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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
February 5, 2006
Blasphemy
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. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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