The Muslim
world has once again entered into apoplexy over an act of “blasphemy”
in the West. Several months ago, a newspaper in Denmark called
Jyllands-Posten ran a selection of cartoons disrespectful
to the Prophet, and word of this has since carried. The paper
has apologized, but attacks on Danes and anything Danish continue
from Morocco to Pakistan and beyond, with further restiveness
among Muslims in the West.
This last
week, several European newspapers, including the prestigious Corriere
della Sera of Milan, La Stampa of Turin, and Die
Welt of Berlin, reprinted some of the cartoons to show their
readers what the fuss was all about. The French tabloid, France
Soir, made a splash of them in defence of the free press.
Its editor was immediately sacked by its Egyptian proprietor.
In the West, we have
our own, more modest, internal argument between those who think
it is important to maintain press freedom, and those mentally
impaled by political correctness. It has been widely observed
that by Western standards, the Muslim reaction is hypocritical.
Many Muslim newspapers routinely run the most savage and humourless
anti-Semitic and anti-Christian graphics, and big-production blood-libels
against the Jews have aired on state-owned television networks,
even in Egypt. We also haplessly explain that Christian beliefs
and believers are subject to wide and constant ridicule in the
Western mainstream media, where Islam gets off comparatively lightly.
But this is missing
the point. To a Muslim, there is no hypocrisy -- for as “infidels”
we belong to a different class from him. Hypocrisy requires that
all parties be considered as members of the same, fully human
class. As one of my Muslim correspondents patiently explained,
“You can’t compare a man to a dog, but you still kick
the dog if it bites you.” (Hmm.)
Now the trouble begins,
as trouble likes to do, with a single word used to mean different
things. For someone out of the Christian tradition (and that includes,
whether they realize or not, hundreds of millions of post-Christians
in the contemporary West), “blasphemy” is something
that requires belief. Absent the belief, and you just can’t
do it.
An example would be,
when Britney Spears mocks the Crucifixion of Christ in an upcoming
instalment of the NBC show, “Will and Grace” (scheduled
to air on the eve of Good Friday). Some Christian groups are vexed
about this, but I am not. For you have to know what you are doing
to commit a sin, and obviously, neither NBC nor Ms Spears has
the fondest idea.
The subject of blasphemy
must exist, for the blasphemer. One might, in principle, blaspheme
against someone other than God. For example, one might refer disrespectfully
to Ms Spears, calling her, say, “a fat little tart”.
And this would probably cause more shock, in our society today,
than if you spoke disrespectfully about God. To blaspheme is simply
to “utter profane words (about)”, and in the example,
one has certainly blasphemed Ms Spears, whose existence we feel
powerless to deny. And it would make sense to be more shocked
-- provided, you think it more likely that Britney Spears will
be sitting in judgement on the Day of Reckoning.
To a truly Christian
mind -- one steeped in the “practice and presence of God”
-- blasphemy against Him is a terrible crime, against your own
Maker. It is infinitely worse than insulting your mother, for
God made her, too. Not to say Christianity encourages you to insult
your mother.
Non-Christians cannot
blaspheme against Christ, and these days, even believing Christians
have a hard time pulling it off. Under the conditions of postmodernity,
it requires real genius.
But as Bernard Lewis
and many other scholars have tried to explain, to an audience
that isn’t much listening, “the good” in Islam
is something to be compelled, on others as well as on yourself.
Whereas, in Christianity, “the good” is something
received through Grace.
It follows, to a faithful
Islamic mind, that anyone who “utters profane words”
about Allah, or his Prophet -- which includes the crime of merely
depicting them -- is equally and objectively guilty of blasphemy,
and deserving of punishment. If anything, the Muslim who does
it has committed the lesser crime, since he is sanctified by the
fact of being a Muslim. Whereas the ignorant non-believer was
“the vilest of animals” even before he opened his
mouth.
The problem is, how
to reconcile these two, contradictory ideas of blasphemy in the
same culture, or “multiculture” if you will. I don’t
think it can be done.
Copyright
2006 Ottawa Citizen
