Director to Serbia - Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI)

CRNI Executive Director Robert Russell has been invited to speak on a panel at the International Press Institute's World Congress in Blegrade on June 17th 2008.

The panel will explore the limits of tolerance in the context of the 60th anniversary of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration's Article 19 assures humanity of their right to free expression. It is under Article 19 of the Declaration that most human rights and free expression organizations operate and take their missions. In an interview, Russell said that, "it is appropriate that we reflect on this now, as all of the Declaration's Articles are observed more in the breech than the compliance by a vast majority of the UN's members. With the emergence of militant fundamentalism, tolerance is tolerated less and less; freedom of expression is under attack now more than in at any time since the emergence of the Nazis in Germany prior to WW II."

The panel was the very last event of the Congress, on the 17th at about 2:30 p.m. One other panelist was to be Kurt Westergaard from Denmark, one of the 12 Danish cartoonist and author of the most controversial of the cartoons, that of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. Kurt had been advised by his doctor that his heath wasn't up to the trip and so canceled. Serbian police had been planning extra security for him. CRNI Serbian co-representative Jugoslav Vlahovic was also in the audience. Robert met with the other representative, Nicola Otas and had discussions with both of them about future CRN activities in Serbia.

The panel moderator was Joe Treaster, a Knight Foundation Fellow, New York Times reporter and recently named to the Knight Chair in Cross Cultural Communication at the University of Miami. He is winner of more than 1000 journalism awards during his career. The other panelist was Ms. Sawsan Zaidah from Jordan. She runs a radio station coupled with the Internet. Both Sawsan and Robert spoke about their projects for a short time and the moderator asked for audience responses. Not surprisingly, the 12 Danish cartoons controversy is still a volatile topic even for the audience at the IPI Convention. Prior to the start of the session Robert proposed a number of cartoons for display during the session including Westergaard's cartoon and the Mohamed Cat cartoon by Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman. The organizers said it would be best if those cartoons were not shown. They felt that some in the audience would be offended and Robert was told that they wouldn't be shown. Robert protested to the moderator, pointing out that if the members of IPI couldn't tolerate them then journalism was in a very sorry state, that he was brought here to discuss tolerance and now these examples of intolerance wouldn't be tolerated. His protest was noted and ignored so Robert proceeded without those two cartoons. As it was, the panel was so heated and debate so fast and there wasn't a chance to show any cartoons at all. However, at one point a Serbian audience member got a cartoon by late American cartoonist Doug Marlette showing Serbia as a pig up on the screen. Published many years ago, the cartoon still was a source of anger in Serbia, even with the audience of Serbian journalists. "Is this the kind of thing you want people to tolerate" someone shouted from the floor. There was a small scuffle in the audience and the cartoon was taken down.

The CRNI Director made the following points.

Among those who object to some cartoons and question the wisdom of free speech when it insults religion, there may be a perception that free speech is somehow a secular concept fundamentally at odds with core religious values.

In the West, we fought a 400 year battle for freedom of speech. It ended only in the 1940's when the works of Galileo upsetting the Catholic doctrine that the earth revolved around the sun were finally accepted and Galileo posthumously absolved of charges of apostasy. During the 400 years of the Catholic Inquisition (according to some historians) hundred of thousands of people were put to death in the most grotesque, cruel and inhuman ways. Most of them women, for daring to believe in something other than Catholic doctrine.

During the period of the Reformation, illegal books were printed in European publishing centers and smuggled like so many kilo packages of crack cocaine aboard ships for delivery to people badly addicted to new ideas. These idea-addicts pulled up their roots and taking terrible risks created new worlds in order to live according to their conscience. The history of freedom of expression in the West was a history of the struggle for freedom of religion. In the West, freedom of speech is a hard fu\ought and continually challenged right that is as sacred to Western values as reverence for the Prophet is in Islam.

On the topic of the 12 Danish cartoons, when some in the audience pointed out the hypocrisy of the Holocaust laws in Europe, an American publisher said that most of the American press declined to print the cartoons as they were in "bad taste" and that in America we "didn't have to prove anything" about freedom of expression. Robert asked why they still weren't published when they became newsworthy.

There was a lot of conversation about the hypocrisy of the West in terms of willingness to insult the Prophet but not their own Royalty or Christian religious figures.

Robert also spoke about the hypothetical feelings of an immigrant community in Europe. In their countries of origin Muslims are rerely confronted by challenges from other religions, it is impossible in most Islamic states to even build a Christian church. Proselytizing Christians are not tolerated and in many Muslim societies, refuting Islam and changing your religion is publishable by death. Having lived in fairly closed societies, Muslims have few cultural defenses against encroaching religions. They are in the majority in their own lands. When the Muslim immigrant comes to Europe they are suddenly a minority in a hostile environment. Strangers in a strange land if you will. The environment can seem suddenly extraordinarily hostile and threatening: if you've never had to explain or talk about your religion or find accommodating middle ground with other ideologies. The new environment can seem overwhelming and impossible.

Robert mentioned that cartoonists are that part of journalism who take different kinds of risk and work with a different tool box than the investigative reporter. Insult, satire, emasculating figures of authority and power are part of the cartoonist's palette.

The subject of the Jordanian Ministry of Justice attempt to extradite the Danish cartoonists and the publishers who printed the Mohammad cartoon came up. The moderator observed that extradition across borders was a well precedented legal practice but that in this circumstance with journalists and insult to a religion it was quite extraordinary. Robert mentioned that this is not done in a vacuum, that the change in the language for the Special Rapporteur at the UN Human Rights Councils is probably the source of this adventurism. Robert predicted that we will see a growing number of such legal actions now that the UN has changed the language of the Councils's mandate. One of the Officers of IPI commented that this issue (the Human Rights Council) will be an important point of IPI actions over the coming year.

Conclusion: It was surprising how much this audience seemed to misunderstand and challenge the role of the cartoonist in free speech. There were some in the audience who seemed to think that some how, somewhere there should be limits on what subjects cartoonist can address. The causal link between governmental transparency, free speech and the cartoonist's role is not clear to some. The individuals reflecting a more global perspectives in the room understood, but the people who represented very limited points of view or very parochial perspectives showed little appreciation for the risk inherent in limiting a cartoonist's pen and thereby limiting other investigative inquiry.

For CRNI this experience was tremendously important, networking with the kinds of personalities and professionals that CRNI needs on the Board. Robert was able to make a number of new processional contacts and set up a number of appointments to talk about both funding and new Board members.

June 23, 2008