Dear Editor:
I was shocked by Riazul Raquib's editorial, "Freedom of expression does not equal racial ignorance," printed in your paper February 6. In it, Mr Raquib claims that Muslim governments "should be commended" for responding vehemently to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and that the Danish government, by blindly defending freedom of speech, had compromised its national security. I find this outrageous, as if death threats and violence were only natural and inevitable consequences of religious lampoon, and not excessive or unreasonable in the least. Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, told a crowd in Lebanon today that, if needed, Muslims will "...defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices," and called for European legislatures to pass laws against slandering the Prophet Muhammad. As far as I know, western countries don't even have laws against poking fun at their indigenous religions. Should we make exceptions in order to make amends with the Muslim people, or else...? (And I won't even get into the sheer hypocrisy of it all, considering the trashing of Jews that goes on regularly in Arab publications!) While I do agree that the cartoons are offensive to Muslims, let's not confuse the right to take umbrage with the right to perpetrate violence. Mr Raquib seems to feel that they are one and the same. His only regret seems to be that these virulent protests affected people other than the intended targets. What this amounts to is not just a defense of Muslim sensibilities, but essentially a carte blanche to the insulted. This is akin to believing that Christian fundamentalists are within their rights when they murder doctors who perform abortions. After all, abortion deeply offends their Christian beliefs, doesn't it?
Anahi Baca Second year MA, SIS
