Modernity in the Protests of Muslims

By Farish A Noor

Thus far much has been said and written about the global Muslim response to
the controversy surrounding the caricatural cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
that appeared in a Danish newspaper last year. Western observers in
particular seem to be shocked by the extent of Muslim anger worldwide, and
the level of organisation that has gone into the demonstrations that have
erupted from Europe to Southeast Asia. Those who read this as an instance of
the ‘revenge of God’ or a sudden display of emotional piety are missing the
point: The demonstrations, global in scope and highly orchestrated in their
execution, shows precisely how modern, developed and globalised the Muslim
world has become. This was, in fact, a demonstration of a parallel form of
globalisation at work: albeit one that is not capital-driven but rather
based on a set of firmly shared values.

For decades, if not centuries, Occidental scholars have been asking the same
questions: Are Muslims modern? Can Islam be reconciled with modernity? etc.
It appeared as if these innane questions were being asked in some
a historical vacumm, oblivious of the fact that Muslims have been among the
first to embrace the tools of modernity from the beginning: the printing
press, modern transport, modern notions of identity, citizenship, the
nation-state; modern commerce and now internet and virtual communication
technology and modes of representation. The images of the cartoons were
transmitted world-wide via a network of interlinked Islamist websites and
portals, they were discussed and criticised in Islamist chatrooms in
cyberspace, and the protests against them were likewised organised and
co-ordinated in cyberspace. How modern can Muslims get?

What we have seen therefore is clear evidence of a globalised Muslim world
on the march. Islamist NGOs, parties, movements, civil society groups, media
outlets and politicians have mobilised Muslims and got them on the streets
to demonstrate the will of the Muslim masses, and more importantly the power
of the Muslim dollar. The boycott of Danish goods has shown that the Muslim
dollar has clout - Muslims are rich, by the way - and that the Muslim dollar
can make or break Western economies when it wants to.

But beyond the spectacular aspect of these demonstrations and their equally
spectacular results (leading to Western leaders cringing and begging for
forgiveness on Arab-Muslim TV channels) we have lost sight of the issue
itself and the real underlying problems that perhaps could have done with a
little more academic interrogation.

The cartoons themselves could be read not as caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad (for indeed we do not know what the Prophet actually looked like)
but were really caricatures of the everyday ‘Muhammad’ of the contemporary
Arab-Muslim world. The cartoons were racist, offensive, abusive in more ways
than one, but they really revealed the darker side of the Western liberal
conscience and how some segments of Western society - including those who
proudly claim to be Western liberals - really see Arabs and Muslims today.
The stereotype image of the Arab as gun-carrying murderous fanatic was and
is more an invention of the paranoid Western liberal mind, blind to its own
racism, than anything else. This is perhaps one of the reasons that the
cartoons caused so much pain to so many Arabs, who already have to labour
with the painful realities of a Palestine under occupation and an Iraq
brought to its knees by the American war machine.

The other aspect of the demonstrations that ought to be studied seriously is
how well developed the global Islamist mediatic machine has grown. Over the
decades, Islamist groups have learned the power of the media. Orchestrated
media-directed protests such as we have seen show just how well integrated
this parallel Muslim universe has grown, and the response time between the
spark that ignites the crisis and the reaction to the crisis has grown ever
shorter. Within 72 hours of the cartoon controversy re-emerging, a Muslim
response was seen and heard from London to Indonesia.  This demonstrates the
extent to which this has become such a well-developed, smooth-running global
machine.

But the phenomenon of media-orchestrated protests, mediated and reproduced
via the media, also faces the real threat of becoming ritualistic,
predictable and thus easy to manipulate. Indeed, one cannot help but feel
that this entire crisis is being manipulated by conservative elements on
both sides, who wish to see the Muslim and Western worlds grow further
apart.

The danger then, is this: Without the help of circuit-breaking mechanisms in
the form of level-headed commentators and dialogue agents who can prevent
such crises from spinning totally out of control, we now face the real
prospect of future incidents - both real and imagined - being spun by
media-savvy demagogues who want to create controversies for the sake of
publicity. Absent in this whole incident were the voices of reason who were
capable of calming the nerves of everybody. Educated Muslim intellectuals
ought to have stepped into the arena and cautioned the angry young men of
the Muslim street before doing stupid things. One such case was the idiotic
reaction of the British Muslim youth Umar Khayyam, who dressed as a suicide
bomber during the demonstrations in London last week. The demonstration was
also marred by the presence of placards bearing provocative slogans like
‘Kill those who insult Islam’ - a slogan designed not to defend the image of
Islam and the Prophet, but which rather had the effect of helping to
demonise Muslims further.

Now we are left with the final tricky question: If this culture of global
mediated protest continues without any introspection, what may happen in the
future? Will Muslims react to every such incident in such an unreflective
way? What might happen, for instance, if some poor innocent driver were to
accidentally back his car into a mosque in London? Would this be seen as an
‘attack on Islam’ and would there be another round of protests,
demonstrations and boycotts against British goods?

Muslims have every right to protest against the injustices meted out against
them. But let these injustices be real ones, not imagined. And as Muslims
make their case and take their stand, they can and must be polite, rational
and firm - never blindly reactionary. For that would merely confirm every
negative stereotype of Muslims that they have been fighting against for all
these years.

End.