[Mb-civic] A Cartoon's Portrait of America - Anne Applebaum - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

A Cartoon's Portrait of America

By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, February 8, 2006; A19

The trouble started in Denmark, a faraway country of which we know 
little. It revolves around cartoons, an art form we associate with light 
humor. It has sparked riots in Surabaya, Tehran, Peshawar and rural 
Somalia, places where there aren't many Americans in the best of times. 
Perhaps that explains the muted American reactions to the violence, 
anger and deaths -- nine so far -- sparked by a dozen Danish cartoons 
depicting the prophet Muhammad. Nevertheless, the controversy has 
exposed a few less attractive political undercurrents in America, too:

· Schadenfreude -- or, rather, Americans feeling just a teensy bit 
relieved that Europeans are the object of flag burnings and riots 
instead of themselves. To my embarrassment, I felt an involuntary twinge 
of this myself when I read of cartoon-inspired riots outside a Norwegian 
NATO base in Afghanistan. In Oslo last year, I was told by a 
well-traveled, well-educated Norwegian that "America is the most 
dangerous country in the world." (I wonder if he thinks so now. ) But I 
also hear a note in the sanctimonious State Department communique, which 
proclaimed that "inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is 
not acceptable." Actually, the European newspapers weren't trying to 
incite hatred; they were making a point about their own laws and 
traditions. Were we rushing to look good in the Muslim world at a moment 
when Europeans, for once, look worse?

· Hypocrisy of the cultural left. Dozens of American newspapers, 
including The Post, have stated that they won't reprint the cartoons 
because, in the words of one self-righteous editorial, they prefer to 
"refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols." Fair enough -- 
but is this always true? An excellent domestic parallel is the fracas 
that followed the 1989 publication of "Piss Christ," a photograph of 
Christ on a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. That picture -- a work 
of art that received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts -- 
led to congressional denunciations, protests and letter-writing campaigns.

At the time, many U.S. newspapers that refused last week to publish the 
Danish cartoons -- the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe (but 
apparently not The Post) -- did publish "Piss Christ." The photographer, 
Andres Serrano, enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame, even appearing in a New 
York Times fashion spread. The picture was exhibited at the Whitney 
Museum of American Art and elsewhere. The moral: While we are nervous 
about gratuitously offending believers in distant, underdeveloped 
countries, we don't mind gratuitously offending believers at home.

· Hypocrisy of the right-wing blogosphere. Remember the controversy over 
Newsweek and the Koran? Last year Newsweek printed an allegation about 
mistreatment of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base that -- although 
strikingly similar to interrogation techniques actually used to 
intimidate Muslims at Guantanamo -- was not substantiated by an official 
government investigation. It hardly mattered: Abroad, Muslim politicians 
and clerics promoted and exaggerated the Koran story, just as they are 
now promoting and exaggerating the Danish cartoon story. The result was 
rioting and violence on a scale similar to the rioting and violence of 
the past week.

But although that controversy was every bit as manipulated as this one, 
self-styled U.S. "conservatives" blamed not cynical politicians and 
clerics but Newsweek for (accidentally) inciting violence in the Muslim 
world: "Newsweek lied, people died." Worse, much of the commentary 
implied that Newsweek was not only wrong to make a mistake (which it 
was) but also that the magazine was wrong to investigate the alleged 
misconduct of U.S. soldiers. Logically, the bloggers should now be 
attacking the Danish newspaper for (less accidentally) inciting violence 
in the Muslim world. Oddly enough, though, I've heard no cries of 
"Jyllands-Posten insulted, people died." The moral is: We defend press 
freedom if it means Danish cartoonists' right to caricature Muhammad; we 
don't defend press freedom if it means the mainstream media's right to 
investigate the U.S. government.

Of course, some good may come out of this story, even in this country. 
If nothing else, this controversy should bring an end to that naive, 
charming and sadly incorrect American theory of international relations 
that "the more we all learn about one another, the less we will fight." 
Gradually, the Islamic world is learning that we don't respect religion 
in the same manner they do. Slowly, we are learning that they feel 
differently about the printed word, and the printed picture, from us. 
And somehow, I've got a feeling that this new knowledge will be not the 
beginning of understanding but the inspiration for more violence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701253.html?nav=hcmodule
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