So a Danish newspaper ran some cartoons of Muhammad and Muslim’s are really angry. There are rules, I hear, against depictions of the “Prophet” and the Danish have violated them. When I first heard I thought that it was mighty insensitive of the normally liberal Danish society. The reaction in some Muslim nations has been intense including the most effective boycott I’ve ever heard of. Don’t forget that Danish filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered for his work showing Muslim mistreatment of women. So there appears to be some existing tension between the Danish media and Islam already.
Well, as the title of this post (and the title of the BBC News headline it comes from) things have gotten kicked up a notch. The Western media has bent over backwards to portray Islam as a “peaceful religion”. Heck, our own President, ostensibly a Christian, called Islam a “noble religion” during the State of the Union address. Anyway, I have been amazed at our generally liberally-inclined media’s response to a religion that subjugates women. I thought they would be ill-disposed to it but they haven’t been. Till now. Newspapers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have all run the cartoons! What a shocker! I mean France??!!
Here’s some helpful quotes from this BBC News [1] article:
Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world “betrays a lack of understanding” of press freedom as “an essential accomplishment of democracy.”
In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.
Islam was given a pass on the feminist test for Western media but when it comes to their Sacred Cow, free speech, it appears that they can let things can only go only so far. So I wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the romance the Western media has had with Islam, portraying it as a misunderstood and persecuted religion. Christianity, of course, is the bad guy.
Somehow, I don’t think this tiff will last too long. Even with the media affirming their rights to say whatever they want, I think the lure of Islam will over come their political agendas. Can’t pass up a good story.