Cartoon
Ethics
By
Thomas Albert Gilly
The
« prophet cartoon affaire » came rapidly to the fore of the public debate.
A first explanation consists of the observation the cartoons have produced
effects that with regards to their nature and extend, came as a surprise.
Obviously, the cartoons were perceived and continue to be perceived by Muslims
all over the world as a provocative and humiliating threat to their religious
faith and their prophet... As a result the protest became increasingly violent
and continues to grow.
Here is the place neither to discuss the various objective reasons –
cultural, religious, historical and political – that might explain such violent
reaction, nor to engage in another debate about the inherent contradiction in
the Islamic world.
The first important thing that is to be pointed is that the Western
World reacted with great surprise, disappointment and revolt against the
violent protests that developed in the Islamic world as well as in Western
Muslim Communities. Given the cartoons’ nature and considering the actual state
of the inherent contradictions in Islamic culture as well as the increasing
role played by religion in a context that holds for the Pan-Arabian project and
the crisis of Arab nationalism, the issue could be hardly expected to produce
effects than those that came into existence. Insofar Western World’s reaction
is somewhat paradoxical. It is not only a paradoxical reaction, but it is also
a hypocrite reaction. Western world’s, namely and foremost Europe’s revolting
reaction is hypocrisy in this that the revolts and riots that developed in
Europe, namely in France’s great cities’ suburbs – however controversial the
interpretation –schemes are and whatever the causes and origins may be, have
demonstrated the impact of religion – both moderate and fundamentalist – upon
inter-community and inter-ethnicity conflicts and violence. By adopting a
critical sociological interpretation scheme, one might argue that the riots, at
least, have demonstrated Islam’s capacity to exploit open social conflicts that
are rooted in social inequality and exclusion for their proper causes.
To resume the provocation and the violent protest that developed as a
reaction against the cartoons and their diffusion in mass media could not come
as a surprise. And foremost not for those certain defenders of occidental
culture who proudly produce the outcome of the affair as a piece of conviction
in the - however controversial, but not completely utopian or irrelevant –
advocacy for the “Kulturkampf” thesis.
On all these accounts, the publication and large diffusion of the
cartoons in the international pres can hardly be considered as of the origin or
direct cause of the violence it supposedly provoked. On this account it seems
to be difficult to not agree with the argument that has been pointed by
journalists and news-paper directors in order to legitimize the publication of
the cartoons.
So again: Why the affair came rapidly to the fore of the Western debate,
namely and foremost in
The issue can hardly be thought
as of an innovative lesson about Islam. Sophisticated intellectuals might always
argue that the way it turned out reveals, in a definitive, irreversible and red
colored painting manner the inherent violence and conflict potential in Islam.
But such sophisticated think-pieces are rooted in the marketing strategy that
consists of selling old things as brand new stories, their lack of originality
and their predilection for controversy being put aside. Fact is that some of
the newspapers, by publishing the cartoons and providing for comments,
experienced a substantial increase sale scores.
If the issue provides for a lesson, then it is not the one that consists
of the revelation of Islam’s conflict and violence potential. Rather it is the
issues relevance for ethics. The
“Prophet – cartoon” affair is a case for ethics both with regards to the
ethically problematic and to the ethically highly relevant impact of the issue
upon the fundamentals of Occidental values. And may be the real lesson which is
worth to be discussed and which provides for the issues historical and cultural
message and meaning consist of the production of a report that that points at
the regrettable, if not deplorable state of the Western value system.
Could it be that the issue’s relevance for the Western, namely European
public debate and polemics is rooted in and derives from the disappointing
self-image of Western values?
Fact is that the debate and the polemics focus on values and fundamental
liberties/ rights. The liberty of opinion and the principle of laity are the
debate’s key –topics. The topics are daily quoted in order to legitimize the
cartoons’ publication and promotion in the media. The liberty of opinion and
the principle of laity provide powerful support to the cartoon’s advocacy. And
they are central to the issues’ lesson.
Laity does not preclude religious liberty; in a laic society people are
free to demonstrate their religious convictions and faith. Rather laity
pre-supposes religious liberty. Laity means that religious conviction and
practice have no impact upon the public space and State affaires. Insofar laity
presupposes the separation between Church and State. Laity means furthermore
that religious convictions and religious practice is a private issue, not a
public.
Laity holds for the exclusion of Churches from the exercise of the
political and administrative power.
The
liberty of opinion, also known as the right to express his opinion is a
fundamental human right. Insofar it must be thought as of an absolute right or
an absolute liberty. At a first glance absolute rights are devoid of any restriction.
As far as the liberty of opinion covers the liberty of the press, SEC. 12.of
the Constitution of Virginia (
“That the freedom of the press is one of the great
bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments”
Absolute rights and fundamental liberties suffer any restriction apart
the one that consists of the principle that the exercise and use of fundamental
rights and liberties by each individual is respectful of each other fundamental
rights and liberties.
Section 15 of the
Constitution of Virginia addresses the same precept.
That no free government, or the blessings of liberty,
can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation,
temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental
principles.
Fundamental
rights and liberties involve duties. When exercising his/her rights and
liberties each individual has the duty to respect the liberties and rights of
the other. This duty does not contradict the absolute nature of the fundamental
rights and liberties; rather it is the condition for absolute rights and
liberties. The various Declarations of Human Rights come as a support:
According to Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948):
“Everyone has duties to the community in
which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. In
the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such
limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due
recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting
the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a
democratic society. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised
contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
The Declaration of Human
rights of 1793 (24 June) of the Constitution of the French Republic addresses
the same principle, but it addresses it in a more categorical, but also more
philosophical manner that points the topics ethical nature and roots. According
to article 6 of the Declaration liberty is defined as human beings’ power to do
everything that does not hurt the rights of the others.
“Nature is
liberty’s basic principle, justice its rule and law its protection”.
The text addresses clearly the moral nature of the
limits of liberty:
“Do not to another
that what you do not want the other do to you”.
And
the French Declaration of 1795 (August 22):
“
But it is an error to believe that the restriction of liberty which
consists of the precept to do that what do not hurt the other is a genuinely
political issue that is central to the various Declarations of Human Rights.
For argument’s sake the precept: “You shall not do what you do not want the
other do to you” is a topic that is central to all great religions. The
quotations that follow come as a support:
“Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to
them”
Christianity.
Bible, Matthew 7.12
“One should not behave towards others in a way which
is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other
activities are due to selfish desire”
Hinduism. Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8
“Your best to treat others as you would wish to be
treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to
benevolence”
Confucianism. Mencius VII.A.4
A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him,
"Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while
I stand on one foot." Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which was in
his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, "What is hateful to you,
do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is
commentary; go and learn."
Among the religious sources that provide for the precept, the Decalogue[1]
is worth to be considered with special attention, and this for three major
reasons:
First, the whole Decalogue is anchored in this precept, and obviously it
is the same precept that is at the heart of the Decalogue’s ethical
fundamentals. This observation applies in particular to the last of the “ten
commandments”
. Torah / Hebrew Bible) which reads:
"You shall not
covet your fellow’s house You shall not covet your fellow’s wife, his
manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that belongs to
your fellow
Shemot 20:14
and for Catholic and Orthodox Christianity:
"Neither shall you covet
your neighbor's wife"
"and you shall not desire
your neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his
ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's."
and for the Protestant
Christianity
“You shall not covet anything
that belongs to your neighbor”
Second, as far as the Decalogue’s structure is concerned, it has been
argued that it consists of two parts...
According to Christianity the Decalogue consists of two major parts that
are to be distinguished one from each other, although they form a unity. It has
been argued, namely in Christianity, that the first part of statements provides
for positive injunctions, whereas the second one provides for negative
injunctions. Another scheme, not less prominent and highly relevant to
Christianity, points at the two different ethical dimensions that are involved
in the Decalogue. The first one focuses on the relation between human being and
G’d, the second one is relevant for the relations between human being, the
former holding for a vertical rationale of ethics, the latter for a horizontal
one. We find an analogical scheme in Medieval Judaism. According to Sefer
ha-Chinuch, the first four statements concern the relationship between G‘d and
human beings, whereas the second six statements focus on the relationship
between human beings[2].
Regardless of the various and often very strong differences and oppositions
that separate Christian and Jewish Bible interpretation – from the status of
the Bible down to the number of the statements, the importance of the Decalogue[3]
and the notion of “Decalogue” and finally the nature of the religious
conceptions involved respectively in Judaism and Christianity in, the
“Decalogue’s” two –part division can be, in some way and to some degree,
thought as of a point that is common to Judaism and Christianity
It is always possible to argue
that, because of its fundamentals, Judaism, contrary to Christianity, precludes
in theory and in fact the formalism that is involved in the distinction between
and division of a horizontal/ vertical, absolute – divine or absolute / relative,
profane and contingent ethic rationale, the observation that such a
scheme holds for the ontological
difference in nature of both dimensions and implicates that the injunctions
remain the tributary of the opposition between transcendence and immanence – a
view that is highly problematic with regards to Judaism, being put aside.
Rather Judaism provides for the dissolution of these opposite ethical and
ontological categories into a whole. There is no hierarchical order – ethical
or ontological – that involves the primacy about the supposedly absolute and
vertical rationale upon the relative and horizontal, and vice versa. From the
viewpoint of Jewish religious philosophy, all what the “statements” are telling
us is that if people behave in a certain manner their relationship is always a
relationship with G’d and that, if people behave in a certain way with G’d the
relationship between them and G’d is always a relationship between people. The
acknowledgement that Judaism is genuinely a sets of religious anchored and
rooted ethics, not a Biblical religion and even not a religion of faith comes
as a support.
This observation is highly relevant to our proposal. Why? Answer: If the
formalism that is involved in the distinction between and the division of the
“statements” were translated in terms of liberties/fundamental rights and
duties, it might engender and given contemporary lecture of Human Rights have
obviously engendered highly deplorable consequences of which the most important
is that the liberty and fundamental rights side is hyper-emphasized, whereas
the duty side is the subject of an inadmissible devaluation. This is much more
than a theoretical think-piece.
First because the division of Decalogue’s adjunctions into positive and
negative, absolute and relative statements is re-produced, at the level of
Human Rights Declarations, in terms of liberties/ fundamental rights and
duties. This means that the latter is somewhat the laic version of Decalogue’s
ethics. Second, because laity must be thought as the process by which the
“absolute” ethical rationale that is supposedly involved in the relationship
between human being and G’d is supplanted by that other “absolute” ethical
rationale that is involved in the relationship between human being and Nature.
The process that supplants the divine cause and origin of ethical injunctions
which are highly relevant for social life by that of the natural causes and
origins implies that those injunctions that are relevant for the relation
between mankind and G’d are transformed into absolute rights/ fundamental
liberties, while those that are relevant to the relationship between human
being are transformed into duties. Third because the whole human rights
tradition is strongly influenced by religion. The Decalogue is the original
model to which refer the various declarations of human rights. Such impact of
religious tradition upon the fundamentals of political and legal modernity is
clearly demonstrated in early declarations. SEC. 16 of the Constitution of
Virginia comes as a support. .
“That
religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging
it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence;
and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion,
according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all
to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other”;
Fourth because it is not Buddhism that is at the origin of the human
rights tradition, neither it is Hinduism or Islam, but it is Christianity and
at the end Judaism.
If the previous observations hold for a lesson, then this lesson is that
the dialectics between liberty/ rights and duties is common to both laic and
religious ethics. The consequences that follow are highly relevant in this that
they are to be articulated as ethical postulates:
1) Given that the liberty/right – duty couple is inherent part in the
great world religions, it follows that each of the various religions has the
right to affirm, in theory and in practice, its proper identity and the duty to
respect the identity of all the others.
An affirmation of religious identity that is respectful of the identity
of the other religion is neither to be understood as an invitation or even an
obligation for a particular religion to adopt the identity of the other or to
give up completely its proper identity, nor is it the call for an inter-faith
and inter-religious peace-keeping process that is to be applied in an absolute
manner, regardless of practices that involve serious transgressions of duties
and threats to religious identity. Rather is it the call for a constructive and
fruitful inter-religious dialogue that is aimed to develop mutual respect by
means of a comprehensive approach that helps to better understand the other
religion’s “personality” (to be understand in the sense of Levinas).
For it presupposes the reciprocal engagement to recognize the proper
identity of the other and because it holds for a sort of contract that engages
the various partners, such inter –religious dialogue is to be displayed for
exactly the same causes and reasons that, in contract theory, cancel the
contract.
The preliminary condition for the engagement of such a dialogue is that
each contract partner respects the inherent principles in its proper codex. A
dialogue has any chance to be fruitfully engaged and successfully developed
when the official representatives of each of the great religions do not respect
the ethical principles in whose name the religion’s identity is proclaimed and
promoted
2) This first of the postulates is to be advocated more loudly and more
intensively in laic societies. Why? Because the contract parties, in laity, are
different in nature and because the point that is common to the ethical
fundamentals of both, the liberty / right – duty dialectics, requires the absolute
respect of each of the parties’ identity and difference. Such an absolute
respect implies that both the state and religions’ official representatives and
institutions mutually recognize the areas that come under their respective
competence and within each of the two parties exercises their reciprocal
liberty of opinion and of action in the most absolute way that, et the same
times, is absolutely respectfully of the norm that consists of the interdiction
to transgress the limits of each of the two competence fields.
So as the affirmation of religious’ identity that is respectful of the
other religions’ identity is, in its exercise, subjected to preliminary
conditions and to limits, each of the two parties liberty of opinion and of
action, in laity, is an issue that can not be thought in an absolute manner and
without referring to limits either.
3) It is always possible to argue that such a strict separation between
the Church and the State, between politics and religion – however absolute this
issue may be in theory, in fact, is not a realistic topic. According to this
observation, it follows that the norm that consists of the interdiction to
transgress the limits of the Stat’s and of the Churches’ competence applies in
a relative manner, not absolutely, though it is an absolute norm according to
the principle of laity.
.So as some major public affaires, political and social concerns might
be, and obviously have been and continue to be highly relevant to religion,
religious concerns might be and obviously have been and continue to be highly
relevant to State affaires. In such cases governments, political parties or
associations frequently engage a public debate about religious concerns, and
vice versa. Given the universal nature of the inherent ethical precepts in
religion, the circumstance that
The issues are altogether relevant to both, religion and religious
ethics and politics and political or laic ethics. And they are relevant to
both, because they require altogether the demonstration of the universal nature
of religious and of modern political ethics. It is this collusion between
religious and political or laic that is at the basis of the dialogue that is
currently engaged, in a highly constructive manner, by Churches and other
institutional representatives of religious community and the representatives of
the political power and public administration
And yet such a think-piece – however empirically rooted it is, can never
affect the principle of laity; nor does it contradict laity’s nature. Why?
Because of laity’s genuine definition; laity means the religious and
confessional neutrality of the political power and of the public
administration, not the political neutrality of religion and confession. When
Churches engage a debate about social, economical and political problems in our
world, when they demonstrate that they are genuinely concerned with armed
conflicts, poverty in the world, humanitarian disasters or even with
law-making, then their engagement is not only ok, but, in the majority of the
cases, it is also ethically highly desirable and often necessary. And yet their engagement and
ethical decision making is their proper affaire, not the affair of the
political power and public administration.
Given the empirical relevance of such a think-piece, it is rather to be
understood as a report that documents the actual state of laity and laic society.
Our every day life experience teaches that Churches and religious community,
during the last decades, have increasingly taken part in the public, either
social and political or economic, debate. They have become major instigators
and animators of the public debate. For argument’s sake Pope Benedict 2, in his
2006 Easter Address, has, in a highly critical manner, pointed the ethically
inadmissible abuse of Islamic religion – its exploitation for political goals -
by the actual Iran government, the Pope’s categorical condemnation of terrorism
comes in addition. In
So as the Roman Catholic Church has made a substantial contribution to
the clash of the former
Pope Jean-Paul 2 died; French citizen became direct eyewitnesses of a
unique and, given the very laic
On all these accounts our think-piece reports the empirically highly
relevant discrepancy between the theoretical affirmation of laity and its
practice – advocates of a strict conception of laity might say; laity’s
deviation
It follows that the norm that grants absolute liberty of opinion and of
action to the Churches and the governments and that, at the same time,
prohibits the transgression of the limits to their respective competence fields
is, according to the principle of laity, to be understood in a very strong send
and, at the same time and given its concrete application or actual state, to be
associated with the ethical precept that consists, for each of both parties, of
the obligation to exercise their respective liberty of opinion and of action in
a way that is strongly respectful of the other.
The norm that provides for the political power’s and public
administration’s religious and confessional neutrality has several
implications, among which one of the most important consists of the obligation,
for governments, to decide, in the name of their citizen, what religion they
have to adopt, what confession, and how they have to practice their faith. The
matching topic is the liberty of religion. And the matching obligation for
churches, religious institutions, community representatives and even for
citizen who believe and practice their religion is the one that strictly
prohibits any kind of religious and confessional invasion of the liberty of
opinion.
To better understand the meaning and consequences, suppose that a
government of a State demonstrates its hostility towards a given religion or a
given confession in a highly provocative manner that is perceived, by the
Church and or the members of the religious community as an offence against
their faith. Suppose furthermore that the government’s hostility is not rooted
in religion’s negative consequences for or impact upon human rights, but in the
genuine nature of a given religion or confession. Suppose furthermore that the same government
legitimizes such a campaign in the name of laity. At a first glance laity
provides for such a legitimization. In fact, this does not work. Such a
proceeding is irrelevant to laity. Why? Because religious neutrality requires
the absolute abstinence with regards to all sorts of interference. So as
religious neutrality precludes a negative connoted interference, it does not
allow a positive connoted interference either. It implies that each of both
connotations, at any time, can be substituted one to each other.
As political power’s and public
administration’s religious and confessional neutrality preclude the
demonstration of hostility towards a given religion or confession, it precludes
the soft, indulgent or even positive attitude towards religion and its
celebration.
The postulate that the State shall never interfere in religion, either positively
or in a negative manner, as well as the laic principle of religious neutrality
from which it derives, in laity, is to be understood in an absolute sense. It
is free from adulteration of any kind can never be affected in its substance,
even not by a soft or, as laity’s advocated and most certain defenders might
say: a deviant practice of laity.
But given the actual state of laity which holds for a soft laity
practice, involves a constructive dialogue and reflects the increasing
interference between religion and state affairs, the inherent postulate of
laity is to be associated with the ethical precept that is common to both,
religious and modern political ethics, as reflected in the Decalogue and in the
various declaration of human rights.
The relevance of the fundamental ethical postulate: “Do not to the other
what you do not want the other do to you”, in its various expressions,
increases as a function of laity’s softening.
4) For laity precludes all sorts of interferences, either positive or
negative, laity can never be used by individuals whose activities are highly
relevant to the public life and public debates that are engaged in our
societies, as a reference to legitimate comments, reports, pictures or any
other intellectual or artistic products that are realized in order to criticize
a given religion and / or provoke the members and institutions of a given
religious community. Because the normative content of the principle of
abstinence that is involved in neutrality can never be thought as of an
obligation to do (positive sense); rather it is always to be thought as an
obligation to not do (negative sense). Otherwise laity would be an issue that
provides legitimization to its negation.
And yet such a think-piece has been successfully produced be many
journalists and news-paper directors as a means to legitimate the cartoon’s
publishing and their promotion in mass-media.
By adopting this thin-piece, by placing it at the focal centre of their
legitimization campaign, many journalist and intellectuals of the Western,
namely European world have demonstrated their misunderstanding of laity.
So as this campaign contradicts, in an ethically highly deplorable, if
not inadmissible manner, the principle of laity, and, therefore, is to be
condemned, the warning that came from the camp of the opponents and that, by
pointing the “disastrous” ( for who?) effects and consequences of the cartoons,
called for stop, is not appropriate either.
And yet each of both has been produced, by pros and cons, as
master-pieces of their respective legitimization campaigns. The first one tells
long about the highly prominent, but intellectually deviant, if not perverse,
attitude towards laity, whereas the second one demonstrates that the liberty of
opinion, in Western democracy, is an issue that is not always sheltered from
deviant interpretation-schemes.
5) It is the liberty of opinion and the liberty of the press that
provide the publishing and the promotion of the cartoons with legitimization.
Obviously the camp of the pros would have done better to point at the liberty
of opinion rather than on laity. This does not mean that the liberty of opinion
has not received consideration by those who advocated the legitimacy of the
cartoons; rather it means that it has received relatively little consideration,
given its importance.
Among the fundamental liberties and rights, liberty of opinion is the
most important one. And it is a fundamental of modern democracy. It follows that
the liberty of opinion, in modern democracy, is subjected less than other
liberties and rights to limitations as are determined by law solely. And it
follows that Article 29 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (
The cartoonist, the cartoons’ promoters and publishers and the
journalists who copied and commented the cartoons, by acting as they did,
demonstrated their attachment to the fundamentals of modern democracy, and
exercised their liberty of opinion and the freedom of the press all the more so
as in this particular case the liberty of opinion and the freedom of the press
suffered no legal limitations[4].
Insofar there is no reason to point the deviant exercise of the liberty
of opinion and the deviant interpretation of this fundamental liberty. Given
that Islamic fundamentalism is an issue that, for a long time, has inspired
Western journalist and mass-media, particularly in Europe, to provide comments
that hardly measured the importance and danger of the issue and often were
rooted in a complaisant intellectual attitude toward this phenomenon, the
publishing of the cartoons indicates the arrival of a new fresh wind that
inspires optimism rather than critical skepticism. As long as this tendency is
devoid of tangible effects and remains an isolated phenomenon, there is no
reason to demonstrate premature optimism.
We have all acknowledged that
At a first glance can hardly be criticized; it does not hurt or offend
the liberty of opinion and the freedom of press, nor does it contradict the
editorial program of the newspaper.
And yet such decision-making requires some comments:
The first critical remark that is to be addressed consists of the
question whether cartoons are or are not the appropriate means to provide for a
lesson about people, governments and religious communities that refuse to
recognize historical facts. Given the nature of the issue the answer is
obviously: no it is not, all the more so as anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are
publicly demonstrated fundamentals of Iran government and Islamic fundamentalists,
the observation that points the ethically inadmissible offence against the
concerns of the victims that is involved in the supposedly didactical
publication of the holocaust cartoons being put aside.
Cartoons are living from pictures; they tell stories by means of a
series of images. Cartoon’s philosophy is to supplant the textual narrative as
traditionally provided by literature by that of an illustrative or image
faceted narrative. Cartoons are rooted in the absolute primacy of the image upon
the text. It follows that the (re-) production and publishing of Holocaust
cartoons is always and necessary the subject of different, if not opposite
interpretation - simply because the
message of the images’ series, through lack of an explanatory text that could
serve as interpretation reference, is likely to be perceived and interpreted in
different manners. It follows furthermore that the reproduction of the
originals in newspapers or other mass-media, to prevent all sorts of ambiguity,
should always be associated with an in depth-comment.
Given the absolute identity that exists in this particular case between
the original and the original’s copy or reproduction, the same series of
cartoons provides two opposite messages to the public audience, the first one,
by mocking about holocaust, consists of the message that it has never existed,
whereas the second one, by mocking about the mock, consists of holocaust
negation as currently practiced in Islamic fundamentalism and by Iran’s
government.
The point which is important here is the fact that the same image or the
same series of images is susceptible to be interpreted in two opposite ways.
The majority of us would agree with the opinion that people,
institutions, mass-media and governments who mock about holocaust behave in an
ethically inadmissible, if not criminal way. Insofar the “holocaust cartoon”
incarnates evil, and it demonstrates the relevance of the culture-conflict
thesis for our contemporary world. Contra it is always possible to argue that such
inadmissible attitudes and tendencies also exist in Western Democracy.
Sophisticated though this argument is, it does not work: people, institutions
or governments that mock about holocaust mock about democracy and foremost
about humanity.
When the original that incarnates evil and that implies that an ethical
code has been transgressed or that an ethical precept has been threatened in an
inadmissible manner is to be copied and reproduced as a means to show its real
and really inadmissible nature (evil as resulting from the negation of evil),
then (the production or the commitment of-) evil is always potentially its
opposite. In other words this means that the revolting call against evil, that
the message that consists of its denunciation and critics is involved in evil,
and the way inverse. Obviously this is a case for ethics.
The same observation applies to the “prophet” cartoons, but with the
inverse effect: In this case evil has been produced (artistically constructed
and represented) as a means to document and to denounce evil. As such a
production is potentially associated with the call and revolt against evil, it
is likely that the original target group to which the message has been
addressed adopts an interpretation-scheme
that points the inherent call for the denunciation of evil in evil, with the
perverse consequence that the original message that consists of Islamic fascism
is to be denounced as evil.
The real signification of this
case for ethics is to be emphatically resumed as follows:
That what is obviously inadmissible within a given value system is
produced as a means to demonstrate its flagrant inadmissible nature – a
somewhat stupid and useless “didactic”, all the more so as there is no need to
provide pieces of evidence to issues that are anyway evident.
This highly inadmissible moral of this think-piece is sarcastically and
emphatically, but appropriately resumed in the motto: “Call for crime as a
means to prevent it”. It is this moral that engages the exercise of the liberty
of opinion in deviance. And this moral holds, in the final analysis, for the
perversion of this fundamental liberty and democratic value.
The preceding observations are, as already suggested before, irrelevant
to historical, scientifically well elaborated, film documents, reports and
research about Holocaust. Their application is limited to those artistic or
aesthetic products (originals and copies) that provide for images as principal
supporters of messages to be publicly addressed and that are devoid of explanatory
text accompaniment to be used as guideline for clear interpretation.
So as cartons are a major concern of our observation, short film
documents, 5 minute TV reports, photo-reports and many other products that use
the image as principal or even exclusive message tellers are not less concerned
either.
Suppose the TV evening news provides for a 5 minute report on the riots
as recently developed in the French suburbs. Suppose furthermore that the TV
report consists of a sequence of very painting and highly compressed and
confused images showing people burning down schools and cars, violent street
fights opposing police forces and young armed people, interviewing police
forces, people who are living in the suburbs and people involved in the riots
etc. Suppose furthermore that our TV report’s original aim is to document the
importance of the violence and to denounce the inadmissible nature of its
development and outcome. Obviously such a report can also be interpreted by
those who are involved in the riots as a legitimization of their cause and a
call for fighting.
The call for the return of values, however controversial this issue may
be, has become a leitmotiv in contemporary politics and policy. It has entered
the very close and selective suite of political correctness and can hardly be
labeled as irrelevant to the public debate.
In a political and cultural environment that is increasingly concerned
with the call for the return of values, cartoon ethics that incidentally follow
the motto “Call for crime as a means of crime prevention” are devoid of any
constructive effect, they contradict society’s major value concern.
If the cartoon affair provides for a lesson, then this lesson consists
of the demonstration of the highly deplorable actual state that is characteristic
of the fundamental values of western democratic and liberal society.
And the moral of the story is as follows: “Cartoon ethics” is to be
understood as a double faceted expression: The cartoon’s inherent ethical
topics and dilemmas reflect the “cartoon nature” of ethics as it is
characteristic of the actual state of the western values.
To western society amazement, only Islamic fundamentalists can really
laugh about it. Isn’t it funny?
Obviously the lesson’s message does not consist of a call for silence;
nor is it a stop call for reaction and resistance against Islamic fascism.
Rather it is the commandment to react and to resist against all sorts of
fascism in an appropriate way:
If Islamic fundamentalism is an issue that is serious enough to be faced
and combated, cartoons are assuredly not the appropriate means. If it is not
serious enough to be faced and combated, cartoons can never be supporters of
political messages either – they are produced at least just for fun.
In this case they have been produced and published as means to react
against Islamic fundamentalism and to provide a message. As far as this message
involves laity both with regards to its content (call for the return of laity)
and with regards to its roots and legitimization, Western mass media’s loud
call for the return or affirmation of laity and the strong engagement for laity
is to the amazement of every critical spirit an attitude that, obviously, is
perfectly compatible with the Western world’s, particularly Europe’s engagement
for the Palestinian cause that, since the second Intifada, has, incidentally or
deliberately, provided indirect or direct financial support to Islamic
fundamentalism.
Could it not be that the campaign that consists of the world-wide report
of the Islamic world’s reaction, that the demonstration of violence and the
staging of the shocked western world is in the end nothing but another
rationalization? - Ask cartoons!
.
[1] In
Torah language: עשרת הדברים (.”Aseret ha-Dvarîm”) and in Rabbinical Hebrew language עשרת הדברות ( “Aseret ha-Dibrot”), both
translatable as "the ten statements." The name "decalogue" is derived from the Greek name δέκαλόγοι or "dekalogoi"
("ten statements")
[2] This viewpoint has a very long tradition. From Philo
down to late medieval and even modern writers, the Decalogue has been held to be
a summary of both the articles of the true faith and the duties derived from
that faith. According to this tradition, the ten statements divided into two
groups: the first five summarizing man's relations to the Deity; the other five
specifying man's duties to his fellows. . By interpreting the contents of the
Decalogue, not merely in their legal-ritual bearing but as expressive of
ethical-religious principle, Ibn Ezra, to a certain degree, adopted this view.
[3] According Jewish interpretation, the Torah includes 613 commandments, of
which those listed in the Decalogue count for ten. It follows that Most
authorities thus do not automatically ascribe to these ten commandments any
greater significance in observance, or any special status, as compared to the remainder
of the canon of Jewish law. And yet Jewish religion does recognize these
"ten commandments" as the ideological basis for the rest of the
commandments. For argument’s sake a number of works have made groupings of the
commandments according to their links with the Ten Commandments.
[4] In many western democracies the liberty of opinion and
the freedom of press are subjected to legal limits. So as racist and
anti-Semitic opinions and propaganda is defended and sanctioned by law, the
public celebration of Nazi ideology or of Islamic fundamentalism, in some
countries, is not legally tolerated either. It is always possible
engage public debate about the question whether it is or it is not ethically
desirable and legally opportune to subject the liberty to express publicly
opinions that supposedly offence members of a religious community or that might
be perceived as a provocation to legal restrictions. But such sorts of
considerations are empirically irrelevant and do not affect the rationale of
our debate. After all people who feel
offended and damaged by other people’s exercise of liberties and rights have
always the possibility to complaint and ask for prosecution.