This article, like so many other analyses of the cartoon re-printings in Denmark, uses the tactics of extremist language and deliberate ignorance of fact to malign a group of people for using just those tactics.

It should be apparent to anyone with a passing knowledge of the events at hand and Denmark's current political situation that the cartoons were not actually re-printed to support freedom of speech or to express solidarity with the supposedly targeted cartoonist, but as a further expression of majority Danes' ear of losing a homogenous environment and desire to alienate immigrants of all kinds, particularly those who are Muslim or brown. From my news reading, it appears that most Muslims commenting on the situation (though of course they are not the most often quoted) agree that freedom of speech should be protected and the newspapers have a right to print them. What they object to is the transparent use of editorial rights to squander the editorial responsibility of publishing incisive satire rather than ignorant stereotype, and to report new with integrity rather than the aggressive fear of school yard bullies.

Hitchens' example of a the Butz quote is an excellent example of how our media does fail, daily, to report accurately and with integrity on ongoing events. But the failure is the desire to not confront the realities of racism and power, and a lazy inability to report the extent of public ugliness while reporting with analysis and social context. These are exactly the journalistic skills that are abandoned when a newspaper decides a simple re-printing of these cartoons somehow indicates support for free speech, rather than a re-printing accompanied by a thoughtful analysis of the offensiveness of said cartoons, of the problem of xenophobia and racism in the Danish government and public, and an exploration of the deeper political realities that underly the situation.

It is ignorant to claim that these newspapers do not have an agenda to appease a public that wants to believe that all Muslims are violent in order to justify their continued antiquated immigration policy. It is replsive and paternalistic to claim that the newspapers are somehow helping Muslims get over their "image hang-ups" or whatever Hitchens was attempting to imply with his convoluted explanation of the social value of original printing. The issue at hand is not journalistic rights -- the vast majority of people agree that these cartoons should be allowed in print. The issue at hand is journalistic responsibilities -- when our newspapers publish cartoons that are not effective reporting or satire, and then fail again to contextualize them or prove their importance, we have the right and responsibility to question their motives and editorial abilities.

I see. So you defend the censorship of these cartoon under the guise of "responsibility"?

Also, do you deny that many in the press with to shape a narrative to "protect us from ourselves"? In this case, glossing over the extremism and violence of Muslims will prevent "overreaction" from the general public?

I admit, I sort of left off the issue of the current 'censorship' in my deep disappointment with the failed and small-minded common assessment of the original printing and conflict.

I would say there are absolutely some papers that aren't printing the cartoon for your reasons-- and that's problematic. Those papers don't have high journalistic standards or a commitment to the project of informing. But I don't think it's an obvious choice for the cartoons to be printed either -- it is simply much harder to properly contextualize image than quote, and given the utterly un-journalistic nature of the first printing I can understand the desire on the part of good journalists to find a way (like the internet) to have a clear mediation and interpretation of the original. That said, I would have been fine (though left queasy) with a reprinting that was free of the kind of spiteful glee Hitchens holds for anything he thinks might back his view of all religious people as violently unhinged, which seemed to me to be a subtext of this article.

And you have yet to address my main problem, although I agree it wasn't the main problem of this article -- weren't the original printings an example of extremist action, used to mobilize violence, and in defense of antiquated and hateful ideas on the part of publishers? As many have pointed out, the cartoons aren't good -- they're pretty devoid of content or original thought, or humor. The only purpose served by them was to alienate Danish Muslims, under the 'guise' of promoting our essential right to free speech.

And while we're on 'guise,' I don't think responsibility is one. Responsibility in reporting is what journalists commit to when they begin working, and it's what we should hold them to as citizens who read them.

hmcc8 must be a journalist.

I'm impressed by your ability to read the minds of Danes and divine that their motives for reprinting the cartoons were base rather than principled.

It's also clear to me that you lack familiarity with the cartoons themselves, since you assert that constitute "ignorant stereotype." In fact, none of the cartoons appealed to stereotypes.

I don't know about "brown" - as we have seen with Azzam the American, Islam is more than happy to radicalize whites - but I think the Danes are very happy to be wary of a minority sworn to decapitate them. The Noble Quran doesn't specify how brutal the decapitation has to be but the people that these Danes are "afraid of" (why reprint if you're afraid?) tend to do the job with a serrated knife. Ouch.

These papers are to be congratulated. The more people learn about the brutality of Islam, the better.

hyperionred:

...- but I think the Danes are very happy to be wary of a minority sworn to decapitate them. The Noble Quran doesn't specify how brutal the decapitation has to be but the people that these Danes are "afraid of" (why reprint if you're afraid?) tend to do the job with a serrated knife. Ouch.

When did the Danish muslims 'swear to decapitate' Danes? Do you have one single example of a Dane suffering such a fate prior (or since) the publication of these cartoons?

Besides, for every white person decapitated by a muslim, there are probably 3000 muslims bombed to death by America. I'll leave it to you to figure out the relative 'ouch'ness of being bombed to death versus being decapitated.

The muslims are being killed by their fellow muslims via suicide bombs, road side bombs and every other violent means.

At least one other media outlet published the pictures the first time around, the Daily Illini, the student newspaper at the University of Illinois.

Whatever one might think about the reason for the original publication of the cartoons, there was a very clear and unambiguous reason for the recent, second publication. A broad selection of newspapers in Denmark, spanning almost the entire political spectrum in their editorial lines, carried one particular cartoon to show solidarity with mr. Westergard, precisely because a conspiracy to assassinate him had been uncovered by the Danish police. An elderly person, he has been living underground with his wife under police protection since the original cartoon affair, and with good reason, it would appear.

Very few foreign commentators have taken as clear a stance on the side of freedom of speech even in small, homogenous states, as mr. Hitchens, and he is rightfully adored for it here in Copenhagen. We have our share of xenophobes, and I am sure he is aware of it, but mr. Hitchens is perfectly right in his understanding that the vast majority of Danes, muslims included, stand together against such plans to violently suppress a vital freedom. Even when the police action is followed by widespread riots as it has in this case. Just the other day, a tanning shop (don't ask, I have no clue) around the corner from my flat was firebombed as a preliminary conclusion to a week of festive pyromania.

In the coming days, I will be sending mr. Hitchens a kind thought every time I pass the burned out lot.

Don't you know?

Indiscriminately collapsing the skulls and exploding the lungs of 'collateral damage' is more CIVILIZED than actually decapitating with a sword.

Americans pretend they are the most civilized, but the "gloves come off'' all the time, just under the guise of emotionless generals' whose bureaucratic verbiage covers up the number of skulls crushed, brains splattered- not to mention how American convoys were instructed to run over Iraqi kids and apparently did so, as well as shoot babies who were passengers in vehicles at checkpoints.

The Danish indeed are worried about a minority in their own nation. But instead of dealing with the capitalist elite who have shaped their society so economic production is more important than their own culture, they attack the hapless immigrants who are only there to make a living.

Re-publishing the cartoons was not an act of courage, gallantry or defiance; it was a thumbing of the nose, not at those who rioted, but at those millions of Muslims who, in reponse to the original publication, shook their heads sadly and went on about their daily business.

It's one thing to censor, another to edit. Censorship, by its very nature, if not by definition, represents governmental control of the media, backed by the punitive power of the state. Editing, at least as it pertains to privately owned media in a society that claims to have an independent press, represents the decisions made by the ownership of the medium, personally or through its chosen agents, to decide, rightly or wrongly, astutely or clumsily, what is to be published, and how the information that is published is to be presented.

With that in mind, can anyone say that any publisher or editor, in the USA or Canada, was fearful of riots or terrorism as a consequence of publishing the offending cartoons? Whether one agrees with it or not, there is a consistency here: Very few news media publish pictures of synagogues desecrated by swastikas, or, perhaps more timely, of the nooses that have been appearing frequently on campuses and in localities where a racial issue arises.

I cringe when I hear a sports radio announcer repeat, again and again, the inane, bigoted statements of a less than brilliant professional athlete, such those uttered several years ago by baseball pitcher John Rocker; at some point the repetition can be perceived only as the announcer using the event as an excuse to say the same things himself. Everyone knows what a N-bomb is. No need to keep repeating the offending word.

As to Earl Butz, it sounds like clumsy editing, or excessive concern for the sensitivities of the bereaved, that led to the sugar-coating of his bigoted, ignorant, and stupid remarks. Perhaps the choice should have been made to either make reference to Butz's statements in a more blunt manner, without quoting them, or to print them verbatim. If it were me, I'd have opted for the former, leaving it to the forgetful or curious to do a little research to devine Butz's exact words. The "newspaper of record" made the record 30 years ago; it can be researched in the archives, free of charge. Butz having died, one can't justify printing his exact words so that the public can judge if they were sufficiently heinous to destroy his career in goivernment.

As to the cartoons in the Danish press, I am astounded that editorial decisions were made to publish them once again. Press freedom was not served by the republication because, in my opinion, the real news that relates to those cartoons was learned two years ago--that there are extremists who, for their own POLITICAL purposes, will seize upon something as inconsequential as cartoons to incite violence, even to the point of homicide, and, sadly, thousands and thousands of people who, for a myriad of reasons, many unrelated or only tangentially related to their religious faith, will respond all to willingly and readily to such demagoguery.