"The bottom line to this sordid affair is, depending on the exact original intent, that Danish Muslim objectors have shot themselves in the foot."

Endorsing the cartoons is not the way to counter this worthless trash
The Daily Star
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Editorial

The affair of the offensive Danish cartoons gets murkier by the day. After two months of legitimately and unsuccessfully trying to squeeze an apology out of the Jyllands Posten newspaper and its cultural editor, Flemming Rose, Imam Ahmad Abu Laban launched a campaign to spread the word to the wider Muslim world. Encouraged by several interviews with the Egyptian ambassador to Denmark, Mona Omar Attia, Abu Laban set off for Cairo in December brandishing copies of the cartoons as well as three others that were not published and were even more offensive. His tour to drum up support for his campaign to force an apology from Rose also took in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Abu Laban grew up in Egypt where he was arrested in the 1980s after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates for his fiery preaching. Attia denies strongly suggestions that he was being officially encouraged to return to the country of his youth during the final round of the presidential elections because his strong Islamic views might help counter the poll successes of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abu Laban claims Egypt and other Arab regimes saw the cartoon furor as a good opportunity "to counteract pressure from the West" and "to show they are good Muslims."

Meanwhile Rose was busy hiding behind freedom of the press to defend his grubby little caricatures although one of the cartoonists, hiding behind anonymity to save his skin, was less tenacious. "The other cartoonists and I did not want to hurt anyone but we Danes are quite naive and don't know very much about the world or about Islam, just as the Islamic world apparently doesn't know much about Denmark." So it appears that Rose's defense of freedom extends to employing cartoonists who haven't a clue about the subjects they are portraying.

The bottom line to this sordid affair is, depending on the exact original intent, that Danish Muslim objectors have shot themselves in the foot. With the unleashing of violent attacks on the diplomatic missions of any country whose media published the cartoons, Abu Laban has reinforced the prejudices of those people who claim that Islam is a religion of violence. Ironically, he has endorsed some of the original cartoons. Worse, he risks converting a lot more negative views of Islam and he makes it that much more difficult for neutrals and nondetractors, Muslim or otherwise, to defend the religion of nearly a quarter of the world's population.

The cartoons have now assumed an importance far beyond their original worthlessness. So what to do? As Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines, Saudi King Abdullah, one of the most measured voices in the Arab and Muslim world, could invite leaders of other religions to join him in condemning the cartoons. If the offended party was originally a religion, then let an attempt at solution come from that domain. And let the cartoonists too demonstrate their contrition by donating the money made from republication to good causes, preferably an Islamic charity.