Visualism and Violence: On the Art and Ethics of Provocation in the Jyllands-Posten Cartoons and Theo Van Gogh’s Submission

Abstract

The controversy generated by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten closely resembles ‘the Rushdie affair’. It followed a similar trajectory and observed a similar dynamic: initial protests by the Danish Muslim community were either ignored or rejected; the controversy ‘proper’ — which followed the publication and first protests after a hiatus of several months — was then exploited by both supporters of the newspaper and Muslim political organizations, and the internationalization of the controversy through the global media resulted in an escalation and polarization that, like the Rushdie affair, has never quite been resolved.¹ A continental counterpart to the absolutist defence of freedom of speech that accompanied the Rushdie affair also emerged. The phraseology of this discourse is an almost exact echo, using the same or similar motifs, tropes and arguments. A Jyllands-Posten editorial in February 2006 stated, ‘we should only show concern for freedom of speech … If we say “freedom of speech, but”, we have denounced the most basic foundation of democracy.’² This reprised the uncompromising tone of the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had earlier argued that ‘freedom of speech is absolute. It is not negotiable.’³