b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 1 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417903/americans-have-rig
Terrorists assaulted a “Mohammed cartoon” event in Texas sponsored by
activist Pamela Geller, and the response has been, in part, soul-searching
over what’s wrong with Pamela Geller.
Geller is an attention-hungry provocateur who will never be mistaken for
Bernard Lewis, the venerable scholar of Islam. Her Texas gathering to award
a cash prize for the best cartoon of Mohammed — depictions of whom are
considered offensive by many Muslims — was deliberately offensive, but so
what?
Two armed Muslim men showed up intending to kill the participants, and were
only thwarted when they were shot dead by a police officer who was part of
the elaborate security arrangements.
Absent the security, we might have had a Charlie Hebdo–style massacre on
these shores, in Garland, Texas, no less, a suburb of Dallas. (The world
would be a safer and better place if the forces of civilization everywhere
were as well-prepared and well-armed as they are in Texas.)
That horrifying prospect didn’t stop CNN from interrogating Geller the
morning after the attack about her views of Islam and her decision to have
as the keynote speaker for her event the anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert
Wilders (who has to live under 24-hour protection). The implicit assumption
was that Geller and her cohorts were as much of a problem as the fanatics
who planned to censor them at the barrel of a gun.
Today, criticism of Islam is at the vanguard of the fight for free speech,
since it is susceptible to attack and intimidation by jihadists and calls
for self-censorship by the politically correct.
Geller refers to her meeting as a free-speech event while her critics prefer
to call it an anti-Islam event. They are really one and the same. In today
’s circumstances, criticism of Islam is at the vanguard of the fight for
free speech, since it is susceptible to attack and intimidation by jihadists
and calls for self-censorship by the politically correct.
“Yes, but . . . ” defenses of Geller don’t cut it. She had a perfect
right to do what she did, and it’s a condemnation of her enemies — and
confirmation of her basic point about radical Islam — that the act of
drawing and talking elicited a violent response.
If cartoons of Mohammed may seem a low, petty form of speech, they are only
the fault line in a deeper clash of civilizations. A swath of the Muslim
world doesn’t just want to ban depictions of Mohammed, but any speech
critical of Islam.
There was much tsk-tsking after the Charlie Hebdo attack about how France
had made itself vulnerable to domestic terrorism because it has failed to
assimilate Muslim immigrants. The critique carried a whiff of self-
congratulation about how much better the U.S. is as a melting pot, and so it
is.
Yet two Phoenix roommates were still prepared to commit mass murder to keep
people from drawing images they don’t like. One of them, an American
convert to Islam named Elton Simpson, had been convicted of lying to the FBI
about discussions about traveling to Somalia, allegedly to engage in
terrorism. He evidently took inspiration from ISIS calls to attack the
Garland, Texas, event, in another sign that the poisonous ideology of
radical Islam knows no borders.
It will ever be thus until all of Islam accepts the premises of a free
society, as have other major world religions. The day there can be the
Muslim equivalent of the play The Book of Mormon without the writers, actors
, and audience members fearing for their lives will be the day that Islam is
reformed. Then, and only then, will mockery of Islam by the likes of Pamela
Geller and her ilk be a tasteless irrelevance, rather a statement from atop
the ramparts of free speech.
Yes, there is such a thing as self-restraint and consideration of the
sensibilities of others, but it shouldn’t be the self-restraint of fear.
Pamela Geller is a bomb-thrower, but only a metaphorical, not a literal, one
. That’s the difference between her and her enemies — and between
civilization and barbarism.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. | b********n
发帖数: 38600 | 2 "Today, criticism of Islam is at the vanguard of the fight for free speech,
since it is susceptible to attack and intimidation by jihadists and calls
for self-censorship by the politically correct." |
|
