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European papers express solidarity with Jyllands-Posten
There seems to be an “I’m Spartacus” phenomenon developing in Europe and elsewhere, with the French newspaper France Soir, joined by papers in Iceland, Finland, Italy, Germany, and Mexico, reprinting the cartoons of Muhammad that have so enraged the Islamic umma (a rage rationalized and justified this week by that exemplar of Western ideals, Bill Clinton) against the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten and the whole Danish nation. A possible down-side is that these media organs may cast the issue as freedom versus religion, which then gets translated into freedom versus Christianity, rather the real issue, which is Western freedom (and indeed Western existence itself) versus Islam. Thus France Soir explained its decision to support Jyllands-Posten by displaying on its front page a cartoon showing the deities or teachers of several religions with the caption, “Yes, we have the right to caricature God.” But this isn’t about caricaturing God, it is about caricaturing (or rather about publishing a benign and inoffensive cartoon of) Muhammad, a capital offense entre les Musulmans. A constant danger arising from our having to fend off the Islamic presence that we have have carelessly invited into the West is that we will be tempted to downgrade further our own majority religion as well. But I am convinced that only through a revival of Christian faith is there any hope that the West, and particularly Europe, which is so radically secularized, can regain the spiritual conviction and identity that will enable it not just to protest Islamic impositions (as with the Jyllands-Postens cartoons), but to initiate the departure of Muslims from the West. Still, the Western liberal tradition has its uses, if Westerners would only adhere to it in a principled and consistent way, as did, for example, Pym Fortuyn, and now, it seems, these European newspapers, led by Jyllands-Postens, are doing as well.
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