Cartoon controversy Canadian style

Along with the rest of the Muslim world, Canadian Muslims are equally upset in the wake of the cartoon controversy. So far Muslim protests have been wide spread and peaceful. What were, however, more disturbing than Muslim anger were the deliberate acts of provocations. Anyone who felt like it, threatened to print the cartoons somewhere. The motive was simply to annoy the already frayed nerves of another faith just because the broad definition of freedom of speech allows one to say or write anything. The first instance was of a Halifax professor who declared that he would paste the cartoons on his office door. In Calgary, Muslims were incensed when they discovered copies of those cartoons pasted on lamp posts in an inner city neighbourhood. Hundreds of copies of the cartoons were removed from the student new paper office at a University in Prince Edwards Island. There was protest around McGill University as well. Trying to be innovative, the student paper of Victoria University, a part of the University of Toronto, printed a new cartoon, intending to "provoke debate, dialogue and thought," and not to "promote violence or hate." This cartoon depicted the two revered religious figures of Jesus and our prophet (PBUH) kissing in the "Tunnel of Tolerance.

" Thankfully, McMaster has been immune from the controversy so far.

Among all these, the pattern that emerges is neither pretty nor respectful. Seeing the volatile protests on TV and newspaper, especially in the Arab world, where people reacted violently with tragic loss of life, the cartoons have become a tinderbox with some people in the West behaving like children with a matchbox while gleefully anticipating how loud a bang they can create.

This is pure sensationalizing.

Sadly, what is fueling this flame of anger could have been controlled by the Muslims themselves. From the earliest stories that we were made to read in school primers, we got to know how throughout the period of his mission, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) experienced all manners of hardships. His own people insulted him horribly, even calling him a magician or a madman. Others wanted to kill him and even schemed to do so. Despite all that, the Prophet (PBUH) tried to teach people of all backgrounds and cultures about the Quran, and therefore about proper morality and good behavior. This is what is sorely lacking in today's world.

Instead of violence we need to deal with dialogue that is articulate and timely. Much of the perception of Islam that the rest of the World has is based on ignorance. And left on its own the ignorance will grow and fester. The results? Insulting cartoons and bigoted documentaries like the one produced in the same Denmark.

Ever since Edward Said passed away we have lost the most coherent and strident voice in support of Islam. And he was not even a Muslim. Surely we have Islamic scholars teaching in the higher seats of knowledge in the U.S. and in Europe? Leila Ahmed, for example, a Harvard religious study professor, is highly respected for her explications of women's place in Islam. There are others in the Sciences and Liberal Arts, who profess the Islamic faith. Yet on this particular issue there is a conspicuous silence from that corner.

One of my favorite writers, Kamila Shamsie, wrote a piece in the New York Times on irresponsible journalism and senseless provocateurs. We need more of such writing. So far I have seen very few. There is more than enough of the other variety, however. In the February 13 issue of Time, Andrew Sullivan wrote a very angry diatribe against Muslim violence and the West's value of free speech. Another reader of the Toronto Star called for a boycott of the Muslim world. Boycott the Muslim world? With all their oil? I would, certainly, like to see that happen.

With all this furor, the reaction from south of the border has been remarkably quiet. This has been taken as a sign of tolerance. Apparently not so. A former professor of mine, again a non-Muslim, found himself in hot waters recently. A former journalist from Hyderabad, Anantha Babbili is now the Dean of one of the largest faculties of journalism and mass communication in the U.S South. An avowed Democrat, he is also a regular figure in the pre-election Democratic Conventions. Once a teacher and a mentor, over the years, he has now become more of a friend. As a follow up to some unfinished work, I have been futilely trying to talk to him for the last few days. My e mails to him were left unanswered. I would call his office several times a day only to get the answering machine. I left messages. Finally, exasperated, I called up his secretary who herself didn't know what time he would be in. The next day, calling at eight in the morning, I finally get him on the phone. Apologetic at first, he told me the reason for his elusiveness. He had written a piece for Nashville's leading newspaper The Tennessean about the cartoons, highlighting the thin line between good journalism and hatred. He was little prepared for the repercussions. Not only did he get hate letters through e mail, people actually left hand written hate notes drawn with Nazi Swastikas and the Star of David in his home mail box. The University was besieged with protest calls. In all this chaos, the University administration was not too pleased about the negative publicity their institute was receiving and in a series of meetings about possible damage control; Dr. Babbili decided to lay low. "This is not the America I had envisioned," he told me sadly. Where was his freedom of speech?

Dr. Babbili also forwarded me a message sent to him by the Vice President of the Islamic Center of Nashville and a teacher in Vanderbilt University. Among all the Universities within the Nashville region, excepting Vanderbilt, none chose to deal with the issue through inter faith communication or dialogue. But silence allows suspicion to breed and the results are apparent.

Only last year Dr. Babbili had invited me to Nashville to speak as a panel member on the media representation of Muslim women in the West. As I finished my talk and mingled among the crowd, people came up to me and said how much they have learned. I had spoken on the iconic representation within Western discourse of the Hijab as a tool of oppression when on the other hand; the Hijab is becoming a mode of protest against authority and an assertion of identity among young Muslim women from across the West. It was all well and good. But the irony remains and raises the question: who was I enlightening? It was a University conference, attended by the University crowd, journalists and activists who are already aware of these uneven power dynamics. And these people are the minorities. They can fume and fret about all the unfairness and withhold their votes as protest. As a result they are the least able to amend anything. The rest of the eighty percent don't know who Edward Said is, neither who Leila Ahmed is or what they had written about. And they are the voters and the voices that get heard. This leads to the inevitable question of what the role of the intellectuals should be. They may attend conferences every year, publish in Harvard Journals, bring out books from respected university presses but the fact remains that they are largely unheard outside the lofty gates of the Academia.

What a tremendous loss.

What the eighty percent do get to see is the burning and the plunder, which Sullivan describes as an iconic image the figure of a Hamas member raising a flag atop the deserted European Union office. News channels, their ratings soaring, will hook audiences to their channels as they watch these scenes with disgust, all-knowingly shaking their heads. While the journalists go through the "I told you so" routine the victims in this repetitious macabre drama are the Muslims themselves as they open the flood-gates to further provocations.

Rebecca Sultana teaches postcolonial studies at McMaster University, Canada.