The Cartoon Controversy: Offence, Identity, Oppression?
| Published date | 01 October 2007 |
| Date | 01 October 2007 |
| Author | Sune Lægaard |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00685.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00685.x
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
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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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POLITICAL STUDIES: 2007, 55(3)
T H E C A RTO O N C O N T ROV E R S Y
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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).3 It 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...
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