Editorial

Denmark's Costly Blunder

A supermarket in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, placed an announcement urging clients to boycott Danish products.

All religions should be protected from vilification and ridicule. Restriction on freedom of expression certainly places us on a dangerously slippery slope, but in the long run, a sense of social responsibility governing press freedoms seems bound to promote a healthier atmosphere of respect and mutual toleration, of which the world is greatly in need.

The more chaotic alternative, sure to appeal to some die-hard libertarians, is to declare open season on all religious groups and beliefs. And this is where the trouble arises.

The complication stems from the conviction held by many Muslims, that “press freedom” of the Danish variety would not be tolerated—indeed, would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law—if Judaism were made the target of such slurs, in a Europe where legitimate, if exaggerated, fears of anti-Semitism have long acted as a sort of moral bludgeon, shaping legislation and molding public norms and taboos.

This conviction, borne out again and again by repeated controversies in Western media circles, leaves Muslims with the unsettling impression that incitement to hatred is tolerable only when Muslims are victimized. True, Christianity often bears more than its fair share of mockery in an increasingly secularized Europe. And European free speech laws are largely the product of an Enlightenment-era outlook on the role and status of religion in society. But while it is unreasonable to expect Europeans to overlook the cultural experiences of several centuries, it is equally unreasonable to expect one billion Muslims to take it for granted that free speech affords others a right to ridicule their religion, while staunchly protecting another religion from the same treatment.

The more cynical would ask if it will take a continent-wide genocide of Muslims to grant them the same legal protections afforded others. Indeed, in this post-September 11 world, it is Muslims facing surveillance, profiling, harassment, detention, extraordinary rendition, and the like.

Ultimately, this issue will not be settled in the courts; short of a serious and extremely unlikely legislative overhaul, the conclusion to any legal battle is foregone. But the massive boycott of Danish goods currently sweeping the Gulf, and the reaction of the Confederation of Danish Industries, which has askedJyllands-Posten to apologize, seems to be a realization that financial pressure works where other means do not.

While such pressures can ultimately be construed as a coercive form of censorship, none can begrudge Muslims the right to seek legal and peaceful recourse to ensure their grievances are adequately addressed. Indeed, that is one lesson of liberal democratic politics that Muslims seem to have learned well.