A Cartoon Too Far

I've been pretty hard on Michelle Malkin for her disingenuous and hypocritical stance on the "Forbidden Cartoons" in Denmark which have now incited an International Day of Anger among Muslims. Today, however, I'd like to take a look at a real columnist who is commenting on this same subject... Kathleen Parker. While she's never been one of my favorites, she is generally at least lucid. Here then, is part of her approach to the issue of these cartoons, "First they came for the funny ones." (You may have to do a free registration to the Orlando Sentinel for that link.)

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of political cartoonists.

Not this time for the ones losing newspaper jobs, but for those whose lives are literally on the line thanks to outraged Islamists offering a bounty for their heads.

In an interview with Jyllands-Posten, Marlette rejected the idea that Westerners ought to make special concessions to sensitive Muslims.

"The genius of Western democracy is that there should be no 'special' rights or privileges for any group or class of people. All are created equal and are treated equally under the law. Law is insensitive that way. And so is intellectual inquiry. And so is good satire."

None of us likes it when our icons are busted, or our revered symbols ridiculed. But we tolerate offense in the spirit of larger freedoms under rules that have sustained us for centuries.

It's a powerful argument, I'll be the first to admit. And from a raw, black and white view of free speech in an open society, her point is clearly correct. Censoring the media, including editorials and cartoons, is never the right thing to do. The consumer (reader base) will determine what is or is not acceptable and vote with their wallets and attention.

In this case, however, we may find reason to ask ourselves if sometimes the fierce reflex to reject any restrictions on editorial positions might not be tempered by a larger question. Consider, please, the following hypothetical situation:

Imagine that you had a permit to march down main street for whatever issue of the day you were supporting, and you planned to draw up a big cartoon on posterboard to display as you walked. But before your march, police responded to a hostage situation along your parade route where a kidnapper was holding some young coed at gunpoint and making demands. I suppose, in theory, you could draw up a big cartoon which instead depicted the kidnapper as wearing a large chicken suit, and showed the cops standing around, drinking coffee, and saying, "Don't worry. He's too much of a chicken to actually shoot her."

And what if the criminal saw your sign, and that was just enough to drive the him over the edge and he put a bullet in her?

True, you'd probably be within your rights to publicly display your opinion of the kidnapper, but wouldn't you think that it just might not be the right time and place? That possibly there might be larger issues at stake?

I believe that a lot of Americans who are not Muslim don't fully grasp why it is that the Islamic world is so up in arms over these cartoons - most likely because we simply don't have a parallel in our culture. In America, we see cartoons that run right past the far wings of partisanship and into areas of "ick" all the time. We'll see Republicans depicted as Hitler, and Democrats posed as pot-smoking hippies wearing peace beads and eating vegan meals. But this is a religious matter. Again, we don't have a parallel situation here. You actually will see cartoons depicting Jesus in all sorts of inflammatory ways which will greatly offend the true believers and bring out horrified gasps of "Blasphemy!" But what we don't have is a cultural foundation of Christians responding by declaring war.

In Islam, it is a sin to depict the Prophet Mohammed in any fashion. You aren't supposed to create a likeness of him in any way. And you most certainly aren't supposed to do it portraying him as having a bomb strapped to his head. That's beyond what Christians consider to be blasphemy. That's a violation which is a clear declaration of holy war to their most ardent believers. The international state of affairs between Muslims and other, more "Western" religions, is already tighter than a piano wire. We are, to go back to the previous analogy, already sitting in the hostage situation where it doesn't take much to incite violence.

Are the cartoonists in their rights to draw and publish these cartoons? Certainly. Does that make it the right thing to do... here, now, today, in this climate largely created by United States foreign policy? I think that's a less clear cut question.