Even while Manipur is immersed in the controversy over the life attempt on a well known journalist by an underground organization, a not so similar media issue is raging in the West. Danish newspapers in September published a series of cartoons of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, some of which are said to have lampooned him as a terrorist (we have still not seen them although they are reported to be on the internet editions of these newspapers). The issue was met with a muted response from the Muslim world until recently when French journals and weeklies decided to reprint them in the name of the freedom of the press despite efforts by their government to stop them. Ever since there have been explosions of sentiments wherever there are Muslim presence. In Afghanistan, there have been several deaths when angry mobs tried to storm American military installations, in other Muslim countries, including in South East Asia, Denmark called upon its citizens to withdraw, fearing reprisal against them. In Iran, newspaper establishments retaliated by coming up with cartoons that denied there ever was anything as the holocaust. Some, including Syed Shahbuddin, dared the same French journals to reprint these cartoons as well in the name of freedom of the press, but the latter have declined, and quite interestingly again in the name of the freedom of the press. In Europe, denying the holocaust, in which an estimated six millions European Jews were exterminated by Hitler in his infamous "Final Solution" campaign, is a legal offence. Freedom of the press, it does seem is not so easy to pin, much less describe in absolute terms.
The difficulty, we suppose, is to do with the very concept of freedom itself. Can freedom be defined in absolute terms? Can anybody be free to hurt or kill another? Like so many propositions of modern life, freedom must also have to be about negotiation for a compromise where one comes to term with the sense of freedom enjoyed within a definite space without encroaching into another’s, or better still, finding a way to share the same space without trampling on each other’s feet. The closest anybody has got to absolute freedom ironically was in literature. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in this sense has become an immortal example that has thrown invaluable light on so many different fields of study into human society including economics, psychology, political science, to name just a few. A much acclaimed Hollywood film The Cast Away recreated the Crusoe scenario in the modern environment quite convincingly, and those of us familiar with both the stories know that in these hypothetical situations, absolute freedom becomes a trap from which the victims desperately try to escape. Freedom, depending on how it is defined, can actually be frightening. As indeed, amidst all the violence and bloodshed Manipur is caught in, those who keep their ears close enough to the ground would have heard the same fear whispered by many ordinary men and women. Beyond all the passionate rhetoric, what indeed would the true essence of freedom mean in the Manipur context is one question that beggars a meaningful discourse.
Freedom, in many ways is also a relative concept. The Western notion of it, and secularism, for instance are too extreme for much of the rest of the world to swallow, as the Muslim world is today discovering. They willingly and with relish tear down and dissect cherished institutions not just of others but their own as well. The Da Vinci Code, Jesus Christ Super Star, and yes, Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian are just some example to show why hurting Muslim sentiments may not have been in the minds of the Mohammed cartoonists. Again, it is not just the Muslims who are given to such sentimental reactions to what may seem value neutral to the world of art. Remember the reactions to MF Hussain’s depiction of Hindu Goddess Saraswati in the nude, or to the Hindu Gods motifs printed on shoes and stockings in some Western fashion wears.
