Word: propheteer
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...critics believe could snare not only those who groom teenage suicide bombers, but also a sincere, peaceful advocate of revolution in, say, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. Even in liberal Denmark, at the center of the row over the cartoons of the Prophet, you can do jail time for publicly "ridiculing or insulting" any recognized community's religious beliefs. That's the problem with free speech: the principle is fine, the application is very tricky, and never more so than in the age of cultural rage. Statutes writ in black and white transmute...
...When applied evenhandedly, free speech is not the enemy of minorities, it's their protection." So does that mean the answer to the tensions free speech can unleash is more free speech? It's not an argument that would win over those to whom some matters, like lampooning the Prophet or depicting Jesus as a woman, are literally unspeakable. But in a Continent with plenty of centuries-old minorities, as well as millions of Muslims who are now part of a volatile, Internet-speed global conversation between Islam and the West that can turn a cartoon into a casus belli...
...Band's I'm Your Boogie Man and the Village People's Y.M.C.A. Are these the Winter Olympic Games or a disco inferno? It does make some sense. For this is a country particularly proud of Infernos. Indeed, after the thump-thump-thumping came a reading from the poet-prophet Dante, with the Italian actor Giorgio Albertazzi reciting an inspiring passage from The Divine Comedy. In it, Ulysses urges his aging and tired band of sailors to go on with him to search for new worlds. In a fiery scene, scores of legs kicked in the air evoked the sinners...
...bring "Old Europe" back on board to press for the right kind of deal in Iraq. Indeed, the cartoon controversy seems a sign that attitudes toward Islamic extremism are hardening in Europe. Publications in Italy, Germany, France and Norway expressed solidarity with Denmark by reprinting cartoons of the Prophet. Conservative and populist anti-immigrant political parties are on the rise throughout the Continent. "Anti-American feelings have really diminished," Senator John McCain told me last week after returning from meetings with European leaders. "The Europeans have their own problems now. And I think the situation in Iran has led them...
Muslim leaders say the cartoons are not just offensive. They're blasphemy--the mother of all offenses. That's because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet, even benign ones. Should non-Muslims respect this taboo? I see no reason why. You can respect a religion without honoring its taboos. I eat pork, and I'm not an anti-Semite. As a Catholic, I don't expect atheists to genuflect before an altar. If violating a taboo is necessary to illustrate a political point, then the call is an easy one. Freedom means learning to deal with being offended...