Abstract

Let there be no compulsion in religion.

Mohammed, Quran Surah 2:256

Mohammed is no more than a messenger, many of whom have passed away before him.

Mohammed, Quran Surah 3:144

It is a rare and fortunate age when you may think what you like, and can say what you think.

Tacitus

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Saturday, 11 February 2006

The Conflict of Reason and Belief

Religious groups should not be allowed to define the limits of free speech.

BBC Press Monitoring Service

Christians have accused the author of these pages of being biased against Christianity and Judaism because the Islamic religion is not criticized here. The explanation is that it is better left to Moslems who have been brought up in a Moslem tradition, and know something about the religion and its background. Even so, both the AskWhy! pages and the Adelphiasophism pages have said Islam is another patriarchal religion whose roots are the same as those of Christianity and Judaism. At root it is, therefore, necessarily just as bad. There is nothing in the practice of Islam that is less despicable than there is in the practice of Christianity and Judaism.

Latterly, Moslems have been rioting and burning all over the world because the free press of a liberal country used the rights that have been won over several hundred years. It used cartoons to criticize the hypocrisy and unreason of many Moslems. In 2005, The Jutland Post had invited artists to offer their view on how the modern face of Mohammed looked, then published on 30 September, an article called “The face of Mohammed”, accompanied by 12 cartoons. The article explained the purpose of the exercise as being that some Moslems reject the modern, secular society…

Offensive Danish Cartoons?

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Politiken published “Deep anxiety over criticising Islam”). Writer Kåre Bluitgen could not find an illustrator for his children’s book, The Quran and the prophet Mohammed’s life. Artists feared for their lives following the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, and the assault by five Moslems of a Danish lecturer who had read exerpts of the Quran in a lecture. A debate on self-censorship began. A comedian said he was too scared to satirise the Quran on television. The authors of critical studies of Islam said they would only publish anonymously over fear of Moslem reprisals.

The fact is that Moslems are enforcing by terror a privileged status for Islam in our secular society. Where speech is supposed to be free, they are stopping satirical or even intellectual criticism through people’s fear of Moslem gangsters, even though moderate Moslems nominally abhor them. Whispered denunciations are insufficient. If Moslems themselves do not fear these men, they must publicly reject them. If they do, they must support the police in their apprehension. As these terrorists are hiding in Moslem communities and evidently enjoying their protection, they must be exposed as the criminals they are. Then non-Moslems and Moslems will feel safer.

They demand a privileged position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, in which you have to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule… It does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context [in which] we are on a slippery slope and no-one can say how the self-censorship will end.

The standards of decent modern society were set by the Enlightenment. The darkness of Christendom was lightened by the torch of truth and reason. There is nothing in Islam that now raises it above Judaism and Christianity, though Islamic societies were beacons of light and reason when Christianity had thrown a blanket of unreason over Europe. These religions inevitably show themselves to be wicked, and they have always been used by wicked people to control others. They still are, and now, with the new US Christian crusade against Islam, the secular state and liberalism are torn in turn by the savage teeth of lunatic Christian conservatives and those of lunatic Islamic conservatives. The liberal Enlightenment is seriously endangered, and liberals must respond.

The German paper, Der Tagesspiegel, noted as reported by the BBC:

When a society allows itself to be guided only by the “feelings” of a group of people, then it is no longer free.

Der Tagesspiegel rightly thinks the definition of decency and respect must not be left to any religious community in a democratic society. Patriarchal religious communities always believe they are right and everyone else, whether of another religion or none, are wrong. That is why they always lead to strife and must be subject to secular law. The secular state is therefore caught in the sights of every patriarchal lunatic there is. They hate each other, but they all hate secularism. Secularists have to stand up and see through the trickery of these believers. A Moslem blogger wrote:

The issue is about a clash between liberal secularists in the West and Islamists worldwide. It is about their world views on law, ethics, and international relations. The Islamists want to draw the limits of world freedoms and the Western liberals reject that limitation.

Essentially the issue is of the meaning of “liberty”. For the Enlightenment, liberty is all-encompassing. It is the freedom to choose your party, your opinions, your religion or whether to believe in the supernatural at all, to choose the scientific outlook rather than a religious one, to be skeptical, to say and to publish what you think. For believers in the patriarchal religions, liberty is simply the freedom to practice the accepted religion. That is it! Whenever something can be considered to offend or oppose religious orthodoxy, then freedom ceases! As The Economist puts it:

Sensitivity cannot always ordain silence. Protecting free expression will often require hurting the feelings of individuals or groups, even if this damages social harmony.

For Moslems, liberty is freedom to practise Islam. In many parts of the USA, people who dissent from Christianity are afraid to say what they think. They do not feel free! Religion is oppressive, and many Moslems seem proud of it, while Christian oppression grows apace in what they still call the “Land of the Free”. Moreover, opposition to the tenets of the accepted religion is apostasy or heresy and is punished by death. It is true of Islam, and it was true of Christianity for a millennium before the Enlightenment. This is meant as a serious warning. Freedom is fragile and needs defending, above all against religion.

The reaction of the imams was to enlist Arab countries to demand the Danish government to punish the newspaper, thereby proving the very thesis of The Jutland Post. In Yemen and Malaysia respectively, both Moslem countries, an editor was arrested and a newspaper closed for publishing the cartoons. Too many Moslems seem not to understand what freedom and secularism mean, and perticularly what they entail. Al Fagr, in Egypt, published six of the cartoons with no ramifications but two Jordanian papers that published the cartoons resulted in charges of insulting religion which were quickly dropped, so not even all Moslem countries were that bothered about them.

Moslem Madness

Copied in Egyptian newspaper, Al Farg, along with five more, the cartoon that launched a thousand riots! Why?

These cartoons are offensive to many Moslems because Islam has a convention that the Prophet should not be depicted, and because some can be read as equating Islam with terrorism. If Moslems think it is offensive to picture Mohammed at all, why is this ancient picture of him not offensive?

One cartoon, arguably the most offensive, depicted a male in eastern turban with a bomb in it. It is a perfectly legitimate cartoon for its purpose. It shows the self-defeating nature of religious violence, but did the Moslems, even many who claim to be moderate, see it the way it was plainly meant? The mad bomber was obviously meant to be a Moslem. Why is that? Because Moslems have shown themselves willing to blow themselves up.

Newspapers should not insult people’s beliefs just for the sake of it, that goes for everyone, but above all else must be our determination to defend our hard earned freedoms, such as freedom of expression. So, what newspapers publish is their own decision, not that of any unaccountable arbiters of taste and responsibility, like Moslem clerics, Christian priests or pastors, or even governments. As the Face of Mohammed, this bomb-headed man could have symbolised any Moslem bomber. But the Islamic brotherhoods alleged it was Mohammed himself, simply being mocked! BBC News Online has an explanation:

One cartoon, showing the Prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, extends the caricature of Moslems as terrorists to Mohammed. In this image, Moslems see a depiction of Islam, its prophet and Moslems in general as terrorists. This will certainly play into a widespread perception among Moslems across the world that many in the West harbour a hostility towards—or fear of—Islam and Moslems.

The cartoons were meant to represent the face of Mohammed—what connotations the word “Moslem” has in the modern world—and here we have it—fear and hostility to such an extent, that something most people in the west holds dear is under threat… freedom of speech and expression. Yet even moderate Moslems are not so understanding themselves, by and large that they can understand that free expression must be tested to make sure it is still there, especially when it is under such assault, from religious fanatics, whether Moslems or Christians.

The clear meaning was what really offended the Moslem extremists, and that they ignored. The outcome was what the maniacal imams wanted. Simple miseducated people rioted and burned buildings, and several lost their lives in their enthusiasm, in protest against what? A caricature. A cartoon. Lines on a piece of paper that look like someone, but not anyone that any Moslem knows, because no one took a likeness of Mohammed himself when he was alive.

If the cartoonist meant it to be Mohammed, it was because Mohammed symbolises Moslems, just as Christ symbolises Christianity, and Moses Judaism. Simple Moslems are so indoctrinated, they cannot accept the symbolism—that, however good the founder of any religion might have been, he remains a symbol of the religion, even when it has become so utterly deviant and wicked, it is no longer what the founder intended it to be. That is the point of religious criticism, and why blasphemy ought never to be allowed in a free land. Blasphemy does not protect gods or their prophets, it protects wicked men who want to control and use people.

Where are the Moslem Intellectuals?

It is indeed ironic that the point the Danish cartoons were making has been made far more effectively by the Moslem protests about these cartoons.

M Howley

“How can these people be angry that this cartoon associates Mohammed with bombing, when they glory in Islam’s original commitment to violent proselytising, and are committed to carrying it on into a contemporary setting? How can they wave placards demanding that people be killed for exercising freedom of speech, when our own dispensation of it is all that allows them to do it without achieving the arrests and charges they deserve… We despise the irrationality and lack of intellectual reigour of these men…”

But, though simple Moslems are the cannon fodder of the shepherds, the imams, just as Christians are the cannon fodder of their priests and pastors, where are the Moslem intellectuals who ought to see the value of secularism in society? Perhaps a Moslem intellectual is an oxymoron because no one intelligent could be a believer in any patriarchal religion and be intelligent. Moslem leaders in Britain have joined in the bleating about the offence caused, and calling for respect for Moslem religious sensitivities, when they ought to be asking Moslems what there is to be offended about. “Mohammed himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned him for more than a decade”, Amir Tahiri explains to us.

Dr Mohammed Iqbal, presumably an intellectual of sorts to have a doctorate thinks the media “have no right to insult our faith. Moslems would have a rational and robust debate about Jesus and Moses but we would never denigrate them.” Dr Iqbal is quite wrong. A faith is an opinion and therefore can be countered by another opinion, if necessary expressed as a cartoon. And, though Dr Iqbal would not denigrate Jesus or Moses, he does not understand that others would, or rather what they represent, and rightly so. In any case, both Jesus and Moses are revered by Moslems anyway, so he is not showing any egregious respect for these two.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a leading British Moslem, knighted for his services to the nation, has not the courage to tell Moslems in a secular country not to get excited about what is perfectly legal here. Instead he equates the cartoon with the threats of mass murder by the Moslem extremists:

British Moslems have been deeply hurt both by the provocative actions of the newspapers that printed these caricatures, but also by the disgraceful actions of a tiny group of extremists.

What is odd is that British newspapers have not published the cartoons. They have accepted self-censorship out of “respect for Moslem feelings”—not because they fear their offices being burnt down by rioters! How then can British Moslems have seen the cartoons to be deeply hurt? Could it be that they have looked for the cartoons on the internet and been deeply hurt when they found them? Promising to organize a demonstration, Sir Iqbal adds:

This rally will aim to help British Moslems express their feelings peacefully, and will call upon the newspapers concerned to apologise for the enormous offence and distress caused.

Well, apologizing costs nothing, and even a free press should not be gratuitously insulting, but these cartoons are not gratuitous. They make valid points that Moslems above all should take note of, instead of hiding behind the irrelevance of who is pictured on them. The demonstration on Saturday 11 February at Trafalgar Square was a failure. Only a few thousand Moslems turned out. The reason is probably because there was no clear objective. It should have been clearly against the extreme Moslems or in favour of them. It tried to be both, in criticizing the cartoons suiting extremists, yet claiming to be in favour of peace. Several demonstrators interviewed obviously favoured support for liberal values. A clear positive demonstration by Moslems in favour of freedom would probably have been better attended.

Even some western newspapers seem to think the press should voluntarily curb themselves:

In a democratic and secular society, showing decency and respect for other cultures does not mean adopting their religious dogmas.

Die Tageszeitung

Maybe, but where does it end? The little voluntary curb will then be assailed by fresh demands, not necessarily from Moslems but some other group of sensitive souls who have now found something to be offended about. In any case, Sir Iqbal wants to ask himself, and ask all his offended co-religionists, what the publishers of the cartoons are to be apologising for. Prohibition of images of Mohammed, or any except God, is a tradition and not any command of Allah. Historically, many Ottoman Turkish pictures depicted Mohammed, and Moslems do not object to photos, films and magazine illustrations. The ban was adopted from Zoroastrianism when the Arabs conquered Persia, but these bans on representations apply to God, not to Mohammed. There is no principle that the Moslem prophet cannot be represented:

Islam prohibits neither images of Mohammed nor jokes about religion. There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Mohammed or anyone else. Some early Moslem theologians issued fatwas against any depiction of the Godhead… The claim that a ban on images is “an absolute principle of Islam” is political. Islam has only one absolute principle—the Oneness of God. In Islamic theology, inventing other absolutes is nothing but “sherk”, the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One. The claim… is also refuted by history. Many portraits of Mohammed have been drawn by Moslem artists, often commissioned by Moslem rulers… Some of these can be seen in museums within the Moslem world, including the Topkapi in Istanbul.

Amir Taheri, Wall Street Journal

The bomb-head cartoon shown here was criticizing the extremists that Sir Iqbal seems to agree are disgusting. Surely he can see that. Moreover, few Moslems have complained of any offence in placards being held up calling for people to be beheaded, butchered and eliminated, or few have mentioned it. It is quite impossible for anyone rational to equate the drawing of a cartoon with demands for murder. Surely he can see that too. If Moslems are that unbalanced, they make the cartoon a broader criticism than it was intended as.

Raquib Shamsad complains that, although the vast majority of Moslems are upright, decent citizens, working hard to create a better life for themselves and their children, they are all condemned as terrorists by the cartoons because the Prophet represents Moslems generally. At least, Mr Shamsad is trying to read the cartoon, and recognizes that it is not simply mockery of the Prophet, but, although the figure is plainly a Moslem, it is a Moslem with murderous self-destructive intent. Mr Shamsad says the aim is to excite xenophobia, but seems quite inured to the role his own murderous co-religionists have had in provoking it, and that that is the real object of the caricature.

Meanwhile, through all the Moslem rage, where is there a thought about the sensibilities of we liberals who hold dear the principles established by centuries of political struggle in Britain? Barry Butler, as an atheist who is offended by religious inanity, wonders why Moslems cannot “allow their faith to support them in their distress”, and leave others to continue in the lives they have become used to over the centuries. As an atheist living in a society which is still punctuated by religious festivals, he says he has borne it all stoically through his “non-faith”. Mr Butler makes his point, like the cartoons, humourously, but his point is nevertheless serious.

People who feel that they are not free to give voice to their worries about terrorism, globalisation or the encroachment of new cultures or religions will not love their neighbours any better. If anything, the opposite is the case…

The Economist

Freedom of expression is as sacred to the Enlightenment as Mohammed is to pious Moslems. It is a freedom that applies to everyone in our society willing to accept it, including millions of Moslems.

Freedom of expression, including the freedom to poke fun at religion, is not just a hard-won human right but the defining freedom of liberal societies. When such a freedom comes under threat of violence, the job of governments should be to defend it without reservation.

The Economist

Roger Koppel, who published the cartoons as editor of Die Welt, argued:

It is at the core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire.

Understanding the Symbolism of Cartoons

The newspaper columns of liberal papers were inundated with Moslems beefing about the offence they had been caused by the cartoons, but a few did see the point of them, and protested about the outcry. Kola Hasan, a Moslem writer and lecturer, was horrified by Moslem demonstrators calling for beheadings and suicide bombings. He wanted his co-religionists to debate the issue intelligently rather than resorting to violence, recalling the “insanity” of the book and flag burnings of the Salman Rushdie “fiasco”. At the same time, he wanted Europeans to realize how Mohammed is a “father-figure to Moslems” whom they “adore, love and respect”, and so they felt “incredibly hurt” by the cartoons. Then he says:

To imply that his teachings legitimise terrorist activities is in itself a deliberate act of incitement to hatred.

This man, who claims to be intelligent, loses the plot as soon as he seriously begins to discuss it. If some Moslems claim that it is legitimate for Moslems to blow themselves up for the cause, then what is anyone outside the religion meant to deduce from it about Islam, and even of its founder? How is a political cartoon more of an incitement to hatred than murdering, in the name of this adored prophet, innocent bystanders often including Moslems? Kola Hasan misses the point, or does his best to avoid it, that the cartoon is criticizing those people whom he said horrified him. The conclusion from what he says is that Moslems are scarcely bothered that Moslem madmen kill and maim in the name of their adored prophet. Moslems are more hurt that a mad looking cartoon mullah might be Mohammed than that his name is used for murder. That is not reasonable by any standards, and Mr Hasan sensibly would be getting the message over to his own people.

He goes on to say the media should show restraint and he says it in the context of the far right. The media should not, and mainly does not, show any restraint in criticizing the far right. That is proper. Free speech and a free press are there precisely so that what is wrong can be criticized, and the ones who object to it are right wing Christians, Moslems and Jews whose activities cannot generally be considered compatible with freedom. Kola Hasan is right that there is a crusade by the US government against the Moslems. The US always needs a bogey man to keep its own people toeing the line, but surely it cannot be intelligent for Moslems to do precisely what the US provocateurs want, especially in countries like the UK where the Moslems had a lot of friends. It is scarcely sensible to lose friends you had, when you do not have many, but that is the aim of the mad mullahs. Why cannot Moslems see it?

Moreover what do they say to the allegation that some of the cartoons circulated, some say the most offensive ones, were actually added to those published by The Jutland Post by the Islamisk Trossamfund who initially protested? These three showed a man dressed as a pig, a dog mounting a praying Moslem and a demonic pedophile. Quite clearly, the inclusion of these three were intended to be particularly offensive, yet were deliberately added by those who were supposedly protesting. That is clearly gratuitous and mischievous, and is something the Moslems could genuinely complain about, but continues to be ignored, suggesting that the subject matter of the cartoons is incidental to the purpose of those who are outraged.

Mohammed Never Preached Violence

Cartoonist Dave Brown sees Moslems as being oppressed by the free press! Are secularists offended by this inversion of reality?
Crocodile (the Press) to a Moslem trying not to be devoured: “Come on! We’re both just cartoons. Where’s your sense of humour?”

Tarek Abdel-Rahman tells us that insulting the prophet is as offensive to Moslems as praising the Holocause would be to Jews. He too fails to see that the cartoons were not insulting the prophet, but were making a legitimate point about Moslem extemists that too many Moslems seem determined to bypass or at least defray. Moreover, the comparison he draws is fatuous. The Holocaust was the death of millions of people, but this is a caricature! In all seriousness, those able to equate them, must be deranged. That is exactly the trouble with religion. It turns normal people into cracked pots. In any case, it is not illegal to deny the Holocaust in this country, though some Zionists might like it to be.

Tarek Abdel-Rahman also makes the valid point that screened dramas too often portray Moslems as blood-thirsty, terrorists and oppressors of women. He says, “this is far from the truth for the majority of Moslems”, and he is, of course, right, but can he not see that there is sufficient in it that is right to feed the myth, and that ordinary Moslems are rarely perceived by westerners to be doing anything themselves to rein in the extremists. Rather they seem too often to admire them.

Ali Syed praised the UK press for its self-censorship. “No one disputes freedom of speech, nor the freedom to publish,” he said, immediately showing his ignorance. That is precisely what the Moslem fanatics and the UK and US governments are disputing, through the repressive laws they aim to introduce, and the violations of due process they have already practised. Yet Ali Syed claimed it was the cartoons that were based on ignorance because Mohammed never preached violence. The Christians say the same about their god, Jesus. Why then do both religions glory in violent actions and why are Moslem and Christian leaders so often brutal and murderous monsters, yet often retains the love of their foolish and truly ignorant masses? Presumably Ali Syed is one of the ignorant masses, for why is he protesting against a cartoon instead of over the disgusting behaviour of the Moslem fanatics.

On the other hand, Rafiq Mahmood gets the point of the cartoons, saying he is “in rage” over them because “they are an accurate representation”! He knows they are not depictions of Mohammed because no one knows what he looked like, but they show “the face that the Moslem world presents”. He added that it was not pretty. Ranging over the subjects of the various cartoons, he concludes:

It is the face of the bomb ticking away above the brain, destroying reason… the sword guarding repressed, hidden and frightened women… a vision of paradise as a male voluptuous fantasy inspiring people to kill innocents as well as themselves.

As for the Quran, it is available for everyone, is endlessly recited and revered, but not read and properly studied except through the interpretation of some imam whether lunatic or sincerely moderate. Mohammed “preached against violence of every kind”.

Zahir Mirza clearly sees what even many moderate Moslems seem to be missing:

Moslems have failed to see the irony of the cartoons. They are an accurate depiction of the view of Islam that the followers of Osama bin laden have cultivated.

It is this false view of Islam that Moslems should be upset about, not the cartoons that expose it. Arif Khan pointed out that the violent protests across the globe have “harmed the name of Islam and the Holy Prophet far more than the cartoons themselves”.

Moderate Moslems can see that the threats of violence in a free society is wrong but still equate it with the publishing of a cartoon. Azizan Rauf can see the problem of Moslem demonstrators with murderous slogans on their banners but says she was “hurt and shocked” by the caricatures! Portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist is offensive to her, and discourteous to millions of people. She says she believes in freedom of speech but the criticism in the cartoons of the very Moslems she herself criticizes seems to pass her by. The bomb-head cartoon is not subtle, so why is it so hard for Moslems to understand. It is because they are in utter denial of what the mad mullahs and terrorist brotherhoods are making of their own religion. If violence is contrary to the teachings of Mohammed, then why do so many Moslems not criticize, and indeed call to order, their own violent teachers and their gangs. Moreover, even though most British Moslems have sought representation in parliament through the Labour party, surely they can see that the supposedly socialist party is actually a national socialist one, and if Blair continues on his own insane path, the destruction of freedom will leave the Moslems where the Nazis had the Jews. Fascists always need a victim, and for these modern fascists Moslems are it! They must defend the secular society and liberalism as their allies, or they are in danger of suffering the martyrdom their mullahs seem to desire.

In the Same Boat

Robin Yassin-Kassab sees Moslems as caught between “militant secularism” and “unreflective Islamism”, plainly failing to see that moderate Moslems are in the same boat as us all, caught between Straussist Judaeao-Christian fascists and militant Islamic fascists, with secularism our ally not our enemy. He says Europeans do not understand why the cartoons are so hurtful, and he is probably right about that, but nor can Europeans understand how Moslems can let their supposedly peaceful religion be taken over with hardly a word of protest—so far as we can hear, anyway—by violent criminal gangs. One of those protesting inappropriately against the cartoons was a criminal in fact—a convicted drug dealer on parole. Yet he was parading his dedication to the Prophet and his teachings. The next cartoon will show a turbaned Moslem handing out packets of class A drugs. Will that be shocking too? So, Italian and Irish gangsters in the USA made meretricious displays of church going. All the patriarchal religions are the same. All of them are hypocritical. That is the point of these cartoons.

A Manaz says that the Prophet Mohammed, asked how he would describe his teaching in one word, replied “tolerance”. If that is so, then Moslems who believe and want to practice this should be on the side of liberal secularism. Liberalism is also best described by the same single word! Tolerance means accepting everything except intolerance—only intolerance is not accepted. If it were then society could not be tolerant for long. To tolerate intolerant people or communities is like a flock of sheep accepting a wolf into its fold. Patriarchal religions, as history demonstrates all too clearly, always demand tolerance of others as long as they are in a minority. When they get into a dominant position, they are rarely tolerant. Moslem countries are rarely tolerant, and western countries under the influence of the Christian driven leaders at the fore like Bush and Blair are getting less tolerant. All people who believe there are huge advantages to living in a secular, and therefore tolerant, society should be willing to vigorusly defend freedom of expression before the wolves get seriously hungry!

Adrian Hamilton, a commentator in the UK Independent tries to stand on a high wire above the contenders except that he implies that the secularists defending free speech are themselves fascists stirring up religious hatred against Moslems. If it is true of some, the upshot of his generalization, will be to deter genuine liberals from trying to defend free speech at a time when it is under unprecedented attack from the real fascists of all three patriarchal religions. Liberals differ from facists in respecting people. They do not, indeed must not, respect or defend illiberal opinions, let alone laws. Fascists object to anyone holding any opinion except their own. Liberals defend everyone’s right to hold an opinion, but do not have to respect the opinion itself. So criticizing mistaken and oppressive views, Christian, Jewish or Moslem, is perfectly liberal, not fascist at all.

The leader writer of the Indy jumps to defend not free speech but the restriction of free speech when someone might be offended. “It is a fine line”, he writes. It is, and the whole argument is where it should be drawn. These cartoons were not gratuitously offensive in themselves. The bomb-head Moslem makes a frank point that Moslems must admit to. Its purpose was not to offend or to mock the prophet, per se. If the collection was compiled at a particular time to offend, then that is wrong, but how can anyone judge. The ultimate judgement must be that cartoons are crude glyphs that ought not offend anyone who is rational, and the leader writer of a liberal paper ought, above all, to be rational, and see reason. Thankfully, the leading article ends soundly:

There must never be a situation in which people have a legal right not to be offended… tolerance rather than the right to offend must be valued most highly.

Through the controversy, Hamilton adds:

Those with a mind or half a mind to believe that Moslems are by nature and indoctrination fanatics ready to resort to violence and death threats at the drop of an epithet are reinforced in their assumptions.

Sadly that is true, but the way for it to be changed is for the moderate Moslems, whom all commentators seem to agree are the vast majority, to sort out their own house. As long as they continue beefing about trivia—and a cartoon, even if it is Mohammed, is trivial—while they tolerate in their midst lunatics calling for murder, and even trying and sometimes succeeding to arrange it, then those with half a mind to believe Moslems are fanatics will have their prejudices reinforced.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Moslem journalist in the UK Independent with a good record of criticism of Bush and his poodle over the Iraq war, used the position she has as a commentator in a liberal newspaper to criticize the “dishcloths”, as she calls them, with their “murderous banners and belligerence”, but she too cannot criticize the Moslem madmen without, in parallel, denigrating the newspaper editors visually exposing the dishcloths by publishing the cartoons. She calls them “liberal warriors high on conceit” who belittle “freedom of expression” by “taking something precious and turning it into a licence for the intelligentsia to act like yobs”—unlike Moslem intelligentsia who do not act at all, or even say anything much, except to find ways of directing attention away from the murderous dishcloths that the cartoons depicted, and instead blame the cartoonists and their editors! Alibahai-Brown is absolutely right to criticize Bush and Blair, but she is like the rest of the Moslem intellectuals in desperately deflecting attention from their own criticisms of the dishcloths on to liberals trying to maintion the rights she quite properly values in attacking Bush and Blair. She must see, surely, that none of us should bow to either Bush and Blair in their aim of restricting our freedom, or Moslems who want to do the same. Much of what she says is on the same lines as the cartoons. She writes:

Is their faith so uncertain that a few ink lines can shrivel it? Threat and deaths for stupid pictures, what kind of morality is that?

Indeed, and we have to answer that the imams who drew them to the attention of the Moslem world, months after the original publication of the images, actually do fear that the faith of their gullibles is uncertain, and has to be restored by a little pious rage and destruction once in a while. They did not see the pictures as stupid. They saw them as dangerous to their control of the Moslem masses.

She says “most of us Moslems detest them more than whites ever could”, proving the racism lurking beneath her supposed liberality. There are white Moslems, not merely the few converts like the former Cat Stevens, but a whole country full of them, the former Bogomil heretics who chose to convert to Islam, in Bosnia! There are also yellow, brown, and black Moslems, and, if any of them think a supreme being wants them to blow themselves up and fellow human beings then they are all wrong and criminals. Furthermore, if Moslems detest these men then why did they not accept the cartoons that showed them for the hypocrites they are, why indeed did the righteous Moslems not draw similar cartoons themselves, and why have the Moslems that detest them so much not done more to root these worms, who really malign Mohammed, out of their own communities? These are the questions the cartoons have brought to the fore, and these are the reasons Moslems are defensive, even supposedly liberal ones like Alibhai-Brown.

Among the criticisms she raises against those “liberal warriors” who defend freedom of expression are that it “stands aside for money”. So this liberal Moslem woman now puts freedom of expression personified into the dock where it stands condemned for “double standards”.

Where are the impassioned arguments against the Serious Organized Crimes Act that stops people of conscience quietly protesting outside Parliament?

No liberal would put freedom of expression in the dock, and this question is meant to mislead, because defenders of freedom of expression have protested vehemently over this disgraceful act, and Alibhai-Brown knows it. They include many writers on papers like her own. The Serious Organized Crimes Act is another example of how our freedoms are being taken from us, bit by bit. Liberals protested that a young woman was arrested alongside the cenotaph peacefully reading the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. Yet Moslems protesting against the cartoons, even though no UK newspaper has published them, and calling for beheadings and massacres were not arrested, we hear, because the police were afraid of exacerbating the situation. Again, the cartoons make the point!

Liberals must protest seriously about the frightening trend all of this represents or lose our liberty. But you do not protest the loss of your freedoms by voluntarily giving them up! When Moslems refuse to look through the critical microscope at their own failings, then a cartoon to force them to do it, or reveal themselves as insincere, is better than deporting them to, say, Saudi Arabia or locking them up without trial, both being proposed by this British Nazi government.

Alibhai-Brown ends up with this:

Ordinary Moslems have convincingly argued against gratuitous provocation. Now they must reassert as powerfully how they value the freedom to be and to speak in the way Europe allows them to. That should confound and silence their liberal enemies.

Alibhai-Brown’s own arguments prove that the cartoons were not gratuitiously provocative. She says openly she detests the “dishcloths”, the violent men who bring Islam into disrepute that the cartoons highlighted as hiding behind the face of their Prophet. And she urges Moslems to value the freedom we as yet have to speak as we like. Yet this presumed liberal declares to volatile and sometimes deranged people that liberals are their enemy! Sadly, it adds to the perception that the Moslem religion somehow removes peoples’ reason.

Suppressing Press Freedom

The Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, says:

Confusing respect for a religion with assenting to its principles would amount to undermining the secular foundation on which democratic societies are built.

BBC Press Monitoring Service

Quite right, too, yet even some western liberals seem unaware of this danger of suppressing press freedom. It is not any sudden revolutionary loss of our freedoms we must guard against but their slow erosion. The two Christian leaders of the, as yet, still free world are ganging up on the legal basis of free society, driven, it seems, by their own religious delusions, and not by any desire to keep us free. Christians, Moslems and Israeli Jews continuously chorus their objections to the press exercising its freedom, with this merely the latest. Yet, some cartoons were published by a Christian journal in Norway! In any case, why should anyone even respect these religions when everything we learn about their history offends us to the core? Do not respect them. What is to be respected about faith based on no evidence, but only ancient books and the word of control freaks? The idea is disgusting, and in a free society it is our right to say so, though it is a right we might not expect to retain as long as the crypto-fascists that rule us and the US remain in power.

PM Blair and his party of hand picked opportunist toadies called the Parliamentary Labour Party—bar seventy or eighty “old Labour” dissenters—is determined to bring in even more restrictive “anti-terrorism” laws. The cartoons would attract prosecution under the government’s racial and religious hatred bill, if it were to be enacted. Paul Coggins, a Labour Home Office minister, said intention to stir up hatred was not the only criterion, it could simply be reckless behaviour! Blair went along with Bush in attacking the Moslem world by attacking Iraq, and now feels he can keep British Moslems sweet by sympathising with them over the alleged offence. It suits him because he and Brown are intent on repressing us as much as possible by bringing in so-called anti-terrorist laws. The we shall all suffer, with freedom becoming a dream.

Briton is an old country with laws in its statute books going back many centuries. The British have plenty of laws and need no more. What we have is an idle police force who would rather just collect their hefty pay cheques than enforce the laws we have, except when the breaches of the law are constant and trivial, like most motoring offences. Moreover, when serious offences are prosecuted and are successful, the criminals ought to expect serious sanctions against them. Often they do not, and cock a snook at society.

Liberals do not oppose law, but they think laws should be minimal, and should be effective if they are necessary. Fascists like laws, and they like them to apply to those they particularly do not like such as common people, and their political opponents The punishment for these people in fascist regimes is inevitably draconian, and usually implemented without such tedious bureaucracy as trials and the process of the law. It is up to us who value these boring old practices to defend them against new Labour and new Nazis nibbling away at them at the edges. Everyone should be concerned about this, and it is a symptom of the decay of Labour under Blair and Brown that it has abandoned the Labour party’s traditional defence of freedoms. Liberalism is now our refuge.

The appeal must be for moderate Moslems to prove their moderation in defending the free society that tolerates all religions, and frankly condemning in words and deeds their extremists. In the words of a UK Guardian leader:

Ours is a tolerant way of life. We must be robust in defending it against its enemies.

Some Cartoons that have Offended Someone

Based on Goya’s painting of Cronos eating his children, just before an Israeli election, the cartoon highlights what Sharon called “targeted” killing of terrorists but the victims too often turned out to be Palestinian women and children. In elections politicians are supposed to kiss not kill babies, whence the cartoon. Dave Brown, the cartoonist, who is timid enough in the cartoon above, to depict the press devouring a Moslem, rather than right wing extremists trying to devour the free press, says it is not in the cartoonists’ remit to be provocative. But they must have the right to offend. “Everyone is saying you have to respect other people’s beliefs, but that is wrong”. What you respect is the right people have to express their beliefs. “Some people’s beliefs are ludicrous.” The only criterion should be, “Is this fair comment?”.

I am never going to draw a racist cartoon because I deplore racism. You should never draw anything you don’t believe in.

Peter Brooks was inspired to do this by the 7 July bombings in London, and generated a lot of complaints from offended people! The cartoonist is pointing out that life is sacred wherever it is, so that the myriads killed by the US military at the instigation of the controlling Straussist clique in Washington are just as valuable as the people killed in London, and that the London deaths are not unrelated to the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are no areas or topics that should be off-limits. Cartoonists should have absolute freedom to express a point of view. You should draw something you feel something about and make a clear focused argument for what you believe in. A cartoon should feature a strong point of view.

Chris Riddell drew this when the allegations came out of Abu Graib. The US military issued a weak, whispered apology while blaming it all on the lower ranks. To imagine “sorry” actually means anything in the context of death and torture is ridiculous. You’ve got to identify what you want to say in a given cartoon, and say it. Cartoonists can cause offence when their iconography or metaphors are not used carefully enough. It is not that the cartoonist must noy offend, but they must think it through.

Cartoons are an offensive medium. It’s meant to be. That’s the whole point. It’s a question of choosing who you want to offend and why. It’s about whether you’ve got good reason or not. I am baffled by the outrage over the Mohammed cartoons. It’s ludicrous. The cartoons are sort of irrelevant. They seem from my perspective to be rather mild. The level of outrage over this is preposterous. The threat to freedom of speech comes from the editors of France Soir being sacked because of the cartoon. People being fired so that a newspaper gives out a message that “we will not offend the Moslems” seems very dangerous to me.

Steve Bell

All of the images that follow offended someone—especially believers!

Someone is Offended by Anything

Sailors kissing	Romping men in jockstraps	Calvin Klein hombre	Affectionate girls She’s a man!
New York cabdriveres were offended by this Levi add. The cabbie picked up the glamourous model and tries to chat her up, until she takes out a cut throat razor… and begins to shave! She is a man!

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