COMMENTARY
The world was so full of rage in the past week that I felt exhausted and small. The Chinese were so mad at the Japanese. The 47% "victims" according to Mitt Romney's strange world view, were enraged by Mitt Romney. The red shirts were infuriated by the Truth Commission's report. The pro-army camp was infuriated by the Truth Commission's report. Motorists were furious at the cold-hearted downpours, and the sky was so furious at everybody that it kept spitting water. Isn't hell supposed to be some sort of fire and not liquid - hot and not chilly?
Then, of course, some Muslims were seething with anger, first at that moronic video, then at the US in particular, then at the West in general. In the name of freedom of speech, a French satirical magazine didn't pull back from publishing a cartoon mocking the Prophet Mohammed - yet to be fair, that same cartoon also mocked a Jew. No, not the Holocaust per se. That would've set off another round of rage, though I suspect that might have been a retaliation already applied by some Arab publications (of course that we'll never see).
In a rage-fuelled week that also saw the British royals fuming, then suing another French magazine for printing a topless photo of the Duchess of Cambridge, Muslims might have found an unlikely ally in the House of Windsor as they - and we all - ponder the implications of some of the most difficult questions being raised amidst the din of resentment: Where is the line? Do we need a line? Is the freedom to speak, to print, to draw, to write, also a freedom to violate, insult and offend? Is cultural sensitivity or historical legacy a factor in exercising that freedom? Is the law of men greater than the law of god? Then whose god? Should the West adapt or should the Muslims adapt? Or closer to home: is our lese majeste law and the way it's being enforced an inseparable part in the stream of this global discussion? Are we alone, isolated, unique?
Kurt Westergaard, who in 2005 drew the mocking cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, on Thursday came out to urge the West to stand firm and not be silenced by the fear of offending Islamic sensibilities. "Should we in the future let ourselves be censored by Islamic authorities in deeply undemocratic countries?" Mr Westergaard has a point. He didn't elaborate, though, which undemocratic Islamic countries he was referring to. Egypt has just had a free and fair election, so maybe Iran?
Then take a look at this: In May last year, the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier was declared persona non grata by the Cannes Film Festival - his movie wasn't censored though - after he made an insensitive joke about Hitler and Jews. Anti-Semitic remarks are against the law in France. Von Trier was banned from entering the premises, at least for the rest of the 2011 festival. A day later, Cannes showed a film by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who at that point was banned from filmmaking after he'd enraged the authorities with his critical works - a gag order that Panahi valiantly and creatively defied by making an acerbic home-movie and had someone smuggle it out on a thumb drive to show at the French festival.
A villain and a hero. Perhaps, only that Panahi was sentenced to jail soon after, and the 50 shades (or more) of freedom of speech in these two juxtaposing cases - von Trier's and Panahi's - were so baffling and fascinating, for they exemplify the layers of political, historical, moral and relativist dimensions worthy of a book by, say, the late Christopher Hitchens or his good (and luckily alive) friend, himself a subject of religious rage, Salman Rushdie.
The Muslim world operates on its own set of values nurtured by embittered history and a social fabric that combines religious with civic and political life, while the West has its own frame of thought that separates god from the rest - and they have their own historical wounds to lick, like World War Two. Their definitions of freedom are different. In the past, maybe these two frames existed in their respective spheres. But now the great flux aided by technology and fluidity of mental borders brings them together in a series of overlaps and cross-currents, some of them violent as we've seen, and the wave is sweeping us - here in Thailand - in its swirl (500 Muslims here protested at the US embassy, and in 1989, Thailand was among the countries that banned The Satanic Verses).
In this complex equation, where do we stand? It's heartbreakingly tough and blindly simple: We should stand against extremism, against censorship, against provocation, and against intolerance. Anger is deserved, but anger management is even more so.
We shouldn't avoid conflict, but as the world is so full of rage, maybe it's wise to calm down, just for now. The storm won't be over anytime soon.
Kong Rithdee is Deputy Life Editor, Bangkok Post.
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About the author
Writer: Kong RithdeePosition: Deputy Life Editor
Source: http://www.news.thethailandlinks.com/2012/09/23/as-the-storms-rage-try-anger-management/
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