Following the arrests of three Muslims for plotting to kill Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew Mohammed wearing a bomb turban, the Danish media have today republished the offending illustration.
Good for them. The minute it became clear that violence and intimidation were the response the western press should have said: Okay, you want to kill one of us, you’ll have to kill us all. The Danes have now taken an important stand against Islamic encroachments on freedom of expression.
In Canada, by contrast, the state hauled the only publisher of the cartoons, my old boss Ezra Levant, into one of its thought-crime courts at the behest of a raving incoherent imam. And all the jelly-spined squish of a Minister of Justice has done is issue lamely evasive talking points. Nonetheless, the imam has now folded, and is calling (insofar as I can follow him) for the matter to be settled according to Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code or some Islamic understanding thereof. Ezra is going on the offensive.
The lesson is, if you face down these bullies, you can win and stop the lights going out on liberty. But you won’t get much help from your government.