Tuesday, February 07, 2006
More on the Cartoons
I'll just give my 2 cents on this whole fiasco:
I'm a reasonably observant Catholic (by European standards anyway). I go to church every week. I'm also a conservative politically and have great reverence for all religions. These cartoons published in Denmark depict the prophet Mohammed, even though depicting him is a grave disrespect to Islam. Its beyond me why someone would do it. If the UK was still devout Christian and say someone in Syria drew Jesus Christ dropping bombs from a US plane - even that would not come close to creating a comparison to describe the offense some people were caused by this. When your life is your religion, these things matter. The cartoons are offensive, and they're embarrasing to me.
But now, such as the world we live in, it is my duty to defend these cartoons. You do not have a right not to be offended. Here in the West, the protection of freedom is, as Lord Acton said, not the most important role of government - it is the role of government. Freedom is what we are. I can assure all the thugs and terrorists that burned embassies and threatened others with death over the weekend that we take this very seriously here.
You will not intimidate us. We are drawing the line in the sand right now. Protest if you must; but you must respect our values of liberal democracy wherever you are in the world, and if you plan to live in Europe, you must live by them. No compromise.
I've linked the cartoons on this blog via this post, and I urge a British newspaper to step forward and publish them. You do not have to condone the depiction of Mohammed. You do not even have to support the underlying political message coming through in the cartoons about Islamic terrorism.
You must publish them because you can.
Comments:
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Firstly I believe religion and politics should never mix, although they seem to always play the biggest problems both on the domestic and international stage. Secondly I must say that I think these cartoons are out of order and I don’t believe that they should have been published. But I also believe in the freedom speech and I feel that anyone should be allowed to say anything they want. This has also opened up new questions of responsibility for the government, Should or should not the Government legislate against religious hatred? Or, as I believe, this sort of debate is out the remit of government control. I think that there is a level where the government can’t go any further and people have a moral responsibility. In an open liberal democracy I believe its right that government should clamp down on those who break the rules however, on a subject of religion and hatred towards it, maybe it should be the people who take the responsibility and respect the views of others. I don’t believe government should step in when people’s views are being questioned – which they are. If you take a view, and in my eyes religion is a view, you should be willing to take criticisms. Maybe those people who created the cartoons should have taken the mature decision that they would upset others. If they intended to upset others then they are an immature, narrow minded and stereotypical people.
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