The right of liberal democratic states to defend themselves with nuclear weapons – and this seems to be accepted by the international community – is in effect an affirmation that suicidal war can be legitimate. This leads me to the thought that the suicide bomber belongs in an important sense to a modern Western tradition of armed conflict for the defense of a free political community: To save the nation (or to found its state) in confronting a dangerous enemy, it may be necessary to act without being bound by ordinary moral constraints.
Talal Asad, On Suicide Bombing (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) 63.
A Swedish newspaper has published a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad in a negative light, to say the least. Although the Swedish government has announced that it regrets any pain caused by the publication of the cartoon, the Swedish artist does not feel much regret. If you recall, last year thousands of Muslims took to the streets in response to a cartoon of Muhammad that was printed in a Danish newspaper.
I was listening to the BBC last night and they reported an artist defending the publication of the cartoon. The artist is reported to have said that “Muslims in Sweden need to decide whether they are Muslims or Swedes.” I think this raises an important point. Indeed, Muslims do need to decide to whom they swear allegiance. In the same way that Christians need to decide whether they swear allegiance to America or Jesus
Of course, many people in the West, Christians included, do not seem to understand the problem at all. For most Christians living under democratic regimes the question that we would have to choose between allegiance to the state and allegiance to Jesus is quite foreign. After all, we have “religious freedom.” Our religious freedom, however, is only good so long as we keep it private. It is this privatization of faith to which we have become so accustomed. This is precisely the reason why it is difficult for many Western Christians to understand why Muslims would have a problem “integrating” into democratic societies. In much of the Muslim world there is no separation between private and public life. Faith is a public thing and when faith conflicts with the state it is not at all obvious that one should obey the state in these scenarios.
The cartoon of the prophet is offensive to Muslims because they take the sacred seriously. Indeed, in the mind of the Muslim freedom of expression has its limits. Our inability to comprehend why Muslims would react the way they have simply shows how deeply our faith has been privatized by the modern nation-state.
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