There was a great letter to the editor in today's Boston Globe, in response to an earlier letter about the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons in a Danish newspaper. The original Globe article is here ("Danish newspapers reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a gesture of solidarity yesterday after police revealed a plot to kill the creator of the caricature that sparked deadly riots in the Muslim world"). The initial letter to the editor from a BU professor is here. The professor asked if freedom of speech includes the feedom to "stir up fear by publishing a drawing that has already proved incendiary". The professor also pointed to Archbishop Rowan Williams recent call to look at integrating sharia law into the English legal system, as a way to "make the Muslims feel at home."
Anyway, the Boston Globe published this terrific letter from Sage of Middlebury VT today:
"MICHAEL ZANK dismisses the symbolic gesture of reprinting an inflammatory cartoon as a 'disingenuous' attempt to incite 'fear'. I maintain that it is a necessary reminder of the frighteningly real threat to freedom of speech coming from parts of the Muslim world. The very reaction the reprinting generated underlines its necessity."
"Have we as a society decided to accept violence as a legitimate response to humor? Somehow we have managed to rationalize incursions upon our fundamental freedoms as small exceptions for comfort. Which calls for more fear: a two-dimensional drawing or a mob of violent protesters?"
"There is nothing inherently threatening about the commentary, but there is in the disproportionate reaction to it. Without more heroic defenses of our freedom to criticize religious extremism in the face of violence, we may lose the ability to criticize anything at all. If we should not judge another society by the standards of our own, then neither should we be held to modify our societal freedoms by the standards of another. Just as Zank believes we should not incite hatred in the 'guise of supporting free speech,' I submit that we cannot curtail freedom in the name of tolerance."
Bravo, Sage! Right on, right on!
Two more points for Mr. Zank to consider:
- The riots over the Danish cartoons were manufactured, not spontaneous eruptions. Danish imam Achmed Abu Laban led a group of imams on a tour of the Middle East months after the cartoons were originally published. They added three far more offensive cartoons. It was intentional provocation. The Danish newspaper editor and cartoonists now live under 24-hour security, some changing their house every day.
- Regarding the proposal to have sharia law courts in England, Professor Zank suffers from the same naïveté as the Archbishop. The strongest opponents to sharia courts in Western countries are Muslim women, because sharia law puts them and their children at an extreme disadvantage. When it comes to divorce, child custody and inheritance, sharia law favors men. Immigrant women who don't speak English and don’t know their rights under English Common Law have the most to lose in sharia law courts. As British Muslim writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown says, "What he (Archbishop Williams) wishes upon us is an abomination."
Why would Zank deny Muslim women women the same rights as British women?
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