Redouan at the time of the Danish cheese shortage

This short-story/article refers to the real-life incident in which a Danish newspaper printed pictures which were known to be offensive to Muslims, and which subsequently sparked-off a brief outcry in the Islamic world, especially after it was reprinted in many major European papers. The incident occurred in late-January & early February 2006. The author is certain that this incident will become a historical footnote that the majority of future-citizens will not really remember, and so he has sanctioned me, his third-person writer, to type this introduction to remind any future-citizens just what it was that inspired this story. This story was written on the evening of February 02nd. It was started an hour before the author ate his dinner, and finished just before midnight.

The other day a 29 year-old man in Gaza overlooked his street from the front of his cafe. He had his hands on his sides as he stared. It was the same street he'd stared at every day for years, only today instead of being filled with working men, it was filled with angry men who burned some red flags, some photos of a man, and a big pretend-man.

"Who are they burning this time?" He asked sarcastically to himself.

His name was Mahmoud. He had come to realise over the years, that it was more or less the same group of people, or rather, the same type of people, who got up and screamed in the streets every time there was a public outrage. They liked to burn things when they were angry, and they liked to scream. They were all young, of course, and nearly all of them were, by Mahmoud's standards, quite unintelligent. A gust of wind blew the warmth of the flames his way and touched his icy hand, it was early February. "At least they're warming us up a bit" he said to his nephew Redouan, who was a regular helper in the cafe, "But it's far too early for all of that noise isn't it?" Said Mahmoud. Redouan smiled at him quietly and put his hand on Mahmoud's lower back. He moved like an adult even though he was 12. "Come on Uncle" and they walked inside where it was quieter.

That night Mahmoud lay awake in bed. He was not married, and so he would frequently kick his sheets with sudden bursts of energy, this was how he coped with the frustration of not being able to sleep. 'I didn't do anything today, that's why I can't sleep' He thought to himself. His mother had once told him that when ones body and mind had not been exercised properly during the day, the brain would resist sleep at night. It made more sense to Mahmoud the older he got, and he expanded on the theory. 'The body and mind is like an ambitious person, it wants to do things, go for walks, see things, stretch itself to its limits. Doing these things make the body and mind grateful, and they repay their owner by accepting the tranquillity of rest at the end of the day'. Mahmoud moved. Again. 'And those mindless young idiots drove all of my customers away!' He shouted in his mind. He breathed out loudly from his nose. He remembered them now, their faces, and the pathetic dummy they had manufactured (who Mahmoud later found out was supposed to be the Prime-Minister of Denmark) and their laboured attempts to set fire to it. He laughed out loud in his bed, a full healthy laugh, perhaps louder than was needed, but Mahmoud had energy to burn. The laugh was a brisk run up and down his street. "Idiots!" He said loudly to himself, half-laughing, remembering the very chubby young man who kept on complaining of his shoulders aching. He was carrying the fake Danish Prime Minister on his shoulders. Until they set fire to it. The fake Danish Prime-Minister was made out of newspaper. And cheese.

Another hour ticked by in thought. Mahmoud thought of his nephew, whom he regarded as his best friend on the planet even though he was 12 years old. He fell asleep.

Half a moon away, the renowned British journalist Robert Fisk was still awake writing an article on the protests that were going on around the Muslim world. He was in a hotel in Damascus. He stopped writing for a moment, a thought was coming to him and he needed to pay attention to it. He looked up (without knowing that he was looking up) at the moon, which was perfectly round and seemed brighter than a sun. His thought went like this: 'those arrogant devils! They insult a people purposefully, deliberately targeting a part of their culture that they know is sensitive, and they detonate it! They detonate it! They basically call the leader of their religion, which has a billion peaceful followers, a terrorist, and then they send their cameras out to capture the reactions of the few mob-like people there are on tape, so that they and more than half of the gullible population of Europe will all feel superior to the 'savage people' which they've shown on their cameras. That's exactly what bullies do! Ha! That's just like a bully! They push peoples buttons on purpose, then wait for that person to explode! The only difference is that some of those more idealistic people back home actually do believe that they're doing a service to freedom of expression in the press. And because of that misjudgement, now they're going to be all the more polarised against the Islamic world, because they're going to think that not only do Muslims have no freedom of expression, but that they're also a bunch of mad cry-babies who can't take an opinion that is not their own. But it's not a bloody opinion that was being expressed, it was just an immature cartoon that they knew was disrespectful!' He laughed to himself in amazement, this was the first time he had thought of it this way. He shook his head and continued writing.

A further half-moon away, in the home country of what was once the british empire, I also sat awake. I had just put words into Robert Fisk's mind even though he probably never thought those things. I did so because I respected him and usually found myself on the same page as him, but now I thought that it would be better to use my own voice instead of pretending. I thought of this nations weakness, of the particular sensitivities of England, where I was born and raised. 'What do all people really care about here?' I was attempting to make a literary comparison, to say to English or European people, 'how would you feel if we insulted a, b, or c?' But then I realised, England isn't the Muslim world. It doesn't have a unifying set of beliefs that go back one thousand four hundred years in the same way that the Islamic world does. There isn't a figure here that people would have reason to care about so passionately as Muslims care about Muhammad, peace be upon him. Who is the most loved person in Britain? It may well be the 19-year old footballer Wayne Rooney by the end of this summers World Cup in Germany, and would we be boycotting all American products if Rooney was mocked in a New York Times column? No. We wouldn't boycott American products even if the govenor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger called Wayne Rooney "a little girly boy." So this is clearly a very different culture, for better or worse, you can't compare Europe with the Islamic world. You can't take norms from one culture and expect a totally different culture to live up to them. This is what those cartoonists and editors are not getting. They know nothing about the heart of Islam. They haven't made the slightest effort, probably ever, to look at the Islamic world through anything other than colonialist eyes. If that sounds harsh then I'll change it to 'Western eyes' for you. They're not interested in understanding what the Muslim world might be like... for Muslims! That's probably to be expected though, since the majority of those writers and editors have probably never really known or been good friends with a Muslim in their entire lives. But then, given that, why do they interfere in that religion? Why would someone who clearly knows nothing about the worlds fastest growing faith, attempt to insult it? Do they see it as their duty? And in thinking of their 'freedom of expression' argument, I can only shake my head in wonder, just like the fictional Robert Fisk shook his head in the previous paragraph. Those editors, and more generally we here in the West, but they as responsible editors are wrong to think that the freedoms of this part of the globe are so wonderful as to merit us the duty of 'teaching' freedom of expression to the Islamic world, or 'testing' the Islamic world as they claimed they were doing. And even if this society were in such a good position as to not make such 'efforts' seem hypocritical, you do not teach high ideals by sinking to the lowest of methods- demeaning someone's beliefs. That's just not the way to go about dialogue, unless you're an 8 year old.

But it's okay I suppose, and this is why,

Imagine there was a new country discovered tomorrow, let's say somewhere in the Pacific Ocean between Japan and California; in fact let's call it Jaliforniapan. Let's say that the people of Jaliforniapan (yes okay, we can call them Jaliforniapanians) had their own particular system of governance, their own standards of what government should be, which kept them satisfied and kept their people relatively happy. Their system of government was different to that of the Muslim world, it was very different to the Western world. It was very different to Wales. Maybe Jaliforniapanians have an elephant-dictator running the country from a throne made of bronze gorillas. Maybe they have a group of 63 wise men to make all the decisions, maybe their country is run by female children. It doesn't matter what the system of this great nation might be, the point is, they had something that they felt worked for them. So when they encounter Western democracy (let alone Western culture) for the first time, maybe the less educated Jaliforniapanians will laugh and make-fun of it. Maybe they make fun of all of us here in the West, and draw cartoons of such preposterous institutions as 'parliament', and 'elected' leaders, and 'chairmen of the joint-chiefs of staff' (whatever that is), and the 'chief whip' (whatever that is). Maybe many of the people of Jaliforniapan really do think we're a bunch of idiots. Upon hearing the conclusions of these less educated Jaliforniapanians however, most intelligent Westerners would dismiss them as unimportant. 'Who cares what they think about us?' any intelligent Westerner would surely say, 'We're doing okay, they can think whatever they want!'

Likewise, the intelligent Muslims of the world do not, ultimately, care what varying degrees of poison any of the Western newspapers may come up with to insult them. It's sad, it's regrettable, and yes- to be honest- it's damn right rude, but it doesn't actually change the Muslim people or their beliefs. They will just end up having less respect for certain people and certain institutions, that's all. You see, despite the corrupt rulers of the Arab world (supported and aided in full by the West) who the population do not believe in (incidentally, the same way the youth of this country no longer believe in Tony Blair) they are still all very strong in their faith, they still know that what is inside their hearts could never be put out with a drawing, or with a few books or a few right-wing politicians or newspapers. What is in their hearts, is Islam, is God, is the respect and love they feel for Muhammad, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and all the other wonderful bearded men who Muslims have learnt about. And love kills hate. So in my mind, the insults don't actually say much about Muhammad or Muslims per se. The insults do however say a lot about the people who originally perpetrated them, those who drew the cartoons, published the disrespect, spread the news and then filmed the very, very small groups of flag-burners just to make sure the average European feels distant to Arab and Muslim peoples and can't relate to them (who could relate to an angry group of fire-starters? The point is they are not the Islamic world!). It's a dangerous perpetuation of an almost entirely inaccurate stereotype of Muslims. It used to annoy me, then more recently it just bored me, but now it's starting to get very dangerous. In fact, it's already gotten dangerous. But at a time like this, this incident only makes all of these editors and columnists look like trouble-stirrers, like divisive people (and any Muslim who's read even a little history will know all too well about the divisive agendas and tactics of the European colonialists in the Middle-East and North Africa; this is just an extension of that olde European attitude towards 'the Other') at a time when division seems to have reached such a high-level, at a time when bridges between Islam and the West are so important, it just makes these people look out of touch. Out of touch with what this world needs at this moment. Out of touch with the pulse of our planet. It makes them look arrogant too- if they truly did believe they were 'testing' freedom of expression, then I can't think of anything more arrogant (except, of course, for the white house trying to 'teach' democracy to the Islamic world). At best, at the very best, it makes them look completely misguided. Islam has been for over a thousand years, and it will be for much longer. No system of government is perfect, obviously no leader is perfect, and no society will ever be completely rid of all of its extremist elements. It is not, however, any one societies job to be testing or instructing any other society in anything. It is the job of societies to be getting to know one another. Arrogant people don't like to talk with other people as equals though; it's not in their nature. They prefer to be the ones to tell you, from their supposed lofty position, what you should be, how you should be.

We won't be able to rest until we use our brains to think, and use our bodies to act upon those thoughts. Using brains comes before using bodies, and thus patience is a virtue.

Redouan sat down the next day as more protests were held in the streets. This time the cameras had come and so the 'young idiots' were making an effort to scream extra loud and to make a really good, bright fire. It was a warm day already so the eloquent boy sat outside on the table, curiously staring at the shouting group of protestors with his head slanted and eyes squinting. Redouan was young and Palestinian. No one he knew had ever been killed. This was very unusual for a child of Gaza, but it was true. He hadn't experienced personal loss at the hands of the Israelis, who got their weapons from America, and who were created and morally supported by Europe. He was blessed. Whilst he knew all about the crimes committed against his people, he did not spend his energy on protesting. He had learned this from his mother and his uncle. He lived as best he could without concerning himself with the concept of 'enemies', and he practiced his religion quietly. He was happy with Islam, it made him a better person, and always reminded him that there were people worse-off than him that he should be helping. Redouan loved the prophet Muhammad dearly for teaching him things like that and many other things besides. He loved him in a way that non-Muslims will not understand, but in a way that I, Yusuf Misdaq, do understand. Love destroyed the need for hate or anger in Redouan's heart. He was what I call an educated Muslim, and they are more common than people would think. Suddenly, one shred of burning newspaper flew out of the angry-mob with a gust of wind. It was held high there for a moment, many meters above the bobbing round heads of the mob, then the wind swept it to the left, and then to the right before thrusting it down on the floor directly in front of Redouan's shoes. He looked at the picture and then read the caption, "This is what they think of our prophet!" The picture was of a silly-looking man with a bomb on his head. Redouan felt sad for a moment, sad that someone who clearly didn't know the prophet, would want to insult him like that. A protesting thought came to him, 'why don't they leave us alone? Why do they want to hurt us emotionally as well as physically? What's wrong with them?' But then he remembered his own experience of Muhammad, he remembered the stories he had heard as a child, and he thought of the things he himself had begun to read in the last few years. These were wise things, which people had been saying and reading for over a thousand years, things which wise people all over the world also believed. And all of those things were real to him, more real than a piece of newspaper passing by with the wind. All of those things Redouan knew of Muhammad made sense to him, and made sense in how he saw the world. They also made him happy inside. What lay there, next to his shoes, was a cartoon. The paper it was printed on was still burning, the black edges curling up and disappearing like a person filled with shame. Redouan smiled at the pathetic paper one last time before looking up at the large sky above him. This is what he said to the cartoon before the universal sky lifted his mind to deeper things, "Burn. Burn away from my sight."

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi email