Cartoons a successful distraction

Muslim rage over cartoons in a Danish newspaper serves right wing ideologues in Europe and Arabia

by Jennifer Matsui

The recent furor over cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed is the result of well-organized political maneuvers by rival right-wing interests, and should be viewed in that context rather than as an issue of free speech vs blasphemy.

Contrary to what the Western media would have us believe, the controversy does not represent the “clash of civilizations” (the forces of enlightenment and secularism against a competing ideology of superstition and backwardness), but rather a deliberate attempt by right-wing ideologues to foment hatred and xenophobia among the disgruntled many, who might otherwise seek political solutions for their discontent.

By provoking Muslim fury, Western ideologues are hoping to pave the way towards dismantling the welfare state, increasing military budgets, and maintaining an enhanced police presence to secure the smooth passage of regressive legislation. The Danish newspaper that originally commissioned the work of these cartoonists did so to provoke a violent reaction from a despised minority to augment their argument that Europe has much to fear from its non-white immigrant populations. Their disingenuous posturing as free speech martyrs has so far proved a catastrophic success. With hand-wringing Liberals timidly embracing the cause of “Freedom of Speech,” the right-wing noisemakers once again control the debate.

The very people who howled “unfair” when the Abu Ghraib photos were released, and cited concerns for “national security” as an excuse to suppress them, are now hoisting the banner of free speech, proving once again that free speech (or rather “freedom speech”) is limited to the professional vandals on the right-wing payroll. And, naturally, the concept doesn’t apply to black men who wear Jesus garb on magazine covers. After all, Kanye West, a self-described Christian rapper, is just a Bush-whacking terrorist taking the piss out of Jesus. Offended Christians don’t have to take to the streets to air their grievances—they have lavishly funded and well-padded think tanks that can convert their rage into valuable political capital for their Mega-Church Mullahs. In America, one can be enraged by liberal assaults on the rights of embryonic Americans or the baby Jesus and still not have to miss a single episode of American Idol.

In a world where nothing is off-limits to the forces of market-driven values, it’s difficult to fathom why so many would still refuse to relinquish the sacred and embrace a cynical agenda of profit-centered ideology. Amazingly, no one questions the violent means by which Americans defend their profit. Funny, too, how camera crews are seldom on hand to capture the spitting, vengeance-filled rage of CEOs when faced with a threat to their earnings, often resulting in the impoverishment of millions, environmental ruin, and the collapse of entire economies. Seen in this perspective, the threat to Danish dairy interests seems rather tame.

The US government, in the meantime, is posturing as a force of moderation and restraint. By urging American media outlets to refrain from printing the offending cartoons, they can hide their own complicity in their well-timed reappearance. As the word “impeachment” starts bouncing around the corridors of power, a beleaguered wartime President hires the services of a howling, vengeful mob of flame-spewing “insurgent” extras shipped in from Satanistan to put the fear of a cartoon Allah into the godless hordes at home. Suddenly the Bushi’ites’ very real threat to first amendment rights and civil liberties are being conveniently overlooked as former political enemies at home join their right-wing brethren to engage in meaningless debate over abstract notions of “free speech” (which, of course, is any speech that benefits the rulers and puts the little brown people in their place).

By blaming Syria and Iran for the attacks on Western embassies and business interests in the Middle East and Asia, the Bushi’ites are hoping to shore up additional support for further military assaults on oil-rich targets. Having being named as part of the Bush-termed “Axis of Evil,” the people of Syria and Iran (rightfully) fear a US-led regime change more than their current regimes. They don’t need officially-sanctioned provocations to express their views on Judeo-Christian assaults on their religion and territorial sovereignty.

If anyone representing officialdom is behind the scenes ratcheting up tensions and encouraging the continuing spread of violence, it’s the Saudi leadership who should be scrutinized. After all, the honorary citizens of Crawfordistan have more reason to rally its dissatisfied citizenry under a banner of religious piety to appease the forces of political Islam threatening to topple its corrupt pro-Western monarchy. This may explain why the release of the highly inflammatory Abu Ghraib photos, or news that US military personnel defiled the Koran as an interrogation tactic during torture sessions of Muslim detainees, did not provoke a global outcry on this scale. Clearly, the imperial enablers are seeking ways to minimize their involvement in the ongoing slaughter against their fellow Muslims at the hands of latter-day Crusaders. “Stuck between Iraq and a hard place,” pro-US Arab governments have more likely had a hand in suppressing mass demonstrations against these American-led assaults on the entire human race, while fanning the flames of Armageddon over a batch of cartoons in an obscure Scandinavian tabloid. This is not to downplay the significance of these abominable images or the level of barbarism that they reflect, but to underscore the dreadful irony of allowing the continuing legacy of Abu Ghraib to slip quietly into the ether of yesterday’s news, while resurrecting its ghosts to serve the political agendas of the powerful.

According to the Daily Kos, the Saudi government resuscitated these months-old cartoons to deflect recent criticism in other parts of the Muslim world for its failure to prevent the deaths of hundreds of pilgrims (from mostly impoverished areas of Pakistan) during this year’s Hajj. The Saudi leadership was strongly condemned in the Arab media for its incompetent handling of security that resulted in avoidable stampedes, and its arrogant disregard for the safety of worshipers from economically disadvantaged nations. Timing, as they say, is everything. The re-release of these offensive cartoons (including ones that were never even published) gives impetus to the notion that certain countries allied with the US are seeking ways to divert attention from their unpopular support for the US-led “War on Terror.”

Still, the most malignant forces of conspiracy and hypocrisy are concentrated in Europe—home of the ongoing Crusades and the birth place of the Inquisition, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the more recent Holocaust that resulted in millions of Jews and other “undesirables” being rounded up and slaughtered right under the noses of its “enlightened” and “rational” populations. Citing “freedom of speech” to incite race riots, Europe’s ruling class has launched its own version of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) when Goebbels, Hitler’s Chief of Propaganda, orchestrated a deadly campaign of terror against Germany’s Jewish citizens. Just as the spectre of an “international conspiracy of Jewry” was enough to convince most Germans that government-sanctioned pogroms were necessary to eliminate the Jewish “threat,” “the War on Islam” (oops, I mean “Terror”) is being used as a pretext to pave the way for a similar purging of unwelcome minorities in Europe. The failure of opportunistic Eurocrats to blame Islam on the recent riots in France by frustrated jobless youths (who actually succeeded in opening the eyes of the world to France’s less-than-enlightened social policies) now compels them to seek other means of imposing draconian measures to prevent the former slaves from getting any seditious ideas in their turbanned heads about advancing socially or economically.

The Danish government, and its supporters in the right-wing media across Europe, are using tactics borrowed from Kristallnacht to shore up support for their racist agenda. When “free speech” only serves those in power, it can hardly be called “free.” When these same media outlets who have published hateful and inflammatory cartoons publish every Abu Ghraib photo (and not just the ones that incriminate a pre-selected handful of “bad apples”), then we can open up a dialogue about freedom of the press.photo (and not just the ones that incriminate a pre-selected handful of "bad apples") then we can open up a dialogue about freedom of the press.

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