Joan Bakewell: There aren't many jokes in the Bible

Who would have thought it would be the Danes who came up with a test case. Wonderful for bacon, the Little Mermaid and Elsinore, but not renowned, at least in this country, as the plucky defenders of free speech. Yet so it is proving. No sooner is our own Bill on religious hatred defeated in the Commons, than we wake to find Danes abroad and Danish interests everywhere under threat.

Their offence is that, last September, a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons that depict the prophet Mohammed, whose very portrayal is considered blasphemous in Islam. A boycott of Danish goods has now spread across Muslim countries, from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, to Sudan and North Africa. Things are escalating even as I write. These are serious reprisals, and however many apologies are offered, the damage has been done. The whole rumbling row demonstrates the high brinkmanship now involved when different cultures live together.

First thing to note is how totally different these cultures are. from each other. Islam, Judaism and Christianity are often spoken of as the Religions of the Book, suggesting that, as they have the Bible in common, they somehow share a similar view of piety. In fact, the way communities regard their faith is at some profound level almost inaccessible to outsiders. Christians who have a glorious artistic heritage created around depicting both God and Jesus in painting and sculpture, find Islam's denial of such portrayal both arid and impersonal.

For Islam, to attempt to depict the ineffable and the divine is impossible and insulting. To them the baby Jesus suckling at his mother's breast and a white-bearded God looking down from pearly skies must seem crude indeed.

But Islam wasn't always this severe. In museums from Boston to Edinburgh there are Persian and Turkish miniatures and manuscripts from the 14th century that show Mohammed in action; sometimes his features are blank, sometimes not. But he is there as an identified individual. Over the centuries, Islam has become more rigid in its opposition to imagery of any kind, and is growing ever more so. In today's world it serves to unite its followers worldwide and create solidarity in the face of Western and secular image-making. It makes for a volatile state of affairs.

Cartoons pose even further problems. There aren't many jokes in the Bible and, apart perhaps from the wedding at Canaa, when he turned water into wine, Jesus is never seen or reported as relaxing and even laughing with his followers. Too busy with the parables and miracles no doubt.

So where does humour fit into the religious view of the world? God surely knows about humour and perhaps enjoys a good laugh himself. But you'd never know it. I like to think of his throaty chortle responding to The Life of Brian with some amusement. But His followers certainly don't. They even see Jerry Springer: The Opera as an attack on religion rather than on the awfulness of populist television.

Political cartoons are even worse. Nothing is as immediately cruel and incisive as a fine cartoon. From the days of Hogarth and Rowlandson the mighty in the land have been held up to ridicule. Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington were personally vilified. It goes with the job. For all the condemnations and apologies surrounding the Danish Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, no one disputes its message that militant Islam wraps its violence in its faith.

Newspapers in France, Germany, Spain and Italy have all reprinted the cartoons, as an assertion of their own free speech. They take the heat off Denmark, but risk offending their Muslim citizens. Mob passions based on religious absolutes are hard to control. In the 1990s, a French fashion house featured a fabric with Arabic script, which unwittingly turned out to be from the Koran. There were sudden threats, hasty apologies and the clothes were destroyed. Not much harm done on that occasion. Not so in British India, when rumours that cartridges for the new British Enfield rifle were greased with cow and pig fat - deeply offensive to both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. The rebellion that followed led to hideous atrocities on both sides. An apparently trivial offence had lit the fires of broader unease and disaffection.

That is the situation among some Muslim communities today, who can seize on a single unifying slight to create mayhem altogether beyond the initial offence. The West is right to proclaim its values of freedom of expression, even the freedom to offend. But democracy must also be mindful of its minorities and their needs. This is a tricky balance to sustain. It calls for a nuanced and thoughtful response.

joan.bakewell@virgin.net