Wherever I turn, it’s impossible to not read and hear about what’s now termed “the Muhammad cartoons controversy” or even the “cartoon wars”. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.

Firstly, I was disappointed with how hard it was to actually find the cartoons in question. I couldn’t have a serious, considered opinion on the issue without seeing the cartoons that sparked the fire. You would think that when an issue occupies so many minds, newspapers and web sites would go out of their way to spread the information. That’s their job, after all. But instead they have mostly chosen to keep quiet, and I found a copy of the cartoons on a blog. The Times put it well:

And so we have two media now in the world. We have the mainstream media whose job is increasingly not actually to disseminate information but to act as a moral steward for what is fit to print, to become an arbiter of sensitivity, good taste and political correctness. And we have web pages like Wikipedia or the blogosphere to disseminate actual facts, data, images and opinions that readers can judge with the benefit of all the facts, not just some of them.

Once I found them, I was surprised to see how innocuous and anodyne they were. Most of them made no real political point at all, apart from commenting on the contentiousness of depicting Muhammad at all. The ones that “voiced” an opinion were quite mild. If images like this cannot be printed, then that means nothing even remotely critical of Islam can be printed. And the cartoons are not gratuitous insults; they deal with highly relevant topics. What is the main thing about Islam as a culture that concerns westerners? The threat of islamist terrorism would be one of the first things mentioned, along with the rights of women (or lack thereof). If Islam’s links to terrorism is not allowed as a topic for satire, what is?

By now, the cartoons themselves are only a small part of this, of course, and discussions around the newspaper’s decision to publish, other media’s reactions, politician’s responses etc are more important.

I don’t think that it was wrong to publish them, because “someone might take offense”. This is exactly what free speech is about! The right to say things that will offend no one does not need to be set in law. The right to voice opinions that someone might dislike is what needs protection.

I am disappointed that Western leaders (and Jyllands-Posten themselves) apologised for the publication of these cartoons. It sent the signal that all of our principles are up for negotiation, and we don’t really stand behind them very strongly. If someone complains loudly enough, we’ll back down. As The Economist put in a leader, the support for free speech has degenerated into “I disagree with what you say and even if you are threatened with death I will not defend very strongly your right to say it.” What, then, do we stand for?

The Western civilisation (or part of the political and intellectual leadership in the West) is developing an odd practice where they give in / half-heartedly agree with what its opponents say, out of a misguided understanding that this will somehow improve relationships. Turning the other cheek, so to say. Ayaan Hirsi Ali put it well in an interview for Salon: “We are constantly apologizing, and we don’t notice how much abuse we’re taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn’t give an inch.” Tolerance is taken so far that we become tolerant of those who preach intolerance. As a civilisation, we are afraid to take a stand for our views. Political correctness is metamorphosing into self-censorship.

This reminded me of another opinion piece (in the Wall Street Journal) I read a while ago, about “our lack of civilizational confidence” and the imminent danger of extinction of the West. Much of the article is a rant, and not particularly well-argued. But one brief point got my attention: the argument that Islam has a brighter future than Western secular democracy.

What’s the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture?