Dear 7akeem,

I have some additional observations on the issue of anti-Islam cartoons in the Denmark. While I do, in principle, believe that the Danish paper has the right to publish whatever it wants to publish within the limits of the laws in Denmark and the respect for the human life, I also agree that Muslims have the right to voice peaceful protest and opposition to what they perceive as offensive.

These cartoons have opened up a can of worms and exposed a pre-existing tension that lurks just below the surface between Western cultures and the Muslim world. Freedoms of speech are well established in the West, and the core principle that freedom of speech was instituted to protect “offensive” and “minority” views is well understood. The principle is very simple; if all if us agree that a given speech is offensive, and all of us work collectively to ban it and prohibit it, sooner or later another form of speech might be deemed offensive to another group of people, and may require by us the same action. This is what is called a “slippery slope”. Once we allow ourselves to ban the “most offensive” speech, it is a matter of time only before most forms of speech are prohibited. Therefore, in order to guarantee my right to speak, I have to rise and protect your right to speak, no matter how offensive your speech may appear to me at this moment. This act, in itself, requires a degree of civility and maturity.

Muslim leaders in Denmark and in the broader Islamic world have failed to recognize and reason that the laws that protect the paper in Denmark, and allow it to publish offensive cartoons, are the same laws that allow 180,000 Muslims in Denmark to practice their religion freely and guarantee them the freedoms to speak in mosques. So let us assume for the moment that we have managed miraculously to silence all anti-Islam speech in Denmark. What will stop others in Denmark from establishing that our mosques spew hate and that they should be silenced too! Where would this lead us, and where does it end!

While I do support peaceful protests and find them acceptable and appropriate, I have a feeling that something else lies behind our misplaced response. I find it extremely odd and offensive that Muslims in Kuwait were not moved by the death and murder of more than 100,000 Muslims in Iraq, and to a degree they were willing participants in this crime, yet they were quick to run to the streets burning the Danish flag and flexing their muscles.

Could it be that what Muslims are protesting, among many other things, not only the insult to an important religious symbol, but they were also voicing much deeper subliminal messages! Could it be that the cry that came from the Muslim world was also the cry of people that have been marginalized, abused and subjected to “thought oppression” for centuries! It was extremely ironic to watch women in Yemen, covered completely head to toe except for the eyes, and marginalized in a culture that uses the teachings of the same man they are defending to keep them shackled in their physical and metaphorical chains forever.

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