“Law and power pitched against faith and fury”
This is what it is really about:
Law and power pitched against faith and fury
Sir, In a Danish children’s rhyme, a blacksmith commits a crime. Alas, as no town can exist without a blacksmith, a pardon is instituted and a baker executed to fulfill the demand of the law. All children react by saying how wrong that is. But essentially John Pontifex’s letter (Feb 2) contains the same message. Some Islamic hooligans commit crimes in Kirkuk and Baghdad, and he blames a Danish newspaper editor.
The notion of individual guilt and punishment is even more fundamental to Western civilisation than freedom of expression. The protests against the cartoons are not only out of proportion, they are also directed at innocent people. While publishing the cartoons may have been an insensitive act, the reaction seems to confirm all the worst prejudices about Islam.
Surely, the time has come for Europeans to reassert basic values and demand a sensible reaction from the Muslim communities.
JENS FREDERIK HANSEN
Attorney-at-law
Copenhagen
