With regards to the piece I have treated it as an opinion piece rather than an essay because of this point: 'But publically criticizing or insulting Islam pretty much puts your life on the line, and guarantees that a significant portion of the Muslim community will wish for your death.'
There are approximately 1 billion muslims in the world and a variety of different versions of Islam. What does the author mean by significant in this case?--The fatwas issued by the old Iranian ayatolah? Hamas? Syria/Lybia? Or the second/third generation's alcohol drinking muslims in the west? Morrocans?--or perhaps the author means the protestors. I don't think that protestation means fundamentalism in this case--many of my friends joined the protest because they wanted to protect their way of life as Muslims practising Islam in Europe. Sure some portions of the Islamic whole killed people--but they were a small portion of a fragmented whole. Calling these people significant is like calling IRA sympathisors a significant part of the Catholic whole.
With regards to your point about free speech--I honestly don't think it's practical to have completely unrestricted freedom of press in a liberally democratic nation state that also wants to practise multi-culturalism. A line has to be drawn somewhere and short of banning immigration/political correctness/religious freedom it isn't enforceable--I would hate it, for instance, if a newspaper posted cartoons poking fun at women/ethnic minorities/disabled people--why should they get away with ridiculing a religion (no matter how flawed)?
And yes, I do believe the word is the most important weapon we have. People only resort to weapons, in my opinion and experience, when words have failed first. But this (and my entire post) is just my opinion--and the only reason why I posted it here is because you have me thinking about the entire issue much more than I have done before.
It is interesting--have you read last Sunday's Sunday Times? It has an opinion piece from a second generation muslim (who also recently appeared in the UK version of The Apprentice). It was her opinions on the protests. I could scan it onto my lj if you want.
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There are approximately 1 billion muslims in the world and a variety of different versions of Islam. What does the author mean by significant in this case?--The fatwas issued by the old Iranian ayatolah? Hamas? Syria/Lybia? Or the second/third generation's alcohol drinking muslims in the west? Morrocans?--or perhaps the author means the protestors. I don't think that protestation means fundamentalism in this case--many of my friends joined the protest because they wanted to protect their way of life as Muslims practising Islam in Europe. Sure some portions of the Islamic whole killed people--but they were a small portion of a fragmented whole. Calling these people significant is like calling IRA sympathisors a significant part of the Catholic whole.
With regards to your point about free speech--I honestly don't think it's practical to have completely unrestricted freedom of press in a liberally democratic nation state that also wants to practise multi-culturalism. A line has to be drawn somewhere and short of banning immigration/political correctness/religious freedom it isn't enforceable--I would hate it, for instance, if a newspaper posted cartoons poking fun at women/ethnic minorities/disabled people--why should they get away with ridiculing a religion (no matter how flawed)?
And yes, I do believe the word is the most important weapon we have. People only resort to weapons, in my opinion and experience, when words have failed first. But this (and my entire post) is just my opinion--and the only reason why I posted it here is because you have me thinking about the entire issue much more than I have done before.
It is interesting--have you read last Sunday's Sunday Times? It has an opinion piece from a second generation muslim (who also recently appeared in the UK version of The Apprentice). It was her opinions on the protests. I could scan it onto my lj if you want.