The blogger and radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt has been taking a disapproving tone over the celebration, in many parts of the blogosphere, of cartoons offensive to Islam (and he considers at least some of the original cartoons to be genuinely offensive). While I’m summarizing the point of view he’s put forward over the course of several posts, he seems to me to be making the case that this whole thing is a counter-productive distraction from the real war on Jihadism, and risks needlessly alienating moderate Islamic allies and ordinary Muslims, while gaining nothing.

I think his points are worthy and serious ones and there’s no doubt that some people are going way too far. LGF yesterday linked to “The Infidels Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest;” an invitation for everyone from anti-social 15-year-olds in their bedrooms to, presumably, fully-fledged card-carrying bigots to go to town and be just as offensive as they like [correction: it was not presented in those terms in the blog, see below **], in order to demonstrate … well, what? Things like this (and there is more of this going on) are extremely gratuitous and completely juvenile.

Back to Hewitt: Today, in response to a ton of e-mail criticism he has received for the line he is taking, he says this:

“The debate begins with these questions: Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?”

I’ll answer for myself: “No,” we’re not at war with Islam. And to the second question, “no” again; we do not want to be at war with Islam. Those are the same answers Hewitt gives.

However, we are at war with radical Islam, or Islamofascism, or Jihadism—call it what you will. I think we all understand it as a fanatical movement, based in the Middle East, with representatives across the globe, who seek to force their own vision of Islam, including Sharia law, on as many people as possible, and ultimately on the whole world, killing resistors as need be. That includes forcing it on ordinary or “moderate” Muslims (however many you believe there are), and indeed they tend to be first in the line of fire.

The question then for me is: Were Denmark forced to take action against its own principles, in order to punish the newspaper or cartoonists in question in a way that would appease those most aggressive protesters, who would have won? Would it not be the radical Islamists? And doesn’t victory ultimately inspire rather than appease such an enemy?

Remember where this situation was as late as last Tuesday. The cartoons had been published last September (in a self-described experiment to see how “self-censoring” the cartoonists would be, but not in a gratuitous attempt to offend Muslims for the sake of it). The controversy had built and built, taken to its greatest heights by those Danish imams who traveled to the Middle East and displayed the 12 cartoons, at the same time adding in 3 more from some unknown source* that are clearly more deliberately offensive. (As I said before about the original cartoons: as caricatures go, they contain no sexual or toilet humor and seem to me to be at worst a mild satirical reaction to decades of terrorist violence committed by people claiming to act in the name of Islam.) Denmark was seemingly isolated against a growing list of authoritarian Arab and Muslim regimes who were taking real action against it. A boycott of Danish goods was, and is, having a significant effect on a country that does have substantial export business to the Middle East. While the Danish prime minister had stuck to his guns from the beginning in saying that no action could be taken against a newspaper in a case like this—due to the freedom that the press enjoys in Denmark—it seemed hardly certain that such an unequivocal line would be maintained indefinitely; at least to an outside observer. And outside observers on the editorial staff of newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain decided not to leave the Danes isolated any longer.

Was this wrong? Should Denmark and the Danish newspaper have been left twirling in the wind over this, as radical Islamists pushed forward to gain both a real and a heavily symbolic victory over Western freedom-of-the-press?

I don’t think so. I think re-printing those cartoons at that juncture was an appropriate way of saying, “No, you cannot divide and conquer us like this.” The radical Islamists cannot be permitted to pick off the potentially weak and use victories against them as leverage against others.

It is worth noting a hopeful sign: in Europe, among the native Muslim population, there have not as yet been riots or acts of violence in response to these cartoons (albeit that there have been ugly threats). This hopefully is an indication that most European Muslims, accustomed as they must be to the rough and tumble of the free press, don’t quite see what all the fuss is about. Again: if victory were given to the demands of the loudest radicals, then what message would be being sent to these presumed moderates (who, ideally, might be the best defense against the radicals)?

All that being said, for some now to engage in open season on making and publishing their own mocking caricatures of Mohammed is clearly gratuitous, immature and unhelpful, and should offend anyone who thinks people’s religious beliefs are entitled to a presumption of respect. They have a right to do it … at least in most places. But they should not be cheered on.

…

*A source for one of the fake cartoons apparently uncovered at NeanderNews.

** The Infidel Bloggers Alliance included this in the announcement of the Mohammed Cartoon Contest:

You don’t need to be mean, or pornographic. Just draw good ole Mo in everyday situations, like standing in line at Wal-Mart, or whatever comes to your mind.

Remember, Jihadis get angry at images of Piglet, so we don’t need to be extreme. The goal here is to show how many Muslims will get very angry at silly stuff.

So, this particular effort was not a deliberate invitation for people to be egregiously offensive, although one wouldn’t need a PhD in human nature to anticipate the character of many of the responses.

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