A little from Emanuele Ottolenghi, who definitely wonders about the timing of this all:
No wisdom will prevail, though, if debate is conducted by violent means. A violent response that aims to intimidate and muzzle the West on anything concerning the sensitivities of one specific community is unacceptable and makes the dispute over the cartoons a sideshow. The only right course of action now, even if one finds those cartoons silly or in bad taste, is to stand by the publisher, the Danish government, the right of other papers to publish, and the general principle of freedom that makes Europe still a free continent and the Arab Middle East still a sea of dictatorships. Recalling ambassadors was disgraceful. Burning embassies was medieval. Boycotting businesses was mafia-like. And not formulating a joint European response (not yet, one hopes) — let alone expressing solidarity to the Danes — was pusillanimous. It is not Denmark, at this point, that owes an apology to Islam. An apology is owed to Denmark, to Europe, and to the freedom that these assaults aim to deny.
And a little from Andrew Stuttaford:
Ideally, the publication of these cartoons would have prompted Muslims to ask themselves why Islam, one of the world’s great religions, could come to be seen in such a bad light. It hasn’t worked out that way. Protests have been followed by boycotts, bluster and, now, violence. The protests and the boycotts are fine. They are all part of the debate. Violence, and the threat of violence, is something else, and, as many more moderate Muslims understand, it is doing far more damage to the reputation of Islam than a few feeble caricatures.
Needless to say, the theocracies, kleptocracies, and autocracies of the Middle East, always anxious for something, anything, to distract attention from their own corruption, uselessness, and thuggery, have played their own, typically malign, part in whipping up anger. Ambassadors have been recalled. Denunciations thunder down. Angry resolutions are passed. But amid all these calls for “respect” is there any acknowledgement that many Islamic countries could do more, much more, to respect the rights of those of different faiths to their own? To take just one example, Egypt’s ambassador to Copenhagen is recommending that diplomatic action against Denmark should continue, but her own country’s persecuted Christian minority would be grateful indeed if their troubles were confined to a few cartoons. Respect, it seems, is a one-way street.
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