The ongoing saga of the cartoons that were not worth banning in the first place

April 8, 2006

Guest Post by Morbo

Occasionally I read a journal published by Secular Humanists titled Free Inquiry. Circulation-wise, it’s no TV Guide. However, you can buy it at some Borders stores.

But you can’t buy the recent April/May issue at any Borders. The chain will not carry it. Why not? Those damn Mohammed cartoons. Free Inquiry, which is a journal critical of religious extremism generally, reprinted them; that action got it yanked from the shelves.

“For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority,” Borders spokeswoman Beth Bingham told the Associated Press.

Oh, I see. Borders is pulling the magazine to protect us.

I know, I know. Borders is a big corporation, so naturally it has no spine. Still, I was surprised to learn it was not always this way. In an e-mail sent out by the Free Inquiry staff, R. Joseph Hoffmann wrote about the chain’s origins as a single store in Ann Arbor, Mich. Borders was, Hoffman wrote:

“a University of Michigan tradition that prided itself on the quality and variety of its stock and the willingness to take risks that no other bookstore would take. When I was a young assistant professor at U. of M., shopping at Borders was a lunchtime delight — the antithesis of the depressing chain-sameness that already trademarked outlets like Walden (now Borders’ adopted child) and B. Dalton. In Borders, you could read out-of–the-way translations of Xenophon, radical theology, buy the latest copy of Dissent or Mother Jones, sit in Windsor chairs, talk to friends (or ignore them), and buy art reproductions upstairs for five dollars — from what seemed an bottomless bin of choices.”

Right-wingers are wrong to assert that a new crusade is under way. Islam is the religion of 1 billion people in the world. It is not going away, and it will not be defeated by military action or unnecessary provocation. Still, we would be foolish to not admit there is, in some parts of the world, a problem.

When their religion is criticized, a small minority of Muslims don’t offer a counter argument; they call for the head of the criticizer. This cannot be. Islam will have to learn to accept criticism. How do we bring this about? Frankly, I have no idea. Bigger brains than mine will have to figure it out. But it must be done.

Otherwise, we will continue to see radical Muslims win by default. They sure won in this case. The mere possibility that someone might protest led the nation’s leading bookstore chain to pull this magazine.

In my opinion, the cartoons are pretty lame; I know I’m not the only one to express that sentiment. They are not worth all of this fuss. But I’m stubborn. When the Christian fundamentalists try to boycott and movie or block publication of a book, I go out of my way to see that film or track down the book — even if the product is lame.

So it is with these cartoons. Tom Toles has nothing to fear from these guys. If you want to see them, this guy published them online.

Note: I know nothing about this site. Pulled it up from a Google search. It was the first site on the list that was not a right-wing magazine. I hope nothing else on it offends you. If it does, don’t call for its removal from the web. Just go look at something else.

April 8, 2006 at 9:56 am

For once—just for once, mind you—I’d love to see a handful of Islamic zealots stand up, show a bit of backbone, and blame the degradation of their beloved Prophet on the base source: the terrorists. But then again, I’d like to see Rumsfeld admit that he learned all he knows about military strategy from playing checkers….

Most genuine Muslims have no (expressed) problem with the cartoons. The rather silly drawings were around for almost a full year before some hot head started a deadly commotion about them. For that matter, not all Muslims have always been opposed to artistic representation of their Prophet. And most Muslims already have learned to accept criticism (from us and from each other).

Back in the ’50s I used to love sitting on the floor of City Lights, a bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach, reading very touchy (and someties feely) stuff. The store encouraged it, which is what made the place so great. I also frequently bought books at the International Bookstore on Market Street (the outlet for books printed in the USSR, many of which had nothing to do with propaganda; the old man who ran the place was kindly and scholarly beyond belief, and you got to wave you books at the FBI agent taking pictures from the hotel across the street). Even here in Bellingham our little Newsstand waged a bitter court battle (and won) over the right to sell a magazine dealing with the offensive topic child porgnography. Good bookstores and news outlets are real gems, worth far more to our democracy than churches, imho.

The Guilty Party here is Borders. Whatever their orgins, they are now, obviously, afraid of free speech (might damage the cash flow, you know). Your attitude is the correct one. If it offends you, why look at it?

Bush IS a political cartoon and he offends me greatly.
A shallow icon of greed and ingorance that is unintentionally mocking and fouling democracy and its institutions.
I hit his picture with my shoe.

Hmmmm – does Borders have a policy regarding
graven images, vis a vis the Ten Commandments?

thanks for writing about this and publishing a source of the cartoons..

am i mistaken that you are the only weblog commentator who has tackled this issue beyond the seemingly obligatory tsk, tsk ing?

i had looked at the cartoons before and found them in no sense justifying the havoc wrought over them — and in muslim cities and to felloow muslims.

the matter of the three fake cartoons i had not known about. that is very interseting and clearly suggests an organized campaign.

i wonder if the cartoon riots were another example of the severly repressive regimes of egypt, saudi arabia, pakistan, etc encouraging their people to express their frustration and rage by attacking “western” ideas.

As lame as the cartoons are, the cartoons are offensive to muslims, and quite frankly, they exist to be offensive, it is the purpose of the cartoons.

Should they be outright banned? No. But journals should show some editorial judgment when something exists just to offend a group of people. If Borders wanted to show this form of judgment, they should have just come out and said “These are deliberately offensive cartoons, we will not have it in our stores.” Reasonable enough.

I agree with lk because the cartoons are offensive and disrespectful of the the Muslim religion. So yes an editorial department showing restraint is always commendable especially knowing that the cartoons could provoke more violence. Insofar as it offending just the extremists, I doubt that. The moderates are more restrained, but offended nonetheless.

If instead of Mohammed being depicted as such and it was Jesus i wonder what the extreme wing of the Christian right would have done? I doubt they would have gotten violent, but they certainly would have been loud and vocal about it. Can you imagine if a Muslim drew a similar cartoon depicting Jesus in that manner! There would be no end to the outrage.

All beliefs, all religions, all cultures, traditions, mores, etc. deserve respect and that includes using common sense and sound judgment before publishing anything that is so offensive that it becomes a catalyst for violence. It would have been more appropriate for Borders to have been forthright about their decision to not publish the cartoons, if that was the case.

Notwithstanding no one can please all the people, all the time — nor can one have it both ways.

All good points here. But my sense is that when Borders stated that they were concerned for the safety of their employees and customers, they weren’t talking about hurt feelings. I doubt that Borders management spent much time on intellectual free speech questions when they decided not to carry a publication with those cartoons, in light of the physical violence and deaths that have already been provoked by them. Literature with parts that could be taken as anti-semitic or anti-christian by some is sold in chain bookstores all the time with no hesitation. So what makes this different? I think Borders was concerned about suicide bombers, pure and simple. That issue trumped all as threat of violence is a very effective extortion tactic. Any discussion of this problem or criticism of Borders’ action must begin with recognition of and a solution for that issue. I sure don’t know what it is. But so far, exhortations for Islamists to lighten up and engage in the war of ideas haven’t worked to dissuade the violence of the lunatic fringe. So what decision would you make at Borders’ headquarters? It’s not an easy one.

Thanks, Steve, for posting links that provide a much fuller context for the cartoon controversy. Most surprising to me was seeing illustrations from the actual book which appear, at least to this westerner, to present the prophet in the most flattering light. (I’m not familiar enough with Islam to know what to make of the only page with text that describes Jews being slaughtered throughout the day. Assuming the worst though, I’m not about to run out and firebomb my local mosque.)

One thought did occur to me that I haven’t seen discussed at length. Why couldn’t the publisher just accept the prohibition against picturing Mohammed, and substitute another kind of visual treatment (e.g., always obscuring him behind something, substituting an abstract symbol, etc., etc.) Was there any creative and imaginative work-around that would have honored Islamic custom while fulfilling the author and publisher’s goals? In Orthodox Judaism, god’s name is never sounded because the creator is considered so holy that mere mortals cannot begin to comprehend it. It’s a proscription that’s both profound and utterly logical—a teaching in itself. Yet it doesn’t interfere with the publishing of prayer books or worship.

I’m not taking sides here, just thinking out loud about a mutually acceptable way to resolve these seemingly contradictory positions.

Oops, I just realized I thanked Steve for the cartoon links, rather than Morbo, in my previous post. My apologies Morbo.

o.k., i’m not sure how this fits in this context, but here goes.

some time back (at least ten-fifteen years ago), i became curious about what ‘the protocols of the elders of zion’ actually *said*. i could not find a text available anywhere. (i’m not sure if i tried a nation of islam bookstore.) not sure if i tried the web, then in its infancy, but i seem to recall that a public library, even with interlibrary loan, was unavailing. (now amazon has a few items, but even there the earliest date seems to be published in 1994.)

now, i knew the provenance of the ‘protocols’ to be a myth, but surely the text existed. i understood it to be inflammatory, but jeez, it seems like you could almost get ‘mein kampf’ at the drugstore, and thirty years ago i vividly recall reading ‘the turner diaries,’ the epic tale that gave tim mcveigh such a hard-on when it was serialized in a national alliance rag that was distributed free in newspaper kiosks in downtown d.c. but the ‘protocols’ persistently showed up missing.

it puzzled the shit out of me and still does.

your pal,
blake

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