The recent case of insulting the Holy Book of Muslims sparked a new wave of reactions in the Muslim world. For Muslims, this abusive behaviour carries a clear message of Islamophobia.
The setting of the deed was Stockholm mosque -- and in front of the astonished eyes of 200 Muslim observers. The occasion, Eid ul-Adha, made it a grave case of ethnocentrism as well.
In the view of the leaders of Islamic countries, however, the sanctioning of such a heinous offense by the Swedish judicial body and preventing the police from intervention, corroborates the centuries-long contentions of cultural imperialism as the historical source of conflict between the East and West.
Scandinavian countries have authorized insults to religious beliefs more than any other European country in the past decades. They are developed countries whose names are ranked high in happiness polls and studies.
This coin, however, has another side that shows the implications of seemingly attractive social policies of these countries to entail less satisfactory results in the evaluation of other societies around the globe.
In other words, states' internal policies leave international consequences that sometimes expand apprehension rather than spreading happiness.
The reason is that states are highly monitored in an era of globalization that is as much characterized by potentials as limitations.
Firstly, the expansion of migration, especially Westward, by populations of less developed countries, introduces the necessity of a very important topic -- that of coexistence.
Against the outdated model of cultural assimilation that required the newcomers to culturally melt into the destination society, coexistence today is rather the threshold of multiculturalism.
As such, the failure of certain Western states in protecting the cultural values of their Muslim citizens is the denial of multiculturalism and breaches the civil rights of this population group.
The main reason behind the European states' patronage of insults to religion, or at best shelving it, seems to stem from the conventional dualization of religion and development; an idea that has long been repudiated by thinkers such as Max Weber who conversely associated the two.
Thereupon, although ignoring the religious feelings of a group in favour of the maximal protection of liberties for another might seem a progressive agenda in cherishing freedom, such an act is falling short of a major multicultural criterion -- religious tolerance.
This agenda takes a reductionist definition of freedom for granted that scapegoats order, social contract, and public good.
In the wider global spectrum, the discontent of the Muslim populations residing in the West escalates cleavages that are addressed in globalization studies and, among others, are predictors of extremism, hate crimes, ethnocentrism, and Islamophobia.
In addition, the tide of dissatisfaction caused among the Muslim-majority countries is a major source of pressure over national governments for retaliation, and accounts for the persistence of conflict and distrust in international relations.
To conclude, the passivity of Western states in front of the insults to the beliefs of the two-billion population of Muslims comes out to hinder the ideas of lasting peace and the constructivist approaches to international relations.
Zinat Motahari is a freelance contributor with a PhD in political sociology.
