The cat cartoon controversy: Who won?

The cat cartoon controversy: Who won?

Mahfuzur Rahman

Published on September 27, 2007

The week of September 17, 2007 was truly remarkable. It will, I believe, remain lodged in the nationï¿½s memory for years to come. At least it will in mine. I am talking about the week of the cartoon of the cat.

     On Monday the weekly supplement Aalpin of the widely circulating Bengali daily Prothom Alo carried a three-part cartoon. I can only describe it here in so many words. I cannot do justice to the cartoon itself. (Even if I could, I suppose any attempt at it will be an infringement of the law, since the cartoon has been banned by the Government) It is not for nothing that a picture is said to be worth a thousand words, though the characters of the cartoon have words of their own, which makes my task easy.

     In the cartoon, man meets boy. Here is, first, a middle- aged man in lungi and Punjabi, wearing a beard and sporting a skull cap, with a traditional gamchha flung across his left shoulder. A nice looking fellow really, with cherubic eyes that often go with simplicity of the heart. Man confronts boy, also with cherubic eyes, cuddling a cat. Man asks boy (and I use a literal translation): ï¿½Boy, what is your name?ï¿½ ï¿½My name is Babuï¿½, replies boy. ï¿½You should say ï¿½Muhammadï¿½ before you say your name,ï¿½ man admonishes boy. As a follow-up, and probably to test whether his lesson in etiquette had produced the desired result, man asks boy, ï¿½Whatï¿½s your fatherï¿½s name?ï¿½ ï¿½Muhammad Abu,ï¿½ boy replies. Happy with the result, man condescends. ï¿½What is it you are carrying?ï¿½ he asks. ï¿½Muhammad catï¿½, pat came the reply.

      The next day all hell broke loose. There rose a loud chorus of protest. What the protesters were protesting about was that by associating the name of the Prophet of Islam with a mere cat the cartoonist had insulted Islam and hurt the ï¿½religious sensibilitiesï¿½ of the Muslims. The editor of Prothom Alo promptly issued a statement apologizing for   publishing the cartoon which he termed a mistake. To show that he meant what he said, he also fired the cartoonist, the young Arifur Rahman, a talented artist. He also fired the sub-editor in charge of the publication, Aalpin.

     Matters did not end there. On Tuesday Arifur Rahman was arrested by the police, on charges of ï¿½hurting religious sentiments.ï¿½ There were more protests from religious zealots. The law and information advisor of the caretaker government said that the publication of such a cartoon was nothing less than a conspiracy, though it was not clear what the nature of the conspiracy was or who it was directed at. In order to contain the situation, he met religious leaders who, however, wanted legal action against the editor and the publisher of the newspaper. On Wednesday, September 19, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami of the Jamaat-i-Islami called the publication of the cartoon insulting to Islam and said it had hurt the Iman of the Muslims. Several Islamic organizations demanded that the publication of Prothom Alo be banned and its editor arrested. Activists of these organizations held demonstrations and burned copied of the newspaper. On their part, several political parties lauded the decision of the editor of the newspaper to withdraw the cartoon, while others, while expressing their ire at the publication, expressed the hope that the newspaper will refrain from publishing such offensive cartoons in the future. On the same day a magistrate sent the cartoonist to jail.

       That too did not end the matter. On Thursday, September 20, a bevy of newspaper editors from all shades of journalism issued a statement, after a meeting with the law and information adviser, pleading with the ulema community of the country to accept the apology tendered by the editor of Prothom Alo, urging them to let the matter rest, also in view of action taken by the government, meaning the jailing of the cartoonist. They also rebuked Prothom Alo and warned it against any repetition of such offence. Still the saga dragged on. On the same day, in an unheard of move, the editor of Prothom Alo met with prominent religious leaders, the most prominent of them being the khatib of the Baitul Mukarram mosque, and apologized to them in person. This was no ordinary apology, however. It took the format of a ceremonial tauba, a procedure invoked when a grave sin has been committed. The gesture appeared to work. The khatib called for calm.

     But Islamist zeal was not so easily calmed. The following day, after the Friday congregation prayer at Baitul Mukarram, hundreds (on some accounts thousands) of   Islamists brought out processions, chanting slogans, some which demanded that the editor and publisher of Prothom Alo be hanged and the newspaper itself be banned. Some of these slogans denounced the newspaper and its editor and publisher as Zionist agents. A large group, mainly led by Hizbut Tahrir, among the most miltant Islamist organizations, then began a march towards Prothom Alo offices. These marchers were lathi-charged by the police at several points of the route, wounding dozens, and were finally dispersed. But the fury in the atmosphere was palpable.

      As if to make the week truly unique, another newspaper came under fire. The Shaptahik 2000, in its Eid issue published an autobiographical piece by the exiled secularist write Daud Haider that also supposedly hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims. Government promptly banned the issue, and its editor, too, tendered an apology to the public and withdrew it from circulation, but not before anger at Shaptahik 2000 added to fury at Prothom Alo.

     But let us stick to the cartoon affair. The implication of what happened that week goes far deeper than the dramatics of the narrative I have given above. It touches the existence of our secular society. And it practical terms it all boils down to a stark fact: this was   appeasement of Islamic fundamentalism verging on capitulation.

    The tendering of a formal apology from the editor of Prothom Alo for the publication of the cartoon was itself uncalled for. But there are precedents for such apology and whether one liked it or not -- I did not and do not ï¿½ it almost became a standard practice to assuage hurt feelings. This time a new precedence seems to have been created, and a far more dangerous one. This time a respected editor of a major newspaper, which has for so long upheld secularism and liberalism in the country, goes, hat in hand, to the den of religious leaders, formally to tender apology, and that too in the strict Islamic fashion of a tauba. This was not just humility; this was humiliation. The nationï¿½s secular tradition lay prostrate while the Islamists stood ten feet tall. This was no mere symbolism; next time something similar to the cat cartoon happens, perhaps the ulema will demand, and administer, some corporal punishment to the offending editor, meted out in public.

     The failure of the government to stem this turn of events is singular. Should it not have, once the editor had issued the first statement of apology, declared that the matter should stop there and that any attempt to stir up trouble would be quashed? It had the power to do so. Instead, the government dallied, only said it saw evil hands behind the publication of the cartoon, and looked happily on as the editor uttered the tauba.

     It is easy to be hard on Matiur Rahman, the editor of Prothom Alo. One should not be. Probably he had no choice. The alternative might have been physical attack on the newspaperï¿½s offices and facilities, which could even have been burnt down. That could have been preempted by timely government action following closely on his first apology. The government appeared to throw him to the wolves instead. Note also that other editors were no heroes either. They sought only appeasement and did not seem to mind the humiliation of their comrade. None of them came forward to say that the cartoon in fact was totally harmless and should not have provoked the reaction it did.

     And the surge of events swept aside the central issues of the nature of the cartoon and the fundamental the right of an individual to express himself. No less important, it also tended to wipe away from public view the nature of the protests and the protesters.

    Perhaps the strangest thing in this sorry saga is that there was no debate on the alleged offensiveness of the cartoon. Exactly how did it offend the religious ï¿½sensibilityï¿½ of the Muslims? The cartoon does not insult the Prophet of Islam. At worst, by using two simpletons, one adult and a child, it caricatures a mindset among Muslims. The touch of irreverence that is there relates to a habit, not to the Prophet. There was nothing in it that was ï¿½completely unacceptable,ï¿½ the term used by the editor in his apology.

       The matter of hurting the religious sensibilities of the Muslims is old hat. This time too the bogey has been quickly invoked, and with vengeance and greater precision. The leader of Jamaat-i-Islami reportedly said that it had hurt, specifically, the iman, or faith (in God, His prophets, His Books and so on),of the Muslims of Bangladesh and the world. I have always found such talk quite infantile. Should not the iman of an individual be strong enough to withstand any perceived attack? Is not a weak iman itself an inglorious thing for a Muslim to possess? And how does a religion that is supposed to have matured over a period of almost 1400 years get hurt by a mere cartoon such as this?

      It is perhaps pertinent here to contrast the outrage of these Islamists to the complete lack of it when serious infringements of the acknowledged principles of the Koran itself have been committed. Take for instance the wonton killing of dozens of innocent people by Islamist terrorists in Bangladesh over the past few years. The Koran says that if one killed a single innocent person ï¿½it would be as if he slew the whole peopleï¿½ ( V:32). ï¿½Moderateï¿½ Muslims often quote the verse in defence of Islam against allegations that it often encourages violence. Yet there was no outrage from the Islamists when their co-religionists perpetrated the killing of dozens on the soil of Bangladesh. Was the ï¿½offenceï¿½ of the cartoonist greater than the sins of those killers?

     This brings me to the question of who exactly were at the forefront of the present expression of outrage. The list of persons and organizations protesting the cartoon is speaks for itself. It includes a khatib who wanted to do jihad against America for its invasion of a Taliban Afghanistan. Organizations prominent on the list have sworn to make Bangladesh an Islamic State at all cost. Some of these organizations have led violent attacks on the Ahmadiyas and would have the community declared non-Muslim. Some of them have direct or indirect links with Islamist terrorists. One wonders, then, instead of confronting them, why was so much effort spent on appeasing them.

      It would be futile to tell the Mullahs, especially in the present situation, that manï¿½s creative genius thrives on breaking the bonds of the tradition and exploration of the new. The cartoon in question was a miniscule example of looking at the mundane with a new pair of eyes. But they would not understand such subtleties. But they must at least be made to understand that freedom of expression is something we are not about to forego.

    Sadly, on the issue of the cat cartoon it is they who have declared victory. It will be tragic if we let this be repeated. The first essential step for us will be not to let the issue pass, but to go on arguing, in every forum and even after the rage has died down, that the cartoon did not deserve condemnation, and neither did its creator, Arifur Rahman. Meanwhile we must to all we can to secure the artistï¿½s release.

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Mahfuzur Rahman, a former United Nations economist, is currently researching in religious fundamentalism