As a footnote to the disingenuous rumblings of Jakob Illeborg and assorted Muslim grandees, here’s Oliver Kamm, saying what needs to be said.

My argument was that having concern for the feelings of others – such as the sensibilities of Muslims offended by the Danish cartoons – should be no part of public policy. One aspect of the debate on free speech that I found particularly worrying was this:

The debate has not been aided – it has indeed been severely clouded – by an imprecise use of the term ‘respect’. If this is merely a metaphor for the free exercise of religious and political liberty, then it is an unexceptionable principle, but also an unclear and redundant usage. Respect for ideas and those who hold them is a different matter altogether. Ideas have no claim on our respect; they earn respect to the extent that they are able to withstand criticism.

The usage I’m criticising is a common part of the debate on free speech. Among innumerable examples, consider this well intentioned remark by a Danish Muslim, as reported by the BBC after the recent republication in Denmark of one of the offending cartoons:

“I am hurt, as I was the first time,” says Feisal, who works in marketing and was also born in Denmark. He believes the problem is not Danish society but the media. “The Danish press should have learned from their previous mistakes and the only thing the Muslims are asking for is respect, nothing else”.

It’s not just that I believe Feisal’s requirement should be ignored by policy makers lest it lead to illiberal outcomes such as censorship of the press. I consider his position inherently unreasonable – as if “respect, nothing else” were some minimal demand… 

It is a widespread notion that deeply held convictions are at least entitled to respect – when in reality there is no “at least” about it, and no entitlement either. The challenging of beliefs is an often brutal business, but the ensuing and almost inevitable hurt is emotional and not physical. There is nothing wrong in this; it is how knowledge advances.

Indeed. And despite its obviousness, I’m guessing the above will bear repeating.

Further to the Guardian’s Jakob Illeborg and his apparent belief that freethinking societies are best defended by doing a lot less of that freethinking business, at least with regard to Islam, it seems he’s not alone.

First, there’s the Pakistani ambassador to Denmark, Fauzia Mufti Abbas:

“It isn’t just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what [Jyllands-Posten] has begun,” she said. “I’d like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?” The matter of the cartoons, she said, was something Danes needed to reflect on. 

I’m sure readers will spot the familiar supremacist assumptions and the consequent moral inversion. The deaths, riots and violence were, apparently, “unleashed” by infidels who drew cartoons satirising previous threats and violence by belligerent Muslims. Things of which we must not speak. Those actually doing the murdering, threatening and rioting are, it seems, “harassed”. Poor them. Thus, by the ambassador’s thinking, the fits of emotional incontinence and attempts to cow dissent become our responsibility and, conveniently, no-one else’s. And those who need to “reflect” on what has happened – and what will no doubt happen again – are infidels who are, as yet, insufficiently fearful. And, by the same logic, we must learn to pacify and accommodate people who are prideful, malevolent and insane. Or else.

Then there’s Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, who told an audience in Kuala Lumpur,

Mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue, as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression.

Set aside for a moment the absurdly tendentious terms “Islamophobia,” “incitement” and “provocation” – remember we’re talking about cartoons here – and note the phrase, “as long as they remain free” – i.e. free to criticise Islam and say unflattering things. Even things that are both unflattering and true. According to Professor Ihsanoglu such things must be stopped:

“It requires a strong and determined collective political will to address the challenge,” Ihsanoglu said. “It is now high time for concrete actions to stem the rot before it aggravates (the situation) any further.” Ihsanoglu did not suggest what action should be taken.

No, he didn’t offer particulars, but he’s made his feeling clear. He wants “concrete action” and the “issue” will be “resolved” when criticism of Islam stops, or at least is made illegal and thus punishable. Perhaps Ihsanoglu is waiting for others to connect the dots and do exactly as they’re told, just as Mr Illeborg seems all too keen to do.

Others, however, are more specific in their demands.

Pakistan will ask the European Union countries to amend laws regarding freedom of expression in order to prevent offensive incidents such as the printing of blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad… The delegation, headed by an additional secretary of the Interior Ministry, will meet the leaders of the EU countries in a bid to convince them that the recent attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan could be a reaction against the blasphemous campaign, sources said.

They said that the delegation would also tell the EU that if such acts against Islam are not controlled, more attacks on the EU diplomatic missions abroad could not be ruled out.

Peace, then, will materialise when infidels know their place.

Regular readers may remember the Danish journalist, Jakob Illeborg, and his rhetorical contortions. In February, following the republication of the Muhammad cartoons, while Muslim youths were burning down Danish schools on a nightly basis, Mr Illeborg went to enormous lengths to convince Guardian readers that,

The Danes could, with some justification, be seen as fire starters.

This claim is, it seems, based on a belief that to exercise and defend, even belatedly, the most basic values of a free society is actually to “rock the boat” and invite upon oneself a week of rioting, violence and murderous intimidation. When the 73-year-old cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was forced into hiding following a plot to murder him, several Danish papers republished Westergaard’s cartoon as both an affirmation of free speech and an expression of solidarity. This was, according to Illeborg,

A headstrong idealistic response.

Given Mr Illeborg’s articles appear on a website named Comment is Free, one might find this disapproval a tad peculiar. Though perhaps not quite as peculiar as his willingness to denounce as “headstrong” a perfectly legal activity, while carefully avoiding any such pejoratives when referring to those making death threats and setting fire to schools. Mr Illborg is, however, quite skilled at double standards and juggling contradiction, as demonstrated by his dual assertion that,

The fire starters are frustrated young Muslim men who claim that their action is sparked by the re-publication of one of the prophet cartoons –

And,

although it probably has little to do with religion.

Illeborg’s most recent article, titled Denmark Loses Tolerance, once again demonstrates a craven doublethink that has come to define much of the Guardian’s commentary on the subject of Islam. In an attempt to illustrate “how far Denmark has moved from the liberal values it was once proud of,” Illeborg highlights, of all things, Monday’s suicide bomb attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad. Just pause for a moment. Think about that. A claim that Danes are “losing tolerance” is illustrated with an Islamist attack on a Danish embassy in which 6 people died and burned body parts were left strewn across the road.

Ever since the prophet cartoon crises of 2006 and 2008, Islamist extremists around the world have been threatening bloody revenge on Denmark.

Ah, bloody revenge. For a cartoon. Note that the intolerance which most troubles Mr Illeborg is that of “headstrong” Danes who wish to retain a freethinking culture, and not the rather more emphatic intolerance of men so vain they blow off people’s limbs and burn them to death. At this point one might reflect on how it is that some among us have come to accept the idea that an unflattering cartoon is a comprehensible “cause” of death threats and dismemberment. The cause is not, it seems, lunatic pride cultivated in the name of piety.

Tawfik Hamid ponders jihad and the perils of euphemism.   

Yes, the word “jihad” has several, including some peaceful, meanings – but that doesn’t change the fact that most authoritative Islamic texts and systems of jurisprudence maintain that its primary meaning is “warfare to subjugate the world to Islam”… And it is simply a fact that jihad, as taught by Sunni Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence, is either a war to defend Muslims or to impose Islam on non-Muslims. It may be uncomfortable to admit these facts – and doing so may run certain risks. But it is true, and the costs of ignoring reality are far higher than the benefits of glossing over it.

Not that this has prevented Islam’s hagiographer-in-chief, Karen Armstrong, from glossing furiously, with claims that, “jihad… for most Muslims, has no connection with violence,” and, “until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam.” By whitewashing the concept of jihad and its fundamental importance in Islamic history, apologists, moderate believers – and those to whom they appeal – are tactically wrong-footed. Moderation so conceived is essentially a sleight-of-hand, and, however well-intended, is at odds with history and Muhammad’s own exhortations to violence. It isn’t enough to pretend that jihad was originated and understood as something fluffy and benign. (In May 1994, when Yasser Arafat called for a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” it wasn’t entirely obvious how such a thing might be achieved by an inner spiritual struggle with no physical connotations.)

Hamid continues,

Islamists are not waiting for “infidel” Americans to define jihad for them; they defined it themselves, a very long time ago. If Muslim leaders wish to insist that the word refers primarily to a peaceful struggle against the self, they have that option. Let them clearly and publicly denounce the current doctrine and establish a new one. That’s the answer – not redefining reality… The movie The Usual Suspects may have put it best: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” One of the most devious tactics used by the Islamists is scaring their enemy out of speaking the plain truth about this virulent strain of Islam, for fear it might alienate or offend millions of moderate Muslims. But this ensures that no one will directly confront their violent ideologies and the books that contain them.

Revisionists like Armstrong would have their readers believe that jihadist ideology is an aberration of Islam, disconnected from the religion’s history and origins. But jihad – understood as aggressive warfare to advance the spread of Islam – is not some modern invention of bin Laden, or Sayyid Qutb, or al-Wahhab. It’s the invention of Muhammad and his immediate successors, and has been sacralised and codified by centuries of Islamic law. This is jihad as it appears in many Islamic schoolbooks. Mainstream commentaries on the Qur’an, including those by Ibn Kathir, explain in detail what constitutes “provocation” and thus justifies jihad. Kathir, like many others, defines as provocation pretty much anything that hinders the spread of Islam or contradicts its message. Thus, the threshold is so low – and so unilateral – as to enable the aggressor to cast himself as victim. This historical line of thinking explains in part the passive-aggressive tone so common to Islamist rhetoric. 

This accumulation of precedent and theology, and the sacralising of expansionist supremacism, cannot be wished away as some malicious fabrication. It has to be challenged head-on and, if possible, reformed. The theology of the past needn’t define a religion’s future; but it’s hard to see how a more functional form of Islam can be coaxed into existence on an institutional scale without a searching critique of its founder and his behaviour. This is the intimate flaw of Islam; the source of so much dysfunction and extraordinary insecurity. The founder of a religion, his example and the means by which he urged others to propagate the faith are not insignificant details. They influence laws, a worldview and the broader tenor of what follows. And when atrocity and intolerance can be traced back directly to Muhammad’s own deeds and purported revelations, dissonance and dishonesty may be difficult to avoid.

I’ve previously noted the readiness with which some commentators inform “us” of how “we” feel about a given subject. This eerie divination reveals, remarkably often, that “we” feel almost exactly as the author does. Another example of this preternatural knowledge comes courtesy of Professor Carolyn Guertin, whose areas of expertise include,   

Digital media, cyberfeminism, digital narrative, hypertext, new media arts, digital design, information aesthetics, participatory cultures, Web 2.0 technologies, women’s writing, cyberculture, media literacy, science fiction…

And,

Hacktivism, born-digital arts and literatures, cultural studies, postliteracy and the social practices surrounding technology.

Some readers may remember Professor Guertin for her doctoral dissertation on “quantum feminisms,” discussed at length here, and which includes such dazzling insights as,

Within quantum mechanics, the science of the body in motion, the intricacies of the interiorities of mnemonic time – no longer an arrow – are being realized in the (traditionally) feminized shape of the body of the matrix.

And,

Where women have usually been objects to be looked at, hypermedia systems replace the gaze with the empowered look of the embodied browser in motion in archival space. Always in flux, the shape of time’s transformation is a Möbius strip unfolding time into the dynamic space of the postmodern text, into the ‘unfold’.