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COMMENTARY
February 11, 2006
Incompatibilities
This is, until further notice, a free, Western country. Different “faith” and “unfaith” communities may harbour radically conflicting views. They may validly pray for each other’s conversion, proselytize and even satirize to that end. Decency may require us to avoid gratuitous provocation. It also requires refusal to be provoked.It could be said of so many Muslims in Canada, who really do feel great pain at what they have been told about those “Danish cartoons” (whether or not what they’ve been told is true), that they are new here, and genuinely unused to our ways. Which is why it is crucially important that they be culturally assimilated, not ghettoized as has happened in Europe, especially France. In the best Canadian tradition, we depend upon Muslim leaders to explain to their people the facts of life. The message must be, “You are living in Canada, which is not a Muslim country. There is no Shariah in Canada. If you want that, you will have to live somewhere else. Here, you must abide by unIslamic rules, in which Muslims enjoy no special status." Unfortunately, when men who blither, like our new foreign minister, Peter MacKay, refuse to defend our freedom of speech and press robustly -- and instead, equally condemn its exercise and Muslim rioting against it -- we are swimming toward the Falls. Public order requires our governments to defend free speech against physical intimidation. Verily, more than our liberty is at stake in this -- our public order is founded upon our liberty. Our prosperity, too. Drawing a disrespectful cartoon of Mohammad is a grave offence under Shariah law. But it is not, and must never be made, an offence under Canadian law. Alas, two generations of “counselling” from our post-rational elites about the importance of “sensitivity” has undermined the clarity we once held in our brains. “Freedom”, and this kind of “sensitivity”, are mortal enemies. That said, I have no objection to trying to understand the Other -- for that is also part of our Western heritage. And in this respect, I dismiss all the (chiefly rightwing) commentators who accuse Muslims of hypocrisy, for making such a scene about a few cartoons that may hurt Muslims’ feelings, when far more savage insults have been directed towards Christians and Jews in the Muslim world. Yes, they are hypocrites by Western standards. But no, they are not hypocrites by Muslim standards. This is important to grasp, if we are to avoid sliding into the bottomless trap of moral relativism. Islam does not accept the Western and Christian distinction between what is "objectively a sin", and what is “actually” one. For them, "ignorance of the law is no excuse", ever. Whereas we hold that in the eye of God, or even of a court, it might well be an excuse. Likewise, we recognize compulsion as an excuse; whereas, in the Islamic tradition, this is a non-starter. That is why, to use an extreme case, a strict Shariah court might sentence a woman to death for adultery, who has been raped. For she is, objectively, an adulteress. The sentence might not seem fair, but that very “fairness” is a Western notion. A good Shariah judge is a "strict constructionist", like a good American Supreme Court judge. He cannot rewrite his Constitution. He can be merciful, however. The Danish editors and cartoonists may have had no idea what they were doing, but any fatwa against them would still stand. For objectively, they have committed blasphemy. Case closed. Now, the objective crime in those Danish cartoons was not some abstract "blasphemy". There is no such thing, and a good Muslim may cuss all he wants against Christians and Jews and bicyclists on sidewalks. (We also allow him to do this in the West.) The criminal form of blasphemy is specifically against Allah, or his Prophet Mohammad. Or against Allah's previous prophet, Jesus. Britney Spears, for example, would not be guilty of blasphemy for mocking the Crucifixion of Christ, under a properly-constituted Shariah court. For there can be no blasphemy against “false Christian beliefs”. Only against the “true Muslim Jesus”. And since, according to Islam, Jesus was never crucified, where is the offence? Technically, Ms Spears was being a good Muslim on that deleted episode of Will and Grace, by making fun of the idea that Jesus was crucified. (The way she dresses and behaves would make her a bad Muslim, however.) This is a different worldview, from our Western one. It is not less rational -- it works from different premises about man and God. We cannot dismiss it, on its own terms. We can say, however, that our premises are incompatible, and insist that in Canada, ours will prevail. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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