It's a Cartoon, But Nobody's Laughing
Racism Against Arabs Clear in Cartoons Slandering the Prophet Muhammad
By Christopher Patrick Nelson

Imagine a sketch of a Jew with a big hook nose saying, “Oy vey!” surrounded by money.

Imagine a sketch of an African-American with a huge nose and a big grin saying, “I sho' nuff loves my chitlin's and grits!”

Now imagine a sketch of an Arab: hairy, hook-nosed, dark-skinned, waving an oversized scimitar sword around with his turban in the shape of a bomb. Then picture the name of the ultimate Arab written near him: Muhammad. This was exactly what was published in a Denmark newspaper, and the cartoon has sparked reaction by Muslims all across the world.

Listen to your own reaction inside your head as you read those descriptions. Aren't you outraged? Even if you're a racist, you laugh at the sheer absurdity of the stereotypes. Those aren't people being drawn in those cartoons, they're tacked-together scarecrows designed for attacking. This isn't a question of freedom of speech. No mainstream newspaper in the United States would publish those cartoons I described. They would be seen as offensive to ethnic minorities, and legitimately so. In a modern multicultural democracy like ours, we are attempting never to forget the lessons of the Holocaust – or the Crusades. It is the few living among the many who must be protected from racial bigotry, starting with what is now known as hate speech.

What's the difference? Why is it perfectly acceptable to perpetuate this caricature from Dark Ages Europe in modern times? Is that just the way Arabs are or something?

I don't think so. I think the same protection afforded Jews and African-Americans from that type of propaganda can be reasonably extended to Arabs, and by extension, Muslims. Since Muslims are largely Arab and organize their lives from bedroom to bathroom around the Prophet Muhammad's example, the slander is, in fact, aimed at living persons. It is, however, a fair question to ask why Arabs (and Muslims) haven't organized to stop this defamation against them. The answer is very simple. Arabs in this country have nowhere near the unified cultural and political organization as other groups such as Jewish-Americans and African-Americans. They do not have a Saudi-Arabia-right-or-wrong policy the way their Hebrew cousins have lockstep support for the occupation of Palestine. Entertainment dominates the public dialogue, so ethnic culture promotes tolerance over decades. African-Americans have produced blues, jazz, rock and roll, and rap, distinctly black musical forms. Arab-Americans currently have no equivalent. Unlike the long tradition of borcht-belters like Jack Benny, Muslims are just starting in this way.   For example, there is now the Allah Made Me Funny tour with Azeem, Preacher Moss, and Azhar Usman. Although new, it is developing a national following, and in turn starting to grow the public identity of Muslims. There are also other Muslims who are creating media, such ast the radio show “Mecca One” which is made for and for young Muslim Americans. If Muslims continue this same trajectory of self-defining, and God-willing, ten years from now no newspaper will dare to print such an offensive cartoon.

The mainstream media has focused on the Muslim protests, trying to frame the issue as a great rift between Western civilization and Islam. This is nonsense. When African-Americans rioted in the 1992 Rodney King riots in L.A., no one took this to signify a great rift between black culture and the West. Anyone who knows anything about how crowd psychology gets out of control sees this as common sense. My understanding from talking to Muslims here is that there was a Muslim man in London strapping a suicide-bomber-style vest to his chest in London. I interviewed Imam Muhammad Tahir Anwar, an Islamic scholar and San Jose mosque-leader, and he condemned this kind of thing. I talked to Imam Zaid Shakir, an Islamic scholar and teacher at Hayward's Zaytuna Institute Madressa, and he thought it was ridiculous. So while Muslims protesting the depiction of their Prophet as terrorist by acting like terrorists is bad, the Mercury's response is too much cliché and too little creativity. We should not only be talking about how Muslims are responding, but what allowed this cartoon to be published in the first place.

Post a Comment:
(De-Bug will publish e-mails on this page as soon as possible.)