THE CARTOONESQUE JIHAD?

By Walid Phares

Walid Phares

                                           -  PART TWO -

Brussels, the European Parliament, London, the House of Commons.

This piece was authored in conjunction with the presentation of my new book at the European institutions. link

�Cartoon Jihad� was the title of a piece by American leading cartoonist Daryl Cagle posted on January 10, in which he warned about the explosion to come link . The term was coined since around the world, especially in a series of investigations by German daily Der Spiegel. The term itself is a reverse of the campaign mobilized by the critics of the cartoons. While Islamic groups and governments have escalated their protests, many of which in violent forms, and accused the �caricaturists-perpetrators� of waging a cultural war against Islam, artists and their supporters responded by disseminating the initial drawings and drawing more. The latter claimed a political war is being waged by the Islamists against cultural democracy and Jihadi terror is being staged against media. On al Jazeera, commentators and guests are now accusing the whole West of launching an all out �crusade� against everything Islamic, while in return, Jihad-critics are accusing the ideological movement worldwide of being behind all urban intifadas against the West not just the Denmark cartoon violence. In the Italian press and across the continent, dots are being connected between the Hijab uprising in France, the Van Goh assassination in Holland, the French so-called youth intifada, the Australian beach clashes, and other �moves� within the West. By the day fault lines are emerging between the two camps and unspoken sentences are piling up. Historians may well realize few years from now, that the Denmark�s drawings were only the straw that broke the camel�s back between the two ideological worlds: Pluralist Democracy and Islamic Fundamentalism.

But as Europe and the World are witnessing the widening of the Cartoon Jihad and its mutation into multiple levels of diplomatic, political, intellectual, militants and terror actions and activities, the investigation of the core issue is still in progress: What did the Danish cartoonists really breach? Where is the red line within Islam and under whose responsibility the protest fall? What is the real aim of the �protesters� and are they one group or more? Is the West responding right and is it really unified in this matter? Multiple questions I will attempt to address, as I continue to interact with European legislators, experts, think tanks in Vienna, Brussels, London and Paris. The bottom line now is the bigger picture not those little drawings. The consensus cannot be clearer with regards the grand principles: Freedom of speech cannot be reversed by any ideology that doesn�t believe in the latter�s value. And at the same time, hurting the core feelings of any religion, including Islam, is not acceptable by coexistence standards. But the question is this: Is it really about the drawings themselves or between the drawers of cartoons and the drawers of fatwa? Let�s examine this..

The theological question

According to Sharia, Islam�s holy laws, neither Allah nor his Messenger Prophet Mohammed can be drawn by Muslims (al Rassm). It is part of the anti-idolatry (ibadat al asnaam) restriction by Islam. A strict application of this requirement means that no picturing (and therefore photos or computer simulation) is permissible. From this injunction three issues had to be addressed: One, modern inventions: If Muslim hands from the seventh century were forbidden from drawing the divine and its envoy directly, can computers from the 21 century simulate the drawings? Theologians ruled against it, and the doors are still closed. Two, are there sanctions against Muslims who engage in drawings of Allah or Mohammed? Apparently, it depends on the discretion of the clerics. As for any other matter of religion, and in the absence of a Caliphate, the highest authority of the Islamic state, scholars (al Ulama�a) will rule and fatwa is their instrument. So according to one and two, it is strictly forbidden to Muslims to draw images of Allah and all Prophets, not only Mohammed. And it is upon the Sheikhs to decide on the sanctions.

The third question is of direct interest to the Euro-Islamic crisis. Do the above rulings apply to non-Muslims? Any answer could make or break international relations as we know it. And this has been the least known matter to both Western and Muslim publics. Both ignored the two ends of the equation. To all Westerners, it is natural that Muslim laws should not apply to them, inside their own countries. To most Muslims, the matter is foggy. While mainstream Muslim governments and moderate scholars assert that they abide by international law first and by Sharia second, Islamist leaders declare otherwise: To Sunni Salafists and Shiia Khumeinists the world is divided in two: dar el Islam where the Islamic state rules and dar el Harb, where the Caliphate is off the public sphere. Hence, the Islamic fundamentalists knows well that Sharia law cannot be implemented in dar el Harb, including in Denmark, France, Britain or Germany, to name a few. So, arguably, if non-Muslims �living in a non-Muslim country draw or sculpt a figure from Islam�s forbidden list, without any offensive character will there be a ground for Islamic authorities to counter act and sanction? The matter is not easy or simple.

For in principle, if non-Muslims breach the Sharia inside dar al Islam, they fall under Islamic law and sanctions: Copts of Egypt, Christians in Syria, Hindus in Afghanistan, ChaldoAssyrians in Iraq, Nubians in Sudan etc. But if non-Muslims do not follow the restrictions inside the dar al Harb world, there is no Islamic authority to strike the �offense� down. Hence, it would fall under the spectrum of the relationship with that infidel power. It becomes wholly political: The authorities representing the Muslim Umma (nation) will have to take the matter under their auspices. Would the Ottoman Empire intervene with European monarchies to eliminate drawings of sculptures produced by their own citizens? And would today�s Arab League and Organization of Muslim states do the same with world democracies? Again, while theologically forbidden, and because they are not being perpetrated in the sphere of a Muslim state, these breaches and their resolution can only be addressed politically: Which means that offenses made to Islam in the West cannot be under Islamic law but Muslims within the West, and under the legal system of that particular country can and naturally should seize the authorities of their host country. There is no legal international body in Islam today that can seize a higher level than international and national law to deal with Islamic matters. Moderate Muslims understand that.

But two other matters arise: The obligation of Western Muslims and the role of Islamic Fundamentalists in this regard.

Muslims in the West

Muslims living in the West or the non-Muslim world, immigrants and converts alike are challenged by the theoretical choice of legal affiliation. The realist and mainstream practice, the one accepted by most Muslim Governments in public has been to encourage their subjects to accept the set of rules existing in the non-Muslim countries based on reciprocity in international relations. But the Islamic Fundamentalists of all schools have been putting pressures on Muslims in �infidel lands� to confront a difficult choice. In many sessions of the al Jazeera show al Sharia wal Hayat (Islamic Code and Life) in 2002-2005, Sheikh Yussuf al Qaradawi clearly stated that �Muslims living outside Islamic lands, must either return to their homelands when their journey, job, or mission is accomplished or strive to remain as citizens and spread religion.� The leader of the World Ulema�s Union hence put Muslims living in the West and in Europe under tremendous pressures. A permanent status of �diminished Islamic life� is forbidden according to his views. �Muslims in the West and in other areas must strife to spread religion and insert it in the national legal, political and economic space.� He, and others adds that these communities have a �special mission,� that is Iqamatu el dine, the establishment of religion. �It is not a choice that they have, it is a home work.� Hence the exiled, expatriate and convert communities hear one dominant voice constantly, although they live as mainstream citizens worldwide. That �dominant� voice, carried by preaches, airwaves, online and in print is also expressed by a rising wave of organizations which hurdle the crowd into campaigns to �insure better representation of culture and religion in the Western system.� At first glance, the �activism� required by these �vigorous and dominant militants� would be natural, especially in multicultural societies. But that is not the objective of the radicals.

Islamic Fundamentalists

The various currents of Islamists, Salafists, Wahabis, Khumeinists and others, converge into one wave when it comes to mobilize Muslims in the West in general and in Europe in particular: Find and identify areas of �claims� and transform them into �struggle.� Absent the Islamists� �activation of these �cases� the natural interaction between civil society and Muslim communities would gradually absorb and solve these matters. But the Islamists deliberately chose these particular issues and transform them into crisis. In other words, they live off these �burning issues.� Because of them they mutate into the leadership of the communities, becomes the negotiators on their behalf with Governments, and end up the �Partners� of the public powers in these countries. This strategy is simple to understand:  The Islamists (and the Jihadists in their midst) pushes the community into a clash with a segment of the society or with the Government. Widen the clash nationwide, and worldwide, drag in the Muslim Governments and present themselves (the Islamists) as the providers of the solution. The final objectives are easy to guess:

1. Push the level of the social and political �isolation� of the community at a high as possible. Hence prepare it for a next stage in the �struggle.�
2. And at the same time, push away the moderate element of the community and further control its leadership.
3. Establish an intimidation-based consulting with Governments, allowing them to influence future policies, both domestic and foreign.

One would wonder at first reading, if the �spontaneous reactions� towards �sensitive core issues� are really �organized.� In fact, the popular emotions in each one of these issues are real. But the manipulation of the timing, the agenda and the final outcome are simply political and held firmly in the hands of the Islamists.

Precedents

In the United States, two cases are to be noted. One was raised by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) two years ago when the lobby group called for action to remove the representative face of Prophet Mohammed from the entrance to the US Supreme Court. The Muslim Prophet, along with a dozen other world inspirers of legislations was honored in sculpture by American standard. The CAIR claim wasn�t about the fact that the expression was �offensive� (as in the Denmark cartoon case) but that the principle is not accepted. The US courts rejected the claim at the time. A year later Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette of the Tallahassee Democrat was pressure by CAIR for drawing a cartoon with the caption �What Would Muhammad drive?� Unlike the US Supreme Court matter, the picture (evidently causing stress among pious Muslims) had to do with a popular culture in America (and now in Europe) that is struggling with its understanding of the relationship between Terrorism and Islamic ideologies that preach it. The outcome of this mental struggle manifest itself in cartoons, but the roots of the intellectual crisis resides in the confusion created by the Islamic Fundamentalists. Here is why:

The core of the problem

Western public opinion doesn�t know Islam well neither as a religion nor as politics. And what makes the issue more complicated is the fact that in Islam religion and state are one: deen wal dawla wahid. Hence, it is up to either Western instructors or Muslim representatives to shape up the Western perception of the Islamic phenomenon. For instance, Christians in the Middle East or living under Islamic regimes in Africa and Asia have a better understanding of it, (sometimes with a high price) and hence rarely engage in �theological offenses.� They know what are the various limits both those that are purely religious and those limits that can be created then breached by the Jihadists. (See interview in Belgian Der Standaard link) So the core of the problem is in two folds: Western academic elite has done a bad job in educating its public about the threat of Jihadism, and the Muslim public was left with little choices other than the Islamists and Jihadists to represent them and lead in these issues. When Denmark Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen stated lately that �extremists were obstructing the stabilization of the crisis, US Secretary of State declared recently that �Syria and Iran are inflaming the sentiments� and Lebanon�s Muslim Prime Minister accused the Syrian regime �and indirectly Hezbollah- of �using the issue to aggress Lebanon via violent demonstrations,� the equation clarified itself:

There is no cultural intention in the West to harm the feelings of Muslims. But there is confusion among Western public about who the Jihadists are. On the other hand, there is a general perception among the Muslim public that the West is on a path of war against Islam, a perception fed by the Jihadists.   

Conclusion:

� The Western public was deprived from real knowledge about Islam�s religion on the one hand, opening the windows for drawings and possibly more scratching of Muslim sensibilities. But on the other hand this public was denied the information about the nature of the Jihadist movement and its various tactics. So, while aiming subconsciously at protesting against the Jihadists because of their terror, the liberal artists hit the nerve of pious Muslims, opening the path for the Islamists to wage their campaign.
� The Muslim masses, or their majority, were kept under the pressures of Madrassas, the web sites, the Islamist networks and subject to al Jazeera and al Manar point of view for years. When the Denmark cartoon crisis exploded, the radicals were in the street steering the protests into violence.
� Western Governments took time before uniting against the ongoing Jihadi violence. Each Executive branch wished to �get political mileage� for its own relations with the Arab Muslim world, before it realizes by the day that the �offensive� Cartoons are becoming an all out offensive by the radicals.
� Arab and Muslim Governments divided in two groups: Those who were led by the demonstrations to �stick with the mood on the street,� while realizing that this �radical-inspired� mood will soon get back at them. And those other regimes, such as Syria and Iran, who fueled the anti-Danish protest attempting to mutate it into an all out anti-Western Jihad.   

Meanwhile, and one more time, the Islamists and Jihadists are adventuring themselves into another clash of civilization of great disservice to the Muslim world. While the crisis of the cartoons could have been addressed and solved within the Danish borders via dialogue and within the legal system, the radicals took it beyond the sovereignty of that small secular, liberal and humanist nation. Had the moderate community leaders kept the issue Danish, they would have most probably won growing sympathy among Danes. But the �networks� took the matter to the wider Arab and Muslim world. In response, the Euro Cartoonists took the matter to the continental level. The Jihadists hijacked the Muslim claim to different continents. In return, many around the world identified with the Danes. Tehran and Damascus hoped the �opportunity� will deflect international consensus from their entanglement with Terror and nuclear threat. (From interviews on BBC on February 7 and 9, 2006 link)

But at the end of the day, the radicals are not growing in numbers in the Muslim world as some believe, but they are growing their designs. The moderates and democrats are paying the price. They are witnessing how the wider world is watching the scenes of burning and destruction and reading carefully the signs carried by extremists from London to Jakarta. It is going to take a significant effort to inform the Western public about what they know less, so that their understanding of Islam becomes more complex. And it is going to take a greater effort to educate the Muslim public as to the objectives of those who claim representing them in war and peace, and especially in the defense of their religion.

The Denmark cartoon crisis has generated violence both material and physical, but it may well contribute to an acceleration of outreach between the forces of change on both sides.

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Dr Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington on a European tour at the invitation of European legislators and Think Tanks. He is the author of Future Jihad.

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