As American children are taught from a very young age, freedom of expression is an important right essential to any democratic society. The First Amendment protects nearly all forms of expression, whether they take the form of an independent press, misogynistic rap, pornography or even neo-Nazi and KKK propaganda.
But recently, a new challenge to freedom of expression has come in the form of a controversy over offensive cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
The drawings, which were originally published in a Danish newspaper in September, included 12 depictions of Muhammad. One portrayed the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
When other European newspapers republished the images in January, Muslim protesters took to the streets, storming Danish embassies all over the Middle East and Asia and demanding that their respective nations cut off ties to Denmark.
In Afghanistan, seven people have died in violent demonstrations over the past week, and some U.S. officials claim that various extremist groups such as al-Qaida have used the controversy to encourage more terrorism.
Clearly, the Danish paper that originally published the drawings did not mean to set off what Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen now describes as a "global crisis." But its editors should have known what would happen. The Koran forbids any images of the prophet Muhammad, positive or negative, for fear that they could lead to idolatry.
Right there, the editors should have known that they were blaspheming against the world's second-largest religion. Furthermore, they should have known that depicting Muhammad as a terrorist is racist, and that Muslims probably would not just stand idly by and take it.
The Danish paper published the cartoons along with an article about self-censorship, claiming that doing so was an exercise in free speech - a way to highlight the difficulties that a Danish writer faced when he tried to commission drawings for a children's book about Muhammad. But as all American school children should know, free speech is not guaranteed when it disrupts public order or incites violence.
Just like one cannot shout "fire" in a crowd when there is no fire, one can not publish offensive, blasphemous drawings of Muhammad when Western relations with the Muslim world are already so strained. This should be common sense to most adults, but apparently the editors of the Danish paper skipped sixth-grade civics.
Common sense aside, the question now is what should be done to appease the millions of angry Muslims. Many protesters have demanded that Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen apologize on behalf of the newspaper. Others want Rasmussen to censure the paper for its actions.
To date, Rasmussen has not bowed to either demand despite threats to Danish embassies worldwide and possible economic sanctions by a number of Muslim nations. Although his decision will not do anything to improve his nation's situation, it is the right decision. The government of a country has no business apologizing for the actions of an independent newspaper within that country. Nor does a country that claims to be free and democratic have any business censuring a newspaper.
Ultimately, the interesting thing about this controversy is that while the Danish newspaper had the right to print the blasphemous, racist cartoons of Muhammad, it should have exercised its right not to do so. There is a reason why almost every U.S. newspaper has refused to print the drawings when covering this story - and you can be sure it has not been pressure from the government.
As Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of the Washington Post, told Editor and Publisher, "We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste...[The drawings] wouldn't meet our standards for what we publish in the paper." The drawings should not have met the standards of the Danish paper, either.
