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The Cartoon Controversy: Offence,
Identity, Oppression?
Sune Lægaard
University of Copenhagen
If the publication of twelve drawings of the Prophet Mohammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten,
which sparked the ‘cartoon controversy’, was wrong, why might this be the case? The article considers
four arguments advanced in relation to the quite similar Rushdie affair for judging such publications to
be wrong, and asks whether they provide plausible moral reasons against such publications, and whether
they justify legal restrictions on freedom of speech. The arguments concern: (a) the consistent extension
of group defamation legislation to cover Muslims; (b) offence to religious sensibilities; (c) issues of
identity; and (d) oppression. The article also considers whether such arguments can be acknowledged
within a liberal model of toleration. It is argued that versions of several of the arguments may in fact be
thus accommodated, but that they nevertheless do not provide strong reasons for judging the kind of
publications under consideration to be morally wrong or suitable objects for legal restrictions. The
argument from oppression is different, however, in pointing to different kinds of factors, but its
applicability is limited both by a number of conditions for when oppression provides the right kind of
reasons,and by empirical constraints. The suggested conclusion is that the publication of the Mohammad
cartoons was not wrong, at least not all things considered, for any of the noted reasons, but that there
might be other kinds of factors that are not captured by traditional liberal models of toleration, which
might provide reasons for moral criticism of this and similar publications.
On 30 September 2005, twelve cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad were
published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten along with an article lamenting
the alleged self-censorship in cultural circles with respect to Muslims and Islam.
One drawing simply depicts Mohammad in the desert;two combine Mohammad
with Islamic symbols like the crescent and the star; one is of a boy named
Mohammad writing ‘the editors of Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of reactionary
provocateurs’ on a blackboard in Arabic letters; and two satirise a Danish author,
whose claim not to be able to find illustrators for a children’s book about
Mohammad started the whole affair. Others somehow associate the Prophet,
Islam or Muslims with terrorism, however: one shows Mohammad with a turban
in the shape of an ignited bomb with verses from the Qur’an inscribed on it;
another portrays the Prophet in Paradise, saying ‘Stop, Stop.We ran out of virgins’
to a long line of suicide bombers; two refer to the fear of cartoonists that pictures
of Mohammad will trigger revenge from Muslims;and two link the Prophet with
suppression of women.1
The publication sparked, first, a domestic controversy over the place of Muslims
in Danish society and the limits of freedom of expression and, later, an interna-
tional crisis between Denmark, and increasingly other European countries, and
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00685.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2007 VOL 55, 481–498
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much of the Muslim world. During the controversy the publication was re-
peatedly criticised for being wrong, mostly by offended Muslims but also by other
religious groups and some liberals. The present article considers what might make
a publication like that of the Mohammad cartoons morally problematic, and
whether such moral features would justify the demands made by some critics for
legal restrictions on freedom of expression,either in this particular case,e.g. in the
form of legal sanctions against Jyllands-Posten, or in general, e.g. in the form of
legal restrictions on certain forms of religiously related utterances. The discussion
accordingly distinguishes between whether an act of expression is (a) imprudent
or unwise; (b) morally problematic (bad, wrong); and (c) whether it should, for
either of these reasons, be legally restricted (prohibited).
The article addresses these issues via a discussion of some of the main inter-
pretations of what was normatively at stake in the Rushdie affair, i.e. freedom
of expression and toleration, including arguments concerning the extension of
existing legislation against group defamation to Muslims, offence to religious
sensibilities, issues of identity and, finally, oppression. The reason for drawing on
discussions of the Rushdie affair is that (a) the two cases are very similar in most
of the relevant respects; (b) most of the critical discussion of the cartoon contro-
versy has been framed in terms very much like those used in discussions of the
Rushdie affair; and (c) the cartoon controversy has to date not received much
systematic theoretical treatment comparable to the treatments of the Rushdie
affair considered here.2
The article suggests that a liberal model of toleration which gives a high,although
not necessarily absolute, priority to freedom of expression and toleration can
acknowledge as legitimate several of the moral reasons against publication.
Although (versions of ) some of the complaints against the publication may thus
be genuine and legitimate from a liberal point of view, they are generally not
sufficiently weighty to justify legal restrictions on freedom of expression. There
might, however, be normatively problematic features beyond those that can be
thus acknowledged and it is considered under what conditions one such feature
might justify legal restrictions on freedom of expression.
Freedom of Expression and Toleration
Both the Rushdie affair and the cartoon controversy are often understood in
terms of freedom of expression and toleration. This interpretation of the cases is
often associated with the normative claim that Rushdie and Jyllands-Posten merely
exercised their freedom of expression, and that calls for restrictions on their
freedom or sanctions for their use of it are unwarranted, no matter how much
they may have disturbed or offended Muslims. Such a view is supported by
some prominent liberal scholars, according to whom free speech is a necessary
condition for democratic legitimacy, since democracy is about collective self-
determination and authorship of laws, which requires that citizens are able to
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voice their opinions on matters of public interest (Dworkin, 2006; Post, 2007).
Free speech should furthermore not be limited out of concern for religious
sensibilities or respect for religious views,precisely because religious questions are
so important for many people; to restrict expression is to limit people’s attempts
to grapple with these questions, as is the imposition of any standard for judging
when expressions are proper in this regard, given the fact that people disagree
both on the right answer and the right standards ( Waldron, 1993). Muslims may
of course criticise and disagree, even loudly and emphatically, with views
expressed about what they hold sacred,but there should be no legal limits to such
expressions.
Even though both Salman Rushdie and the editor responsible for the publication
of the Mohammad cartoons claimed that freedom of expression should be
understood as absolute and unlimited (Rose, 2005), such absolutist views need
not be part of, nor are they implied by, the view that publication should not be
restricted or sanctioned in these cases. This is in any event factually at odds with
actual legislation in most otherwise liberal jurisdictions outside the US.One may
accept legal limits to freedom of expression, without thereby accepting the claim
that The Satanic Verses or the Mohammad cartoons fall outside these limits.
In saying that publication is well within the limits (if any) of freedom of
expression (however exactly justified),defenders of the permissibility (if not actual
desirability) of publication also say, or imply, that Muslims should tolerate the
publications in question (Waldron, 1993). That the Rushdie affair and cartoon
controversy were cases of toleration is to say that they in fact exhibited what is
often called ‘the circumstances of toleration’, and,furthermore,that toleration was
in fact required of Muslims. The circumstances of toleration are the conditions
under which it makes sense to talk of toleration, namely that there is some
sufficiently important difference between persons or groups that is disapproved
of, or disliked by, one party, and that this party has, or believes itself to have,power
to oppose or suppress this disapproved or disliked behaviour or other feature of
the other party (McKinnon, 2006, p. 14).3It seems clear that the Rushdie affair
and cartoon controversy fulfilled these conditions. Many Muslims did take excep-
tion, to say the least, to the respective publications,and even though it is debatable
what power they in fact had to suppress the publications or to hinder similar
publications in the future, (some) Muslims certainly were able to put strong
pressure on both Rushdie and the cartoonists and the publishers through threats
of assassination and the like, as well as on at least the Danish government, e.g.
through trade boycotts, the burning of embassies and diplomatic pressure. These
efforts qualify as acts of intolerance, both if they did have an effect (e.g. in
furthering self-censorship) or did not, but might have.
Given that the circumstances of toleration were in place, the normative question
is whether toleration was in fact required of Muslims, as argued by defenders of
publication, or whether they should perhaps not be required to tolerate the kinds
of offence caused by the publications?To say that Muslims should not be required
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to tolerate the publications does not imply, of course, that they are permitted to
use whatever power they might have to hinder or to retaliate against it. Rather,
the disliked behaviour in question should in some way be changed or prevented,
most obviously through state intervention, e.g. in the form of legal regulation.
This need not, however, take the form of preventive bans on certain kinds of
expressions and publication, i.e. censorship, but might take other forms, e.g. the
possibility of subsequent court decisions requiring that publications deemed
offensive be retracted, or that the publisher or author be fined, issue excuses or
offer compensations, as the case may be.But the state need not be involved at all;
the disagreement might be resolved or negotiated in civil society, e.g. through
dialogue between the parties or by intervention through non-state bodies
without actual coercive power, such as professional councils or associations, able
to issue decisions or directives followed voluntarily by members.It is even possible
that, even though there might be reasons why Muslims should not be required to
tolerate publication, there are stronger countervailing reasons preventing the state
from limiting freedom of expression in these cases. Such countervailing reasons
might be prudential, e.g. that the state will not be able to intervene effectively, or
moral, e.g. that the concern with democratic legitimacy simply trumps even
genuine concerns for religious minorities. In such cases the critique of publica-
tion will be strictly moral without any legal implications, since the moral con-
cerns at best provide a prima facie reason for legal restrictions that is subsequently
overridden.
What reasons might there be why Muslims should not be required to tolerate
publications like the Mohammad cartoons, or even if in fact there were no such
reasons in the cartoon controversy, what types of reasons would count against the
requirement of toleration in like cases? To ask the question in this way is to accept
the characterisation of the cartoon controversy as a case of toleration, but to
suggest, additionally, that there might be further circumstances due to which the
requirement of toleration might not, after all, be warranted. In the following,
I will discuss some of the main considerations offered in relation to the Rushdie
affair as reasons why publications might fall outside the limits of freedom of
expression, and hence why people should not be required to tolerate them.
Group Defamation as a Restriction on Freedom of Expression
One way of arguing against the publications starts by noting that there are in fact
legal limits on freedom of expression in most otherwise liberal jurisdictions,
which is to say that freedom of expression is not absolute, and to argue that the
limits actually accepted, at least if consistently extended to relevant similar cases,
would also provide reasons against publications such as the Mohammad cartoons.4
This argumentative strategy, exemplified by Tariq Modood (2005, pp. 113–33)
and Bhikhu Parekh (2006, pp. 313–7), makes, in various ways, the following
claims: first, even though freedom of expression is an important and basic liberty
of great value, both intrinsically and instrumentally, it should properly be
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construed as a freedom within limits. Second, protection of vulnerable persons
and groups, e.g. against defamation or libel, is one of the countervailing consid-
erations that might ground restrictions on freedom of speech. This is not only a
principled claim about the nature of freedom of speech, but just as much a
statement of fact about actual legislation. Not only are there legal limits on
freedom of expression in many otherwise liberal jurisdictions; these furthermore
include restrictions against certain kinds of group defamation (Modood,2005, pp.
116f.; Parekh, 2006, pp. 314f.). The argument then proceeds by endorsing the
notion of group defamation already implemented in many jurisdictions, and by
arguing, thirdly, that if the features characterising group defamation in these cases,
e.g. the British Race Relations Act (Modood, 2005, pp. 114f.), were consistently
generalised to relevant similar cases, Muslims would also qualify as a group that
should be protected against defamation.
This was an important argument in the specific context of the Rushdie affair,
because the British legislation seemed clearly discriminatory in limiting the
offence of blasphemy to Christianity in general and the established Anglican
Church in particular ( Jones, 1993, p. 118; Modood, 2005, p. 113). But taken as
such, the group defamation argument is mainly a formal argument of consistency,
or non-discrimination, in relation to actual British legislation.
In relation to the cartoon controversy the argument would either have to take its
point of departure from actual Danish legislation, or be rephrased as a substantial
argument about why Muslims should in general be protected against group
defamation in a way that provides reasons against the publication of the cartoons,
rather than as a formal argument about consistent extension of discriminatory
legislation. The following section presents the possible grounds for legal action
against the Mohammad cartoons within Danish law, in order to demonstrate the
limited prospects of the formal argument in this respect.
The Mohammad Cartoons and Danish Legislation on
Group Defamation
The Danish constitutional protection of freedom of expression precludes
reinstatement of censorship, but explicitly states that this freedom is under legal
responsibility (s. 77 of the constitution), so that public utterances can be brought
to court and tried in relation to legal limits. The Danish penal code contains the
most relevant legal restrictions on freedom of expression in Danish legislation
(compare Director of Public Prosecution, 2006a). The so-called ‘blasphemy
clause’ makes it a criminal offence to ‘publicly mock or degrade the religious
beliefs or worship of any legal religious community’ (Penal code, §140). The
penal code also contains, as a part of the chapter on ‘invasions of privacy and
defamation’, the so-called ‘racism clause’, which makes it a criminal offence to
issue public utterances ‘threatening, insulting or degrading to a group of persons
due to their race,skin colour,national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation’
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(Penal code, §266b).5The racism clause protects persons, or groups of persons,
against defamation, whereas the blasphemy clause protects those religious sensi-
bilities of believers that are connected to dogmas or rituals deemed central to
their religion, but not religious sensibilities in general.6But on either clause,
Muslims are protected,since there are several legally recognised Muslim religious
communities in Denmark and since ‘faith’ may refer to Islamic beliefs.
Although complaints were filed, Jyllands-Posten was never taken to court for
breaches of the blasphemy or racism clauses, since the Danish Public Prosecutor
decided that the cartoons did not infringe these clauses.7Even though the
Public Prosecutor noted the fact that some of the cartoons were satirical cari-
catures of the Prophet Mohammad, and that as such, given the central role of
Mohammad for Islam, they might imply ridicule of or express disdain for
Muslims’ religious beliefs or worship in the sense protected by the blasphemy
clause (Director of Public Prosecution, 2006b, p. 6), a concrete interpretation
and evaluation of the cartoons led the Public Prosecutor to the judgment that
the cartoons did not, after all, constitute an infringement of the clause. With
respect to the racism clause, the Public Prosecutor emphasised that the cartoons
depicted an individual, Mohammad, and as such could not be taken to be
referring to Muslims in general and that the depictions of Muslims in the
cartoons were not insulting or degrading (Director of Public Prosecution,
2006b, p. 9).
These legal details illustrate the limits of the formal group defamation argument
that does not only relate to specific legislation: even if the premises of the
argument are granted, i.e.that freedom of expression can properly be limited,that
concerns of group defamation provide a reason for such limits and that Muslims
constitute a relevant group in this respect, it does not necessarily follow that
specific utterances such as the Mohammad cartoons in fact defame Muslims, or,
if they do, do so in the relevant way. The Public Prosecutor’s judgment that the
cartoons did not constitute defamation in a sense relevant to Danish legislation
relied on a concrete interpretation of the cartoons and a weighing of opposing
legal considerations,which might of course be challenged. But a formal argument
about consistent application of actual group defamation legislation still does not
address the substantive moral question of under what conditions (if any) Muslims
should not be required to tolerate offensive publications like the Mohammad
cartoons, and whether these conditions should give rise to legal restrictions. This
is the subject of the remainder of the article.
Moral Arguments Against Publication
The question is what substantial justifications there might be for why Muslims
should not be morally required to tolerate offensive publications such as the
Mohammad cartoons. Three types of considerations figured significantly in the
debates on these issues following the Rushdie affair, which might be roughly
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labelled offence,identity and oppression. How might such considerations function as
part of an argument for why freedom of expression should be limited in cases like
that of the Mohammad cartoons, e.g. because they constitute group defamation
in a morally relevant sense, and would they in fact function as such in relation to
the cartoon controversy?
Offence to Religious Sensibilities
The SatanicVerses and the Mohammad cartoons, as well as some of the subsequent
responses by Jyllands-Posten and the Danish government to Muslim reactions,
clearly offended many Muslims deeply. In that sense, the publications caused
offence. The offence was furthermore clearly connected to the religious sensi-
bilities of Muslims, since what they took offence at was the portrayal of the
Prophet Mohammad. Does offence to religious sensibilities provide a prima facie
moral reason against expressions having this effect, and is that reason strong
enough to justify legal restrictions on freedom of expression in such cases? If the
focus is to be on the offence caused, i.e. the negative emotional reaction, such a
justification must take offence to be a kind of harm. It is clear that this must be
a different kind of harm from that caused by, say, physical assault, but it is
nevertheless reasonable, and accepted by many liberals, to consider speech or
writing as possible causes of harm.8Taken as such, there is clearly some reason
against utterances that cause offence; it is a bad thing and should as such be
avoided, other things being equal. But even if morally relevant, is this harm
significant enough to ground restrictions on freedom of expression?
In general, much speaks in favour of the view that even if offence to religious
sensibilities is a morally relevant kind of harm, it is not significant enough to
outweigh the value of freedom of expression ( Jones, 1980, p. 148; 1993, p. 118).
In general, freedom of expression is so valuable a liberty, for many reasons, that
only extremely important considerations might outweigh it (Feinberg, 1988, p.
26, pp. 38f.). And it is questionable whether offence, understood as such, i.e. as a
negative subjective reaction and ‘disagreeable experience’ ( Jones, 1993, p. 117), is
sufficiently weighty. The actual weighing of the good of toleration and freedom
of expression against the bad of offence can only be conducted, however, if the
value of both is fairly determinate. The general question about the value of
freedom of expression goes beyond the present article. Here the question is
merely whether there are reasons to take offence to be an especially important
limiting consideration?
One, perhaps obvious, reason might be that the offence is related to religious
sensibilities, and that religion is very important to people – or at least to the
Muslims who were in fact offended. Therefore it is especially important to avoid
offence to religious sensibilities. It is less obvious whether this importance is
merely supposed to be a quantitative function of the greater intensity of the
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offence that some religious people actually feel, or whether it is due to some
qualitative difference between offence to religious sensibilities and other kinds of
offence.
In the former case, freedom of expression should be limited in so far as offence
to religious beliefs is especially strongly felt. One problem with this quantitative
justification for restrictions is that it seems to allow morally arbitrary differences
in people’s possibly quite idiosyncratic responses to influence the moral status of
expressions; in some cases, e.g. ‘abnormal susceptibilities’ (Feinberg, 1988, pp.
33f.), moral responsibility for offence may properly be attributed to the offended
person rather than the person causing the offence. Another problem is that of
strategic misuse, e.g. if people deliberately take offence and cultivate ability to do
so or circulate offensive utterances in order to make more people aware of the
utterances’ offensiveness, thereby settling the issue by the sheer number of
offended people (as was arguably what happened when representatives of Danish
Muslim associations travelled to the Middle East to gain support for their
domestic struggle by disseminating the offensive cartoons).So the strength of the
feeling of offence cannot plausibly, at least not on its own, determine the moral
assessment of utterances.
Alternatively, one might view offence to religious sensibilities as a qualitatively
different kind of offence,i.e. as a kind of offence that is morally more important,
not in virtue of the strength of the feelings, but because of the type of sentiments
involved. In order to establish such a difference, it is necessary to go beyond the
mere feeling of offence to the fact that the taking of offence is closely connected
to the holding of beliefs about wrongfulness ( Jones, 1980, p. 139; 1993, p. 117),
which is what marks such cases as‘profound’ offences (McKinnon,2006, pp. 84f.).
Muslims are offended at the publications because they think that they are wrong,
not the other way round (Feinberg, 1988, p. 59), and they think this because the
views expressed by the publications conflict with their religious beliefs.
The problem in limiting freedom of expression with specific reference to reli-
gious sensibilities is, of course, that people have different and conflicting religious
beliefs and derivative beliefs about wrongness. Toleration was originally proposed
precisely to handle the resulting cases of disapproval among people with clashing
religious beliefs, the point being to find a way of accommodating the difference
in religious beliefs. On the classic model of toleration, the difference and
the resulting disapproval are circumstances of toleration, not something to be
removed. To introduce limits on freedom of expression in order to avoid offence
to religious sensibilities would therefore be a radical departure from toleration,
which in effect, if indirectly, could be said to impose the religiously based norms
of some on others who do not share them. Such a departure and imposition is
furthermore difficult to justify with reference to the special importance of
religion, for this importance also informs toleration with its special provisions
of freedom of religion and conscience. So even on the assumption that reli-
gion is of special importance, the imposition of religiously based norms about
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wrongness implicit in restrictions on expressions on these grounds is problematic,
in so far as they might infringe the freedom of religion similarly justified.
One way to avoid these problems might be to introduce standards for when
offence is reasonably taken ( Jones, 1980, p. 147) and/or criteria strictly delimiting
the subjects in relation to which offence counts as relevant for the purpose of
potential limits on freedom of expression (McKinnon, 2006, pp. 87ff.). One
problem about this response might be that it requires someone, presumably
the state, to judge whether people’s taking offence on this basis is reasonable
(Feinberg, 1988, pp. 35ff.) or which religious beliefs about wrongness are suffi-
ciently important to count at all. Nevertheless, the Danish blasphemy clause
requires public prosecutors and, in cases taken to court, judges to make the latter
kind of decisions. So,Danish legislation actually goes quite far in its provisions for
restrictions on freedom of expression with reference to offence to religious
sensibilities.9
Even if one allows offence to religious sensibilities to play some special role,
however,it is far from clear that the cartoons were in fact sufficiently offensive to
justify restrictions on freedom of expression. The decision of the Danish Public
Prosecutor not to prosecute Jyllands-Posten for a breach of the blasphemy clause
was, as noted above, based on an interpretation and evaluation of the cartoons.
The question was not whether they were offensive in general, but whether they
constituted offence to the ‘central religious dogmas’ of Islam. Despite this differ-
ence, due to the wording of the law, which limits what grounds of offence count
for purposes of restrictions, the Public Prosecutor’s more general point was that
the cartoons were not that offensive, if at all (Director of Public Prosecution,
2006b, p. 7; see also Jones, 1993, p. 118, on the Rushdie affair).
This might seem puzzling, given the fact that so many Muslims were in fact
offended. But if what matters normatively is whether it is reasonable to take
offence rather than the actual feelings of offence, it is quite possible that many
people will take offence even though the conditions for doing so reasonably are
not satisfied. In the case of the Mohammad cartoons it is plausible to claim that
the offence actually taken was not just a reaction to the cartoons and the
accompanying article, but to what many Muslims perceived to be the underlying
intentions, or the broader pattern of which they saw the publication as being a
part. Jyllands-Posten is a right-wing newspaper supportive of the tough line of the
present Danish government against immigration and generally quite critical of
Islam. In Danish society there is furthermore an ongoing ‘culture struggle’ in
which Muslims and Islam are often portrayed as threats to Danish culture and
democracy and where outright racist views also figure from time to time. Finally,
the general tension between ‘the West’ and the Muslim world must be taken into
account. Given all these contextual factors, it is understandable that many
Muslims would perceive the cartoons to be part of an ongoing smear campaign
against Muslims and motivated by the intention to offend. Understandable as it
may be, this does not imply, however, that it is reasonable to take offence at the
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cartoons, particularly when the offence is primarily a reaction to perceived
intentions to offend and insult ascribed to the cartoonists and Jyllands-Posten.
Even given the context, the cartoons are equally compatible with other inter-
pretations,e.g. criticism of the misuse of Islam in the name of terror or oppression
of women, and the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten explicitly stated that the
intention was to start a debate about self-censorship and democratic equality
rather than to insult (Rose, 2005).
This is not to say that there was no reason for Muslims to be offended – this
reaction might be a reasonable response to the perceived aim of Jyllands-Posten or
the broader climate of opinion in Denmark. The suggestion is rather that if there
was something morally problematic about the Mohammad cartoons, it is not
plausibly captured by an exclusive focus on the offence to religious sensibilities.
If offence was reasonably taken, it was because of contextual factors, not just,and
not primarily, offence to religious sensibilities caused by the cartoons as such.
Religious Beliefs and Identity
The suggestion that the cartoon controversy should not be understood primarily
as an issue of offence to religious sensibilities is well in line with several theoretical
responses to the Rushdie affair. In arguing why The Satanic Verses should have
been prohibited, or that it at least was morally problematic, both Modood and
Parekh go beyond the focus on offence to issues of identity. On this view, the
problem is not merely that the publication offended the religious sensibilities of
Muslims, because of the way it contravened their religious beliefs in the honour
of the Prophet,but that these beliefs ‘form the self-definition of a group’(Modood,
2005, p. 121, emphasis added) and the self-respect of individuals ‘is tied up with
and partly grounded in respect for their community’ (Parekh, 2006, p. 314). As
factual matters, these claims are probably true, at least regarding religious minori-
ties such as Muslims, and provide an explanation of why Muslims were so
offended by the publications. But does the shift of emphasis from offence to
identity better capture what might have been morally problematic about the
cartoons, and does it make for a better justification for legal restrictions on
freedom of expression in cases like this?
Beliefs central to the identity of groups are said to matter because ‘there cannot
be membership of a group without some idea of the relevant groupness’
(Modood, 2005, p. 121). This might be true, but it does not establish that
membership of a group is normatively significant. An attempt to justify this is
to claim that the group-defining religious beliefs provide the only source of
group pride available to the members of religious minorities and as such are a
necessary resource for resisting racist attacks and harassments (Modood, 2005, p.
122). But if this empirical claim is true, which might be questioned,
it states a separate problem, namely racism against minorities, not an answer to
why group membership is normatively important in itself. (It might matter for
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extrinsic reasons, but these will be considered in the next section.) A better
answer is that such groups or communities matter in so far as attacks on them,
or the beliefs constitutive of the associated identity, damage individual
members’ sense of self-worth (Parekh, 2006, p. 316). If the implied empirical
premises are granted, how strong an argument does this claim provide in rela-
tion to freedom of expression?
There might be good reason, even for liberals, to be concerned about the
self-worth or self-respect of individuals,and hence about the ‘social bases’ hereof
(compare Rawls,1971). But on any plausible liberal view, only some of the factors
affecting self-respect will count, and they will do so only within various con-
straints, e.g. respect for basic rights and liberties. Even a liberal concerned with
securing the social bases of self-respect, who furthermore recognises how verbal
attacks on minorities may affect these, will primarily be concerned with the
effects of important public institutions (Lægaard, 2005) rather than isolated
exercises of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression may be considered a
public institution, but as such it is itself one of the most important social bases of
self-respect for all members of society. Seen in this light,the importance of certain
beliefs to the identity and hence self-respect of members of religious minorities
is unlikely to provide a reason strong enough to place legal limits on freedom of
expression. So the shift from a concern with avoiding offence to a concern with
protecting identity has not strengthened the case for restrictions on freedom of
expression.
Another question is what the implications of assigning normative importance to
religious beliefs as constitutive of identities would be in relation to freedom of
expression. The fact that a religious belief is constitutive of or an element in a
person’s identity might be taken to imply that the belief should not be questioned
or criticised, because one would then be attacking the person. There are at least
two problems with this ( Jones, 1999). First, this claim is equivalent to the
invocation of an additional normative principle prohibiting criticism of or verbal
attack on persons, which is quite controversial. Secondly, in so far as beliefs are
considered as elements in an identity, their status would seem to shift in the sense
that they are no longer truth claims about some independent subject matter, but
statements expressing the identity of a person. But then there is no longer any
problem if I criticise or attack someone’s beliefs, because I am hereby either
making a claim about what is true about some independent subject or expressing
my identity. Either way I would not be criticising or attacking the other person
after all!
The shift to the language of identity does not seem to add much to the relatively
weak reasons for restricting freedom of expression in relation to criticism of
religious beliefs provided by the concern for avoiding offence.And even though
identity is important in relation to characterising groups, it does not seem to play
any independent normative role in relation to the justification of restrictions on
freedom of expression, e.g. bans on group defamation such as the Danish racism
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clause. But what then might the normative rationale for such limits on freedom
of expression be, and what (if anything) was problematic about the Mohammad
cartoons, if it was not their offensiveness or the fact that they constituted an attack
on the religious beliefs constitutive of Muslim identity?
Oppression
In parallel to the identity argument for restrictions, Modood introduces other
considerations having to do with both historical oppression of and contemporary
racism and discrimination against Muslims (Modood, 2005, pp. 121f.). One way
to understand this would be as an additional feature that, together with the role
of certain religious beliefs as central to the identity of Muslims, can bridge the
justificatory gap between defamation of the Prophet and group defamation of
Muslims. The argument would then be that since (a) The Satanic Verses defamed
the Prophet; (b) belief in the honour of the Prophet is constitutive of being a
Muslim; and (c) the defamation of the Prophet has historically been linked to
Western oppression of Muslims; then (d) the publication was an act of group
defamation.
The reference to oppression (besides contemporary racism and discrimination,
Modood seems to have Western imperialism and colonialism in mind) might
alternatively, or additionally, be understood as a necessary condition for a group
being a minority in a normatively relevant sense (compare Galeotti,2002). In that
case, the supposed link to restrictions on freedom of expression might be that
oppressed minorities have claims of justice on the state or society for special
recognition, and that restrictions on the freedom of others to express views
connected in the right way to the oppression of the minority is a justified way of
granting this recognition.
These arguments from oppression direct attention to other features of the
Rushdie affair and the cartoon controversy that might both be important in
explaining Muslim reactions and be normatively significant.A general account of
oppression falls far beyond the scope of the present article,but it seems reasonable
to understand oppression as a more material and objective matter than the issues
of offence and identity considered hitherto, e.g. as structural inequalities in
opportunities, power asymmetries or institutionalised norms and conventions that
systematically negatively affect the capabilities and agency of minorities. If there
was something normatively problematic going on in the cartoon controversy,
might it have had something to do with general oppression of Muslims?
There are many problems with the noted ways of understanding the invocation
of oppression. If the oppression is historical, one may question the normative
relevance in relation to current matters. And even if the reference to historical
oppression might make some sense in relation to the Rushdie affair, e.g. because
of British imperialism, it is less plausible in relation to the cartoon controversy, at
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least when considered as a domestic Danish incident. So there might be both
general theoretical reasons and reasons having to do with the present case for only
considering the argument from oppression in relation to current oppression
against a relevant group of Muslims,e.g.in the form of exclusion, marginalisation,
racism or systematic discrimination.
Whether there was oppression in relation to the cartoon controversy is impos-
sible to say without a precise definition of oppression as well as a specification
of what the relevant group is in relation to the publication of the Mohammad
cartoons. If the relevant group is Danish Muslims, which it might not be, it is
probably true to say that they face some degree of unjust inequalities and
structural discrimination, as well as broader suspicion and opposition,but it is far
from clear that they are oppressed in a strong sense as a group.10 This question
cannot be adequately addressed here. But even assuming, for the sake of argu-
ment, that the relevant group of Muslims are oppressed in a morally relevant
sense, the question remains whether a given publication is connected to the
assumed oppression in a way which makes the publication morally problematic,
and whether this furthermore justifies legal restrictions on freedom of expres-
sion. For a fact of oppression to show that utterances are morally wrong, at least
the following conditions must be fulfilled:(a) the oppression must be sufficiently
strong or significant; and (b) the utterances in question must be connected in a
relevant way to the oppression. For this to justify legal restrictions on freedom
of speech, it must furthermore be the case that (c) the moral disvalue of the
utterances outweigh the value of freedom of expression; and (d) legal restrictions
on freedom of expression are minimally effective means of easing or countering
the oppression.11
The central requirement of a relevant connection between the utterance to be
restricted and the oppression is difficult to specify further. It seems clear that it is
not sufficient that the minority is offended by the utterance; in that case the
argument would reduce to the one discussed earlier, and would face the same
difficulties. On the other hand, it seems that what matters cannot be the private
intentions behind the utterance,if the normatively relevant issue is actual oppres-
sion, e.g. inequalities in power, material resources, abilities, options or expecta-
tions, which are public phenomena.A promising suggestion is that the utterance
must causally contribute to or help sustain the oppression.What might this mean?
One might think that the publications in question helped sustain oppression
of Muslims since they publicly circulated negative stereotypes of the Prophet
or Muslims generally. But this cannot in itself be sufficient, for then all reports of
racism and intolerance (as well as the noted dissemination of the drawings by
representatives of Muslim associations) would also be wrong.And it will probably
not do to try to make a distinction between neutral information about and active
propagation of negative stereotypes, for if the point is supposed to be that the
utterances contribute to oppression, the underlying intentions do not seem to be
relevant, as noted.
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There might be ways of specifying the necessary kind of connection between an
utterance and oppression that would plausibly yield the conclusion that the
utterance should be restricted. Whether such a connection actually holds in a
particular case is then an empirical question that might require comparative
historical studies for its answer.But even if one grants that Muslims are oppressed,
it still does not follow that publications like the Mohammad cartoons are wrong
for this reason,and due to the noted conditions it is still hard to justify restrictions
on freedom of expression on this basis. This is not to say that restrictions on
freedom of expression like the Danish racism clause and British Race Relations
Act are unjustified, only that the most plausible justifications for such restrictions
are not, or not only, based on considerations of oppression; this might be one
among several considerations, others being protection from abuse or discrimina-
tion on the basis of morally arbitrary ascriptive features, social cohesion, public
order and general public decency and civility.
There is, however, an interesting feature of the argument from oppression that
might both help explain the difficulties facing arguments on this basis for
restrictions on freedom of expression, and which indicates why scepticism with
respect to such arguments need not be tantamount to indifference towards the
assumed oppression. As noted, the conceptualisation of cases like the Rushdie
affair and the cartoon controversy in terms of freedom of expression assimilates
them to a general liberal model of toleration. This model interprets the cases in
terms of utterances and reactions, which are both in turn understood as expres-
sions of conflicting beliefs. The inclusion of considerations of offence and
identity as discussed earlier does not change this basic conceptual framework,
since offence and identity are still understood in relation to beliefs. So the liberal
model,even if fleshed out with considerations of offence or identity, only captures
differences that can be cast as differences concerning beliefs (compare Galeotti,
2002). The importance of the argument from oppression is that it challenges this
exclusive focus on differences in belief. However exactly oppression is under-
stood, it is not (just) a matter of differences in beliefs.
It is difficult to justify restrictions on freedom of expression with reference to
oppression within the liberal model of toleration because considerations of
oppression are not formulated in a language that fits the model. But even if one
goes beyond the model,a plausible argument from oppression for restrictions on
freedom of expression still requires that the oppression is partly perpetrated by
means of utterances, or that utterances have direct effect on the material structure
of oppression. Even then, restrictions on expressions are furthermore only justi-
fied if they actually counter the oppression to a degree that outweighs the
negative value of the resulting limits on the expression of beliefs. There might be
cases where these conditions are met, and it is not impossible to understand the
ones considered here in these terms.12 But even if the conditions obtain, the
required kind of causal connection between utterances and material oppression is
simply difficult to establish empirically. There is no indication that the publication
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of the Mohammad cartoons contributed directly to any possible oppression of
Danish Muslims,and even if it could be shown that the cartoon controversy made
life harder for Danish Muslims in terms of oppression, this might still (and more
plausibly) be due to the negative reactions by the majority to Muslim responses
to the publication, rather than the publication itself.
Even when there is oppression going on, expressions of beliefs will often not be
connected to the oppression in the way required to be wrong at all, or this will
be difficult to establish empirically, or restrictions on freedom of expression will
not address the oppression in a sufficiently effective way to be justified. In such
cases, the presence of oppression does not justify alternative requirements to
toleration either, such as a principle of positive respect for religious beliefs
(compare Jones, 1993; Modood, 2005, pp. 113–33), since a principle of respect
does not really address the issue of material oppression, in so far as it is still
concerned with the valuation of beliefs.
Conclusion
The article has considered whether some of the main arguments advanced in
relation to the Rushdie affair for limiting freedom of expression plausibly apply
to the cartoon controversy. Due to differences in the legal situation, the formal
argument that protections against group defamation should be extended to
Muslims is inapplicable, since Muslims are in fact covered by the relevant Danish
provisions. The issue must therefore be a substantial moral one.
Although the Mohammad cartoons caused offence and amounted to an attack on
beliefs constitutive of a minority identity, it has been argued that this did not make
the publication of the cartoons morally problematic to a degree justifying restric-
tions on freedom of expression. This is not because these features of the case do
not matter; they can, under some interpretations, in fact be acknowledged as
morally relevant within a liberal model of toleration. But they do not provide
sufficiently weighty reasons to justify restrictions.
But the focus of the toleration model on utterances as expressions of beliefs does
not exhaust the possible ways in which utterances may be morally problematic;
utterances might also be problematic by contributing to oppression. It has been
suggested,however,that even though this is a real possibility, which liberals should
be concerned with, an argument from oppression to moral wrongness of utter-
ances and on to legal restrictions on expression depends on a number of condi-
tions that are difficult to fulfil, and which probably did not obtain in the cartoon
controversy.
All in all, the concerns with offence, identity and oppression advanced in relation
to the Rushdie affair may point to morally relevant features, but the Mohammad
cartoons do not qualify as wrong,all things considered, in these respects, and none
of the considerations provide plausible justifications for legal restrictions in this
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case. But it is important to distinguish between the reasons offered for claims for
restrictions on freedom of expression and the claims themselves. Whereas the
claims for restrictions in the cases considered seem unfounded, since the reasons
in favour are not sufficiently weighty and the connection between utterance and
oppression is not sufficiently clear, this does not show that the reasons are
misguided. Even if the claim for restrictions does not follow, the reasons provided
for it may point to features that make the case morally problematic in other ways,
even if they do not make the utterance itself wrong.
One general implication of this suggestion is that the issue of legal limits to
freedom of expression should be the beginning, not the end, of the discussion of
cases like the cartoon controversy. The reasons considered are relevant in relation
to other, non-legal issues, e.g. discussions about citizenship, social cohesion and
societal integration in multicultural settings. Even if the state should not legally
restrict utterances for these reasons, the questions are whether (and how) it should
otherwise encourage a specific kind of multicultural civility or ethos,and whether
citizens should be morally obliged to act on such an ethos, in order to avoid the
noted kinds of moral harms and/or public disorder and unrest caused by utter-
ances like those considered here? This is just as vexed a question for liberals as the
legal one considered hitherto, in so far as they are also concerned with the type
of interactions going on in civil society, which may in any event affect the state’s
ability to pursue liberal political goals. But while the question is important, it also
raises problems for liberals concerned with state neutrality, classical toleration and
social pressure.
These issues go far beyond that which can be addressed in this article. In
conclusion it should merely be noted that the focus on norms of civility returns
us to the types of concerns originally involved in Jyllands-Posten’s official justifi-
cation for publishing the cartoons. Where the newspaper worried about too
much self-censorship (out of fear) as a problematic response to Muslim intoler-
ance,others might take self-restraint (out of civility) to be a virtue of multicultural
toleration. Both kinds of views are concerned with the everyday conduct of
citizens rather than the legal framework. In this respect, Jyllands-Posten may have
been right to focus on the social issue, but while critics of the publication
demanding legal restrictions were wrong in this respect, perhaps they were right
in pointing to reasons why the social interaction in multicultural societies may be
morally problematic. The cartoon controversy highlighted these questions, but,
just as in the case of the Rushdie affair,they are still pressing and worth discussing
after the main controversy has subsided, since they are likely to confront any
multicultural society for some time yet.
(Accepted: 6 June 2007)
About the Author
Sune Lægaard, Department for Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen,
Njalsgade 80, Copenhagen S, DK – 2300, Denmark; email: laegaard@hum.ku.dk
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Notes
1 See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Mohammad_cartoons_controversy for a description and
reproduction of the drawings and of the ensuing course of events.
2 Even though several distinguished political philosophers and theorists have written on the cartoon controversy, their
contributions have not been very explicit with respect to theoretical argument.See, e.g., Dworkin (2006), and the
contributions to the cartoon controversy symposium in International Migration 44 (5). Post (2007), which provides
a more substantial legal-constitutionalist discussion, appeared just as this article was submitted.
3 Note that the tolerant or intolerant party here is Muslims, as individuals or a group, not the state. The state can be
said to be tolerant in two quite different and mutually exclusive senses: (a) it might itself be a party to a dispute,but
refrain from using its power to suppress the opposing party; or (b) it might be neutral on an issue, but enforce a
regime of toleration among parties in dispute over it. Since parties to toleration must have a negative attitude to
something other, and count as tolerant if they do not attempt to use their power to prevent, suppress or eradicate
that with which they disagree, the state is only literally tolerant in the former sense. Toleration furthermore does
not require that one exhibit what might be called ‘tolerant attitudes’, since it precisely presupposes a negative
attitude, and the power in question need not be the power of the state to enact legislation but may be that of
(threats of ) physical violence or social pressure.
4 This kind of argument is accordingly context-specific both in relation to actual legislation and to specific features
of particular cases.Alternatively, one might argue for restrictions in general and principled terms, e.g.that the most
plausible justification for freedom of expression only supports specific kinds of free speech, and then apply this
general model to particular cases in order to show that specific publications fall outside the protected class of
expressions. This strategy has been attempted by several critics of Rushdie (Mendus, 1993, p.205; Modood, 2005,
pp. 124f.; Parekh, 2006, pp. 307f.). Assessment of such arguments requires a general discussion of the justification
of freedom of expression, which falls outside the concern of the present article with the specific features of the
cartoon controversy.
5 So Bleich (2006, p. 21) and Modood (2006, p. 58), are wrong in claiming that the racism clause does not protect
against threats or insults on religious grounds. In this respect, then,the Danish racism clause is more expansive than
the British Race Relations Act.
6 Danish legislation also contains provisions against‘harassment’ on racial or ethnic grounds in public institutions, and
on religious grounds as well in the labour market.‘Harassment’ is defined as‘behaviour in relation to race or ethnic
origin [or religion or faith] with the aim or the effect of offending or violating the dignity of a person and creating
a hostile,degrading, humiliating or otherwise unpleasant climate for that person’(Law Concerning Ethnic Equality,
§3 (4), Law Against Differential Treatment in the Labour Market etc., §1 (4). But these provisions are strictly
individualist and explicitly do not cover public utterances that derogate or humiliate a group of persons because of
their race or ethnic origin, or religion or faith (compare the remarks to the draft bill of Law Concerning Ethnic
Equality).
7 Because of this, individual Muslims subsequently raised civil lawsuits against Jyllands-Posten, claiming that the
cartoons were published with the intention to defame Muslims,in the sense of s. 267 of the Penal Code. This clause
concerns defamation of individuals, and the suit was based on the allegation that the cartoons associated all Muslims,
and hence the plaintiffs, with terrorism and oppression of women. In November 2006 the city court acquitted
Jyllands-Posten, based on a justification much like the one originally given by the Public Prosecutor; compare City
Court of Århus (2006).
8 Jones (1980, p. 135, p. 138); Jones (1998, §3); Scanlon (2003, pp. 11f.); McKinnon (2006, pp. 82–9).‘Harm’ need
not here be understood in the sense relevant to the harm principle as discussed by Joel Feinberg, i.e. as wrongful
setbacks of basic interests.Offence may nevertheless still be a morally relevant ‘evil’(compare Feinberg [1987, p. 48]),
and as such provide a prima facie moral reason for legal interference (compare Feinberg [1988, p. 25]).
9 This is the case even though the Danish blasphemy clause is not officially justified with reference to the importance
or special value of religion, but on the basis of considerations of public order; compare Director of Public
Prosecution (2006a, p. 14).
10 If the relevant group is Muslims worldwide, many of them are no doubt oppressed. But then it is far less plausible
to claim that there is a relevant kind of connection between the publication of the Mohammad cartoons and the
oppression.
11 See Post (2007, pp. 82f.), for a similar point.
12 E.g. the speech act argument against pornography and its possible,although problematic,extension to the Rushdie
affair as discussed in McKinnon (2006, pp. 145–55).
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