Provacateur-Toi!
Le Monde ran an editorial yesterday that, without surprise, demonizes the Muslim protesters against the recent European cartoon troll, while utterly refusing to examine the motives of the newspapers who published the offensive material.
That the journal de référence of France can publish an editorial with such a glaring oversight is indicative of something seriously wicked in the state of Europe. And it sheds new light on the riots into which France descended last summer.
The problem is a lack of respect. Yes, for those of us with a Christian background, it is difficult to understand the Muslim concerns about these cartoons. But that is not a reason to belittle, to offend, and to incite. The defense of "press freedom" invoked by the European editors is hollow because, as White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, this is not a matter of press freedom but one of press responsibility.
Put more succulently by the Christian Science Monitor:
[A clash of civilizations] is less likely if one side refuses to be baited, and that's where the Danish newspaper [Jyllands-Posten] got off track. Danish editor Flemming Rose solicited the drawings precisely because of their sensitive nature. He says Europe is being cowed into self-censorship by Muslims. Publishing the toons plants the flag for free speech.
Thankfully, Mr. Rose lives in a democracy and has a right to express his views. But he could have found a less in-your-face way of doing so. His plethora of illustrations was a cultural assault akin to staging a neo-Nazi rally in a Jewish neighborhood. It bordered on yelling "fire" in a crowded theater - not a matter for censorship but judgment.
Clearly, the protesters are wrong. That statement can practically stand unsaid. They have done nothing but reinforce in many minds of the west exactly the beliefs about Islam that make it possible for westerners to treat their religion with the disdainful disregard upon which the European newspapers have capitalized.
But the editors who published these cartoons did so without regard for the consequences and, more significantly, without the basic human regard that requires that one does not attack another's religion, and for that reason they should be fired and their newspapers should print apologies to the Muslim community. Regardless of the subsequent actions of radical Muslims, the actions of the newspapers stand as the causative wrong, and it is time that they take responsibility.
What we are seeing in Europe is the same polemic disregard for those of differing beliefs that have pushed American politics to the wings and made us a nation of 51 versus 49 percent and of blue versus red. All the more troubling in Europe is that the differences are not of party affiliation or of political ideology but of religion and ethnicity. These differences are not fluid and will not go away. And a Europe divided along those lines will tear itself apart far more surely than an America polarized by ideology.
[Feb 07, 2006] | [religion] | # | G
