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Ambivalent Question: The Cartoon Conundrum
The right column should now feature a new Ambivalent Question, namely: What do you think about the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed?
I'm sure you know the basic situation, but I'll recap briefly as I understand it: A year or so ago a Dutch newspaper published some cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims believe “it is forbidden” to depict the Prophet in any way. (I put that in quotes b/c I'm not clear where this prohibition originates. Is it in the Koran? Did some religious figure make this rule up? Is it tradition? I don't know.) A group of Dutch Muslims brought these cartoons to the attention of some Imams and other Muslim religious leaders and when they were recently republished in France many Muslims began protesting and much violence has been threatened (although I don't know of any actual violence yet).
UPDATE: Danish embassy torched in Syria.
So that's my understanding of the situation. Tony has helpfully published a collection of the cartoons in question. So what do you think? The poll and comments are wide open...
Posted February 4, 2006 11:26 AM | ambivalent questions
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Clearly these cartoons would be protected by the First Amendment, if they were published here in the U.S. But it is unclear to me that the rationales that protect political speech extend to this situation. Here, we do not really have a "marketplace of ideas," since there are probably very few pro-Muslim cartoons being distributed in Denmark, for whatever reason. There is no "marketplace of ideas" to begin with, and free speech laws would only further polarize the two sides. Thus I believe some restrictions on attacks against Muslims are appropriate, at least until they gain a more substantial voice in the Western press.
Posted by: Igots at February 5, 2006 01:08 AM
there's a good op-ed in the Globe today about it. Look here.
Posted by: monica at February 6, 2006 01:34 PM
