The response to my posting about the
Mohammed cartoons, and the preposterous trial their publication
prompted in Paris, has been a disappointment.
This is not to say that I mind a serious topic being hijacked in the comments section for a spot of backbiting between feuding readers. You do not actually have to wade through much of that to find some perfectly sensible and thought-provoking opinions and assertions posted here over the past 18/24 hours. It just seems a little incomplete to have no one writing in to challenge my basic proposition: namely, that Muslims (and Roman Catholics, and Protestants and so on) have no right to demand the suppression of words and images about them or Islam (or other groups of believers, or their faiths) unless criminal incitement is involved. The advantage of blogging for the Telegraph was that a big newspaper site was always likely to attract readers of all types.
That comment could have been posted by a Muslim, though my guess is
that it was not. The obvious reply, incidentally, is that Muslims are
fully entitled to expect one another to observe the rules of their
faith, whether on pictorial representation of Mohammed or anything
else.
They are not entitled to require others, outside their faith, to do
likewise. That is where the trouble tends to start; many, many Muslims
- and whoever said France has four or five million is almost certainly
underestimating the true figure - do see Islam as so superior that it
will one day rule the world whether the world likes it or not.
And that view is by no means restricted to extremists.
As for the quality of debate inspired by my blog, that is a matter I am
perfectly happy to leave to you. My policy on censorship was
established very early.
Only when a comment gives me serious cause for legal or other concerns
will I step in. It has happened on perhaps three or four occasions,
once or twice when I put on my media lawyer's hat, and otherwise when
remarks about my former employers - and believe me, my own powers of
self-restraint have been sorely tested - went too far.
* And for those who missed my update, the prosecutor in the Paris trial
made the commonsense decision to urge the court to dismiss the charges.
This is not to say that I mind a serious topic being hijacked in the comments section for a spot of backbiting between feuding readers. You do not actually have to wade through much of that to find some perfectly sensible and thought-provoking opinions and assertions posted here over the past 18/24 hours. It just seems a little incomplete to have no one writing in to challenge my basic proposition: namely, that Muslims (and Roman Catholics, and Protestants and so on) have no right to demand the suppression of words and images about them or Islam (or other groups of believers, or their faiths) unless criminal incitement is involved. The advantage of blogging for the Telegraph was that a big newspaper site was always likely to attract readers of all types.
Salut! has highly respectable levels of readership - well over 700 visits yesterday alone - and it boasts comment statistics most Telegraph bloggers
can but dream of.
But it would benefit from some diversification among the ranks of
readers willing to step forward, identified or otherwise, to let off
steam.
With comments in response to No offence nudging
50 as I write, the nearest we have had to a Muslim point of view
opposing my argument was the following, signed by an anonymous
contributor:
As the comments seem to be a private conversation, (I) am
a little wary of pointing out that the reason Muslims are offended by
the cartoons, is not that they are terrorists, but that Islam
proscribes pictorial representations of Mohammed, Xtianity on the other
hand is full of icons, false or otherwise.
That comment could have been posted by a Muslim, though my guess is
that it was not. The obvious reply, incidentally, is that Muslims are
fully entitled to expect one another to observe the rules of their
faith, whether on pictorial representation of Mohammed or anything
else.
They are not entitled to require others, outside their faith, to do
likewise. That is where the trouble tends to start; many, many Muslims
- and whoever said France has four or five million is almost certainly
underestimating the true figure - do see Islam as so superior that it
will one day rule the world whether the world likes it or not.
And that view is by no means restricted to extremists.
As for the quality of debate inspired by my blog, that is a matter I am
perfectly happy to leave to you. My policy on censorship was
established very early.
Only when a comment gives me serious cause for legal or other concerns
will I step in. It has happened on perhaps three or four occasions,
once or twice when I put on my media lawyer's hat, and otherwise when
remarks about my former employers - and believe me, my own powers of
self-restraint have been sorely tested - went too far.
* And for those who missed my update, the prosecutor in the Paris trial
made the commonsense decision to urge the court to dismiss the charges.
Labels: blogging, censorship, Charlie Hebdo, Daily Telegraph, faith, Islam, Muslim, Paris, Salut
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