What’s happening over at Harry’s Place? First Brownie:
I stand by my view that no constructive purpose can be served by the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in other journals across Europe. The message that liberal democracies will continue to assert the primacy of free speech, even where that risks offending religious sensibilities, has been sent and we should continue to send it.
And we continue to send it by…..backing down and apologising when confronted with the threat of violence.
Then, in the next post, Gene:
[H]ow many of those with a “rub it in their faces” attitude toward the cartoons would be willing to stand face-to-face with a group of striking bus drivers in Tehran and tell them, in effect, “I support your cause, I wish you the best in your struggle against the regime, but I also think your deeply-held religious beliefs are a bunch of crap. And furthermore, I think cartoons featuring your most revered religious figure, which you may find deeply offensive, ought to be published as widely and as often as possible until you learn to stop complaining about it. But hey, solidarity forever.”
Which makes sense if you think that:
a) the purpose of republishing the cartoons is to “rub it in their faces”, and,
b) the newspapers that have published the cartoons are saying that they think Islam is a bunch of crap,
both of which are precisely the distortions promulgated by those Islamists seeking to make something out of all this nonsense, (as opposed to the real reasons for republishing – showing solidarity with colleagues under threat, and affirming the right to freedom of expression in the face of violent intimidation),
and c) those striking bus drivers, detained without trial in the prisons of Tehran, can think of nothing that concerns them more than some cartoons printed four months ago in a Danish newspaper.
Mick Hartley 
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