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Cartoon Reignites Clash of Cultural Values

Ron Coody - 9/12/2007

The latest row over some cartoons of Muhammed printed in a Swedish newspaper shows the clash of two fundamentally different cultural values. Above nearly all else, Westerners value individual expression, which is a function of individualistic self-actualization, or self-discovery, or could even be called self-creation. In exactly the opposite way, Easterners, Muslims in particular, value protecting the timeless honor of the community. This means that individuals have, in a sense, no identity apart from the community and the community’s corporate identity is defined, in this case, by the attachment to the ideal leader who epitomizes the best in the community, of course for Muslims, that leader is Muhammed. To dishonor him is to dishonor everything about the entire 1.3 billion person Muslim world, since for them he embodies everything honorable, respectable, and worthy of clinging to. The Muslims have a favorite saying from the Qur’an: if someone murders an innocent person, they are guilty of murdering the entire community. By insulting Muhammed, as the Swedish cartoonist did by drawing his head on the body of a dog, he might as well have drawn the face of every Muslim man and woman, boy and girl. He dishonored the community. There are few crimes greater than this in their eyes.



The Westerners respond with their value system, “But the cartoonist has a right to self-expression, to individualism, to say and draw what he thinks. This is the Western value. He didn’t hurt anybody.” But the Easterners don’t see it this way, and don’t feel it this way. Community honor overrides individual freedom of expression. Individualism is considered strange, or worse. In some Muslim societies, just trying to go for walk alone can be interpreted as a sign of mental problems. It is essentially a clash of individuals versus communalism.

Is there a solution? Obviously somebody has to compromise. If people continue to demand their right to individual freedom of expression and continue trying to defend their communal honor, we will only see more conflict escalating into violence. The West has historically made attempts at various times to claim the moral high ground. Is there a limit to the freedom of expression? Can the West respect the communal value system of the East without surrendering its commitment to human rights of speech and conscience? If the West takes the moral high ground, would it ever have any effect on the intense Muslim pattern of reacting to the point of violence to protect their honor? These important questions must be carefully weighed because the peaceful relations of billions of people hinge on them.