f being totally wonderful is going to be found offensive by the Muslim community – or rather its self-appointed hard-line spokesmen. So then, should every reference to Mohammed, for instance, be followed by the phrase, “peace be upon him”? Is it perhaps offensive to leave that out? Does the simple “Mohammed”, without the “pbuh”, come across as insufficiently reverent? A bit trivial, you might think, but then cartoons are trivial, aren’t they? Offensive sometimes, no doubt, but trivial.
And if we take it that far….well, you can see where this is going. A line has been drawn. They can define offence as they please, and we’ve given them a clear indication that we’re not going to argue about it. We are not to offend Muslims, though Muslims are of course perfectly at liberty to offend us: an opportunity they seized with relish at the recent demonstrations in London, with their placards demanding that those who insult Islam should be exterminated, and (my particular favourite) that we should “be prepared for the real holocaust“. Many of us – most of us – no doubt find this offensive, and might argue that it is in fact considerably more offensive than a cartoon purporting to be of Mohammed, but it is, after all, a free country, and policemen were on hand to make sure that the demonstrators were protected in pursuing their democratic rights to protest. But, as we now know, this is a one-way street. Because, after all, the Islamists know they’re right, and we – well, we’re not quite sure, when it comes down to it.
But what’s been most depressing this past week has been the abject performance of the British press. It would have been one thing if they’d come out with it and said, well, frankly, yes, there is a question of freedom of expression, and it would be appropriate perhaps to show solidarity with our Danish colleagues, but there are people out there with violence in mind, and we have families and safe secure lives, and really, who needs the aggravation. Not very inspiring perhaps, but at least honest. But this smug weaselly self-righteous whining about how the cartoons weren’t very good anyway, and how freedom of expression comes with responsibilities etc. etc. – it’s been a fairly nauseating experience all round. Norm looks at Simon Jenkins’ “craven piece” in the Sunday Times. The Observer features the pompous Henry Porter:
Would I have published the cartoons of Muhammad? No, they aren’t funny and, frankly, they aren’t worth the trouble. Do I applaud and defend the freedom to publish such offensive, asinine work? Yes, and that is my immovable position, as intransigent as the Muslims who have demonstrated across Europe and the Middle East.
But….
Ah yes, what a surprise: there’s a “but”. In the remainder of the article Porter drones on for a while about Voltaire before mentioning “blinkered secularism”, and finally rolls over in as dignified a manner as he can manage given that, faced with the threat of violence – sorry, the giving of offence – he’s prepared to abandon all his grand talk about principles and immovable positions. “Heightened Islamic sensitivity is something we are going to have to take on board.”
And so says all of Fleet Street.
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