In September the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published several cartoons showing the prophet Muhammad as a fundmentalist and a bomb-wearing mullah , among other things. They did this, they said, to show Muslim immigrants that the West has such a thing as freedom of the press and freedom of speech after an illustrator complained that he could get no one to illustrate his book on Muhammad.
In a predictable reaction, angry adherents to the Religion of Peace living in Denmark began sending death threats to the illustrators responsible for the cartoons. When those threats didn’t work, ambassadors from 10 Muslim countries demanded the Danish government do something about this outrage.
Editors of Jyllands-Posten refused to apologize. “Religious feelings,” said cultural editor Flemming Rose, “cannot demand special treatment in a secular society. In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”
What better statement could one make regarding the role of newspapers in a secular and democratic society right? This guy should be hoisted on a pedestal, not subjected to verbal stoning. But where is his support on this side of the pond? Nowhere, as far as I can tell. Except for bloggers and right-wing Web sites, no one seems concerned about the Muslim version of the Salem Witch Trials going on in Denmark.
This week Jyllands-Posten finally got some support. On Tuesday both France-Soir in France and Die Welt in Germany ran the cartoons as a show of support for their Danish collegues. Rumor is that more newspapers in Europe are going to follow suit.
Editors of France Soir said: “The publication of 12 cartoons in the Danish press has shocked the Muslim world for whom the representation of Allah and his prophet is banned. But because no religious dogma can impose its view on a democratic and secular society, France Soir publishes the incriminated cartoons."
Editors of Germany’s Die Welt expressed a similar sentiment: “Democracy is the institutionalized form of freedom of expression. There is no right to protection from satire in the West.”
For all their courage, however, these papers weren’t the first to show solidarity with Jyllands-Posten. On January 10, the Norwegian Christian newspaper Magazinet printed the cartoons as a show of defiance against Islamic fundamentalist threats.
What about The New York Times and The Washington Post? No word from them. What about the American journalistic establishment? You know, the one that became apoplectic about press freedom when reporters were jailed and questioned for withholding sources in the Plamegate incident, that railed about press freedom when The New York Times published classified information that outed a CIA air courier service and an NSA terrorist surveillance operation. Surely their concern for freedom of the press doesn’t stop at the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Sadly, apparently so.
Last week Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark to protest the publication of the cartoons by Jyllands-Posten. Will they also recall their ambassadors from France, Germany and whatever other European countries have newspapers brave enough to reprint the cartoons? I guess we’ll see.
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