I don't think these are point of compass (east-west) issues, as they tend to reflect states of economic and social development. Less developed places tend to value symbols more.

I can remember a Republican state convention in Texas where I was at where a speaker endorsed Dad Bush by proclaiming to cheers words to the effect that "people in some rinky-dink country will think twice about burning an American flag"; (apparently in reference to Panama though I dont think Noriega burned US flags). And there is a strong movement to criminalize flag burning in the US by amending the constitution to allow such bans. In fact, the Supreme court decision saying such crimes were not crimes (flag desecration) was only about 15 years ago. When US flags are burned at demonstations, violent fights often break out.

And NBC network still edits out reruns of Sinead O'connor ripping up a photo of Pope J Paul II. And the battles over Confederate flags in US State Capitols are virulent to this day.

I think it's universal to get semi-violent at least when one feels honor is insulted, it is the definition of honor that varies, and also the existence of grievance mechanisms for expressions (due process laws, open public debate).

I do think it is also fair to say that westerners do get more emotional about national(ist) symbols than religious ones, though less emotional about both, and not very likley at all about national leaders.

But try making fun of an opposing team's hero in their home town after they've lost a critical game of baseball, football, etc.

As I am still largely on vacation from the internet, please see this.

Uh-oh. Quick! Re-tag the text! Mom's come back early!

Yeah, I'd say flag-burning is still unsettling and threatening to Westerners. It wouldn't cause mass riots, but then those aren't as popular in Western countries anyways. Insulting Western politicians, though, isn't as bad. Westerners don't really like their own politicians anyways, and even if they do it's probably considered a form of harmless international name-calling, and is part of politics anyways.

"Earlier, the "acts of burning" started with the burning of Danish flags. It was a misguided action that targeted a nation's pride and its leading personalities instead of a specific action or a way of thinking which the protesters felt was unjustified."

Heh, a basic lesson in politeness: it's "you're a jerk" vs "you're being a jerk".

Hogan took the words out of my mouth here. If there can be said to be an East-West divide it's one of degree, not direction.

I was discussing the cartoon thing with my kids (two boys age 14 and 15) a couple of weeks ago and what struck us was how deliberate the whole controversy was. The Danish competition meant to be controversial and offensive. it was designed to do what it did, but meant to be limited to its own population. The Ahmed Abu labban group meant to widen the scope of this designed offence in order to provoke people in the Muslim world into reacting. And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

I was wondering out loud what kind of people go otu of their way to deliberately cause anger and pain in this kindo f way (although I actuallly think that the Abu Labban people committed a deeper wrong than the original silly competition in the newspaper, given that they spread a thing that they themselves thought was such a deep offence) and one of my kids recited a rhyme from a Harry Potter book that is chanted by the poltergeist Peeves. This character lives for trouble and tries to provoke it and stir it up.

"When there's anger and there's trouble,
Call on Peevsie, he'll make double!"

Seems to me that is an exact statement of what all these parties were trying to do.

The Danish competition meant to be controversial and offensive.

Well - I'm not sure that it did. This was why it happened:

The pictures accompanied an editorial criticising self-censorship after Danish writer Kare Bluitgen complained that he was unable to find an illustrator for his children's book about the Prophet.

It meant be controversial, sure, but as I understand it its primary purpose was to open debate and highlight the issue of fear and self-censorshiop caused by Islam even in a western nation.

And by god it succeeded. It showed a significant, vocal mass of muslims to be violent, reactionary, anti-freedom of speech, intolerant, and quite frankly a threat to western values.

Only one or two of the cartoons were obviously negative: but frankly even bomb-turban made a very valid point. Mohammed's words are being manipulated every single day by extremists using the qu'ran to call for killing and murder and death and bloodshed.

The reaction could have been: "good god, is this what our extremist brothers have reduced perceptions of our religion to?" Instead it was blame west, blame west, blame west. Not addressing the problem, just making it worse.

"It meant be controversial, sure, but as I understand it its primary purpose was to open debate and highlight the issue of fear and self-censorshiop caused by Islam even in a western nation."

Hardly.

OK, I will grant you it meant to be controversial and withdraw the word offensive. I don't see the point, though. I read the series of article the Jyllands Posten put out about it and frankly I don't see what their point was. They say it's free speech, but it just does not seem like a free speech issue to me. If the issue was about a children's book the first thing should have been to ask illustrators and the answer probably would have been well, we are doing a children's book that is supposed to be explaining religions and it would be wrong to explain a religion by going against one of its tenets (picturing the Prophet) which makes sense to me. It is not necessarily an issue of "fear and self-censorship" - why is it so important to the Danish editors that a book have a particular kind of picture in it, anyhow? And this is the same editor that did admiring interviews of Daniel Pipes. He meant to stir up anti-Muslim feelings, for sure, and he meant to showcase a particular Muslim taboo and ridicule it. For sure. it seemed kind of mean-spirited and pointless to me. It certainly did not seem like a noble defense of freedom of the press.

And again SecretDubai, just to make sure my position is clear here, I think what Ahmed Abu Laban did is much, much worse morally than whatever the Danish editor (who seems largely just a bit clueless and insulated and, being privileged, blind to his own prejudices) did. Just to be super clear here, I also think although people have ar ight to non-violent protest that I found the overall Muslim reaction to this whole thing to be horribly overblown (just on general terms, without taking into consideration the violence and burning of embassies etc.). But, let's not make the editors completely innocent here because I don't think they were. They wanted a ruckus, and they wanted to portray a religion as intolerant and stupid and backward; they just didn't imagine it would become this big and out of control.

" it would be wrong to explain a religion by going against one of its tenets (picturing the Prophet"

But it's not one of its tenets. What is against one of its tenets is picturing anyone so if you have a book explaining Islam, the Islam section of the book must include no living creatures at all. So you'd have a book section with text and eerily uninhabited areas. Anything more is not kosher by Islamic law.

To react more strongly to the representation of Muhammad than the representation of any other creature is to, err, idolise him. To make him more than human and somewhere in the neighbourhood of Allah.

Muhammad was a human, not half divine and picturing him is no worse than all those movies that picture Moses and Jesus. Has Charlton Heston received death threats yet for having a central role in picturing a prophet? How about Mel Gibson? The "respect for the prophet" issue is, appropriately enough, a fig leaf.

Anna, here's the editor of Jylland Posten's explanation of why he published the cartoons. I think you'll be surprised.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499.html

who seems largely just a bit clueless and insulated

I totally agree with you - the paper clearly had no idea of the furore it would cause.

I find the Muslim reaction still extremely overblown. I cannot actually believe that they see this things and feel mad with grief and hurt. I think they feel mad with rage and impotence that someone (ie the devil West) was able to do this and they weren't able to suppress it. Bear in mind most of these protests have taken place in countries where religion is routinely used to control and oppress people's thoughts, words and deeds.

While I think the cartoons thing was pointless, what I do find valid is some way of highlighting the extremely disturbing fact that no illustrator could be found because they were literally too scared to do work that was totally legal in their home country.

We in the "free" West have to find some way of protecting our freedom of expression. Let us not forget Theo Van Gogh, or Salman Rushdie, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Meanwhile, Americans may be about to be denied the blasphemy of flag-burning. Not sure if this renewed effort at banning symbol desecration covers a cartoon in which a flag is burned. Or burning a cartoon in which there is a flag. Or a bomb wrapped in a flag. Or a cartoonist drawing a picture of a burning flag to protest laws against flag burning. Or if you can draw a picture in a book of protesters burning a flag.

But we westerners dont get riled about or pass laws about protecting symbols.

Hi Secret Dubai, I actually think our positions are not that far apart.

I don't see why one should "remember Theo Van Gogh." While I am all for his freedom to be a racist bastard, and think the murderer who killed him is, well, a murderer who should be found guilty for murder according to the rule of law - I don't have to see him (Theo) as a hero.

This whole debate to me is reminiscent of the Nazi march on Skokie that caused my mom to stop donating to the ACLU. As I grew up I decided that the ACLU is right to support the Nazis' right to march in Skokie, but that does not mean I have to treat the Nazis in question as free speech paragons. (It also reminds me of Chomsky defending the holocaust denier Faurisson on the principle of free speech - that does nto mean that Chomsky thought this Faurission was somehow a laudable character.)

(I do also think people should have a right to burn the flag.)

I read the Jyllands Posten editor's articles in the JP a while ago. I will check out the link you sent to the Washington Post, but expect it will be more of the same. I know he thinks he is not doing anything wrong. I repeat that he is coming from a privileged position and does not understand his own biases. That does not mean they don't exist or that they aren't misguided or wrong.

Also, whatever the classical fiqh position in Islam is about picturing "anything" - it has evolved now to where you can have pictures of just about anything besides prophetic figures. They have a claymation series about the stories of the prophets on Egyptian TV, and the prophets are always shown as beams of light. I believe these series are vetted by the Al Azhar.

Another example is the movie "The Message" by Mustafa Akkad - the Prophet and his closest companions and wives are not pictured.

I personally don't have a lot of emotion invested in this taboo, I only note that is the unquestioned and consensus norm operating now in Muslim countries such as Egypt.

I have not heard of any rulings saying that showing any pictures of anything aside from prophets is wrong. In that case they'd have to get rid of TV, cameras, photo IDs, etc. and it would be ridiculous and unworkable. Perhaps the Taleban did something like this (I don't really know) but generally it is not a widespread Muslim practice now.

It is interesting to note that The Passion of the Christ ran to packed houses in the Gulf despite depicting a prophet, and nary a whimper was heard about it.

Incidentally, lots of historical depictions of the prophet can be seen here. If they're still there at least, my ISP has blocked access to the site.

It (The Passion) was banned in Egypt, as I remember. Or maybe it was banned and then permitted. Someone else could refresh my memory about this. I do remember a lot of noise about it at the time, and most of it was horrified "how could they have made such a movie about Jesus" coming from Muslims but I did not discuss the movie with any Coptic Christians so don't know what their reaction might have been. May I remind you that perhaps a Christian movie showing Christ would be considered an exception to the general rule. After all Christians here have icons of Christ all over their taxis, jewelry, etc. and no one cares because it's their religion.

And: Yes, yes, yes I know this was not always the case in Islamic history! I am just saying it seems to be a consensus norm in Muslim countries NOW. And I think this is probably why a children's book tried to abide by it. Out of respect, not just 'fear'.

There's an interesting thought- a Christian can depict a Muslim prophet in a Muslim country, but not in a Christian country.

Perhaps the Taleban did something like this
Actually, yes, they did. They banned television and said that cameras could be used to take pictures of landscapes but not people.

Out of respect, not just 'fear'.
The articles I've read about this seemed to imply it was fear alone, but fair enough, I haven't read much about the original children's book. However, the use of the word 'just' in that sentence speaks for itself.