My Own Pirate Radio

Over dinner with friends this weekend we debated the Danish cartoons and the corresponding backlash. I’m particularly interested in the issue, having parents of mixed religion — a Nigerian Muslim father and a Danish Christian mother — and a childhood spent in Nigeria and Canada. At the core of it I think most non-Muslims, especially the ardent free-speech advocates, either don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge the real motivations behind the reaction. Abbas Raza has an inkling: he posted an essay today on 3 Quarks Daily that provides insight and great food for thought. In my humble opinion, he is right on target.

Here’s a quote from the essay:

Despite their crusades and holy wars of the past, most Westerners do not any longer have an attachment to religion strong enough to easily give up their lives for it, and this is a good thing in my view. But it is not a good thing to forget what such an emotion can be like. Others still have it and one must deal with that reality.

What is of importance to understand here is that (however unfortunate this may be) one of the few remaining sources of dignity for many in the largely impotent world of Islam, unable to compete militarily or economically with the West and unable to remain free of interference from the West because of the curse of holding much of the world’s oil-supplies, is their religion. This is the last redoubt of their pride. And this is why they lash out so angrily against what is correctly perceived by them as a deliberate provocation and insult to their religion by their erstwhile colonizers and oppressors via crude and offensive caricature. Those of you who cannot stop yourself from loudly and continually proclaiming the right of newspapers to publish whatever they want (no one serious is really arguing with you there), please take a few minutes to condemn the cheap provocation of the Danish newspaper which published the revolting cartoon of Mohammad as a terrorist. If the New York Times publishes a vulgar and racist cartoon about African-Americans, for example, my first reaction will not be to proclaim that they have a right to do so, which of course they do. My reaction might be to boycott the paper and otherwise bring attention to what they are doing. Do this, condemn the racism of the Danish newspaper, then lecture me about free speech.