More comments on The Cartoons

Neomugwump offers his take on The Cartoons.

The first item he looks at is a proposal that it's time to stop publishing the cartoons everywhere.

But the usefulness of these cartoons has ended. We’ve proved how incompatible much of Islam is with Western values. We’ve proved our commitment to free speech. Now we’re just poking a rabid dog with a sharp stick. There’s no sense to that.

Islam is incompatible with Western values? Hmmm. Should a bunch of screaming fanatics in Syria or Iran speak for a whole faith? What about American Muslims? Are they basically backwards folk because of their faith?

This raises two points, and I'll look at them one at a time.

First: are we needlessly provoking Muslims?

In the comments for Neomugwump's post, I linked to a Weekly Standard article on the cartoons. They were originally published on September 30 in the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten.

No reaction.

They were reprinted on October 17 in an Egyptian newspaper.

Again, no reaction.

(One weird note: September 30 happens to be my birthday, and October 17 happens to be my girlfriends' birthday.)

Only after militant imams cobbled together three really offensive cartoons and published the lot as a booklet did we see riots, protests, burning embassies, and death threats.

Conclusion: We in the West don't have to be offensive. The radical Islamic wing will find reasons to be offended, and if they can't find a good enough reason, they'll make one up.

Second point: are we tarring a whole religion with a billion followers with a broad brush?

Short response: Silence is consent.

Longer response: We have here a group which protests, very loudly, any slight – real or imagined – against Islam. A magazine reports that copies of the Koran are being flushed down toilets at Camp X-ray, and rioters are in the streets and buildings are in flames before anyone even thinks of asking, "how the hell do you fit one of those down a toilet?"

A Nigerian beauty pageant contestant offers the opinion that "these contestants are good women – Muhammed might have taken one as a wife." Now she's had to flee the country in fear of her life.

Where are the Muslims speaking out against these reactions? Where are the crowds of Muslims standing up against those who defame the name of Islam from within? If they exist, they don't seem to be able to get the ear of any reporters at any of the major newspapers, and they don't seem to be able to find anyone with a TV camera.

Or maybe they don't believe any of these acts tarnish the image of their faith.

Maybe the ongoing publication of the cartoons is nothing more than "poking a rabid dog with a sharp stick". But that raises the question of what else can be seen as poking that rabid dog with a sharp stick. The cartoons were originally published as a test. A man who wanted to write a children's book introducing Islam to non-Muslims couldn't find an artist willing to draw depictions of Muhammed. They were all afraid for their safety. So Jyllands-Posten asked for people to submit depictions of Muhammed to see if the "Islamic Street" really was that volatile.

If it's true that publishing any depiction of Muhammed is off limits because it might inflame the rabid dog, then what about any other items the rabid dog chooses to take offense at? If the rabid dog uses its sense of outrage to trim away bits of our culture, we'll eventually be free to do only those things that are allowed by its interpretation of Sharia.

If the radical wing of Islam really is a rabid dog, there is one time-honored solution, and it's not retreating into our houses and letting it have the run of the street.