COMMENTARY: Old Borders Bookstore Would Sell Our Magazine, Muhammad Cartoons and All

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) According to Beth Bingham, a spokesperson for Borders bookstores, the decision not to stock the April/May issue of the humanist magazine Free Inquiry was made out of concern for customer safety. The issue contained four of the 12 controversial “cartoons” of the prophet Muhammad and commentaries written by me […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) According to Beth Bingham, a spokesperson for Borders bookstores, the decision not to stock the April/May issue of the humanist magazine Free Inquiry was made out of concern for customer safety. The issue contained four of the 12 controversial “cartoons” of the prophet Muhammad and commentaries written by me and an Islamic dissident, Ibn Warraq.

Few people know that Borders _ a vine, not a chain, that now extends from North America to southern Europe _ existed as a solitary college town bookseller in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1982. It prided itself on the quality and variety of its stock and the willingness to take risks that no other bookstore would take.


When I was a young assistant professor at the University of Michigan, shopping at Borders was a lunchtime delight _ the antithesis of the depressing chain-sameness that already was the trademark of outlets like Walden (now Borders’ adopted child) and B. Dalton. In Borders you could read out-of-the-way translations of Xenophon, radical theology, buy the latest copy of Dissent or Mother Jones, sit in Windsor chairs, talk to friends (or ignore them), and buy art reproductions upstairs for $5 _ from what seemed a bottomless bin of choices.

I thought I had arrived, academically speaking, when in 1987 Borders stocked my first Oxford University Press title without so much as being asked _ a translation and commentary on the anti-Christian polemicist, Celsus. That’s the sort of place Borders used to be.

Borders stocked for the “serious reader” who wanted to be challenged, informed, offended. In 1983, a hungry browser would have starved trying to find “devotional” or “inspirational” titles, schlock offerings in Christian spirituality, self-improvement, Christian living and New Age theosophy.

But, we live in tragic times. Borders has learned what sells. It is, according to its Web site, “a Fortune 500 company with annual sales of $3.9 billion.” It has learned all about the world outside Ann Arbor. It knows that “The Da Vinci Code” has become a cult, that Mary Magdalene (that is, anything written about her) is hot, and that Lee Strobel (“The Case for Christ”) and Ted Haggard (“The Jerusalem Diet”) are worth the space. Presumably that’s why six feet of shelf space can be devoted to Manga comics for ‘tween-agers, and not a foot can be found for Free Inquiry.

Oddly enough, the essay I wrote assessing the cartoon crisis, “Mutt, Jeff and Muhammad,” blames a fair share of the violent reaction to the cartoons on the retardant influences of Christian civilization. Ibn Warraq’s inset essay iterates that the iconic status of Muhammad has changed over the centuries, and that historical Western abuse of Islam can be held responsible for Islamic reaction. The medieval shouting match that began with Western jealousy of Islamic learning ends in Islam’s murderous rebellion against Western values _ many of which are rooted in a forgotten golden age of Islamic enlightenment. The commentary, we thought, was critical and thoughtful.

But that’s a separate matter. The immediate issue is Borders’ rejection of a magazine that embodies an essential component of American (as distinct from Islamic) doctrine: the belief that just as every religion has the right of free expression, no religion is immune from criticism. Those whose adherents think they are exempt and defend that belief with threats of arson, will hardly find themselves regular customers at Borders _ a fact that makes Beth Bingham’s comments on Borders’ refusal to stock this issue of Free Inquiry especially mysterious: “We absolutely respect our customers’ right to choose what they wish to read and buy, and we support the First Amendment,” Bingham said. “And we absolutely support the rights of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. We’ve just chosen not to carry this particular issue in our stores.”

The right of a publisher to publish his work in a basement and not sell it in the marketplace would have been granted Galileo by the Roman Catholic Church. The right to publish in a free society where no opinion can be suppressed, especially satirical depictions that (however vaguely) arouse critical reflection on political realities, is a more ambitious _ dare I say sacred _ project. It is what the First Amendment is all about, why newspapers exist, why we have public libraries and bookstores.


The old Borders would have understood.

MO/RB END RNS

(R. Joseph Hoffmann, a former Oxford University professor, is a senior fellow of the Center for Inquiry, Amherst, N.Y., and a columnist for the humanist magazine Free Inquiry.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of R. Joseph Hoffmann, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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