If you can't be brave, at least be honest

Melanie Phillips and Glenn Reynolds have posted comprehensive roundups of government and media reaction to the Mohammed cartoons controversy in America and Britain. The bottom line: major American and British newspapers have discovered they really don't want to offend religious people after all, so they won't show us what all the fuss is about. (The nadir, not surprisingly, is a Boston Globe editorial which compares the cartoonists to the Nazis. Not the angry mobs burning embassies, threatening terror attacks and literally calling for the heads of blasphemers. The cartoonists.)

You and I know the real reason CNN and American newspapers won't show the cartoons, and I wish they'd at least be honest about it. I would be perfectly content if they released statements like this:

To our readers,

As you've undoubtedly learned by now, Muslims around the world have reacted with outrage to the publication of twelve cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Some of the portrayals were relatively begign and respectful, while others - most notably a cartoon portraying Mohammed's turban has a bomb - were deliberately provocative. To devout Muslims, it really doesn't matter, becuase they say their faith forbids any physical depiction of their prophet.

In a show of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, and to show their readers what the fuss is all about, many European newspapers have republished the cartoons. And you've probably wondered why we have not followed suit.

Some of us have said we not not want to give offence to our Muslim readers, but you know that's nonsense. We never hesitate to publish cartoons and articles which followers of other religions, especially Christians, find fundamentally offensive. We'll come right out and say it: we have not shown you the twelve cartoons because we're afraid to do so.

The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus have been burned to the ground. The staff of Jyllands-Posten have recieved repeated death threats, and those who drew the offending cartoons have been forced into hiding. Demonstrators in London have openly called for the beheading of those responsible for this 'blasphemy'. And as papers in other countries have published the cartoons, the demonstrations have spread.

Whenever we offend Jews or Christians, we get plenty of angry letters, and sometimes we suffer advertiser boycotts or small demonstrations outside our offices. Occasionally, those offended may even turn violent. But we've never set off a firestorm similar to the response to the Mohammed cartoons, and frankly, we're terrified. As a British editorial cartoonist once said, in response to a question about why Ariel Sharon was regularly portrayed more negatively than Yasser Arafat, 'maybe it's because Jews don't issue fatwas.'

Many bloggers have gone ahead and posted the offending cartoons to their websites, and they've savaged us for being so 'cowardly'. To which we respond by noting that many more people read our paper than your piss-ant blog. We aren't hard to find, and we have dozens of people working for us. You may be desperate for attention, but we have much more at stake. The demonstrators have not targeted America - for once - despite the actions of the American blogosphere, but the cartoons' publication in this world-renowned paper may inflame the situation further. We arenot willing to take that risk.

We realize that, in refusing to publish the cartoons, we are not giving our readers an important aspect of the story, and we're giving in to threats and intimidation. And we apologize to our readers. But you have to understand that we literally fear for our lives.

Thank you.

Posted by damian at February 4, 2006 03:52 PM | TrackBack