philosophy clash.

i've been following this case of the danish newspaper cartoons with some interest (if you haven't, there's a nice timeline about halfway down that page). what's become interesting to me is not the actual events, including the violence which i think we all deplore, but the language between the governments.

basically what happened was a danish newspaper commissioned and printed a series of cartoons which mocked extreme islamists, including one of the prophet muhammed wearing a turban which looked like a bomb. apparently, islam does not allow the prophet to be depicted. so the muslims naturally were upset about this. the newspaper issued an apology, and the danish government issued a statement which was not exactly an apology, but which effectively said the newspaper was being irresponsible. so far, this is all fairly normal with how these kinds of things are handled.

then it gets interesting. the governments of various muslim countries, including pakistan, libya, and saudi arabia, started demanding that the danish government take some kind of action against the newspaper. the danish prime minister responded by saying he can't; denmark has free speech and free press laws which do not allow him to do anything other than what he's already done. then the protests and the violence started.

essentially, what i see is that these countries simply have no concept of a "free press." when the danish prime minister says he can't do anything about the newspaper, the answer seems to be, "oh, come on. you're the government. now that you've paid lip service to your 'free press,' it's time to take some action." there really appears to be no conception of a government that does not control its media. i would bet if you asked your ordinary palestinian or lebanese protester if the danish government controls its press, the answer would probably be something like, "of course they do. oh, they say they don't, but everyone knows the government controls what's printed." because there they do. the idea that a government can't is more than alien to them; it's entirely unknown. and so the problem becomes that they see the publication of these cartoons as tacitly approved of by the governments, and therefore an admission of an anti-islamic bias. because everything the press does has to be controlled by the government, right?

this dispute goes well beyond any religious questions into the more fundamental philosophies of government and power. this, i think, is what the islamic governments are really upset about: that the governments of the west are really not like them, they do not wield power in the same way, and they actually do respect the freedom of expression. it is this that is so upsetting and incomprehensible, in the end. how can they sit down and work with someone who they can't even understand? if the danish government would only take the same kind of action they would take, the diplomatic outrage would be much less. but now they are faced with apparently maintaining ties with an ally who is much more opaque than they ever imagined.