14 DAY TRIAL // It's been a week now. A week filled with images, sounds and words about the Embassy-demolishing anger that struck the Muslim World, calls for peace and calm, the damages, the apologies, the dead and the injured, furious shouts of the Arab fire starters, the outraged screams about freedom of speech and censorship. It's been in all the news and talk-shows, packed up with conspiracy theories, the history of the cartoons that offended so much and the story of the apologies.
The French would call this a "bordel (de merde)" (as in chaos, mess). The only thing I didn't hear about was the questioning of one essential issue: moral responsibility.
And when I say "moral responsibility" I don't mean the Islamic nations, their religious or political leaders but the ethical responsibility of the ones that ordered, paid for, published and strongly defended the cartoons. This is not about the Danish people, they are not the real problem here. Their government might have picked up a better way to react than the one it chose but asides that (without disregarding the problems they experience and I fear they will still experience in the future) the major problem is? well, the Press, the Media.
Read this as a dirty metaphor but what the press actually did was to defecate on a functioning fan in the middle of a small crowded room. The people in the room didn't know and didn't like each other. As some were "splashed" with feces they attacked the others for not preventing the press to commit the outrageous action. And as the fights grew in intensity the Press would sit there screaming its lungs out that it was its right to do so, according to its absolute freedom.
What I imply is not that the media is only here to offend and outrage but I'm also positive about the freedom of speech that, like it or not, comes with some strings attached.
I'm not a supporter of censorship and as the Arab World has its big issues I don't believe that any kind of media positive discrimination is recommended in reference to Middle East's problems and politics.
I'd just like someone to remind the "freedom of speech! Freedom of press!" fanatics that the ultimate and absolute freedom they defend does include some less pleasant and rather constrictive matters.
Yes, they have the right and they can say/write/draw/ publish anything (in the current situation anything offensive and hatred-powered).
As long as they do take into consideration, before, not after the publishing the consequences of their acts.
As far as I know the Press won its freedom and privileges as the most important instrument that can defend the ideas of justice and equality.
Maybe because people of the press (but not only) died for this freedom I just can't sympathize or tolerate any irresponsible and outrageous acts that lead to loss of life and diplomatic crises in a world already much too tormented.
The Press' huge obligation that the media didn't assume and didn't cover enough in its reports, analyses or talk shows about the cartoon crises is its own responsibility. And responsibility is based on decency and self-censorship.
Both responsibility and self-censorship are difficult things to put into practice and to get used to. I guess that's why the mentally challenged, the fanatics or the illiterate don't get to become part of the Press.
In order to maintain a certain level of accuracy, respect for the reader/viewer, not commit gratuitous displays of xenophobia or racism.
I find rather hard to imagine that everybody at the Jyllands-Posten is mentally challenged or fanatically xenophobic. So they are some people with the ability to think and yet, they chose to publish the cartoons.
So far so good. The point is that anyone in the Press business should know that any image of Mohammad is strictly forbidden by the Islam and deeply offensive. Just as offensive as questioning the Holocaust is for the Israeli.
Any European creature able to use an articulate language knows that the separation between the institutions of the state and the Church is irreversible, that Democracy is the ideal form of government and that getting outraged by a (blasphemous) cartoon is a stupid and obsolete gesture.
Most Europeans believe or know that leaving behind any kind of religious fanaticism, intransigence or intolerance is the most definite thing that distinguishes them from the Arabs. Therefore, they feel superior to the Arab World.
Is it in the name of this intellectual and moral superiority they should ignore and look down at any religious believes?
It's hard to imagine that any one not knowing the Islam forbids any kind of image of its Prophet can lead a newspaper.
It's even harder to even consider that nobody actually thought that the image (a blasphemy itself) of Mohammad with a bomb as a turban could be anything else than a xenophobic and utterly offensive generalization.
I'm not buying the "total surprise and shock" the violent and massive response of the Arab world caused anyone involved.
Somebody pushed a button. The effects are the ones we all saw. And I fear we'll see more of them as time passes by. The Press flexed its muscles in an outstandingly futile show-off. The Muslim reaction was the only possible and probable one, and anyone with common sense knew that was to be expected.
This time it wasn't the Arabs that threw the first stone which got this media and diplomatic Intifada started. It was the big mouthed Press that decided to stir things up a bit in the Arab World and to destroy a bit further the already tensed relationships between the West and the Middle East.
I actually laughed while reading about the ad Nestle published in one central Saudi newspaper. The ad underlined and reminded Nestle's Saudi customers that the company is Swiss and that all its products are made in Switzerland.
However, I doubt anyone will laugh if a bomb blows off in Copenhagen (at this moment the odds are rather big for some mess like that to happen). Maybe the Jyllands-Posten, as arsonists will enjoy the aftermath of their abuse of free speech.
P.S: today the art editor of the Danish newspaper was sent "on holiday" not as a punishment for his misguided and not at all well intentioned use of the freedom of the press but for stating he has willing to publish the anti-Holocaust cartoons an Iranian newspaper commissioned.
All this mess makes me sick.
