Caricature Terror

One dabbles in purportedly comedic or ironic representations of dearly-held figures at one's peril. At one time it was the Roman Catholic Church that was mercilessly lampooned and did its best to lash back at its tormentors, then simply subsided into accepting the insults by seeming not to notice them. And then grotesque and demeaning works of 'creative art' were mounted to further degrade the concept of the sacred.

When these things occurred there were no lightning bolts thundering down from the heavens to strike the offenders. Society, scandalized and titillated at first, simply shrugged and went on with its business. But society, while loosening its strictures on the hitherto forbidden, did not really gain much by losing its sense of respect for what people held dear. Matching a general descent in human interactions and sensitivities.

Little did Western society imagine what might erupt as the sensibilities of Muslims were flayed by the clever but Muslim-perturbing characterization of the Prophet Mohammad as suicide bomber incarnate. Not that Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard definitively portrayed Mohammad himself; the cartoon might have depicted, as far as he was concerned, any turbaned Muslim set to inflict incendiary violence.

He was simply stating the obvious; that for a religion of peace Islam has bred an inordinately large number of people given to pathological displays of vitriolic hatred; an anger and a hatred so dire that humane perspectives were completely deluged in an acid bath of death deliverance. Fanatical Islamists who slid into jihadi mode, prepared to martyr themselves for Islam surrendered their humanity.

This was his message, and a simple enough one. "The drawing has taken on a life of its own, all around the world", 75-year-old Mr. Westergaard allowed, releasing his autobiography.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard (L), the author of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad printed by Jyllands Posten in 2005, and his publisher John Lykkegaard (R) in Copenhagen, presenting his autobiography, “The Man Behind the Line“. November 15, 2010, Monday Source: EPA/BGNES

"I never said it was Muhammad" he said. "I wanted to show there are terrorists who use Islam and the Koran as a front. Terrorists took the prophet hostage."

In fact, furious Muslims around the world took the world hostage in their terrifying backlash against the West. Their leaders who exploited the situation, manipulated the faithful to explode in a fury of resentment and anger against the West in general, and Mr. Westergaard, Jyllands-Posten, and Denmark in particular. The fatwa issued against Mr. Westergaard himself has haunted him ever since.

The hugely controversial caricature of that historical religious figure launched the incendiary violence that terrorized the West sufficiently to temporarily-verging-on-permanent stifling freedom of speech and publication, and still resonates. Deaths ensued in an orgy of Muslim revenge. Threats and economic sanctions did their damage. An atmosphere of sober second thought clouded the issue of freedoms in secular Western democracies.

In issuing his autobiography, The Man Behind the Line, Kurt Westergaard laments the kind of self-protective self-censorship that has emerged as a result of the viciously violent Muslim backlash against the perceived blasphemy against Islam and the Prophet.

"If there is anything to regret (about publishing the cartoon) it is that there is more self-censorship in intellectual circles since this began."

That, in and of itself is the effectiveness of terror.