The Virtual Gigolo

In this day and age, is it really necessary for supposedly advanced countries like Austria, France and Belgium to restrict freedom of speech by banning the denial of the holocaust? Is one group of people so desperately in need of protection from words that they live in fear of the mere mention of something that affected their ancestors or co-religionists that such speech must never be allowed to occur? Amid claims during recent arguments with Muslim nations over the innocuous Danish cartoons that in European countries freedom of speech is vital, we then see a man imprisoned for using that freedom. Not a man even inciting hatred directly, just a man disagreeing with the common viewpoint on an issue that people take to heart. Another reason to hope the government doesn’t try to push its pathetic religious hatred laws back into their original form at any point in the future.

So there we have it, that bastion of journalistic integrity, Associated Newspapers, has struck again in a victory against common sense. Ken Livingstone, much maligned mayor of London (with not a small bit of validity, it could be argued) has been suspended from office for four weeks for saying an Associated Newspapers was acting like a Nazi. Conveniently for Associated Newspapers, the aforementioned journalist is Jewish.

What benefit there is to be obtained by suspending the Mayor is not clear. What is clear, however, is that journalists working for Associated Newspapers have chosen to put themselves in a position where people are likely to compare them to groups such as the Nazis. They do not have to work for a company as bigotted as Associated Newspapers, there are many other newspaper publishers with higher standards of integrity. Instead, Mr Finegold chose to join the Party. He has now achieved his few moments of infamy through his earlier indiscretion. Another sad day for British journalism.

The cartoon depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb is unfair and totally wrong. The reactions prove that the fuse should have been drawn at least a centimeter shorter

I realise it is expected of me to comment in some way about religious insanity and so I finally get round to saying something meaningless about those pointless Danish cartoons.

Clearly the cartoons were in poor taste. On the other hand they are only very mild, and only insulting if you let them get to you. Let us assume the publishing of the cartoons was a foolish, or simply rude, thing to do for the newspaper in question. Where does the discussion go from there?
I think from that assumption the only way to go is for a large number of western news agencies to publish the cartoons. The Muslim countries and extremists who have acted so childishly in targetting Denmark as a country since publication have thrown away what respect and thoughts they would have had in their direction. If any people have shown themselves to be immature, lacking in self confidence and suffering from a persecution complex it is a subset of the Muslim population. It is unfortunate that the activities of these people bring the level of respect for the religion as a whole down, but that is the way of these things.

By targetting Denmark as a country these people are showing their fear of press freedom and their wish to have governments control thought – presumably this is satisfactory if the control is based on the Qu’ran, although that is not completely clear. Targetting a group of people who have nothing to do with a perceived insult to your person is simply deranged and deeply insulting to common sense.

I shall quote a post on a discussion board I read that I think gives a fair summary of feelings on this issue:

Whenever I look in the direction of the Qibla, I just know that lots of Muslims between Budapest and Mecca are turning their asses towards me five times a day, and that offends me deeply. Now that’s how ridiculous the whole Muslim reaction to the caricatures sounds to us.