With Danish Embassies Burning, Danish Goods Taken Off Store Shelves -- Were European Newspaper’s Acting Responsibly In Reprinting Those Jyllands-Posten Cartoons? Or Are Those Fires and Boycotts The Price Democracy Pays For Freedom of the Press?

Philip Stone February 6, 2006

When European newspapers reprinted those 12 Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad there is no question they had the freedom of the press to do so, but was it responsible journalism to offend Muslims in such a way? And in making that decision does one take into account the rioting, the burnings, the boycotts the world over? In other words should “fear” of what might happen preclude publication?

For complete background and commentary on the Danish cartoons click here.

Editorial conferences the world over this past week have been discussing that issue, with the results ranging from “Print and be Damned” to “ Let’s Not Fuel the Fires” to “Since Muslims find the printing of Muhammad’s picture to be sacrilegious, and these cartoons are particularly objectionable in mocking the Prophet then the responsible thing to do is not to publish”.

In Denmark itself there was much beating of the chest in the cause of press freedom by both the Jyllands-Posten newspaper and the government when the cartoons were published three months ago. But now Danish goods are being boycotted in the Middle East – Arla, Europe’s second largest dairy, says it has lost more than €50 million so far and Lego no longer is the toy of choice as Danish products are swept from store shelves, embassies burned, Danes warned to leave some countries – all of that got the attention of the government and the Confederation of Danish Industries, each making a big U-turn on absolute freedom of press and invoking the responsibility issue.

The EC has tried to help Denmark by saying that a boycott against one EU country was a boycott against all and warning of dire consequences. But that didn’t stop the French-owned Carrefour Supermarket chain in Saudi- Arabia from removing Danish goods. Something else for the EC to take a look at when the smoke clears.

So, freedom of the press is okay until the demonstrations start, and the financial consequences take hold? If it was right to apologize, then why not when the deed was done three months ago. If it was not right to apologize then why now – because of the fear of the consequences  -- more economic damage, more embassies burned, and perhaps lives at stake? If the latter, where does that leave freedom of the press?

No one in Denmark, except Muslims, really questioned the right of the newspaper to print what it did, and the government tried its best to steer clear by saying it was purely a freedom of the press matter in which it does not get involved. But where was the debate about the social responsibility of the press –even if it had the freedom to print those cartoons should they have been printed? Fleming Rose, the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten who commissioned the cartoons, has pointed out in many interviews in the past week that Denmark has a very liberal freedom of the press -- . The Royal family, politicians, religion,  and yes, even the newspaper’s culture editor, are all fair game for Danish cartoonists.

But editors also admitted they didn’t realize the strict rules against reproducing the image of Muhammad, let alone making fun of him. The Muslim community in Denmark complained but basically got nowhere, so it sent delegations to the Middle East, fueling the flames that would come later by not just showing some of the offending cartoons but even more offensive cartoons  -- a caricature of Muhammad’s face as a pig that had nothing to do with the newspaper but was used to cite as examples of what appeared in print. All of this played right into the hands of those extremists who wanted to exploit the issue for their own purposes – the Danish foreign minister saying this weekend that there had been private discussions between various governments in past months and everyone thought the issue had been dealt with and suddenly “it reappeared in the streets”.

By now the world’s press had a problem on its hands. To illustrate this story should they print the cartoons. Many newspapers in Europe did so, some for what they saw as their journalistic value and others just to show what they called solidarity with their Danish colleagues. Either way, the reprints stoked the fires that much more. Did any of those newspapers taken into consideration their social responsibility?

Two incidents in France bear mention. The afternoon France-Soir printed its own front-page caricature offending just about every religion, and then on inside pages it printed the 12 Jyllands-Posten cartoons. This was seen as quite remarkable because France-Soir is owned by an Egyptian, Raymond Lakah, and even though he is a Christian it was thought the paper would be somewhat sensitive to what was and was not acceptable in the Muslim world. When those newspapers got shipped for distribution in Morocco and Tunisia they were banned on the spot. Next thing one sees is the newspaper’s managing director is fired and the owner making all sorts of apologies. That in turn saw a news conference called by the editor-in-chief to say the newspaper had done nothing wrong, indeed he was proud of his staff!

And on French television, the all-news LCI showed three cartoons, considered the least inflammatory. “On television it is difficult to report on such a subject without images,” claimed Jean-Claude  Dassier, the channel’s director-general. Now if that name sounds familiar it is because when Paris was burning in November with hundreds of cars torched every night the very same Jean-Claude Dassier gave his station instructions not to show such images which he said would encourage further car burning. If we take his quote on why he used images of the cartoons, surely exactly the same quote should apply to the burning cars, or vice versa? Could there possibly be a double standard at play here?

In Jordan, Jihad Momanio, the editor of the weekly Shihan, republished the cartoons saying they were silly and not worth all the fuss and in an editorial asked what was worse – silly cartoons or Muslims blowing up hotels in Amman (which they did recently).  Well, talk about sticking one’s head into the lion’s mouth – no sooner did the paper hit the street than it was pulled back, the editor was fired, and the next day he was arrested for violating the press law forbidding the insulting of religion. Read about the arrest on the official Jordanian news agency and how offended King Abdullah was by the publication and there is no doubt Mr. Momanio is in for a very tough time.

But what is even more noticeable is the non-printing of the cartoons by the British and US media. The obvious question is why have they held off?

The UK is the home of the social responsibility theory of the press by John Stuart Mill. With freedom goes responsibility, the theory goes. But while the so-called quality newspapers could be expected to follow social responsibility, the reputation of the so-called red top tabloids is that anything that lifts circulatioin is far game, so why not this time?

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw went out of his way in a news conference to praise the British media for its “considerable responsibility and sensitivity” on not reprinting the cartoons. But the more one listened to him the more one couldn’t help but wonder whether, in the background, there had not been some discussions between top editors and the government that basically said, “You’re free to do what you want, but in doing so the repercussions against Britain, possible demonstrations at your newspapers, demonstrations against the British around the world, boycotts of British goods etc. etc. etc. will all be on your hands.”

As it was there were already demonstrations in London outside the Danish and French embassies and press reports said some of the demonstrators actually dressed as suicide bombers. Message received in a country that lost 52 lives in last July’s London Underground bombings! And that was a demonstration without any direct British wrong-doing

Or could it be that the British media really did understand the sensitivity in this issue and it wasn’t fear, but rather good journalism that kept them from reprinting the cartoons.  A reading of the editorials by the national newspapers sees the word “responsibility” constantly appear and the general view is probably best wrapped up by what the Daily Mail wrote in combining the philosophies of Voltaire and Mill:

“While the Mail would fight to the death to defend those papers that printed the offending cartoons, it disagrees with the fact that they have done so. Rights are one thing. Responsibilities are another. And the newspapers that so piously proclaimed their right to freedom of speech were being - to put it mildly – deeply discourteous to the Islamic view.”

And in the US, State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hiornimus also pointed out that with press freedom comes responsibility and that igniting religious or ethnic hatred is not very responsible. With the exception of the Philadelphia Inquirer, no major US publication has printed any of the cartoons.

But again the question to be asked is whether the US media did this because it felt it was the right thing to do, or was it fearful for the repercussions if it had printed the cartoons.  Just as newspapers don’t set out to editorialize against their prime advertisers (unless it cannot be escaped) so, too, might their fear for what could happen to American interests in the world have a play in the decision they made?  Doubtful any editor will admit fear plays a role, but is that really true?

Wolf Blitzer on CNN Sunday interviewed the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and asked him a very pointed question. To many Americans, Blitzer said, the video released last week of the weeping kidnapped American female journalist, Jill Carroll, surrounded by men obviously threatening her life as she basically begged for her life was, in its own way far more abhorrent than any of these Danish cartoons pointing fingers at Islam, yet one didn’t see Americans taking to the streets in Washington or her hometown burning Arab buildings, boycotting Arab goods and the like. What’s the difference? And the ambassador, who unlike most ambassadors who usually have an answer for everything, simply had no answer for that.

Blitzer then challenged him on a series of five outrageous anti-Semitic cartoons that had appeared recently in the Saudi press, and he asked how they could be acceptable in Saudi Arabia but the Danish cartoons were considered so bad that the Saudi ambassador to Denmark was withdrawn. If anything, the ambassador appeared surprised (and ambushed) that the cartoons had appeared in his country’s newspapers and were now being shown around the world on CNN International, and he seemed somewhat embarrassed and again had no real answer. Again, double standards at work?

The French-based World Association of Newspapers, representing 18,000 newspapers, 73 national newspaper associations, and newspaper executives in 102 countries, still stands by its board proclamation of last November supporting the publication of the cartoons.  Larry Kilman, director of communications, explains how WAN now views the situation:

“Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons to test whether fear of Islamic retribution was inhibiting freedom of expression in Denmark -- and the reaction in the Arab world perhaps proves that freedom of expression is under threat, even in Europe. It is clear that Arab governments do not understand that governments do not control the press in free countries -- and it is incredible to hear information dictatorships like Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and others try to dictate standards to democracies.

“It is also important to note that publication of the cartoons was not meant to hurt the feelings of anyone but to defend freedom of expression. People can argue that the cartoons are provocative but the newspaper had the right to publish them — the issues are political as well as religious. Political cartoons by definition are provocative and they are a legitimate way of raising issues and stimulating debate in a free press.”

Not one word about social responsibility there! But that debate continues.

In South Africa a court imposed a pre-publication ban on newspapers planning to print the Danish cartoons. In New Zealand, about as far away geographically from all this that one could get, two newspapers printed the cartoons. But knowing that Iran has threatened that any country that prints the cartoons could see trade agreements abandoned was all that Meat and Wool New Zealand needed to condemn the publications. Nothing to do with press freedom, or social responsibility, it’s all down to whether New Zealand lamb continue to show up on Iranian dinner plates!  Meanwhile New Zealand embassy staffs in Muslim countries and Europe were put on high alert, fearing embassy attacks.

It all goes to show that no matter how small a country – Denmark has about 5 million citizens, or how far away a country may be – New Zealand on the other side of the world – on issues like this we are indeed a global village.

Perhaps one the best explanations in trying to understand the dilemma comes from Rabbi Michael Serfaty of France’s Jewish Muslim Friendship Association. He says that in the world we live in today, press drawings of Biblical characters including Jesus Christ are acceptable, but not Moslem caricatures.

“The Christians and we are used to this,” he said in an interview with ynetnews.com. We’ve been living in this free speech environment for centuries. They’ve just arrived. We don’t care about these caricatures but they get hurt. The important issue now is to reach civilian peace. We must let Muslims develop their own self-criticism by themselves.” France’s chief rabbi had joined Christian and Muslim counterparts in denouncing the cartoons.

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