Far be it from me to stay away from a controversy involving freedom of speech. I am a very strong proponent of free speech, regardless of whether it offends or not, and of the “marketplace of ideas” concept. Which is: if you start saying enough crazy things, people will ignore you. (Just like this blog, for example.)
If you want to read a great overview of the whole controversy and see the cartoons themselves so you know what this is really all about, check this WikiPedia entry.
If not more important than the article itself is the very short list of newspapers, including four in the United States (as of this writing) that have reprinted one or more cartoons. I am surprised that it’s such a short list of U.S. newspapers. And more pleasantly surprised that my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer is one of them. (See their article, which does not reproduce the cartoon that appear in Saturday’s paper.)
It’s very difficult to understand what all the fuss is about without seeing the images that caused all this in the first place. And then, some explanation is helpful. See an article from the BBC.
Now the one thing that I don’t understand is that if images of Muhammed are forbidden, how does anybody know what he looks like? If you look at the cartoons, there are only vague similarities between any of the images. So which one, if any, is “correct”? And if someone has an answer, how can they be sure if there are no other pictures to compare it to?
It’s easy to take your freedom of speech for granted. But for the sake of something you might care about in the future, don’t let this slide by you.
