Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published recently in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo caused disturbance and protests across the Islamic world. Disturbance caused by the American film Innocence of Muslims which was recently published on the Internet and lead not only to mass conflicts in the world, but also unveiled unprecedented violence in Benghazi and Cairo and even resulted in murder of American diplomats, has scarcely grew calmer, when French media published deliberately provocative drawings. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault named the publishers’ activity a provocation and expressed his deep resentment regarding the publication of the cartoons. However, the attempt to settle the conflict at the state level has failed. World’s mass media, including Islamic, immediately started reporting the incident, which again led to protests. Media in different parts of the world either condemn publication of these controversial cartoons of the Prophet, or say that they see nothing that could cause a conflict, often without realizing the extent of personal responsibility. On September 26 the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan responded to the French weekly by publishing 13 cartoons of their own, in which they tried to show that Muslims are perceived through the prism of stereotypes in Europe. In particular, one of the sketches depicts a peaceful Muslim next to his copy highlighted by a flashlight with the US emblem. The highlighted man has a knife in his hand and an evil smirk on his face. With these cartoons Egyptian newspaper let the European press know that they can’t hope for civilized settlement of the conflict if they publish offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
“Unfortunately, today majority of European politicians and journalists take literally the term ‘freedom of speech.’ Some people believe that it gives them the right to print anything. However, there are topics which should be better avoided or mentioned with great caution. It is like high-tension current,” said Viacheslav Shved, chief of the Middle East and Asian-Pacific department, National Institute of Strategic Studies commenting on the publication of the cartoons. “Journalists must understand that without knowing the background they should not speculate on the subject of religion especially when it comes to the Islamic world. Of course, the media oriented on intellectuals realize the complexity of the Arab situation and therefore they write with great tact materials on this topic. Instead Arabic newspapers do not always understand why a Western president or chancellor can not ban these processes. By the way, the Western media never speculate on the subject of Holocaust. In Western society there are certain topics which have been unofficially tabooed. European media workers are aware that the Holocaust is a cornerstone of modern international diplomacy. Perhaps, from the point of view of an average European citizen it is hard to understand why it is not good to criticize Muslim faith and draw cartoons of the Prophet. But journalists are those who should not speculate on the subject of Islam, but instead they should explain to people why it is better not to criticize the Prophet Muhammad. If people won’t understand this, from time to time we will face such scandalous ‘explosions,’ setting the stage for terrorist acts and various disturbances. Global media should feel personal responsibility for these processes.”
