As controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad continue to provoke violence in the Middle East, members of Northwestern’s Muslim community are calling the Danish newspaper caricatures “blasphemous” and “offensive.”
But the controversy reaches beyond the Muslim world to raise a universal question: In the name of provoking controversy, can the media overextend the banner of a free press?
In countries with freedom of speech, journalists must exercise judgment before publishing controversial material, said Medill Prof. Marda Dunsky.
American media often choose to withhold information that could threaten national security or offend viewers, Dunsky said.
“Even within our own free society, we exercise self-restraint,” she said. “Just because you have the freedom to publish, is exercising this freedom the best thing to do?”
Medill freshman Tricia Bobeda said cartoons and other types of symbolic speech differ from information that threatens national security. The violent riots, she said, have more to do with the state of the Middle East than the caricatures’ content.
“We’ve seen (that) the Middle East is like one of those rooms full of oxygen where all it takes is one match,” Bobeda said. “When a society loses the ability to look at itself critically, then there’s a problem.”
Protests against Denmark intensified last week when newspapers in Europe and the Middle East reprinted the images. One of the cartoons showed Muhammad wearing a turban with a fuse at the top.
Riots throughout the Islamic world have pushed Muslim leaders to call for a national boycott of Danish goods in response. Protesters torched Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon, and the latest reports indicate at fix 10 people have died as a result of the riots.
Many Islamic traditions consider any depiction of Muhammad as blasphemous. Suna Avci, a Music junior, said the cartoons were “incredibly offensive,” but she called the Muslim riots counterproductive.
“The most effective way to combat this type of thing would be to prove you’re not violent,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to riot against a violent depiction of Islam.”
Although he called the cartoons “blasphemous” and “unacceptable,” McCormick graduate student Bilal Gokpinar said “protesting is one thing, but when you cross that line of peaceful reaction, then you’re hurting the image of our religion.”
This is not the first time some in the Muslim world has reacted violently to alleged religious desecration in the West. In 2005 a controversial Newsweek article revealed that Guantanamo Bay prison guards flushed Qurans down toilets, inciting some Muslims from Palestine to Indonesia to stage violent and sometimes deadly protests. Newsweek later retracted the story, saying their primary source lacked credibility.
Political science Prof. Elizabeth Hurd said although she thinks the cartoon controversy will blow over in the Middle East, the newspaper industry must address a lasting question: “How far do you want to support freedom of speech if it collides with religious sensibilities?”
Dunsky said she discussed a similar question with students in her journalism class, Reporting the Arab and Muslim Worlds. Students watched reporting on the riots from around the world and debated implications of the caricatures.
“There were sentiments on all sides,” she said. “On the one hand, the cartoons have no obvious social, artistic redeeming value in and of themselves. But why did the Muslims choose to express their displeasure with violence instead of just boycotting the newspaper?”
Reach Derek Thompson at
