Why Media Should Not Publish the Danish Cartoons: To Defend Our Core

By: Alaa Bayoumi

The American media have been assailed from the right and the left for not publishing the Danish cartoons deemed offensive by Muslims worldwide.

Jack Kelly, national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, characterized the media's refusal to republish the cartoons as a'self-censorship' that is 'motivated more by cowardice than by conviction.' And neo-con pundit Charles Krauthammer, declared that 'What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear.'

Emphasizing fear and intimidation is misleading and factually incorrect. American papers have freely published the cartoons as early as Nov 12, 2005. The cartoons are all over the Internet. Most media outlets published detailed descriptions of them. And, some media have provided links to sites, where the cartoons are published.

In addition, America's Muslims reacted to the whole flap with an impressively calm and mediating attitude. 'Leaders of several American Muslim groups began working quietly to try to mediate between European Muslims and the West,' Laurie Goodstein and Dan Bielefsky wrote in the New York Times on Feb 13. 'In phone calls to Muslim leaders in Europe and in interviews with media outlets in the Middle East. They (the Muslim leaders) have offered a consistent message to Muslims: you must stop the violence,' they added.

So, the issue here is not fear or siding with Muslims. The media stand on the issue is informed by some of our most fundamental and cherished values, secularism and rejection of radicalism.

American secularism is not anti-religious. It is focused on protecting the freedoms of all religions from the persecution of the state and from the prejudices of dominant religions in society.

This is why many Americans, at the beginning of the 21st century, still look at our country as a religious nation. We take a lot pride in our diverse religious backgrounds and socially conservative values. We also cherish our freedoms, democracy, and pluralism.

When France in early 2004 passed a law that forced French Muslim girls to choose between public education and their religiously-mandated head scarves, our media protested. They did that not out of fear or out of animosity toward the French people. They objected because the French legislation contradicted our values and perceptions of the just society.

Such values and perceptions continue to protect us today from the evils of extremism that poses a serious threat to some of today's most democratic societies.

According to Harvard professor Pippa Norris, in 'Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Markets,' World War Two gave a strong blow to Western radical right wing ideologies and regimes, such as Nazism and Fascism. Yet, since the 1970s, a growing number of extreme right parties have achieved progress in several European and other democratic nations around the globe. Today, more than 40 radical right parties exist in 39 democratic nations, including five parties in Switzerland, three parties in each of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany, and 2 parties in each of Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

In Denmark, where the Cartoons flap started, radical parties have been on the rise since 1972, when the Danish Fremskridtspartiet (Progress Party) was established and then, a year later, became the second largest party in the Danish Parliament, gaining 16% of the vote.

Today, the Fremskridtspartiet is inherited by the Danish Folkeparti (people's party), whose founders are former members of the Fremskridtspartiet. The Folkeparti won 24 seats (out of 179) in the Danish Parliament in the 2005 election, gaining 13.3 % of the vote.

The Folkeparti has a clear anti-immigrant agenda and its leader has publicly compared Muslims to ''cancer cells.'' ''They are the enemy inside. The Trojan horse in Denmark. A kind of Islamic mafia,'' said Pia Kjaersgaard, the head of the Folkeparti.

We have no mainstream extreme parties in America today. We have been able to curtail the influence of groups, such as the Klu Klux Klan and the neo-nazis, because of our long but successful struggle against racism and prejudice, our civil rights laws, and our political culture that rejects radicalism.

When the media holds up such essential values and traditions, it should be endorsed and supported not criticized and ridiculed.