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- There is a small but undeniable number who are willing to kill and sometimes die in the cause of imposing their idea of blasphemy on non-Muslims around the world.
- The editors signalled that they had had enough of the threats and enough of the danger. They censored themselves.
- Today there might be thousands of people willing to publish cartoons of Mohammed on their Twitter accounts, but most of them hide behind aliases and complain about the cowardice of others.
- Our societies like to think that terrorism and intimidation do not work. They do -- or can -- but only if we let them.
Ten years ago, one of the editors of a Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten
had heard that that no cartoonist in Denmark would depict Islam's
prophet for a set of children's books on the major world religions. Did
such self-censorship really exist in modern Denmark? He sought to find
out. So he published a spread of twelve cartoons intended to depict the
founder of Islam.
Attacks on the newspaper followed -- the most outspoken attempt at enforcing censorship since the death threats against Salman Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses, in 1988, and the murder of Theo van Gogh for his film, Submission, in 2004. The knife in van Gogh's back also went through a note demanding death threats for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch MP at the time, and the Dutch MP, Geert Wilders.
Some of the cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten led to attacks on the newspaper for having printed them. Some of the cartoons did not even feature Mohammed at all. One, of a Mohammed-like figure with a bomb in his turban, became famous. Local Danish Imams, disappointed at the relative beigeness of the cartoons, added more offensive cartoons of their own to a portfolio, and toured the Middle East with this, trying to whip up anger against Denmark. As many remember, the incitement worked. For a time, aside from all the looting, burnings and murders, the whole world seemed transfixed on these cartoons and what the reactions to them might mean.
Attacks on the newspaper followed -- the most outspoken attempt at enforcing censorship since the death threats against Salman Rushdie for his novel, The Satanic Verses, in 1988, and the murder of Theo van Gogh for his film, Submission, in 2004. The knife in van Gogh's back also went through a note demanding death threats for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch MP at the time, and the Dutch MP, Geert Wilders.
Some of the cartoons printed by Jyllands-Posten led to attacks on the newspaper for having printed them. Some of the cartoons did not even feature Mohammed at all. One, of a Mohammed-like figure with a bomb in his turban, became famous. Local Danish Imams, disappointed at the relative beigeness of the cartoons, added more offensive cartoons of their own to a portfolio, and toured the Middle East with this, trying to whip up anger against Denmark. As many remember, the incitement worked. For a time, aside from all the looting, burnings and murders, the whole world seemed transfixed on these cartoons and what the reactions to them might mean.
