When I first heard that a Danish media published caricatures of Prophet Mohammad (tag) last year, to be honest, being a Muslim myself, I was slightly irritated. Though it’s an act of free speech, the Danish media abused its rights. That was that and I didn’t expect it to balloon up unnecessarily. I didn’t expect it because I don’t think it’s rational for such issue to take a center stage in world politics. Apparently, I have overestimated the Muslim world’s sensibility. Muslim Malaysians on the contrary are acting coolly. Comparing Malaysians’ response against Arabs and Indonesians’ reaction on it, I can’t help but feel proud to be a Malaysian.
In my opinion, what’s happening in the Muslim world is a gross overreaction followed by impossible demand. The side at fault is the rightwing newspaper Jyllands-Posten, not the Danish government. Moreover, the Danish government has no right to censor the newspaper. Nobody should but that’s another matter altogether. Hence, the Danish government has no reason to apologize.
I’m not sure whether it’s simply a refusal to understand the concept of free press or a thick skull but a lot of people are choosing to ignore why the Danish government is refusing to take the blame. Libya’s act of closing its embassy in Denmark is one of the overreaction and also an example of failure to appreciate free press concept. Another one is consumer boycotts in the Arab world. These boycotts, instead of hurting the rightwing paper, are hurting real people that have nothing to do with the paper. This is plain wrong. It’s as stupid as Republicans’ action of boycotting French fries during the invasion of Iraq – that boycott would only hurt potatoes farmers in the United States instead of the French economy.
Malaysian Prime Minister has been discrete on the matter, criticizing the paper instead of the Danish government. Apart from 50 PAS supporters that protested in front of the Danish embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday – which obviously doesn’t represent the majority – Malaysians are being quite rational on the matter. I haven’t heard Malaysians storming the Danish embassy like what happened in Jakarta or anybody calling a boycott of Danish or any European products here in Malaysia yet.
The ability to discern between the government and a private entity is not lost on Malaysians, unlike Arabic countries and Indonesia. In fact, I think, Malaysia is the only Muslim-majority country that is not blaming the Danish government for a private entity’s doing. I might be wrong but it seems like so.
To all Muslims out there, seriously, be sensible. The first thing to do is to realize that it’s a rightwing paper that started this, not Denmark the country. Differentiate the two and then comprehend that the Danish government can’t censor that paper. Blaming and targeting the Danish government and its people for things that they didn’t do only complicates the matter at hand and bring about a much unneeded clash of culture.
So Denmark, I stand by thee. But definitely not by Jyllands-Posten.
I will not treat a country that believes in green energy unfairly. So, buy Danish!p/s – stupid, stupid. This is way beyond overreacting.
pp/s – despite all this, it doesn’t change the fact that there is hypocrisy involved. This comic aptly captures the hypocrisy.
Quoting Wikipedia: Cartoon from Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad. Counter-clockwise: “This one is anti-semitic”, “this one is racist”, “those fall under free speech”.
