What should happen after each of these outrageous, lunatic threats is for EVERY outlet of print, broadcast, and internet to publicize its most ridiculing caricature or cartoon of The Prophet or its most irresponsible parody of The Faith. Do that enough times and it would water down the fanatics.
...or, I'm afraid, buttress the claims of those who would radicalize young Muslims in North American and European societies. Namely, that their heritage and religion are indeed under attack by the larger society.
Yet this risk must not be used as a rationale for permitting the threat of violence to shape and limit civic discourse.
Any possible "blow-back" should be considered as an acceptable, albeit deplorable, cost of free expression.
Those journalists around the world - in Russia, the Philippines and Latin America, to name only a few areas - who refuse to heed threats of "or else", and are killed for this refusal, should be the models for our own response to similar threats at home.
Not Comedy Central.
P.S. I'm aware, of course, how easy it is to be brave when one's own family is not being threatened.
And I am aware of how easy it is to mock or parody Christ, Christians, and Christianity. Or Jews and Judaism. But we must not set limits on that. That would be contrary to Western concepts of freedom.
What should happen after each of these outrageous, lunatic threats is for EVERY outlet of print, broadcast, and internet to publicize its most ridiculing caricature or cartoon of The Prophet or its most irresponsible parody of The Faith. Do that enough times and it would water down the fanatics.
ReplyDeleteBut that's should.
Ivanhoe,
ReplyDelete...or, I'm afraid, buttress the claims of those who would radicalize young Muslims in North American and European societies. Namely, that their heritage and religion are indeed under attack by the larger society.
Yet this risk must not be used as a rationale for permitting the threat of violence to shape and limit civic discourse.
Any possible "blow-back" should be considered as an acceptable, albeit deplorable, cost of free expression.
Those journalists around the world - in Russia, the Philippines and Latin America, to name only a few areas - who refuse to heed threats of "or else", and are killed for this refusal, should be the models for our own response to similar threats at home.
Not Comedy Central.
P.S. I'm aware, of course, how easy it is to be brave when one's own family is not being threatened.
Regards,
And I am aware of how easy it is to mock or parody Christ, Christians, and Christianity. Or Jews and Judaism. But we must not set limits on that. That would be contrary to Western concepts of freedom.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I am not a Christian. Nor a Jew.