Why 'On Line Opinion' hasn’t published those cartoons

The way in which the Mohammed cartoon issue is unfolding has parallels with the damaging way that Hansonism exploded.

Muslims around the world feel threatened in general. Publication of the cartoons, no matter how justifiable they might be in our own context, accentuates their feelings of alienation and leads to retaliation that we find offensive, encouraging us to retaliate in turn. So a vicious cycle builds. The trick is to deal with the issues without fudging and without escalation, and to engage in conversation, not argument.

Refusing to publish is a form of fudging. It almost suggests an insecurity in our own cultural values that we are not prepared to defend them, and while it might mollify Islamicists will ultimately breed resentment of our deference within our own societies. We must not fudge.

Conversation is harder to initiate, especially when one is engaged in argument. One way to start a conversation is to find some common ground, and to show empathy. So here is my personal conversational gambit.

I can identify with the Islamic aversion to images of the prophet. Calvinism, part of my religious heritage, at one stage opposed even stained glass windows and has never accepted crucifixes, because you do not make graven images of God. I still remember, as a nine-year-old, how confronting I found the painted statues on my first day at St Joseph’s Kangaroo Point. They smacked of popish idolatry, and this was only in the 60s.

The editor of the Jyllands-Posten probably only intended to sell more copies when he published the cartoons, but events are not limited in their potential consequences by the motives or intentions of the actors. The 12 cartoons of Mohammed give us all a different frame in which to conduct the conversation that Islam and the West need to have. It’s time for everyone to start genuinely explaining.