The Open Society and its Enemies

The Norwegian newspaper editor on "Why I Published Those Cartoons" in the Washington Post via RCP:

Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.

This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations....

As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders.

This is indeed what is already happening in Russia, a throwback to the old USSR, threatening not only free speech but freedom of religion. Protests to the cartoons recently published there in a very respectful way are coming not from religious groups but from President Putin's party:
From the NY Times:

MOSCOW, Feb. 17 — In a controversy with echoes of the Islamic anger over Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the authorities in a central Russian city on Friday ordered the closing of a newspaper that published a cartoon showing Muhammad, along with Jesus, Moses and Buddha.

The cartoon, published Feb. 9 in the official city newspaper in Volgograd, prompted some criticism and a federal criminal investigation, but no public outrage. That may be, in large part, because it depicted the figures respectfully, renouncing violence, despite the fact that Islamic teachings forbid any depiction of Muhammad.....

Last week, Chechnya's vice premier, Ramzan Kadyrov, suspended the work of the Danish Refugee Council in the republic, while President Vladimir V. Putin said, "One has to think a hundred times before publishing something, doing something or drawing something." On Friday, the Prosecutor General's Office announced that it had opened a criminal case against the editor of a newspaper in Vologda, north of Moscow, which had reprinted the Danish cartoons on Wednesday.

Most of the criticism against the cartoon in Volgograd came not from Muslim or other religious leaders, but rather from the local branch of United Russia, the pro-Putin political party that dominates governments across the country.