The Rajpal Abeynayake Column:

On meeting those cartoonists of the Prophet

MOSCOW: I met the men who caused the infamous Prophet Mohammed cartoon controversy.

The Editor of the Danish Jyllands Posten, which carried cartoons of the Prophet, was in Moscow to address the world's newspaper editors at the 13th World Editors Forum. His subject: Lessons from the Mohhamed Cartoon Clash.

He may have considered it a great opportunity. He reiterated that he defends the publication of the cartoons purporting to be of the Prophet - but he did apologize for the carnage that was wrought as a consequence.

An Editor of a paper called the Punch, from Nigeria, was on the panel as well. This Editor said that he thought to himself how something that happened 3000 miles away could effect the lives of poor Nigerians so badly.

Over 150 people died in Nigeria as a result of the controversy over the cartoons. Muslims killed Christians, and then there were reprisal killings that killed scores more. Thousands of dollars worth of property was lost.

But the Jylands Posten Editor was stony faced through all of this. When I asked him whether he would carry a cartoon of Jews getting gassed in what looked like a cartoon depiction of a concentration camp, he replied, equally stony faced that "it is very important to me that I have carried cartoons of this type of thing you referring to.''

He then added: "I reprinted these cartoons which appeared in the Arab press.'' He had oodles of support from Eric le Boucher, the co-Editor of Le Monde in France, who as also a panelist.

There is a back-story behind Boucher's presence on the panel in Moscow.

His was one of the newspapers which re-printed the Jyllands Posten cartoons of the Prophet - one of them of the Prophet hatted up to look like Osama bin Laden.

His newspaper carried the re-publications as a sign of solidarity, and as an "'affirmation of the right to free expression.'' On top of carrying the Jayllands Posten cartoons, Le Boucher also carried a cartoon from the pen of his own cartoonist in Le Monde, which carried the words from the Holy Koran to the effect ''do not depict the Prophet.''

A montage of the words 'do not depict', made up a bearded purportedly Prophet-like figure in this cartoon, which Le Boucher defended in Moscow as ''.......being very graceful, no?'' I remember thinking that this Frenchman had just insisted on giving new meaning to the word graceful, but no matter, I let that pass.

But, I did ask Le Boucher at the panel discussion which ensued, whether he would carry a cartoon of Jews being gassed at what looked like a concentration camp, and whether such a cartoon would be made up of a montage of the scribbled words 'the final solution.''' Boucher looked hard at me and said "what are you talking about, 6 million people died in the concentration camps didn't they?'' But the panel discussion was tightly moderated, which meant that I did not have time for a rejoinder.

Yet, I was happy I got this much on the record from a man who defended the Jyllands Posten cartoons of the Prophet.

What was important was the fact that Boucher was willing to go on record saying that he thought there were some limits on the freedom of expression. So much for this man's defense of the grand notion of untrammeled free media. He was not willing, apparently, to carry cartoons of Jews being gassed in his news pages. Not that I wanted him to - may all the deities forbid that.

But for sake of argument - here was a man who though some things should be censored because he thought they were objectionable - - but yet he thought nothing wrong about re-printing cartoons depicting the Prophet, which he thought was perfectly alright, and "graceful''.

He then went onto say ''cartoons are meant to hurt - if they don't hurt they are not cartoons.'' So he also meant to say "the cartoons of the Prophet were meant to hurt, and if some Muslim people were hurt, so what about it??''

I did feel like asking him, "so what's the harm hurting six million Jews a little then?'' Or better still, that question should have gone '' six million Jews were put to death in the concentration camps, but whatever we may say these Jews are dead now... but yet you'd rather not hurt 6 million dead Jews - who can't be hurt anyway because they are dead - but you'd rather hurt millions of living Muslims and risk causing hundreds, perhaps thousand of deaths in the process?

There was no sense of contriteness from this man Boucher about the hundreds of Muslims and Christians who died in Nigeria as a result of this needless cartoon controversy.

Of course these people should not have died. At one point, Boucher and his fellow travelers on the panel tried to make a great to-do about the fact that newspapers did not do much to prevent the riots.

But it turned out that most newspapers particularly in Asia and Africa did precisely what they were supposed to do - these newspapers opined that the cartoons may have been in poor taste, but there was no need for violence and that the violence was counter productive. (This newspaper, the Sunday Observer also said so editorially.)

Eventually, the panelists tried to make out that the cartoon controversy was something that mimicked the clash of civilisations, and it appeared they had rehearsed themselves to give just such an impression.

This aspect of the controversy could perhaps be discussed in a future column in that space, but it was sad that this whole needless controversy that cost hundreds of lives was cast as a crusade for the freedom of expression! It was also cast as a civilisational joust, between two antipodes - Western and occidental. (Christian, Islamic?) The egregious aspect of irresponsibility, of being insensitive to the core cultural underpinnings of somebody else's belief system was complexity lost in this arrogant high dudgeon defense of free speech.

I came off wondering how many true free speech advocates who may have now passed onto Wallhallah or whichever great beyond would react? On hearing this free speech defence, the mortals coils they left behind may be turning in their graves....