To subscribe to Afterall journal, starting with this issue, please click here.
Alternatively, if you wish to purchase this article individually, you may do so via JSTOR. Please follow the instructions on this page.Who hijacked my religion? No, seriously! Who hijacked my religion? I turn on
the TV and see this guy explaining Islam. But he's talking nonsense. What
religion is this guy talking about?
- Baba Ali1
Does a land that has great poets have the right to control a land that has no
poets? And is the lack of poetry amongst a people enough reason to justify its
defeat? Is poetry a sign or is it an instrument of power?
Can't a people be strong without having its own poetry?
[...]
A people with no poetry is a defeated people.
- Mahmoud Darwish2
While, according to a recent poll, 80% of the British believe that 'political correctness' inhibits them from discussing Islam,3 news programmes in the UK (like the rest of the European media and, perhaps to a lesser extent, that of the US) are pregnant with 'Muslim issues', from reports on the war in Iraq or the Israel-Palestine conflict to polemics around the wearing of the veil by students or staff in comprehensive schools. Behind the reports and the discussions stands one common assumption: there are a certain set of values and practices, characteristically Muslim, which are incompatible with the typically Western, progressive mode of social organisation. The discussion that followed the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 perfectly lays down the arguments at play. Flemming Rose, its culture editor, defended the commission and publication of the cartoons as simple freedom of expression, 'in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam.'
