The American Association of University Professors has condemned the decision of Yale University and the Yale University Press to delete from a new book about the controversy surrounding publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad, The Cartoons That Shook the World, of, wait for it, the cartoons themselves.
"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We just accede to their anticipated demands." That is effectively the new policy position at Yale University Press, which has eliminated all visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad from Jytte Klausen’s new book The Cartoons That Shook the World. . . . They are not responding to protests against the book; they and a number of their consultants are anticipating them and making or recommending concessions beforehand.
Indeed, the New York Times states: "Although many Muslims believe the Koran prohibits images of the prophet, Muhammad has been depicted through the centuries in both Islamic and Western art without inciting disturbances."
The statement by the AAUP president, Cary Nelson, whom just last year the AP called a "tenured radical,"continues:
In an action that parallels prior restraint on speech, Yale also refused to give the author access to consultants’ reports unless she agreed in writing not to discuss their contents. Such reports typically have their authors’ names removed, but a prohibition against discussing their content is, to say the least, both unusual and objectionable.
Publishers often refuse to print color illustrations to save money or limit the number of black and white illustrations to reduce the length of a book, but Yale Press has not raised any financial issues here. The issues are: 1) an author’s academic freedom; 2) the reputation of the press and the university; 3) the impact of these twin decisions on other university presses and publication venues; 4) the potential to encourage broader censorship of speech by faculty members or other authors. What is to stop publishers from suppressing an author’s words if it appears they may offend religious fundamentalists or groups threatening violence? We deplore this decision and its potential consequences.
Yale's action seems at odds with the Press's mission statement:
'Yale University Press aids in the discovery and dissemination of light and truth, lux et veritas, which is a central purpose of Yale University'.
According to the New York Times, the book's author, Jytte Klausen, "reluctantly accepted Yale University Press’s decision not to publish the cartoons. But she was disturbed by the withdrawal of the other representations of Muhammad."
Ms. Klausen said by telephone . . . that "Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it."
According to Yale's description of the book:
Jytte Klausen interviewed politicians in the Middle East, Muslim leaders in Europe, the Danish editors and cartoonists, and the Danish imam who started the controversy. Following the winding trail of protests across the world, she deconstructs the arguments and motives that drove the escalation of the increasingly globalized conflict. She concludes that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons was not—as was commonly assumed—a spontaneous emotional reaction arising out of the clash of Western and Islamic civilizations. Rather it was orchestrated, first by those with vested interests in elections in Denmark and Egypt, and later by Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya, and Nigeria. Klausen shows how the cartoon crisis was, therefore, ultimately a political conflict rather than a colossal cultural misunderstanding.
Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, who also is a contributor to the Daily Beast and author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," "decided to withdraw his supportive blurb that was to appear in the book after Yale University Press dropped the pictures. The book is 'a definitive account of the entire controversy," he said, "but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.'"
In Mr. Aslan’s view no danger remains. "The controversy has died out now, anyone who wants to see them can see them," he said of the cartoons, noting that he has written and lectured extensively about the incident and shown the cartoons without any negative reaction. He added that none of the violence occurred in the United States: "There were people who were annoyed, and what kind of publishing house doesn’t publish something that annoys some people?"
"This is an academic book for an academic audience by an academic press," he continued. "There is no chance of this book having a global audience, let alone causing a global outcry." He added, "It’s not just academic cowardice, it is just silly and unnecessary."
The director of the Yale University Press, John Donatich, "quoted one of the experts consulted by Yale — Ibrahim Gambari, special adviser to the secretary general of the United Nations and the former foreign minister of Nigeria — as concluding: You can count on violence if any illustration of the prophet is published. It will cause riots, I predict, from Indonesia to Nigeria.'"