I haven't actually looked at the satirical drawings. Mainstream American media, recognizing that the First Amendment encompasses the right to shut up, have left them unpublished. I guess I could find them on the Internet except our computer was attached to Bang & Olufsen speakers. I seem to have crashed the system while yanking wires. But I'm sure these depictions of Muhammad will infuriate me as much as they infuriate Muslims, if for somewhat different reasons. The cartoons are badly drawn and not very funny. I know that sight unseen, because the cartoons are European.
But then he gets serious.
What sort of reaction did Jyllands-Posten expect to its comic strip?Europeans consider Americans stupid, but if the Washington-Posten printed a cartoon showing Martin Luther King in a Sambo get-up being chased around a palm tree by the tiger of identity politics, Don Graham would know what happens next.
That the Europeans didn't think anything would happen illustrates the state of European thought. Ideas have consequences, as Europeans, of all people, should know. Consider the dire consequences of their previous ideas, such as nationalism, colonialism, Marxism, anti-Semitism, Freudian analysis, and the social welfare state. But Europeans just keep having deep thoughts that never include anything so obvious as "God exists" or "faith is powerful." According to Jyllands-Posten's cultural editor, Fleming Rose, the Muhammad caricatures were inspired by the comments of a Danish comedian (that transcendent form of communication again!) who said he had no problem urinating on the Bible but wouldn't dare do so on the Koran. The Danes might want to examine the first part of that statement before labeling other people's religious sensibilities "extremist."
At last, someone who shares my --what is the expression I'm looking for to describe the state of being unimpressed? I mean, his position is belied by the fact that for months the Muslims did nothing --that their outrage now has been ginned up by agitators, as reported often and documented (subs. again) by Olivier Guitta in the same issue of the Standard. But he is certainly right that the new interest in free speech rings a little hollow coming from countries with hate speech codes.
I'd also like to thank the angry mobs for giving the Europeans a lesson in free speech. Europeans are unclear on the concept. It's against the law in Germany to deny the Holocaust. (A little late, I'd say.) Many European countries have laws against "hate speech" that don't seem too different in intent from what Muslim protesters want to do to Danish cartoonists--although the penalty phase of the trial probably would be less dramatic in Europe. Europeans suppose free speech is harmless--nattering in cafés. Americans know that the right to self-expression, like the right to bear arms, is dangerous. That's why we keep a firm grip on those rights. In America the worst kind of people can shoot their mouths off. And they can get shot.
Not shooting the worst kind of people is, of course, the cornerstone of European foreign policy. Now we see the fruits of this nuanced and sophisticated diplomacy all over the Muslim world. I haven't been so satisfied by a policy outcome since half the cars in France were set on
fire last year. But if the past is anything to go by, the Europeans will learn nothing from any of this. (Although the French are these days, maybe, less inclined to ridicule the American obsession with finding a good parking place.)
Well, that's unfair to the Danes, who've been a faithful ally in the War on Terror, and I wouldn't go so far as to say even in jest that I'm glad for all the injuries and deaths associated with these riots. But it doesn't excuse the French & Germans.
The Europeans are the perfect target. They could have helped bring freedom, democracy, and law to the Muslim world, but they'd rather be smartasses.
