Flemming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, has the lead piece in WaPo's Outlook section today, in which he explains his reasons for publishing the 12 Danish cartoons o' death. I agree with about 85% of what he says, especially this, which is the main point.
But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.
That, plus the fact that decent people do not impose the death penalty for petulance is the reason you have to stand with the newspapers at this point.
Nonetheless, I continue to think --in fact this column definitively convinces me-- that there is something fundamentally unserious --something almost, but not quite right--in this effort to defy de facto shari'a brought on by Islamic fundamentalist intimidation. Rose cites as his inspirations the fact that an artist wasn't allowed to display his torn up Bibles and Korans in a --presumably publicly funded-- museum; and a comedian confessed he'd happily pee on the Bible but was afraid to pee on the Koran. (And that desire is considered normal why?) Plus people were afraid to illustrate a story of Mohammed --ok, I'll give him that one. Then he says he didn't mean to offend. C'mon, now, how can that be the case if the cartoons were published as a way to defend the right to pee on or tear up the Koran? That's what he says, right? And anyway, isn't the general point of a political cartoon to be disrespectful? He's on much stronger ground, I think, when he argues that jibing at Muslims is a sign that they've arrived --they're part of the Danish family now, not just guests to whom you have to be polite. But the two arguments are opposed.
He says his action in printing the cartoons is in the tradition of the sainted "Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak." But I don't recall any of those gentlemen peeing on the Communist Manifesto or languishing in the gulag for having cartooned Lenin. Does he want to oppose Islam or just tease it good-naturedly?
