Word: danishness
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Ideas can hurt. The messy storm of upset, anger, protests and murderous violence unleashed over the past two weeks by Danish newspaper cartoons that Muslims find blasphemous has proved that once again. But in Europe, whatever one may think about the intelligence or taste of portraying Muhammad with a bomb on his head, people have found a reassuring port in the storm: their belief in the political miracle of free speech. In Western democracies, the right to express an idea, no matter how offensive, always trumps the impulse of the offended to censor. No government should be able to jail...
...scornful blasphemy." The Justice Minister proposed reviving the law in the wake of his death, to use against the kind of offensive speech Van Gogh was killed over, but a decision has yet to be reached. In France last week, the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo republished the 12 disputed Danish cartoons, while devoting its cover to a sketch of a red-faced Muhammad holding his head in his hands and saying "It's tough being loved by idiots." The government-sanctioned French Council of the Muslim Faith (cfcm) tried to stop publication as an instance of "racial and religious abuse...
...Danish paper, a while back, had commissioned a set of cartoons depicting the fear that many writers and artists in Europe feel when dealing with the subject of Islam. To Western eyes, the cartoons were not in any way remarkable. In fact, they were rather tame. One showed Muhammad with his turban depicted as a bomb--not exactly a fresh image to describe Islamic terrorism. Another used a simple graphic device: it showed Muhammad surrounded by two women in full Muslim garb, their eyes peering out from an oblong space in their black chadors. And on Muhammad's face there...
...force; demonstrators in London held up signs proclaiming EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM and BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST; the editor of the French newspaper France-Soir was fired for reprinting the drawings; Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the publication; and protesters set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. The Egyptian ambassador to Denmark expressed disbelief that the government would not prevent further reprinting. Freedom of the press, the Egyptian explained, "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...
...there's no reason to offend people of any faith arbitrarily. We owe all faiths respect. But the Danish cartoons were not arbitrarily offensive. They were designed to reveal Islamic intolerance--and they have now done so, in abundance. The West's principles are clear enough. Tolerance? Yes. Faith? Absolutely. Freedom of speech? Nonnegotiable...