While it is commendable and understandable to wish to protect, for example, the personnel of a publishing house, if the decision of a publisher to pu… - Ibn Warraq

" "

While it is commendable and understandable to wish to protect, for example, the personnel of a publishing house, if the decision of a publisher to publish material considered blasphemous by Muslims leads to widespread violence, this violence cannot possibly be considered morally or legally the responsibility of the said publisher. The publisher, writer, comedian, cartoonist is exercising his or her constitutional right, and if threatened, the state should give, unbegrudgingly, every protection possible. Publishers must stand by their writers, newspapers with their cartoonists, Comedy Central with South Park artists, and intellectuals with their fellow intellectuals. But where was Hollywood when fellow filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh, was killed? The “Draw Mohammed Day” initiative by a Seattle cartoonist, far from being frivolous was a magnificent show of solidarity, exactly in the manner of public readings of The Satanic Verses, already mentioned. Unless we show greater solidarity, massive, public, noisy solidarity and show that we care for our freedoms, we risk losing all to Islamist thuggery.