I Beg to Differ

In the latest Sojourners Philip Rizk makes a plea for greater understanding in the middle east, but in the process displays a shallow understanding of the "western mind" and the high value it places on the freedom of expression. After discussing the decision of a Norwegian newspaper to publish a controversial series of cartoons featuring the likeness of Mohammed, Rizk opines that

It is not Western values of freedom of speech that we must evaluate, but their underlying philosophy of individualism. The Western mind is raised to believe that what it thinks, expresses, and believes is a private and personal matter. In the Arab world, where societies share a collective understanding of self, such teachings are heretical.

Rizk ends his article with the conclusion that "[t]he idol of unquestioned self-righteous freedom must be abolished or else it will destroy the village we live in."

Philip Rizk misses the mark when he argues that "individualism" is the basis for freedom of expression. There are strong community reasons behind this freedom: the community's need for open discussion, the community's need to hold leaders accountable, the community's need to discover, examine, and correct its faults and injustices.

The fact that the freedom of expression is typically described as an individual right does not mean that it does not advance important, community-wide values.

Rizk caricatures the "western mind" when he asserts that it "is raised to believe that what it thinks, expresses, and believes is a private and personal matter." To the contrary, because we live in a community, free speech is essential to assure that understanding can be shared, and falsehoods rebutted, throughout that community. If each of us were an island, there would be no need for free speech because there would be no need to communicate. The western value of free expression is based on years of experience in community, not radical individualism.

Furthermore, one can make a case that these controversial cartoons are valuable to the global village, including that corner where Islam is the prevalent religion. The subjugation of women, the use of terror, and the repression of other religions (or even other sects of Islam) that are so common in the Islamic world are serious faults that Muslims need to confront. Publishing the cartoons is one way to communicate to Muslims a sincerely held and entirely reasonable belief that their community has profound flaws that must be addressed.

Sometimes the truth really does hurt. That Muslims, sometimes incited by their religious and political leaders have reacted with rioting is not the fault of cartoonists or newspaper editors in the west who choose to exercise their freedom of expression by publishing cartoons portraying Mohammed in a less than exalted manner. The cartoonists and publishers may be doing the Muslim community a favor by exposing them to thoughts they need to consider. That the initial reaction has been less than positive does not mean that the cartoon controversy will not bear fruit down the road.

Radical individualism is a genuine problem in western society, but link that Rizk attempts to make between radical individualism and the now notorious cartoons does not exist.