As regards the SOME vs ALL ambiguity, I still think you are a little harsh. I wrote a little essay on the giving and taking of offence here. In short, where freedom of speech exists, there is no need to TAKE offence. You should clarify motive or intention first.

In this context, the “ALL” is, I believe, an unjustified over-interpretation but no attempt was made to establish this before protesting.

Indeed, from the Muslim protestor’s point of view, if he thinks it DOES mean “ALL”, in what way does reacting violently disprove the cartoon? Not tremendously rational.

“I wonder if they would have published the cartoons if instead of fearing for their lives, they feared for the safety of Danish trade in the middle eastern market-place. I suspect they might have found a more constructive way to “exercise their freedom of speech”.”

Clarice, you are missing the context again: If the pre-existing fear of death threats was not there, there would not have been the debate about self-censorship in Denmark leading up to the publication.

The death threats ARE the rationale for publication so your point is irrelevant. Indeed it is irrelevant BECAUSE it is true. They would not have published in Denmark had there not been a sense of self-censorship.

PG

Thanks for your response.
I like your SOME Muslims are terrorists point, very level-headed. I think such an image is ambiguous though as to whether the intended meaning is SOME or ALL. The cartoonist must bear the responsibility for this ambiguity, and since he chose to produce an ambiguous image in this regard, one could argue that he didn’t take due care to rule out the ALL interpretation, and therefore showed disregard for the possibility that it might be interpreted this way.

I would also argue that it is human nature to categorise things, and despite the distortions and injustices that this often causes, it is what people do by default. People exaggerate ALL the time Without specific training, people don’t tend to do well with probabilistic reasoning, which is why bookies make money, for eg. To ignore human nature like that is foolish at best.

Although the “over-interpretation” is indeed dangerous in this climate, creating something so ambiguous that it is (as this example clearly was) very vulnerable to dangerous over-interpretation could be considered dangerous/foolish in itself. I wonder if they would have published the cartoons if instead of fearing for their lives, they feared for the safety of Danish trade in the middle eastern market-place. I suspect they might have found a more constructive way to “exercise their freedom of speech”.

I’m wondering if you would say that Omar Khyam’s counter-”protest” would have been right on, if only it hadn’t included the implied threat of violence? Do you see where I’m going with this.
Enjoyed your post, off now to your link. Wish I had my own blog.
C

I owe Clarice a response:

“Firstly, re. my comment about the terrorist-tarring, was there not a cartoon of Mohammed depicted with headwear made out of a bomb with a lit fuse? In the current political climate, that was my interpretation of such an image. Perhaps I was wrong. Certainly I can see that it’s only one possible interpretation, but perhaps not an entirely irrational or far-fetched, or counter-intuitive one?”

You are quite correct: it is not irrational or far-fetched or counter-intuitive. I just think it goes slightly too far. To me, the bomb-turban says “SOME muslims are Terrorists” or rather “Many terrorists abuse Islam to provide a justification for their hideous crimes”. It does NOT say “ALL Muslims are Terrorists”. To suggest that it does you have to divorce yourself entirely from the context in which it was commissioned and published which was that errr…. illustrators feared reprisals from the Terrorist-type minority of Muslims.

In this climate, that sort of over-interpretation (from SOME to ALL) is indeed dangerous. Particularly because of the widespread (though not universal) denial of even the “SOME”. It is the “SOME” that we have to complain about, and the erosion of Free Expression hampers our ability to do just that.

“Secondly, the context that you quote notwithstanding, I do not see how my terrorist-tarring comment could be construed as insulting. It could have been a misinterpretation of one of the images, but given the current political climate and the penchant for suicide bombings in the name of Islam, perhaps that could be forgiven?

I do not see who my comment insults, or how. Perhaps you can tell me.”

And here I have gone too far. It was clear that you lacked the Danish context so I should have been more careful. (This is a clear error on my part - I knew you did not have the context - that is why I reproduced it) My point was that you clearly had not asked WHY the Danes had published and yet you were completely ready to ascribe bad motive to them. That, I suggest, is insulting to the Danes.

Is this fair?

Your final point (Violence is wrong, but the cause may not be) is I think true, but may be irrelevant. I say this because we freedom-of-speechers ALL recognise the Muslim position. On the other hand, there has been no attempt whatsoever on the part of active Muslim leadership (there are moderate voices - there just aren’t any at the MCB or MPACUK) to consider the erosion of the Freedom of Expression.

I attempt to deal with this here.

I hope this helps.

PG

What I said about people thinking that Jews were weird - perhaps I am guilty of an exaggeration. The point I was trying to make was that it is perfectly all right to think that what someone else, or some other group, does is weird, or wrong, or ridiculous, but as long as those who do it are allowed to do it without fear of, say, beheading, and those who don’t are allowed to say they don’t want to, without fear of, say, beheading, there shouldn’t be a problem.

I thought that the Danish cartoons were crass and I understand why Muslims found them offensive. But I also think that we are now in a situation where the visible Muslim reaction (I say “visible” to account for what I hope is the silent majority of moderates) seems to prove the point which the Danish cartoons were making. For example, British papers have not published these cartoons and have spoken out quite strongly against the publication of them by European newspapers. I am not sure whether I agree with their logic, which is summed up by the Guardian to the effect that it’s fine to assert the right to publish them but you shouldn’t exercise it. (Er…) But be that as it may, the public reaction in England has been that the photographs should not have been published and yet we were still treated to the spectacle of Muslims marching through London with their faces covered holding up banners calling for the “butchering, slaying, killing, beheading” of those who “insult Islam”.

I wouldn’t criticise someone else’s choice of faith myself - I’m Jewish, everyone thinks we’re weird - but I don’t see why other non-Muslims, non-Christians, non-Jews and non-anything elses shouldn’t be allowed to say what they like about other religions, whenever they want to, provided that they aren’t attempting to incite violence against that group - which, of course, is what the Danish cartoons did not do. And if you are not a Muslim then you can draw a picture of Muhammad or anything else if you want, just as if you are not a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew you can draw as many pictures of God and make as many graven images as you want.

The whole point of freedom of speech is that it is a freedom. People can say what they like. You don’t have to agree with it or like it and you can protest against it, but if it’s a freedom that people can’t exercise for fear of being beheaded by someone who didn’t like it then it isn’t really a freedom at all.