WP: Why Islam Is Unfunny for a Cartoonist
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The Washington Post has an excellent article on the challenges of free speech, religion and cartooning that is expanding out from the infamous Mohammed cartoons in Denmark citing the recent arrest of Gregorius Nekschot and a case in Britain that caused police to end an ad campaign that featured a German shepherd puppy because dogs are viewed as “unclean” in Islam. The Swiss citizens are pushing a referendum to ban Muslim prayer towers.
How to handle Muslim sensitivities is one of Europe’s most prickly issues. Islam is Europe’s fastest-growing religion, with immigrants from Muslim lands often rejecting a drift toward secularism in what used to be known as Christendom. About 6% of Holland’s 16.3 million people are Muslims, and nearly half of Amsterdam’s population is of foreign origin. Some predict the city could have a Muslim majority within a decade or so.
The contrasting Danish and Dutch responses “show that there is a serious struggle of ideas going on for the future of Europe,” says Flemming Rose, a Danish newspaper editor who commissioned the drawings of Muhammad in Jyllands-Posten. At stake, he says, is whether democracy protects the right to offend or embraces religious taboos so that “citizens have a right not to be offended.”
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