The burning of the embassies in Damascus, as well as the Danish consulate in Lebanon, is an unacceptable reaction to the conflict about the cartoon illustrations of the prophet Muhammad, originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September of 2005.

No matter what o­ne’s beliefs or indignation of a conflict are, these acts of violence can never be accepted as means to express o­nes opinion. The same goes for the extremist groups calling upon death to the cartoonists drawing these 12 pictures. The o­nly way forward in the conflict is through dialogue and open mindedness from all sides involved.

The conflict spans over many issues. o­n the o­ne hand there is the claim of freedom of expression, which in the western societies is a fundamental value which must never be violated. The right to free expression comes however with the duty to take responsibility for your actions. The original printing of the cartoons was set forward as a means to mark and test the boundaries of freedom of expression by an independent newspaper, and therefore Jyllands-Posten must take the responsibility for launching this process as a stand for their principle rights within the western societies. The other European newspapers that reprinted the cartoons last week, must also take responsibility for why they took that action. The main argument for those newspapers has been to show support of freedom of expression after the Muslim boycott of Denmark as a result of the publishing of the cartoons.

However, this issue is far from o­nesided, as the cartoons have set focus o­n the cultural differences between the communication tools and values of the different societies.

While satirical cartoons including religious references is a normal tool within the western societies, it has been perceived by many in the Muslim world as a strong provocation, as this is far from their normal boundaries of acceptable communication and respect for religion.

In this case there’s an issue which should be considered together with the right of freedom of expression, which is the respect for other people’s beliefs. Even though the right to free expression always should be universal, there is the rightful claim that, as a responsible publicist in a global society spanning many different religious and political beliefs, o­ne has a responsibility to depict your expressions with the respect of the global diversity. This is a consideration that unfortunately not all newspapers seem to have taken in to their considerations before publishing these cartoons.

Those provoked by the cartoons are fully entitled to express their unhappiness with the publication, if they so feel. Just as it’s the right of all people around the world to express their beliefs in a peaceful way, with respect for their counterpart’s opposing view.

The western societies must learn to respect the strong integration between religion and society in the Muslim world, just as the Muslim society must respect that in the western societies freedom of speech and a free and independent press, means that the politicians do not decide what is being printed in the media, and must recognize the distinction between press and state, even though it might not be the case in their own society. The publication of the cartoons has never been the responsibility of the politicians in the western society, just as they must never issue an excuse for what an independent free press publishes.

The conflict unfortunately seemed to be additionally fueled by extremist o­n both sides, taking this conflict as a chance for them to provoke further violent conflict in order to promote their own cause. This has led to provenly wrong stories fueling the conflict o­n both sides.

As fighters for liberal values, IFLRY condemns these acts of violence and urges all sides to start communicating and seeking the enlightenment of the truth, instead of being mislead by extremist with ulterior motives. The o­nly way forward out of this conflict is for both sides to recognize and respect that the other side has different values and religious integration in their society.

The conflict however, must never result in an excuse for exercising the fundamental right of free expression, which is a universal human right that should never be abandoned. Not from the newspaper or from the politicians.

However IFLRY encourages all media to look within themselves to define which values they want their media to be asserted with in the future. All newspapers, TV stations, web pages, etc all over the world imposes everyday self censorship as to what to bring in their media, related to which content they want to bring and which beliefs to respect and what they want to have their media known for. This is no different in the case of these cartoons. An enlightened conscious decision to publish these cartoons is always welcome in a free press. Just as the political process leading up to the conflict could easily be evaluated upon whether or not there have been amble actions to secure communication between the different societies.

For further information please contact: Jacob Rasmussen, IFLRY President +4540684320 or at Jacob@iflry.org

IFLRY: International Federation of Liberal Youth, IFLRY, is a world wide liberal youth organization seeking to spread liberal values globally by empowering and uniting liberal-minded youth organizations. With more than 2 million members from 100 countries around the world, IFLRY speaks o­n behalf of the liberal youth with a strong voice.

This entry was posted on Miércoles, Febrero 8th, 2006 at 20:25 and is filed under IFLRY/LYMEC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.