In the Evening Standard (London) of 6 Feb 05, the following article by Peter Oborne on the editorial page struck me of worthy of reproduction:
Here is an extract
"I do not think that a great issue of free speech is at stake here. Even if I did, I wouuld never want to die in a ditch to defend the right to abuse a great religious leader.
Those who defend the right to publish the cartoon on the basis that we have have free speech in modern Western societies are wrong. There are all kinds of things we cannot say, and for very admirable reasons. We cannot insult minority groups. We cannot say that slavery was right. We cannot say that the Holocaust was a good thing.
If you made those claims in certain parts of London you could rely on a very violent response indeed, and very few observers would feel that was unreasonable. It seems natural for Muslims to ask that we do not insult the man they regard as the exemplar of all human goodness, and quite right for us to agree.
This row over the cartoons is about a misunderstanding between two great cultures. There are vocal and important minorities on both sides who want to widen the rift between the Muslim world and the liberal West into an abyss.
But most people, Muslims and liberals alike, hope we can live together in a tolerant way."
Food for thought?
Wasalaam,
Shafique
p.s. The main gist of his article was that the Labour - i.e. government - stance is right and that of the opposition Tory party is wrong.
p.p.s. I'm organising a muslim boycott of Danish bacon