Islam-as-violence framing migrated from the right into mainstream liberal media

Evidence

The Danish cartoon controversy illustrates how this frame of Islam and violence operates, and how it serves to desensitize western audiences to the mass killings of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (J-P) posted twelve depictions of the Prophet Mohammad, which were solicited by its cultural editor. One of these cartoons featured the Prophet with a bomb on his turban. This cartoon not only depicts Mohammad as a terrorist but Islam as being imbricated with violence from its origins. This argument was a staple of the Right, but made its way into a liberal newspaper in Denmark in 2005. The cultural editor claimed to be motivated by the desire to defend free speech even if that meant offending Muslims. Shortly before this, J-P had published a series of editorials and op-eds that were anti-immigrant and that portrayed Islam as a dangerous and belligerent religion. The cartoons therefore didn’t come out of nowhere. Anthropologist Peter Hervik has argued that the logic of J-P’s cultural editor derives from what is called “entitlement racism,” which involves “the right to offend and to humiliate” in the name of liberal principles. … Muslims around the world protested these cartoons and some Islamists turned to violence. The response in Denmark and elsewhere was to point to Islam’s illiberalism and anti-modern attitudes. In fact, Hervik argues that in the decade since the cartoons were published, the hegemonic position grew stronger so that “resistance to, or criticism of, the publication, even when set in a democratic dialogue” became a “sign of the opponent’s lack of integration or of cowardice, and lack of character and courage to stand up for free speech.” At the time and since, liberal columnists endorsed J-P’s position, defending the cartoonists on the grounds of free speech. Many US newspapers carried the cartoon of Mohammad with the bomb on the same grounds, without recognizing or acknowledging that the cartoon endorsed the frame of an inherently violent Islam. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 346

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to vault claims about liberal embrace of the terrorism frame (Aziz/Razack), showing the cartoon dispute as a concrete liberal-phase instrument, not just right-wing pathology. — connects to: Free speech framing converts anti-Muslim cartoon racism into a covert liberal form — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 71; Islamophobic discourse moves from right-wing media to mainstream and shifts the center rightward; Liberal homegrown-terror hysteria amplified right-wing Islamophobia — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 671 (+8 more)
• DEFINE: Introduces Hervik’s ‘entitlement racism’ as a definable concept for the cluster.
• QUESTION: Worth tracing how US republication of the bomb-turban cartoon functioned within the broader post-9/11 media-permission structure.

Broader Connections

• Islamophobic discourse moves from right-wing media to mainstream and shifts the center rightward #corroborates (1.00)
• Liberal homegrown-terror hysteria amplified right-wing Islamophobia #corroborates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 671