Need for dialog silenced amid competing voices

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 02/07/2006 10:33 AM

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Freedom of expression is surely a great thing to have. At the end of the day, this uproar over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers should at least make millions of non-Muslims understand that Islam categorically proscribes any depiction of the Prophet, insulting or not.

But Muslims have also seen how freedom can be used as a petty excuse for getting away with the republication of the cartoons (either in solidarity with the Danish press or as a ""necessary"" illustration in each report), even though Muslims had expressed their anger and even though the first newspaper that had printed them, Jyllands-Posten, apologized for the offense that the 12 caricatures caused. They were first published in September.

Embarrassingly, it was European diplomats who had to remind the press of journalistic ethics, which basically state that publication of offensive material is to be avoided. The main question in the newsroom when mulling over the release of controversial material is always whether the expected excess would be worthy of the decision.

The leader of the Paris-based press organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Muslims' reactions show they had ""no idea of how democracy works."" And the feeling of Muslims of being ""shocked"", said RSF secretary-general Robert Menard, while regrettable, ""is the price of being informed.""

Indeed thanks to freedom of the press and to being informed, Muslims have hopefully acquired some idea as to how democracy works. An editor in Denmark said that offended readers should understand that you do not burn flags or attack embassies when you are shocked by media content; you take them to court!

This is the same message that the Indonesian media has been trying to get across to its sometimes unpredictable public all along, whatever their religion. However, this civilized, and perhaps most relevant piece of advice, was drowned out in the continuing uproar as the cartoons got reprinted elsewhere. A newspaper closer to the Muslim heartland in Jordan also reprinted the cartoon and urged Muslim readers to consider whether it was more insulting to Islam than the video footage aired on Arab TV of innocent Westerners getting beheaded in the name of Allah.

Once the violence stops, one might see some fruitful dialog attempting to answer that question posed by the Jordanian paper; and also on other questions.

Some might want to engage in dicussions on the reason for the ban on depictions of the Prophet (Muslims are told that it is God's way of discouraging idolatry), or even a debate on the ban itself (""liberal"" Muslims are known to debate almost any religious taboo).

Another more interesting dialog would be one involving the cartoonists and editors of the Danish publication on why they deemed the images fit to print in the first place. The editors may reiterate that the caricatures were used to illustrate articles on self censorship. Earlier, a leading Danish writer reportedly expressed alarm at the fact that an author couldn't find any cartoonist to depict Muhammad because the illustrators feared for their lives; this was considered alarm for Denmark which supposedly upholds freedom of expression, and the newspaper took up the challenge as an exercise in free speech.

Also, maybe they had no idea of the Islamic ban on depicting the prophet -- but the editors may have also shared a nagging question among the Western non-Muslim public on why there is so much display of intolerance and cruelty against innocent people in the name of Islam if they claim Muhammad preached peace -- a question also shared by Muslims.

Yet another dialog could be held on the urgency to preserve freedom of expression, for if we attacked all Western media incapable of making wise judgments, surely the entire Muslim world would be deprived of information and a vital means to interact with others.

Such a dialog would further need to discuss the line between religious prohibitions and freedom of expression; those who are ""in defense of secularism"" say the line is free to cross, while others say it is a pretty obvious no-no because though you might be an atheist, secular or liberal, you might want to respect some clear beliefs.

The only difficulty is that when we in the media have successfully provoked the audience we might only belatedly see that we failed to calculate all of the impacts. Any attempt at a fruitful exchange coming from the decisions to print and reprint the cartoons is yet to materialize. Is the current chaos in a number of countries, involving many who jump at any excuse to engage in violence, worthy of those decisions?

Once again Muslims are being ""represented"" only by the violence-prone Islamists. To balance those who give both freedom of expression and Islam a bad name, we could engage in dialogs between civilizations.

The writer is a staff writer of The Jakarta Post.

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