Where are the limits? by Daiana Vasquez

The world is shocked with the readiness for violence from the part of many Muslims offended by the publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad, for instance wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Even worse, it seems that in some countries government and spiritual leaders are encouraging the protests, instead of controlling them.

On the one hand, nobody but the attackers seems to agree with this kind of reaction. From all over the world we hear and see politicians, journalists, people, believers or not, claiming that brute force is not only an inadequate reaction, but it is outrageous and shall never be accepted.

On the other hand, barely anyone but the offended Muslims seems to agree that also freedoms of speech, expression and press have a limit and on the moment you expose the belief of a group to ridiculousness and associate it with terrorism this limit is transgressed.

For Islam the image of Muhammad, their holy prophet, must never be shown. Some people contest that this rule is not in the Koran. But even if so, it does not change the fact that the Muslims believe that the face of Muhammad should not be exposed and that they are hurt in their religious feelings when this happens. Shall the press ignore all this in the name of its freedom?

Some journalists say yes, the Muslims have to accept that in the Western countries there are such things as freedoms of speech and press, which in many cases they do not have the chance to experience in their non-secularized countries. This is the case of the Dutch reporter of the German Magazine Der Spiegel, and writer Henryk M. Broder that gave his opinion on this issue for the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel on February the 3rd. He believes that one should be allowed to make fun of Christians, Jewish, Muslims, etc, even with the danger of hurting their religious feelings. And he justifies this by saying that what for one believer is a belief, is for the other superstition.

But should not the difference be exactly the motive for respect and tolerance instead of for ridiculousness? We must accept that we are different. And being different means that perhaps some things that do not bother one group of people are really disgusting for others. Shall I ignore that some things I say may be offensive for others just because if they said the same to me I would not care? Am I not by doing this measuring the others with my canons instead of accepting and respecting the fact that they might have their own? Is my culture superior?

Many other newspapers, although more moderate than the journalist cited above, see in the printing of the cartoons an expression of press freedom. Does it mean that in the name of freedom of press everything can be published? Is there no distinction? No limit?

For many believers, Muslim or from other religions, as well as for politicians in high positions, the press should respect religious feelings. The Vatican, for instance, has condemned the publication of the cartoons, according to the Brazilian online newspaper Globo. According to the Vatican’s opinion, the freedom of thought and speech shall not include the right to offend other people’s religion.

Some media in countries such as Norway and Germany printed the cartoons following the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, despite the fact that they already knew how offensive the cartoons were to Muslims. What was the aim of doing that? Certainly not only to inform people, since this could have been perfectly done without printing the polemic cartoons and leaving Muslims with the feeling they were being provoked and offended on purpose.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also seems to believe that the press should avoid throwing more oil on fire. He said, according to BBC News, he was "distressed and concerned at the whole affair" and appealed for no-one to "inflame an already difficult situation".

What is the role of the press? Is it to inform people, to open the debate, to analyze and criticize facts, theories, etc or to provoke, cause commotion and sensationalism for more audience and readers? Is it under any responsibility? Should it carefully balance its content because of its possible consequences? Or shall it print everything blindly without measuring the effects it may have?

These questions appear not to be so difficult to answer, but the thought that freedom of speech and press has a limit and also a responsibility has still not found so many echoes in the media. They are concentrated on showing the world the scandalizing violent protests of some of the offended Muslims against the countries where the cartoons were published and on arguing for the right to publish them based on the principle of press freedom. However, it would not harm anyone if they would also direct some attention to their role, their responsibility and maybe exercise some self-criticism.

Once again regarding this concern it is UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who puts things in its right terms: "I share the distress of the Muslim friends who feel that the cartoon offends their religion," he said, according to BBC News, and continued: "I also respect the right of freedom of speech. But of course freedom of speech is never absolute. It entails responsibility and judgment."

When the press does not ponder how a report should be announced it can come to serious problems. This was the case in Brazil, as a central news network reported on a school in which children were supposedly sexually abused. After all this, it was proven to only have happened in their imagination. The owners of the school were ruined even though the press reported the true version afterwards. Another examples are the paparazzi who disturb the privacy of Caroline of Monaco or those who were jointly responsible for the early death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The list is endless. It does not make any sense to go on. The point is that whatever freedom we are talking of, it must have limits. There is no absolute freedom of press. And it is more rational and desirable that the press itself control its publications within reasonable boundaries instead of denying its limits.

In any case, the fact that some published cartoons are the cause for such violence is unacceptable. There are many other ways to protest than the violent path chosen. It is not only shocking that it came to such a conflict but unfortunately also scary, since the whole world saw what some people might be capable of doing in the name of Allah (or in this case, of his prophet). Is there any limit to their use of force?

To live in an economically globalized world does not mean that we have a global culture. We do have a variety of cultures that should be respected for there is not a better one. Not even God is legitimized to say which culture is superior, since there are different Gods in different cultures. No one is legitimized to say what is an offense and what is “only” hypersensitivity or idiosyncrasy. In order to have peace, we must reciprocally accept each other within our differences.


And the question that remains on my mind is not where these limits are, namely the limits of the freedom of press and the limits of the reaction of the offended Muslims, but mainly if we (believers or not) are going to be able to manage this commotion without killing each other.