When Political Cartoons mock Christianity..

This is an interesting thought by Carl Olsen over at Ignatius Press:

... you know what will happen: riots, violence, bloodshed, and threats of bloodshed. Yeah, right. Of course, orthodox Christians are sometimes said to be as violent and crazed as "Islamic fundamentalists," but the evidence simply isn't there. But see what happens when a Danish newspaper prints cartoons deemed upsetting to Muslims. The Boston Globe reports that the twelve cartoons depict "the prophet [Muhammed] wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues." The cartoons can be viewed on the Stuff.co.nz website, which also reprints part of the explanation that accomponied the cartoons when they were first published last September:

"The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings.

"It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule.

"It is certainly not always equally attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is less important in this context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no one can tell how the self-censorship will end.
"That is why the Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Mohammed as they see him."

Upset by the cartoon, the Globe reports, thousands of Syrians, "torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus yesterday, the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East."

In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building, police said.
Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union, and the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas called the cartoons ''an unforgivable insult" that merited punishment by death.

So, in other words, "They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings." Most people can understand being irritated, annoyed, or even upset by cartoons, television shows, movies, artwork, articles, etc., etc. that criticize, mock, or otherwise (actually or seemingly) attack one's beliefs. But rioting and making deaththreats because of some cartoons? And, in the process, demonstrating how accurate the basic point of those cartoons is? As Mark Steyn writes:

The cartoons aren't particularly good and they were intended to be provocative. But they had a serious point. Before coming to that, we should note that in the Western world "artists" "provoke" with the same numbing regularity as young Muslim men light up other countries' flags. When Tony-winning author Terence McNally writes a Broadway play in which Jesus has gay sex with Judas, the New York Times and Co. rush to garland him with praise for how "brave" and "challenging" he is. The rule for "brave" "transgressive" "artists" is a simple one: If you're going to be provocative, it's best to do it with people who can't be provoked.Thus, NBC is celebrating Easter this year with a special edition of the gay sitcom "Will & Grace," in which a Christian conservative cooking-show host, played by the popular singing slattern Britney Spears, offers seasonal recipes -- "Cruci-fixin's." On the other hand, the same network, in its coverage of the global riots over the Danish cartoons, has declined to show any of the offending artwork out of "respect" for the Muslim faith.

Well, that's a shock! (Say, isn't NBC one of the major networks that spent an hour fawning over the "provocative" novel, The Da Vinci Code, which is, I think, just as [or more] insulting to Christians and Christianity than the cartoons in question?) Steyn concludes:

Very few societies are genuinely multicultural. Most are bicultural: On the one hand, there are folks who are black, white, gay, straight, pre-op transsexual, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, worshippers of global-warming doom-mongers, and they rub along as best they can. And on the other hand are folks who do not accept the give-and-take, the rough-and-tumble of a "diverse" "tolerant" society, and, when one gently raises the matter of their intolerance, they threaten to kill you, which makes the question somewhat moot.

Meanwhile, the riots continue and the death threats keep rolling in. All this from folks who go violently nuts over cartoons, but regularly produce copious amounts of anti-Semitic literature and anti-Christian ugliness, as Tim Blair notes:

Odd that this concern over maintaining the peace doesn’t limit Muslim commentary on other religions or communities. The Islamic Bookstore in Lakemba, for example, sells vicious anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as various anti-Christian titles (Crucifixion – or Cruci-FICTION?). Sheik Khalid Yasin, a regular guest lecturer in Australia, declared that “there’s no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend” and denounced modern clothes as the work of “faggots, homosexuals and lesbians”; Christians, he said, deliberately infected Africans with AIDS. Yasin wouldn’t merely draw cartoons of homosexuals—he’d have them put to death in accordance with Koranic law. One Imam told Australian students that Jews put poison in bananas. Local Iraqis voting in their country’s elections were shot at and otherwise intimidated by Islamic extremists whose banners announced: “You vote, you die.” These friends of free speech were also observed photographing those who dared to vote. Sheikh Feiz Muhammad told a supportive Bankstown crowd last year that women deserve to be raped if they wore “satanical” garments, including anything “strapless, backless, [or] sleeveless”, and also “mini-skirts [and] tight jeans.”

The reaction of Father Justo Lacunza Balda, the director of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, reported by Catholic World News:
"The Danes showed a lack of tact, but that doesn't mean that we should curb freedom of the press." That was the judgment of Father Justo Lacunza Balda, the director of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, regarding the heated controversy over publication of newspaper cartoons that lampooned Islam.

Speaking to a Vatican Radio audience on February 3, Father Balda said that Danish editors should a "lack of wisdom" in publishing the cartoons, which have caused angry protests in the Muslim world. If the publications had been "just a bit prudent," he said, they would have realized that the caricatures would be deeply offensive to Islamic readers.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that some English newspapers are unsure what to do or think about all of this.

The Independent, a fierce champion of free speech, said: "There is a right to exercise an uncensored pen. But there is also a right for people to exist in a secular pluralist society without feeling alienated, threatened and routinely derided as many Muslims do now.
"To elevate one right above all others is the hallmark of a fanatic. The media have responsibilities as well as rights." ....

The Daily Mail said: "While the Mail would fight to the death to defend those papers that printed the cartoons, it disagrees with the fact they have done so. Rights are one thing, responsibilities are another."

"The papers that so piously proclaim freedom of speech are deeply discourteous to the Islamic view. An obligation of free speech is that you do not gratuitously insult those with whom you disagree."

Yeah, right. Pah-leeeease. I especially like this remark "To elevate one right above all others is the hallmark of a fanatic." Does that include the right of certain groups of Muslims to kill anyone who disagrees with them? You don't have to agree with the content of the cartoons to see that this ongoing situation 1) is probably just the tip of the iceburg, 2) highlights how severe is the clash between the traditional Western view of tolerance and radical Islamic beliefs, and 3) how deep in the sand many in the MSM continue to bury their confused heads.

Posted by Carl Olson http://insightscoop.typepad.com/