HOW HE SEES IT Cartoon furor spotlights problem

By JOHN HALL
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- During the Iranian hostage crisis, anti-American protesters who gathered every day outside the U.S. Embassy shook with rage at the small group of U.S. reporters gathered there.
Why, they demanded, were we depicting Islam as a religion of evil? They held up their principal exhibit, the cover of Time magazine, and its glowering, deeply shadowed photograph of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
"It makes him look like a devil," one of the demonstrators screamed at us. I thought it was a rather dark portrait of Khomeini, but a fairly accurate likeness. The protesters had an entirely different perspective.
The current worldwide furor in the Islamic world over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad is another matter.
Or is it?
Khomeini ran Iran with absolute power and his followers adored him. He unleashed militants to seize U.S. hostages and hold them captive for 444 days before releasing them a quarter-century ago. A photograph of Khomeini that was unflattering was considered blasphemous to many in Iran.
The drawings of the prophet had more widespread implication because any depiction at all of Muhammad is forbidden by Islamic law. The fear is that it could lead to idolatry.
A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published cartoons in September depicting the prophet because of growing suspicions that radical Islamic intimidation was causing self-censorship in the art-and-publishing industry. One of the cartoons depicted Muhammad with a turban shaped as a bomb.
Demonstrations were not organized by worldwide Islamic radical groups until January. But since then, they have escalated into worldwide violence against U.S. and other Western facilities and an uproar in Denmark.
Jyllands-Posten has received two bomb threats. Its culture editor has received a death threat and has to have a police guard. Danish embassies have been attacked and an international boycott of Danish goods has begun.
Supporting the Danes
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused demands for an apology, saying his government had nothing to apologize for. President Bush, after his administration at first criticized publication of the cartoons, has now taken the Danish side. He said last Wednesday that violence was no way to express discontent "with what may be printed in a free press."
The Danish government, unlike many in the Middle East, is entirely separate from its press. The decision to print cartoons rested entirely with the newspaper.
Was it a good decision to print those cartoons? "No" was the reflex reaction from too many policymakers both at the State Department and in Britain who always think the free press is inconvenient.
The controversy, however, wasn't only about the right to print cartoons. It was also about Europe's growing intolerance of Muslim culture.
The slaying of Dutch writer Theo van Gogh by a radical Muslim nearly two years ago released a wave of anti-Islamic feeling and a fear of a cultural overtaking of European values and norms. The Danes, and their growing problem with immigrants from the Islamic world, have offered more evidence that Europe is on the threshold of a cultural collision.
Fewer Europeans and Americans are trying to understand the Islamic world, and few Muslims are trying to understand Western civilization.
To steal an immortal phrase about Russia, somewhere inside the riddle of Islam is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and the West is not solving it. Europe seems panicked by it because of its history.
The Danes' clear-water ideal of an unfettered, unintimidated free press is a wonder and glory to behold, but about as relevant to Islamic history and thought as a cod to a camel. Perhaps some Muslim scholars will try to learn the mysteries of the Western press. Doubtful.
X John Hall is the senior Washington correspondent of Media General News Service.