M.A. NIAZI
 The Muslim world, awakened, refuses to go back to sleep. If one was to take the precedent of the Quranic desecration at Guantanamo Bay, the protests should have petered out by now. But they continue. Muslim governments all have a hard task containing the rage that Muslims are feeling because of the insult to their Prophet (PTUI PBUH), and which is being fuelled by their sense of helplessness at what is to be done.
| The current round of tiresome riots is lasting longer because it's consciously being fuelled by your local Learned Elders of Islam. Your "sense of helplessness" isn't tugging at my heartstrings, because you're not too helpless to incinerate a few embassies. The rubes are always willing to be whipped up, and the holy men are always happy to whip them up, and do date there hasn't been any penalty to either of them, with the exception of a few corpses here and there — who're never the holy men and seldom the guys waving their fists. |
There is now a move to convene the OIC Foreign Ministers on this issue. That it has come so late indicates that it is not an initiative from the member governments, but is the result of a need felt to dissipate the heat the members are facing. Because the members' interests are disparate, it is unlikely to come up with any strong action.
| That's kinda the story of the OIC, the Arab League, the EU, and the UN, isn't it? If everybody's interests are different, joining them together in a single body makes no real sense — it's a "government of national unity" on an international scale. The net result is some really good lunches and a fairly hefty printer's bill. |
 It has already been warned by the European Union that any sanctions against Denmark will be met with all-EU sanctions against the sanctioners.
| Look, Maudette! Vertebrates! |
While one head of government might be willing to take on the EU head-on, as Iranian President Mehmood Ahmedinejad has done over his country's nuclear issue, for 57 heads of government to do so is almost unthinkable.
| For 57 heads of government to all agree on anything is almost unthinkable. The results, should they manage to accidentally do so, would be even more unthinkable. |
 One solution would be for the OIC to issue guidelines suggesting various levels of sanctions, which members could adopt as they wished, but who would vote for them, and then not follow them? The easiest way out would be to pass a resolution condemning the cartoons in the strongest of terms, maybe call on the Danish government to apologise, and to call for the passage of laws by Western countries protecting religious figures from blasphemy.
| That's the ultimate objective, isn't it? If I were to hop into my trusty time machine and go back to 1955 and tell my father that the world was considering imposing blasphemy laws like they have in half-savage Pakistan he'd look at me like I was stoopid. If I were to go back to 1804 and tell President Jefferson he'd look at me the same way. |
There would be no 'or-else'. If the countries addressed refused to tremble in their shoes, too bad.
| I dunno about you, but I refuse to tremble in my shoes. |
 Yet it is certainly interesting that the OIC is moving to tackle this issue. The last parallel protests, during the Rushdie affair, moved the OIC Foreign Ministers' Conference in 1990 in Cairo to insert as Item 87 (of 95) of its Final Declaration the following: "The Conference expressed profound concern on the continued attempts to vilify or denigrate the noble values of Islam, its most respected and revered personalities and places of sanctity. It urged the Member States to take steps to safeguard the lofty Islamic principles and to adopt coordinated efforts to face any blasphemous attempt. The Conference urged the international community to respect the sentiments of all religious communities and not to allow any transgression of norms of civility and morality under the cover and pretext of freedom of thought or expression."
| That was when Salman Rushdie published the Satanic Verses and ended up with a fatwah on him from the Islamists in Iran. At the time rest of the Muslim world joined in the hooraw, with similar riots and mayhem to those going on today. Some things never change; they're just events that are supposed to lead to an ultimate objective. |
The OIC members were much more militant and upbeat then, as the meeting was in progress (31 July-5 August) when Iraq invaded Kuwait (August 2), and the loss of innocence that followed the Gulf War was still in the future, and 9/11 not even on the horizon.
| The OIC spent its time after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait dithering and ultimately sold Kuwait down the (Euphrates) river, as did the Arab League. |
 Therefore, the OIC governments are feeling much more heat this time around, and feel the need to relieve pressure from their publics.
| It's a good thing the civilized world feels no pressure from its publics. It might lead to a clash of civilizations. |
Are Muslims more radicalised now than then?
| Lots of them are, but not all. Arabs and Paks seem to be more nutty than most, but that's always been the case. |
Perhaps. Have their frustrations at their helplessness grown?
| Somehow they're frustrated at living in kleptocracies and dictatorships, but somehow also they prefer to emigrate rather than hang their tormentors. The ones who don't emigrate are rewarded by occasionally being allowed to riot and burn down a few embassies or churches. |
Probably. Have they grown more dissatisfied with their regimes, more disillusioned with their ability to defend not just their vital national interests, but also the collective interests of the Muslims as a whole? It seems likely. Will they be fobbed off with a mere resolution at the OICFMC? Probably not.
Will they be moved to do something about it? At this point, unlikely.
| "Doing something about it" at this point would be a stoopid move. First of all, not all of the Muslim world is willing to be ordered around by the nearest holy man. Second, not every Muslim majority country is willing to lie down with the holy dogs for fear of catching fleas. It's still early in the game to be expecting them to be willing to join the lemmings. |
The problem is that the civilised solutions to this issue are simply not satisfying enough.
| Ain't that the truth? And the civilized solutions aren't going to come from the Muslim world, either. |
The special reverence in which the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is held, demands that the blasphemers be punished according to Sharia, which prescribes the death sentence, and the death sentence alone.
| You're free to impose the death sentence on each other, but keep your grimy ways out of our countries. |
However, that is not a feasible option at this point.
 A Muslim government may emulate the Israeli example of sending in assassins (as it did with Iraqi nuclear scientists), but it would come under tremendous pressure, perhaps too much to expect it to bear.
| Somebody might finally get the idea of sending assassins back, and the targets would be the holy men. |
A boycott of Danish goods is questionable: pork is not halal even if it is Pakistani (a few wild pigs are consumed by foreign and local non-Muslims); milk will not become haram just because it is Danish.
| Too bad. You're picking on Denmark because it's not a European economic powerhouse and you expected it to fold quickly. It's tried to be accomodating, but it hasn't groveled, which is what you demand. And I'm willing to eat more havarti and Danish ham's perfectly halal for me. Life's tough, ain't it? |
The demand for legislation protecting the revered figures of all religions is compatible with the concept of freedom of expression, because it is feasible to place restraints on freedom.
| No, it's not. In most of the West the constraints are placed by good taste, which isn't legislated, and which is routinely violated with regard to Christian and Jewish religious figures. |
 However, it could lead to rather odd situations. It might mean, for example, that anyone who claims some form of prophethood within the Abrahamic tradition, as did Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, and Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, founder of the Ahmadi Jamaat, in the 19th century, or even godhead within the Vedic or Buddhist tradition, as did the Maharishi in the 20th, would be as protected as Muhammad (PTUI PBUH), Jesus Christ, Buddha or Ram.
| So much for the Mormons, the Ahmadis, and the Maharishi School of Yogic Flying. And then, there are the Jews. There's gotta be some way to keep them from being covered... |
It might even provoke a spate of declarations of revelation, for the Western understanding of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and toleration equates these religious leaders with whoever else might make a claim.
| L. Ron Hubbard, call your office! |
It is also not just a matter of hurt feelings. Blasphemy against the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is severely punished, even though other forms of abuse, while hurtful, are to be ignored, or merely rebutted. Denials of the prophethood of Muhammad (PTUI PBUH) can be ignored, for example, or debated, but they are not in themselves blasphemous. After all, a non-Muslim by definition is a denier. However, it is reasonably clear that certain mocking or insulting portrayals or epithets are unacceptable, such as the Danish cartoons.
| So what's your bitch? You've just negated your own argument. |
So should Muslims ask for very specific legislation about the person of the Holy Prophet (PTUI PBUH)?
| Sure they will. They're just working out the wording right now, aren't they? |
They can ask, and probably should, but this creates difficulties of its own. The USA was the first state to declare a complete separation between church and state. No religion is to be 'established' in the USA under the First Amendment, in the sense of having special privileges or any superiority over others. To ask it to pass a law specific to the Holy Prophet (PTUI PBUH), would technically be asking it to 'establish' Islam.
| No "technically" about it. Your god's no more important than my god or lack thereof. |
 Here we do see the seeds of a clash of civilisations. The honour of the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is not open to compromise for Muslims. Nor is the prohibition on 'establishing' any religion for Americans of whatever creed. Ask we must. Refuse they must. And pity the poor soul who is both 'we' and 'they'. Muslims hold that they are bound by everlasting and immutable limits, prescribed by the Almighty Himself in the Quran and through the Sunnah. Americans (and the West as a whole) hold that the only absolute is freedom, and any limits are determined by the people, who can change them as they will. These are incompatible. Either Muslims must accept mutability, or the West must reject its own principles.
| I can see a reasonable compromise. How about if we keep our freedom, treasuring it and exploring its practical limits the more each and every day. We can laugh and have fun and pinch girlies and argue over the fine points of individual liberty and whether pigs have wings. We'll invent things, and we'll send men to the moon and we'll cure cancer. And you can remain in your Islamic paradises, speaking only to other Believers™, trading only with other Believers™, marrying only your own close relatives. Withdraw from international bodies that include Infidels™. Return to your immutable world and keep doing the same things over and over, generation after generation, just like they do in Peshawar. Keep on bitching about the effects while you're revering the Cause. |
 Meanwhile, of course, expect Muslims to subside into inaction once again, at least until next time. Many have noted that all the Muslims of today need is the right leader, who is not present among the luminaries gracing OIC Summits.
| Don't worry the Mahdi's out there, just waiting for the main chance. Though I don't think much of a society that needs a leader for everything... |
If pushed enough, though, the Ummah will search for a leader in earnest, and find him, even if it means forcing him to accept the task.
| They're big on Fearless Leaders™... |
The main problem before the world today is not how to avert a clash of civilisations, but how to manage it in a way that prevents some form of ultimate disaster. After all, even in warfare, there is a difference between warfare between 'terrorists' and counter-terrorists, in which anything goes, and that between two armies observing the rules of war, and the courtesies of the profession of arms.
| Yeah. Jihad is the only answer. |
AN AFTERTHOUGHT...
The real difference between the civilized world and the Third World is the latter's search for that Fearless Leader™. They've gotta have him. They're enthralled by the idea of standing around in large groups, chanting in unison, of believing in something. It can be a holy man like Qazi or Tater, or it can be a tin hat dictator like Sammy or Hugo or Bob Mugabe, but they've got to have somebody with all the answers.
We in the West elect our leaders and they then begin their inevitable slide in popularity until they're safely out of office. We feel free to disagree with them, even make fun of them, even the ones we like. We change "leaders" with only slightly less frequency than we change our socks (or pantyhose, as the case may be). Once you're in power in the Third World you can stay there until you die, even if you're a nut like Turkmenbashi, or a complete incompetent like Bob. And the chances are that your kids or other close relatives will follow you.
I think this is why so many of us feel a visceral aversion to the giant papier mache puppet crowd that comes crawling out from under their rocks for every summit meeting. They're people in search of Fearless Leader™. They've got to have someone tell them all the answers, rather than discovering them for themselves. To get those answers they're happy to tromp through the streets, exulting in the bravery of numbers. If they ever get their way we, too, can live in a soiety where innovation is ordered from the top, rather than emanating from garages or small businesses or people's dreams. |
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