Cartoon Follies

Denmark said on Friday it could not apologize for cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammad as outrage spread across the Muslim world from the Middle East to countries in Asia. More European newspapers published the cartoons on Friday, arguing freedom of speech was sacred, but angry Muslims staged violent protests against jokes they consider blasphemous.

Up to 300 Islamic activists in Indonesia, went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds of Palestinians attended a Hamas-organized rally, tearing up a French flag and holding up banners reading: "The assault on the Prophet is an assault on Islam".

Mona Omar Attia, Egypt's ambassador to Denmark, noted the Danish prime minister had said he could not interfere with the press. "This means the whole story will continue and that we are back to square one again. The government of Denmark has to do something to appease the Muslim world," Attia said.

Pakistan's parliament on Friday passed a resolution condemning the cartoons as "blasphemous and derogatory". "This vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign cannot be justified in the name of freedom of expression or of the press," the resolution said.

The editor of a Norwegian magazine which reprinted the Danish cartoons said he had received 25 death threats and thousands of hate messages. A Jordanian editor was sacked for reprinting them, despite saying his purpose had been only to show the extent of the Danish insult to Islam. "Oh I ask God to forgive me," he wrote in a public letter of apology.

Belgian newspaper De Standaard reproduced the pictures along with letters from readers favoring publication. "Two values are in conflict here. One is respect for religion and the other is freedom of speech," Editor-in-Chief Peter Vandermeersch said.

British newspapers have so far refused to publish the cartoons, earning them praise from Foreign Minister Jack Straw. "I believe the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," he said.

You ask 'What is it about contemporary Islam that seems to make it clearly incompatible with Western freedom of speech?' The answer is contemporary Islam now embodies the core principles of fundamentalism: absolute certainty and the subsequent stifling of any dissent. Everything in the liberal tradition of the West is built on exactly the opposite: the virtue of questioning and ability to voice those questions. America's fundamentalists would do well to look at their own actions in this same vein. How can the West coexist with current fundamentalist Islamist views? – it can't.

There is a time for diplomacy and careful language and the avoidance of needless offense. This response by the US State Department, however, isn't well timed:

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," a State Department spokesman said. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

These demonstrators have every right to take to the streets and threaten violent jihad over an inconsequential cartoon. But, they are enemies of liberty, and we cannot acquiesce to their demands. Their screams are really the sounds of our freedoms – let's make sure we preserve them.
Posted on The Human Stain