Those Cartoons

The Gorse Fox has, until now, avoided the debate regarding those cartoons. Today's walk and extended debate helped clarify his thoughts.

There is much rhetoric on both sides of the debate. GF believes you can only understand a problem by examining it from both sides.

He remembers that when "The Last Temptation of Christ" was released, great offence was taken. He remembers when the picture of the Madonna, made from dung, was shown he was deeply offended. Therefore, he finds it entirely understandable that the cartoons could have offended some Muslims. (Should they be any less susceptible that the Gorse Fox?)

Now, taking offence is one thing, demonstrating against this offence is acceptable, however, passing on and spreading the offence to people of a like mind is peverse. Stirring up fury in people who would never otherwise have seen the material is more wrong than the original offense. (Because such distribution will also offend and the perpetrators should know better).

Finally, the nature of the protests, threatening violence and mayhem, and assaulting people whose only connection to the offense is being born in the same country is utterley unacceptable and is an affront to any concept of civilisation.

We must all take responsibility for our own words, ideas, and publications. We should wield them with care, recognising and respecting those who will hear or read them. If we offend we should be taken to task. If we are offended we should complain. We can even have recourse to protest and to the law.

What we must NOT do, however, is stifle free speech - it is the jewel of a free society.

UPDATE:
Rightly, the Gorse Fox was taken to task (by The Pedant-General in Ordinary)regarding the the Danish side of this story.

There has been much written about this and Gorse Fox suspects a degree of post-rationalisation. Denmark is a free society, it uses humour and satire to lampoon just as we do in England. In general people may have known that cartoon of Mohammed may offend, but would any reasonable person expect that they would cause bloodshed? Gorse Fox thinks not. The fact that they were published in Egypt without incident shows clearly that this is a fabricated response. So GF suspects that the Danes, just as the English would have, published these cartoons to make a statement and hopefully send a wake up call to moderate Muslims across the world.

Gorse Fox suspects that in some perverse way this may even actually work.

Should the Danes have published these cartoons? Gorse Fox thinks, on balance, yes. Would the Gorse Fox now publish them? He's not sure. He preaches that you should take responsibility for your actions. He is not unduly worried about reprisals, but he would not deliberately cause offense (ok, he'd make an exception for lawyers... oh, and politicians... and trolls... and footballers who cheat). He said before that he had been offended by items in the past, and he believes that he should therefore know better.

BUT the dichotomy he faces is whether there is greater good here. That of freedom of thought, speech and association. In an icreasingly secular and multicultural society - as we enjoy in the "West" - it is only a free exchange of ideas and views that will allow us to move forward as a race. Suppression of these values will continue to foster dis-integration, dis-trust, and dis-respect.

The Gorse Fox has spoken!
[File under: Mohammed Cartoons, Islam]