The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The Kafila blog posts a different perspective from most I’ve read on the subject of the Danish cartoons about the Prophet Mohamed, drawing also on work by top South African cartoonist Zapiro, Mahmood Mamdani discusses cartoons which cause some groups offence and divides such work into ‘bigotry’ or ‘blasphemy’:

“When the Danish cartoon debate broke out I was in Nigeria. If you stroll the streets of Kano, a Muslim-majority city in northern Nigeria, you will have no problem finding material caricaturing Christianity sold by street vendors. And if you go to the east of Nigeria, to Enugu for example, you will find a similar supply of materials caricaturing Islam. None of this is blasphemy; most of it is bigotry. It is well known that the Danish paper that published the offending cartoons was earlier offered cartoons of Jesus Christ. But the paper declined to print these on grounds that it would offend its Christian readers. Had the Danish paper published cartoons of Jesus Christ, that would have been blasphemy; the cartoons it did publish were evidence of bigotry, not blasphemy.”

I don’t think I agree with Mahmood – he seems to break down cartoons on religion into two categories, either blasphemy or bigotry, implying it is acceptable to create a blasphemous cartoon about your own religion but to do so about another religion is bigotry. This seems pretty flawed reasoning to me, it ignores the most obvious use of newspaper cartoons, which isn’t blashphemy or bigotry, its satirical commentary, which is an absolutely essential part of free speech in my book. His point about the Danish paper turning down cartoons of Jesus also seems selectively flawed – there’s been a vast amount of religious cartoons taking in Christianity over the years in Western publications, probably far more than any other religion. And more than a few Christian religious groups have complained strongly about them, be it a cartoon or be it Monty Python’s Life of Brian, but the same freedoms of speech which protect the right to freedom of religious views and worship also protect the right to create cartoon commentaries and satires on any and all aspects of a society and that must, by definition, include major institutions in that society, which would obviously mean religion too is fair game for the satirist and cartoonist.

Why would a cartoonist commenting on a religious group be bigotry or blasphemy but the same cartoonist satirising or commenting on a political group’s beliefs wouldn’t be?  To some of us who aren’t religious but are firm believers in freedom of speech it may well indeed be seen as offensive to be branded as a bigot or blasphemer for passing legitimate commentary. As I said, I don’t really agree with his reasoning, but it is still interesting to read a different cultural viewpoint on a much discussed topic.