Freedom to insult

There is great ambivalence within traditional democracies regarding the cartoon provocation to Islam, and the hard reaction it triggered in Muslim countries. There is widespread agreement that religious beliefs and sensibilities should be respected. There is also dogged stress on the right to freedom of expression.

Freedom of thought, worship and expression are among the basic, at times potentially conflicting tenets of democracy. In civilised societies any conflicts can be reconciled through another freedom - to disagree with someone, but to respect what one thinks and believes in.

It is only fundamentalists who do not recognise this freedom. They act as if what they themselves believe in is the one truth and no one should hold any other. Some attempt to soften extreme positions by extolling the virtues of tolerance.

Yet what one should be emphatic about is the need to recognise rights. And to remember that goose and ganders take the same sauce. Those of us who live in liberal democracies recognise equal gender rights. We frown upon Muslim states that do not. We have developed and honed the ethic of political correctness.

Even in terms of such correctness it should be self-evidently reprehensible to mock and insult the prophet of Islam, linking him to terrorism, whether one accepts all his teachings or not. The Danish cartoonists who brought about the so-called clash of cultures did just that.

The cartoons, easily accessible on the internet, are technically feeble, but predictably massively provocative to Muslims. They caused a restrained stir when they were published some months ago.

When, in the name of freedom of expression, some other newspapers joined in the provocation by also carrying the cartoons offensive to Islam, or cynically pointing to where they could be viewed, the pot boiled over.

The violent reaction by demonstrators in various Muslim countries went way over the top. The insensitive counter-reaction by parts of the European media merely stoked up the raging fires.

From semi-guarded declarations by politicians effectively putting freedom of expression ahead of respect for religious sensibilities the issue has now reached its latest ugly phase.

An Italian minister from the way-out-right Lega Nord felt it was the in-thing to wear a T-shirt with the Mohammed-jibing cartoons printed on it.

Roberto Calleroli is neither a typical Italian minister, nor a typical Italian. Italians should be identified by their magnificently exemplary President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Nevertheless, being a minister, Mr Calleroli's stupid bravado stood out.

It further inflamed Islamic sentiment, indirectly leading to a dozen deaths in Libya.

Mr Calleroli resigned, but he was not contrite. He declared he "never offended Islam, but stood by his values".

The Lega Nord politician should not take long to sink from notoriety into oblivion. Yet his truculent stance is symptomatic of what is so sad as well as disturbing about the cartoon storm.

So many media-persons, politicians and good citizens, many of who would view Mr Calleroli with distaste, speak of the value of freedom of expression practically in his vein.

They are no less wrong to do so than Muslims are to react to the cartoons provocation with violence.

It is gratifying that, in Malta, we have generally gone about it the right way.

Members of the government and the opposition as well as others who have commented about the cartoons aftermath have generally done so with restrain and sensible recognition of the rights and wrongs in the various corners of the issue.