is no single template of integration
(Modood, 2007). What suits one minority, or works at one period of time, or in
one country, should not be generalized and imposed on other minorities. This is
not a naïve principle but a lesson from experience. Bleich brings this out nicely
and in particular shows how Hansen’s authoritarian demands for conformity to
what worked for other groups ignores how past integration has required changes
in legislation and behaviour on the part of the majority in order to accommodate
minorities. I would add that integration of an unfamiliar and especially a stigma-
tized group which is fighting to achieve equality does not happen without the
kinds of educative conflict such as the Cartoons Affair.
My argument is that we need to extend sympathies and protections to Muslims
that we already practice in relation to other minorities. For example, that we
should extend the offence of incitement to religious hatred from Northern Ire-
land to the rest of the United Kingdom. As Bleich points out, Danish law – like
that of many other countries – already forbids dissemination of threatening,
insulting, or degrading material on account of race, colour, national or ethnic
origin, or sexual inclination, so extending it to cover religion is not making Mus-
lims a special case but the reverse.
I do, however, agree that integration has to be within a framework of principles
and rights which are wider than multiculturalism itself. These include freedom
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of speech and the rule of law. But these principles, rights, and norms need to be
interpreted. The question is who does this? I follow the approach which empha-
sizes that dialogue is central to an egalitarian approach. For one party in a dis-
pute to exclusively interpret the principles at stake is to treat the other party as
second-class citizens. Liberals have to learn as well as lay down what is and is
not acceptable. Hansen insists that certain things are surely fundamental and
non-negotiable. In our email exchange he suggested that no one would abolish
elections simply because a minority had an objection to them. I do not agree that
there cannot be multi-vocal dialogue about elections – this is exactly what has
been happening in many countries in relation to issues of fair representation and
proportional representation, the goal of a legislature “mirroring” an electorate
and preferential candidate lists in relation to women and minorities. Sure this is
not ending free elections but it is a fair parallel for as far as I know there is no
suggestion about ending free speech. What the parallel shows is that free speech
no less than free elections are appropriate and necessary subjects for demo-
cratic multicultural debate.
As my original essay made clear much can and must be done outside the use of
law in relation to the demeaning of minorities. I was arguing that in our societies
various kinds of restraints, personal and cultural, operate to inhibit offending
fellow citizens who are perceived to be vulnerable; for example, Jews, blacks,
and women. These cultural restraints are related to law but go well beyond it
and in many ways the function of legal restraints on speech is to encourage a
sensibility that cannot be enforced by law. These sensitivities are a result of
history and society and so when new vulnerable groups enter society, there has
to be some education and refinement of these sensitivities in the light of chang-
ing circumstances and the specific vulnerabilities of new entrants. I would like
to think that this debate, both for its participants and its readers, can contribute
to the kind of understanding that is necessary to achieve principled and viable
multicultural integration.
NOTES
1. I am grateful to Geoffery Levey, Nasar Meer, and Varun Uberoi for their comments
on the second set of exchanges.
2. Later in 2006 he won the appeal against the sentence.
3. Carens has already pointed out that respect for Muslims is about the avoidance
of giving offence, not of not criticizing their beliefs, let alone sharing them, or of
practicing the same norms as them. Muslims might not create cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad because they think it verges on idolatry; non-Muslims may
not think it is idolatrous but may refrain from publishing cartoons of Muhammad
out of respect for the beliefs of Muslims.
62 The Danish cartoon affair
© 2006 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2006 IOM
4. I disagree with Hansen’s supposition that this is the majority liberal position; it
certainly was not the dominant position in the British media.
REFERENCES
Modood, T.
2005 Multicultural Politics: Muslims, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, Min-
nesota and Edinburgh University Presses.
2007 Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea, Polity Press, forthcoming.
Modood, T., and F. Ahmad
2007 “British Muslim perspectives on multiculturalism”, Theory, Culture and
Society, Special Issue on Global Islam guest edited by Bryan Turner and
Fredric Volpi, 24(1), January, forthcoming.
O’Leary, B.
2005 “Mission accomplished? Looking back at the IRA”, Field Day Review:
216-246.