U of T paper defends publication of cartoon

by ricknight | February 19, 2006 at 06:03 am

716 views | 0 Recommendations | 1 comment

A student newspaper at the University of Toronto will not be pressured into pulling a cartoon from their website of the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus kissing despite demands from the Students' Administrative Council and the Muslim Students' Association, its editor says.

It is impossible to hear the voice of reason when everyone is screaming.

These social events enable some individuals to feel that they have been awarded a license to raise their level of violent behavior.

The Muslim Students' Association called The Strand cartoon "gravely offensive." This punitive comment feeds the fire.

A more useful and positive comment would include a reasonable explanation to the offender explaining the ethical and practical reasons for not doing the activity, while not mentioning the specific symbology. It is not the specific case that is the problem, but rather, the general agreement in civilization (the ethic) which has been violated.

A simple statement might be that they expected the cartoonist would reap the harvest bought by their expression from those who oppose it.

The same goes for the Muslim community at large. They too share the world with non-Muslims as much as non-Muslims must deal with the Muslim community. It is a two way learning experience that does not require violence.

Two observations: 1. Half of the world is very poor. 2. High speed communication is new to the civilization. Those facts allow us to realize that all the bugs have not been worked out, and violence is not tolerated in the absence of reason.

NowPublic