Danish Cartoons - Not everyone's Piece of Cake

Have we let our freedom of speech get hijacked? There are some people who object to a few satirical cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the religious justification and cover used by terrorists. There are calls from some quarters to take a culturally sensitive and politically correct approach and avoid satire because of fear of offence to a group with extreme views.

Satire is a tool that was used very effectively in ancient times in early democracies, until it was ruthlessly put down, particularly in the Dark Ages as a challenge to authority. Religious satire was seen as blasphemous and perpetrators were condemned to terrible torture and death.

Extreme attitudes were parodied in brilliant satires, like Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Swift held up a mirror to show the folly of leaders who divided their people into "Big Endians and Littlendians". It is a satire still relevant today.

There are many more recent examples where satire can be used to help illustrate false divisions, such as between Hutus and Tutus, Jews and Muslims etc etc. These concocted differences when used to justify terror need the freedom of speech to shatter bigotry and highlight it for what it is.

A humorous satirical cartoon is one of the important free speech devices in a democracy and it challenges the futility of concocted wedges driven into society.It is good to see the Danes and now the Norwegians take a stand and publish the anti terrorist cartoons.

See the Danish imams, who protested the publication of 12 Muhammad cartoons