Friday, October 12, 2007

Could You Say The Same About The Danish Cartoons?

Regarding the Armenian Genocide resolution:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/boot/1063

I think there is a fairly reasonable consensus that we agree in principal with the idea, but question the timing. While the resolution and the cartoons bear little pragmatic consequence, the source of agitation is incredibly important. The Danish cartoons were in a newspaper and were not a government resolution. Newspapers, books, tons of stuff has been written on the Armenian genocide and the Turkish government doesn't try to kill the authors/editors. Plus, the current Turkish government has a track record of behaving fairly reasonably, all things considered...whereas Islamicists, on the whole, don't have a spectacular track record.

This being said, it is clear the Islamcists don't see a distinction between government issued speech and newpaper speech, all of it is subject to the same, single law - sharia. This is what the stakes are - a fundamental belief about how society ought to function and what price we are willing to pay to accommodate those who disagree with us. When are we willing to cave for pragmatic concerns and when are we not?

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