Yale draws criticism for nixing Muslim cartoons

[jimmy olsen]

Wow,  that's pathetic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32732243/ns/world_news-world_faith/

Yale draws criticism for nixing Muslim cartoons
Prominent alumni, professors say decision smacks of 'intellectual cowardice'

AP
updated 2 hours, 19 minutes ago

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Yale University has removed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from an upcoming book about how they caused outrage across the Muslim world, drawing criticism from prominent alumni and a national group of university professors.

Yale cited fears of violence.

Yale University Press, which the university owns, removed the 12 caricatures from the book "The Cartoons That Shook the World" by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen. The book is scheduled to be released next week.

A Danish newspaper originally published the cartoons — including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban — in 2005. Other Western publications reprinted them.

The following year, the cartoons triggered massive protests from Morocco to Indonesia. Rioters torched Danish and other Western diplomatic missions. Some Muslim countries boycotted Danish products.

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Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

'Intellectual cowardice'
"I think it's horrifying that the campus of Nathan Hale has become the first place where America surrenders to this kind of fear because of what extremists might possibly do," said Michael Steinberg, an attorney and Yale graduate.

Steinberg was among 25 alumni who signed a protest letter sent Friday to Yale Alumni Magazine that urged the university to restore the drawings to the book. Other signers included John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, former Bush administration speechwriter David Frum and Seth Corey, a liberal doctor.

"I think it's intellectual cowardice," Bolton said Thursday. "I think it's very self defeating on Yale's part. To me it's just inexplicable."

Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, wrote in a recent letter that Yale's decision effectively means: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands."

In a statement explaining the decision, Yale University Press said it decided to exclude a Danish newspaper page of the cartoons and other depictions of Muhammad after asking the university for help on the issue. It said the university consulted counterterrorism officials, diplomats and the top Muslim official at the United Nations.

'Substantial likelihood of violence'
"The decision rested solely on the experts' assessment that there existed a substantial likelihood of violence that might take the lives of innocent victims," the statement said.

Republication of the cartoons has repeatedly resulted in violence around the world, leading to more than 200 deaths and hundreds of injuries, the statement said. It also noted that major newspapers in the United states and Britain have declined to print the cartoons.

"Yale and Yale University Press are deeply committed to freedom of speech and expression, so the issues raised here were difficult," the statement said. "The press would never have reached the decision it did on the grounds that some might be offended by portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad."

John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, said the critics are "grandstanding." He said it was not a case of censorship because the university did not suppress original content that was not available in other places.

"I would never have agreed to censor original content," Donatich said.

Klausen was surprised by the decision when she learned of it last week. She said scholarly reviewers and Yale's publication committee comprised of faculty recommended the cartoons be included.

"I'm extremely upset about that," Klausen said.

The experts Yale consulted did not read the manuscript, Klausen said. She said she consulted Muslim leaders and did not believe including the cartoons in a scholarly debate would spark violence.

Misperceptions
Klausen said she reluctantly agreed to have the book published without the images because she did not believe any other university press would publish them, and she hopes Yale will include them in later editions. She argues in the book that there is a misperception that Muslims spontaneously arose in anger over the cartoons when they really were symbols manipulated by those already involved in violence.

Donatich said there wasn't time for the experts to read the book, but they were told of the context. He said reviewers and the publications committee did not object, but were not asked about the security risk.

Many Muslim nations want to restrict speech to prevent insults to Islam they claim have proliferated since the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, a world affairs columnist and CNN host who serves on Yale's governing board, said he told Yale that he believed publishing the images would have provoked violence.

"As a journalist and public commentator, I believe deeply in the First Amendment and academic freedom," Zakaria said. "But in this instance Yale Press was confronted with a clear threat of violence and loss of life."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press

[Valmy]

"As a journalist and public commentator, I believe deeply in the First Amendment and academic freedom," Zakaria said. "But in this instance Yale Press was confronted with a clear threat of violence and loss of life."

It doesn't sound like he believes deeply in it...

It almost sounds like Yale truly believes Muslims are a violent and barbaric people.

[Darth Wagtaros]

That's the clear message Yale is sending isn't it? They are not saying they are doing it so they don't offend anybody, but that they don't want anybody murdered.

[Faeelin]

Contemptible.

[garbon]

Also, I'm disappointed, Timmay.  That Yale was not printing the cartoons was news, weeks ago on P'dox.

[Eddie Teach]

When will America stand up against the Muslims and fight their evil ways?

SCANDINAZIS OUT OF IRAQ!
REINFELDT = HITLER

[Mr.Penguin]

Also, I'm disappointed, Timmay.  That Yale was not printing the cartoons was news, weeks ago on P'dox.

I think it something like 3 weeks ago that this news first broke. Tinmmay is slaging of..shame on him...

[Sheilbh]

I think this sort of issue is more difficult than most people here feel.

After the Satanic Verses affair one translator was murdered, another was seriously injured and Rushdie himself has lived under police protection ever since.  Immediately after the fatwa he wasn't allowed to stay in the same house twice and spent an entire year always having to move, very rarely allowed to see friends or family.  It destroyed his marriage and broke his spirit for some time (he wrote The Moor's Last Sigh, shortly afterwards, which is a remarkable book when you consider that.  It's a terrific novel about being persecuted and against religious authority).  As well as the people 'associated' with the production of the book bookstores were threatened (Barnes and Noble stopped selling it) and so on.

I think it's easy to judge from a distance.  If you're a publisher you have to weigh that up with the fact that you and your family and your employees could be under threat and could require long-term police protection.  If you're the publisher's accountant you probably couldn't even imagine the cost of the security that the building would start to require. 

[Valmy]

I think it's easy to judge from a distance.  If you're a publisher you have to weigh that up with the fact that you and your family and your employees could be under threat and could require long-term police protection.  If you're the publisher's accountant you probably couldn't even imagine the cost of the security that the building would start to require. 

It is just cowardly and reinforcing the stereotype that Muslims are hypersensitive bloodthirsty barbarians who will kill you for the smallest insult.  I find it rather pathetic.

[Valmy]

I mean how can Yale honestly say it believes Muslims are a peaceful people we should embrace when they themselves do things that suggest they actually fear for their lives if they dare do anything to displease them?

[Sheilbh]

It is just cowardly and reinforcing the stereotype that Muslims are hypersensitive bloodthirsty barbarians who will kill you for the smallest insult.  I find it rather pathetic.

I would agree if all we were talking about was a few protests and burning flags, or Holocaust denial conferences.  But people who have been involved in publishing books offensive to Muslims have died and others have had to spend their lives under police protection.

[Valmy]

I would agree if all we were talking about was a few protests and burning flags, or Holocaust denial conferences.  But people who have been involved in publishing books offensive to Muslims have died and others have had to spend their lives under police protection.

So, in other words, Muslims are hypersenstive bloodthirsty barbarians who must be feared.  That is the message I am getting, and clearly what Yale believes by their actions.

I mean they are not printing an anti-Muslim book they are simply talking about some offensive cartoons and cannot even print them to be discussed in a book.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

But people who have been involved in publishing books offensive to Muslims have died and others have had to spend their lives under police protection.

So?
The problem does not lie with those who print these works but with the people who feel the need to resort to violence and barbarism to suppress these views.
In a way the comparison with the nazis/communists/many otehr repressive regimes both present and past is apt: people died because they printed what they believed in, but that didn't stop others from printing it again and again and again. For if it had we wouldn't be talking about restrictions on freedom of speech for we would not have any freedom of speech.

I don't know why but your reaction brings this to mind:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7889974.stm

Satanic Verses' polarising untruths 
By Lawrence Pollard
Arts correspondent, BBC News 


It must be both the most talked about and the least read book of recent times. Since it came out in 1988 The Satanic Verses has seemed more a principle to be argued over than a book to discuss.

From the very first call for it to be banned - made by Indian MP Syed Shahabuddin - its critics have proudly announced they didn't have to read it to know it was wrong.

And anecdotally, as I have been sitting re-reading the book, many colleagues have come up and admitted they had either bought it but never opened it or started and given up. So what is it like?

The Satanic Verses is three stories, told in three styles, threaded together in one novel.

In the first story, two contemporary Indians fall out of an exploding aeroplane and survive. One seems to become an angel floating around London, the other grows horns and cloven hoofs.

In another story a poor Indian girl of great beauty, surrounded by butterflies, leads a pilgrimage of Muslim villagers into the Arabian Sea, where they drown.

And in the third, most controversial strand, a prophet founds a religion in the desert. Although this story makes up only 70 of the 550 pages of the novel, it is the part which provoked the furious reaction we now call the Satanic Verses controversy.

Author's defence

The story is inspired by an apocryphal incident in the life of the Prophet Muhammad called (in the West at least) the Satanic Verses.

These are verses of the Koran which Muhammad later retracted as incorrect and blamed on the prompting of Satan - rather than being revealed to him (as was the Koran proper) by the Angel Gabriel.


Where are the book burners?

The issue is a controversial one for scholars and religious teachers and in basing part of his novel on the incident Rushdie knew he was dealing with potentially inflammatory material. So what did he do?

Rushdie created a prophet called Mahound. Living in a city built of sand, Mahound founds a radical religion as revealed to him by the Angel Gabriel.

Slowly, Rushdie introduces doubt over the nature of this revelation, until one of his disciples expresses his disillusion.

He "began to notice how useful and well timed the angel's revelations tended to be, so that when the faithful were disputing Mahound's views on any subject, from the possibility of space travel to the permanence of Hell, the angel would turn up with an answer, and he always supported Mahound".

Speaking at the time of publication, and before the fatwa, Rushdie said he'd gone to what he thought were enormous lengths to avoid confrontation.

"I had no intention to be disrespectful towards the religion itself or its founder," he said.

"I thought let's not call him Muhammad, let's not call it Mecca, let's not call it Islam, let's put it into a dream... how much further can you go before you say I am not trying to make a literal attack on Islam but a discussion about some of the themes which arise out of the religious experience."

Untruth, hallucination and dream

Elsewhere in the book characters have mystic visions, hallucinations and suffer doubt.

They live in Mumbai, in London, in the countryside, they suffer racism, violence, riot, terror - this is a broad canvas, on which many people are shown struggling with the stresses of immigration and of revelation.

But the echoes in the story of Mahound are what caused the trouble, being too close to the story of Muhammad's Satanic Verses for the comfort of some Muslims.


The book was not well-reviewed when it came out - and seemed to cause confusion. Bear in mind this was 1988, before the fall of communism and long before the so-called clash of civilisations between Islam and the West became the news of the day.

For Professor John Sutherland, critic and Booker prize judge, The Satanic Verses should now be seen as Rushdie's best novel, prophetic and the fruit of his obsession with on the one hand the magic of the Arabian Nights and on the other the literal truth claimed for the Koran.

"Rushdie is fascinated in the way that novels are true and the ways in which they become true through multiple untruths," he said.

"People looking for something offensive, heretical or blasphemous won't find it. It's not a diatribe, a calculated insult. It's an extremely good novel."

Indeed, the book is full of untruth, hallucination and dream - but it feels so real and convincing. There is a suggestion that just as writing is a great trick, so too is religion. A trick of language, like a novel.

But whether it was a good or a bad book soon seemed irrelevant, as it began to reframe debates over race relations and freedom of speech.

In a new book on the affair, the Indian-born British writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik argues that the row over The Satanic Verses led many British Muslims to define themselves as Muslims anew, and heralded a retreat from freedom of speech in the UK.

"I think the fatwa has been internalised in that there's a level of self-censorship now [and] care not to offend in a multicultural society which nobody had really thought about much prior to the Rushdie affair," he writes.

"The critics lost the battle but they've won the war."

[Eddie Teach]

I thought let's not call him Muhammad, let's not call it Mecca, let's not call it Islam, let's put it into a dream... how much further can you go before you say I am not trying to make a literal attack on Islam but a discussion about some of the themes which arise out of the religious experience."

Who does he think he's fooling?

[Sheilbh]

So?

So we shouldn't call them cowards.  I don't know that I'd be willing to go under 24 hour police protection, put severe stress on my family and friends and possibly lose my own spirit and belief.  I admire Salman Rushdie, but I don't know if I could go through what he did and he didn't know it was coming.

I certainly don't know if I would want to translate a book if I knew it could lead to me being murdered.

The problem does not lie with those who print these works but with the people who feel the need to resort to violence and barbarism to suppress these views.

I agree entirely.

I disagree with Sutherland, Rushdie's best novel is Midnight's Children.  Ironically that novel won Iran's highest literary prize.  Equally ironically the Satanic Verses is a novel that celebrates polyglots and mixing pots and multi-culti stuff.  It's a novel about and in praise of the process of migration, physical, imaginative and cultural.  The tragedy is the same groups that Rushdie felt a part of (and a defender of) and that he celebrated were the ones who burned his book in Bradford.