In defence of the Western Standard (Conservative Canadian Magazine published cartoons)

Last week, the Calgary-based Western Standard newsmagazine published eight of the 12 Danish cartoons that allegedly blaspheme the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Some Muslim groups responded by demanding the magazine be charged with hate crimes, and by applying to have its senior staff hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission. In the interest of protecting freedom of expression, both Alberta's Department of Justice and the province's rights investigators must reject these demands summarily.

We have disagreed with the Standard over the need to reprint the cartoons that first appeared last September in Copenhagen's Jyllands-Posten newspaper. But the magazine's decision was certainly defensible: Its publisher and editor argued the best way for their readers to place the images in context was actually to see them.

Canadian readers would find most of the cartoons -- which are widely available on the Web -- unremarkable. Even the ones that depict Muhammad unsympathetically are no worse than hundreds that have, over the decades, belittled Christ or the Virgin Mary. A couple are downright clever: One has Muhammad standing on a cloud waving his arms at arriving suicide bombers proclaiming, "Stop. Stop. We ran out of virgins." Another shows him assuaging furious palace guards with the words "Relax, folks. It's just a drawing made by a Dane in south-west Denmark."

But even if all 12 were flattering renditions, many doctrinaire Muslims would still be upset. And that is one of the Standard's points: It is dangerous to let a subset of society dictate what can and can't be published. As editor Kevin Libin wrote in the cartoon issue, "There are all kinds of thing in Islam that ... are considered offensive: homosexuality and women appearing in public with their legs uncovered." Are Westerners to submit to these beliefs, too?

Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, who launched the human rights complaint against the magazine, claims he has received hundreds of e-mails since the cartoons were published in Calgary, most of which have been supportive or at least respectful. But nine have been "hateful," he says. So he claims the magazine has promoted legally actionable hatred toward Muslims.

But of course, the mere fact that some bigots have used the cartoon brouhaha as a pretext for mailing in their hateful ramblings does not mean the Western Standard has promoted hate -- much less, that the cartoons were published with the intent of promoting hatred, which should be the more important criterion at law.

If the legal actions against the Standard are successful, it will send a dangerous message: that any group in society can use mechanisms of government to censor views it disagrees with. The result would be a media environment that is timid and bland. Even those who disagree with the Standard's editorial stance should support it in its campaign to uphold the principle of free speech.

As editor Kevin Libin wrote in the cartoon issue, "There are all kinds of thing in Islam that ... are considered offensive: homosexuality and women appearing in public with their legs uncovered." Are Westerners to submit to these beliefs, too?

Dear Mr. Editor:

“There, (in Spain) the Muslims represented an advanced, regionally dominant and self-confident civilization. Like many Westerners today, they had the magnanimity of the mighty."

Muslim Spain was Christian Spain for nearly 700 years before being conquered by Islamic Armies in the 8th Century. That is the way the Islamic Religion has been historically spread, though military invasion and occupation. Treatment of conquered people has the same goal, the minimizing of other religions and conversion of the indigenous people. Among other rules for non Muslims in Muslim Spain; Christians and Jews could not bear arms -- Muslims could; Christians and Jews could not ride horses -- Muslims could; Christians and Jews had to get permission to build or fix places or worship -- Muslims did not; Christians and Jews had to pay certain taxes which Muslims did not; Christians could not proselytize -- Muslims could; Christians and Jews had to bow to their Muslim masters; Christians and Jews had to live under the laws set forth in the Koran, not under either their own religious or secular law; Christian’s and Jew's word in a court of law was not equal to a Muslim's Word; Christian and Jewish families had to give up a son for conversion and military service in Muslim armies and the most beautiful and largest Christian Churches were converted to Mosques. And the list goes on.

Today, 1300 years later, a Christian or Jew living in an Islamic country will still have to live nearly under these very same laws.

Maybe the Danes don’t want to live like Christians and Jews once did (and do) in an Islamic society.

Regards,

2banana

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