THE CARTOONS OF MUHAMMAD: AROLDI (MILAN’S CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY), "RESPECTING SENSITIVITY WITHOUT LIMITING FREEDOM"

A problem of codes and communication. He does not pass any judgment about the 12 offending cartoons, but the matter of the caricatures of Muhammad the prophet, which are arousing so much anger in many Islamic countries, shows, according to Piermarco Aroldi, sociologist of cultural and communicative processes at Milan’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, problems of communicative codes and levels. “In this affair – he stated in an intervie with SIR – typically Western languages have been used which meant to give a satirical portrait of the prophet. A character was portrayed on the basis of a non-existent iconography". "Everyone knows – adde the expert – that the Islamic religion prohibits any portrait of Muhammad the prophet, and moreover if this portrait is a caricature then the reaction breaks loose and from what I read this reaction has become uncontrollable”. (to be continued)