The Perfidy of Images

There's a blow-up in Europe over freedom of speech - and the fallout is global. An editorial cartoon reprinted in a Danish paper featured cartoon images of the prophet Mohammed. This is a terrible insult to the Muslim faith, and violates a strict historical taboo against representation of the prophet. So guess what happened?

First, of course, some on the continent dropped their croissants and apologized reflexively. A French magazine editor was sacked. But others in the European media are spoiling for a free-speech fight, and readily admit this was an act of antagonism. A societal conflict is rapidly escalating between traditional citizens of European society (who only recently began to get along) and the influx of Middle Eastern immigrants who hold on tightly to their cultural and religious identity even after they are transplanted.

So, thanks to the lighting dissemination of worldwide media - there were men with machine guns standing around the EU consulate in Gaza yesterday. Protests and "Death to ... (fill in the blank)" chanting has erupted in several cities. But what interests me is this news item:

In Saudi Arabia, Prince Nayef, the interior minister and staunch conservative, said the cartoons were an insult to all Muslims, and suggested the Vatican should intervene to put an end to the spread of the cartoons.

This type of statement relies on a seismic lack of understanding of how Western society has been ordered for hundreds of years. It adds unfortunate credibility to people who claim that this struggle is between medieval and modern worlds. In states like Saudi Arabia, "the government" is allowed to exist at the leisure of religious leaders and polices are executed only with their express consent. Because their world works that way they naturally imagine that Benedict XVI could pick up the phone and threaten a newspaper with censorship.

Leaders like Prince Nayef are smart enough to know better. But his comment was designed more for his internal constituents, who do believe such things because they are fed on a steady diet of hatred towards the West and Israel. Nayef knows the Vatican has nothing to do with this, but the desired goal among radicals is a frenzy of hostility towards Europe.

Cue the sophomore socialists who will rabidly equivocate between this and the Tom Toles affair, whereby a cartoonist received a letter from all six Joint Chiefs of Staff over his depiction of servicemen and women who have been injured in the line of duty. I haven't checked the usual suspects in the blogophere, but I expect an obtuse and willful failure to appreciate the chasm of difference. A stiff letter is how we communicate displeasure in civil society - nobody is "taking away his rights", as the weak accusation always goes.

As a Catholic and a vigorous supporter of the arts I am familiar with all of the ways Christianity has been explored, celebrated, desecrated, and lampooned. But I apparently have a thicker skin than some of our friends in the Middle East – who don’t think twice about beheadings on Arab TV but go literally ballistic over a line drawing.