That's not funny
Local Muslims offended by cartoons

Local members of the Islamic faith perform the Isha' Salah or early evening Islamic prayers Monday night at the Gallup Islamic Center on East Highway 66. People of Islamic faith throughout the world are upset by a Danish editorial cartoon that depicts the prophet Mohammed with a bomb under his turban. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that first appeared on the inside page of a midsize Danish newspaper some five months ago continue to fuel fierce protests around the globe.

For some local Muslims, the cartoons cross a fine but distinct line between the freedom of the press and the respect for religious beliefs. They understand the international reaction, but condemn the violence. If a local paper were to reprint the cartoons, they predicted anger and outrage, but hoped for a peaceful response.

A small world
According to international press accounts, Flemming Rose's intentions were to prod a community of Danish artists censoring itself of Islamic content for fear of retaliation from radicals. The culture editor of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, Rose challenged 25 cartoonists to draw the prophet Mohammed; 12 responded. The paper published their submissions last September.

Since then, over half-a-dozen European newspapers have reprinted the cartoons, while protests spread from Europe to Asia to Africa. The newspapers have either apologized for their offense, stood by their decisions, or fired their editors. Protesters have boycotted Danish products, stormed and burned embassies, made death threats, even lost their lives.

With most major American media outlets choosing not to reprint the cartoons, the storm still swirling around the images continues to steer clear of American shores. Even so, it's not escaped the attention of the relatively small Muslim community in Gallup.

The 2000 U.S. Census recorded 89 people of Arab descent in Gallup, a little more than 0.4 percent of the city's 20,274 residents. Today, Mustafa Ismail, the interim imam of Gallup's Islamic Study Center, guesses there are up to 200 Muslims in the area. Though few in number, they've grown visible in large part through their role in the American Indian jewelry business, a cornerstone of the local economy.

Ehab Maadi said he saw some of the dozen cartoons on the Internet, including the most often cited of the bunch, which depicts the prophet with a lit fuse atop his bomb-shaped turban.

Islam, he said, forbids the depiction of any of its prophets in order to prevent idolatry; a cartoon of Mohammed was bad enough, let alone one that seemed to insult and stigmatize all Muslims.

"Every group has radical groups," Maadi said. For the actions of a few, he asked, "Are we going to paint with a white brush the rest of the faith?"

He branded the idea as irrational as calling all Christians murderers for the actions of Timothy McVeigh.

Ismail and Jamal Jawad have not seen the cartoons, and neither wants to. After reading only descriptions of them, Ismail said, "it made me feel sick."

Church, mosque, and state
As transplants from the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territories, all three men cherish the freedoms they've gained in the West. But even among those who believe in the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, there can be differences about where to draw the line.

"Anybody's freedom stops where the other's starts," said Maadi.

For Maadi, his freedom starts with his faith. Muslims, he said, would not have taken such offense if the insults had stuck to politics. But when they crossed into matters of the divine, he said, they crossed the line.

The Danish paper that first printed the cartoons of Mohammed has announced plans to publish satirical cartoons about Christians and Jews as well. All three men said they would personally find cartoons lampooning any faith offensive.

"We have to distinguish between political cartoons and cartoons of faith," Maadi said. "Politics, no problem, because it's a (man-made) creation. Religion, it's a God creation."

Like any other prophet, Ismail said, "(Mohammed is) not a joke, or a toy to be played with."

"Leave it alone," said Jawad. "Religion is not something to mess with. It really isn't."

"Freedom of speech," said Maadi, "doesn't mean I have the right to (blaspheme) any person because I feel like it."

By the laws of man, at least, that's not quite true.

"In our country, bigoted speech like that is protected by the First Amendment," said Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. "As offensive as it may be, we have the right to make those kinds of comments."

There are of course limits, Simonson said, as when those who make the comments intend them to incite violence. But to make that case, there must be a clear connection between the comment and the act.

The cartoons do not add up to hate crime, either, according to Simonson. A hate crime must be a crime to begin with, one motivated by hate, he said, "which is different from racist speech, which is not a crime."

Maadi does not expect every non-Muslim to share his feelings about the cartoons. But he, Ismail and Jawad all return to one word when they talk about the limits of freedom.

"Freedom of the press should have limits," said Ismail, "the limits of respect."

"Why do you have to create insults to create freedom?" he asked. "(There) has to be respect among all people so we can all coexist in one country."

Through others' eyes
The Danish paper that first published the cartoons last September reportedly did so to challenge biased self-censorship. The papers that have reprinted them since claim more reasons. A French paper said it wanted to show that "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society. The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the few stateside papers to reprint the cartoons, decided its readers should have the chance to judge the images at the heart of a major news story for themselves.

Ismail, Jawad and Maadi dismiss each argument. They can imagine no other reason for printing the cartoons than to insult, incense and incite Muslims.

"What I see, to be honest, is lack of education when I see those cartoons," said Ismail, "lack of education and lack of understanding on the other side."

"You have to judge other people within their own values ... not your own," said Maadi.

For many Muslims, he said, the insult "hits deeper" than if someone were to "slaughter their own children in front of their own eyes."

All three denounced the violence, but were not surprised by it.

Maadi rejected the idea that extremists were hijacking the demonstrations to either spread them or turn them violent and called such reports an attempt to rob the popular protests of their credibility.

"They are regular people," he said of the protesters. "They felt hurt and stabbed in their heart."

And the double standards those in the Middle East see coming out of the West doesn't help, Jawad said.

"You can talk about freedom of the press as much as you want to," he said, "but your press (in the United States) is more censored than almost any press on earth."

As much as governments in the Middle East might censor their media, he said, their people have the kind of access to news about the abuses of Western forces in Iraq, for example, or about Israelis demolishing Palestinian homes that Westerners don't.

Meanwhile, they keenly notice the West's deference to Jews and Christians. Jawad immediately thinks of NBC's decision not to rebroadcast a scene of singer Sinead O'Connor tearing a photograph of Pope John Paul II when she hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1992.

"The reaction to those cartoons would have been a lot less if there wasn't the hypocrisy," Jawad said. "It really plays a bigger role in Arabs' minds than people can imagine. It's like I hug you from the front and have a knife in your back."

Think globally, act locally
Pamela Stovall, head of the University of New Mexico's journalism department, agrees the media have a responsibility to provide a balanced product.

"If one group is being ridiculed ... and they're only picking on one group, that's bias," she said, "and that's not what the press is about."

She also believes the media have a responsibility to report an issue fully. Jawad believes descriptions of the cartoons should suffice. Stovall thinks words just aren't enough.

"It's become a worldwide story and people need to be informed to make a decision," she said. "How can they make decisions if they haven't seen the cartoons?"

She's been taken aback by how few American outlets seemed to agree.

So was Reed Eckhardt, the managing editor of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, and a managing editor for The Independent for some five years in the mid-1980s.

"It surprises me that in a country where we have this regular public demand for information ... all of a sudden we clam up," he said.

That's why the Tribune-Eagle, a 16,500 circulation daily based in Cheyenne, decided to publish a pair of the cartoons just over a week ago one on the front page, another on the inside along with a Web address that leads to the rest.

"My reason mainly was for reader access," Eckhardt said, to show the paper's readers exactly what had sparked the international furor.

Considering how intense that furor had grown, he felt the paper had a right a duty, even to reprint the cartoons.

As offended as some Muslims might be, he said, "it seems to me that there are bigger issues at play here."

Among them, Eckhardt said, was the right to open debate. Lose that, he said, and "we lose a bedrock American principle."

Whether we're encouraged or enraged by another's opinion, the cornerstone of free speech is that everyone gets to express one, said Stovall.

Of course, in a free society, the right to opine goes hand in hand with the right to object.

The response in Cheyenne, Eckhardt said, has been marginal, limited mostly to about a half-dozen letters to the editor. Local Muslims were predictably unhappy about the reprints, he said, but they haven't protested.

"Nothing I would consider threatening or anything like that," he said.

Asked how he would feel if The Independent reprinted any of the cartoons, Maadi took a little longer than usual to consider his response. After a few moments, he replied, "sad, mad, and angry, in a very civilized way."

An acquaintance of Maadi's, who had been silently listening in on the interview, broke his silence when he heard the question.

"Furious," said the young man, who declined to give his name.

"I'd be very disgusted," Jawad said. "I will not read (The Independent), and I will not sell it. I don't know how more simply to put it."

He's already decided not to restock the few Danish products he sells in his restaurant and convenience store some cheese and non-alcohol beer once they run out, not until Denmark's government issues a complete apology.

All three men reiterated their belief that protest should remain non-violent. Maadi noted that most of the international protests have been peaceful.

Said Ismail, "People are going to be outraged, but like I say, violence is not supposed to be the answer to this issue."